I can't believe the news

I can't believe it, I can't do this again, it's like a rotten joke, I don't want to hear another word abt it, good thing I'm at home studying now, easier to avoid everyone maybe talking abt it, I cannot believe the news, FUCK FUCK FUCK!

Notes from the Dungeons

NOTE FROM THE DUNGEONS #1
My friend just rang me. A stilted conversation followed bcs it’s been a bloody awful day and I didn’t feel like saying much. And then:

Friend: You sound sad. Are you sad?
Victim: … A bit.
Friend: I see. Over anything in particular?
Victim: Er, the usual, you know, UZI’S DEATH?
Friend: Right. But are you sad over anything else, as well?
Victim: Well no, this will do fine for now, thanks. *projectile furball*

Friend, have you by any chance been using that part of your brain responsible for your current relationship AGAIN? Also, thank you very much for bringing a ho to my birthday party, it gave us something to talk abt. What, that was your girlfriend you say? Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t recognise her, I must have been partially blinded by the glare of the fridge-white boots riding the tight jeans. Our collective jaw is still pretty much gracing the floor with wild abandon. Oh no, don’t give it another thought, it wasn’t horrifying at all.

NOTE FROM THE DUNGEONS #2
Did you know it’s entirely possible to spend almost an entire day looking at the same page of a textbook without adsorbing absorbing a thing? The very same textbook that gave you such joy yesterday when you learned the retroviruses’ biological cycle bcs really, it IS fascinating stuff (gag pol env pat nev rev tat bla bla)? The very same book that you yesterday closed WITH REGRET while gazing longingly at the BSE section, oh the joys of prions?

NOTE FROM THE DUNGEONS #3
My mother rang me three times today, the antennas must have been whirring. It’s a wonder she didn’t actually fly up to my windowsill. The last time she asked if I was happy. Why yes mother, I’m tickled pink, what shotgun?

NOTE FROM THE DUNGEONS #4
There have been over a 100 cases of the Marburg virus reported in Angola, a former Portie colony. We have loads of flights to Angola, there’s a huge population here. Like the Ebola, it’s a haemorrhagic virus, highly lethal, highly frightening . Let’s not contemplate it. Let’s not re-read The Hot Zone. Let's put it down now.

NOTE FROM THE DUNGEONS #5
Watching a mini-series called “Volcano” [you’d think I’d have learnt my lesson by now but ha!, I obviously haven’t] where a super-eruption wipes out a huge chunk of the USA and forever changes the world's climate in a most disturbing manner isn’t soothing. AT ALL. I’ll do my utmost to not turn it into a phobia, which will increase the likelihood that you, dahlings, will NOT end up burnt alive or suffocated under a pile of very dense ashes. Promise.

100-Odd Things

01 - I buy Winnie The Pooh notebooks for school
02 - I rub my right foot in circles against the mattress as I fall asleep
03 - I still twirl my hair around my fingers
04 - I bite my bottom lip when I’m stressed, embarrassed, angry or moved
05 - I bite my bottom lip a lot
06 - I also pout without noticing it
07 - I find it rather daft
08 - I sometimes find it hard to believe that people can actually be bad and mean
09 - Surely it’s an urban myth
10 - I get lost everywhere
11 - I once got lost in my room, in the dark
12 - I was never a cool kid
13 - I was lonely often
14 - Reading is still my therapy of choice
15 - I often find books more interesting than people
16 - I no longer feel guilty abt it
17 - Books are the one thing I cannot do without
18 - I sometimes read so much I become queasy
19 - I must read bfr I fall asleep, I simply must
20 - Under duress I’ll read Trivial Pursuit cards, medication boxes and stories abt innocent orphaned ballerinas and world-savvy grey-eyed men with a cleft chin
21 - My parents are the most honest, decent and remarkable individuals I know
22 - Our family are very small, it saddens me a bit
23 - And we're sometimes too fucking polite to others
24 - I am good to have around in a medical emergency, I keep my wits about me
25 - But if there was pain involved I'll not sleep afterwards
26 - I am afraid of death and can’t even really think abt it
27 - I’ve always been afraid of tsunamis (and this one made me laugh just now - no, really)
28 - I’m also afraid of fireworks, thunderstorms, winding roads at great heights and fires
29 - I was in a car once when it started burning
30 - I’m always on Alert Mode in a car
31 - Actually, I’m always on Alert Mode, full stop
32 - (But I’m really absent-minded)
33 - I worry abt mostly everything, all the time
34 - I suffer too much over too little
35 - I know people who can fall asleep in seconds, anytime, anywhere
36 - I badly want to hurt them
37 - I have a fantasy: abduction by aliens that will fix my genetic code
38 - I know it’s impossible but - not really
39 - I don’t really believe I’ll ever be free of Psoriasis
40 - If I ever see the small scar on my knee again I'll probably feel compelled to say say How Do You Do
41 - I’m a bit tired of people staring at me and flinching
42 - But I’ve devised a t-shirt that will take care of it in the Summer
43 - Smell is my sharpest sense
44 - I could never be with someone whose smell I didn’t like
45 - I love the way men smell
46 - I love the bit where the neck meets the shoulder, and the curve btwn the last floating rib and the iliac bone
47 - I believe well-shaped mouths exist to be lightly, painstakingly bitten
48 - I fancy men in kilts, clogs or doing the Haka
49 - But I find most men painfully dull
50 - I’m terribly, terribly hard to please
51 - Bad grammar turns me off
52 - High-pitched laughter/voices do as well
53 - I have a tender spot for diastemas
54 - I almost never feel graceful
55 - I am horribly ticklish
56 - I play with my belly button piercing
57 - I am in vet school
58 - Every day I am grateful for it, every day I just want to give up
59 - I often lose track of days, like today (thought it was Sunday). Uzi called it The Wednesday Syndrome, Fridays always caught me unawares and therefore gave me great joy
60 - I am addicted to infertility blogs
61 - Oh bloody hell, I’m addicted to the internet in general
62 - I find it wondrous that I can just chat with people across the Atlantic and further away
63 - I used to think it odd that some built friendships online
64 - Serves me right doesn’t it
65 - I am truly grateful that you are there, behind my screen, occasionally in my house
66 - I would swim w sharks but cockroaches make me go all... girly
67 - I have some freckles but not nearly enough
68 - I am very impatient, always know best and can be terribly harsh
69 - I can be a real cow is what I’m saying
70 - I don’t always find it a bad thing
71 - I have no discipline
72 - I love food but hate cooking
73 - I am also very bad at it
74 - Dill in any form makes me gag
75 - I wish I were a vegetarian but lack the willpower - so I mostly eat free range
76 - I don’t drink coffee but can't do without Coke
77 - I hate showering and bathing, and always shower in the evening
78 - I dislike my skin, even if the good bits are very smooth
79 - I've been told by 5 people already that I look like Uma Thurman
80 - I look nothing like Uma Thurman, really I don't
81 - I’m a tellyholic
82 - When I don’t have someone what I miss most are snogging sessions and spooning
83 - I am blonde and don’t look Portuguese at all
84 - Whenever I’m at the airport w baggage some land personnel bloke will invariably approach me in English
85 - I lay on a thick accent and always let him help me
86 - I have a rather wry and dark sense of humour
87 - People often don’t understand it
88 - I get addicted to everything
89 - I was never attracted to drugs
90 - But I smoke and hate the smell of it
91 - Whenever I learn a new game, my friends scurry away and remain wary for the next 3 months
92 - Bcs I do get addicted to everything, see
93 - I cannot sing at all, or play an instrument
94 - But I do a mean impersonation of Kermit singing "Summertime"
95 - My favourite books are The Neverending Story, The Power of One and To Kill a Mockingbird
96 - I cry whenever I re-read them
97 - I cry and smile really easily
98 - I only keep the books I like, and re-read them all the time
99 - I've now run out of book space
100 - I am very bad at letting go
101 - Hence, 101 already
102 - Stupid, dumb, rude people aggravate me beyond words
103 - I love films with happy endings
104 - I love happy endings in all forms actually, and love stories
105 - I find it very hard to read the blogs I love and NOT know what the person looks like
106 - I really, really do
107 - I have a tendency to believe everything I’m told
108 - I’m afraid that if I ever have kids I’ll be a rotten Mum
109 - I don’t really believe I’ll have kids though
110 - I also find it unlikely I’ll ever marry
111 - I would love to have twins
112 - I’ve always wanted a twin brother
113 - I am convinced I had one in utero
114 - I hate the cold
115 - I am always cold
116 - I wear socks to bed
117 - And sheep pyjamas
118 - I love shoes, bags, bras and knickers and am going through a thongy phase
119 - I have a hard time finding shoes that are both brilliant and comfy
120 - I over-compensate w bags and then wear the same three only all the time
121 - I really do own an obscene amount of clothes
122 - I’m sometimes mistaken for a man on the phone
123 - But my voice is not that deep so it’s a mystery
124 - Animals like me
125 - I like them back, very much so
126 - I cannot imagine my life without cats
127 - I believe we get from life what we put in it
128 - I absolutely cannot stand whiners, martyrs or troubled souls
129 - I am un-obviously shy
130 - It causes me no end of trouble
131 - People often think I’m arrogant, cold and aloof
132 - I blame the phenotype and #129
133 - I was a volunteer on a kibbutz in Israel
134 - It wasn’t such a good time
135 - But I loved it when I lived there w Uzi years later
136 - I miss the way the kibbutz smells every day
137 - Though I can’t bear to think abt Israel now
138 - I’m afraid I will never feel the same way abt it again
139 - I’m even more afraid I might
140 - I milked for 2 months w a broken wrist
141 - I also got my right boob caught up in the suction cup repeatedly, didn't hurt
142 - I would have a hard time liking Israelis by any other name
143 - I think Jerusalem is the beginning, the middle and the end
144 - Hebrew is the sexiest language ever, followed by Spanish (from Spain), Norwegian and Dutch
145 - I can speak French but it annoys the hell out of me
146 - My brain and I sometimes think I speak far too many languages
147 - And yet my Hebrew still sucks rock
148 - I’m a language snob and refuse to read a translated book
149 - I am a rabid Anglophile
150 - I love posh British accents, and the South African one ('Honolulu' = weak knees)
151 - I have yet to meet a Boer I found even remotely sane
152 - (I was a volunteer on a kibbutz in Israel)
153 - I absolutely don’t know how to flirt
154 - If I were a man, I’d probably not have kissed anyone yet
155 - I find swingers and ménages à trois very very bizarre
156 - And I don’t care all that much abt other people’s sex lives
157 - I am not very interested in South America - or Asia
158 - Especially now
159 - But I want to visit Australia and most of all Africa very very much
160 - And I would go to Tibet and Nepal
161 - I know yoga and meditation would be good for me
162 - It’d help me get my shit together
163 - But I can’t get my shit together enough to be bothered
164 - I’m watching Michael Bublé’s “Feeling Good” clip bcs it’s simply hot
165 - Much to my surprise, so is Horatio Caine
166 - Porties give the best hugs
167 - I love hugging and touching and limb-tangling and around-wrapping
168 - I’d have a hard time being with a man who didn’t
169 - I think sex is funny
170 - I think laughter in bed is mandatory
171 - People often tell me secrets, rather dark ones at that
172 - I never tell
173 - They haunt me at times
174 - I wish I could open a branch of the RSPCA here in Portugal
175 - I will certainly do pro bono work
176 - I believe every one should
177 - I believe I will shut up now

Presenting The Pride's Monthly Depression Crisis

Let the catharsis begin. I am tired of my life. I am tired of answering “studying” when asked what I’m doing, regardless of the month, regardless of the year. I should be studying now, I have 3 huge exams on the 29th and the 31st. Well two really, the other one will be an exercise in futility, I’ll go in just to read the questions and sing “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman” quietly to myself as I circle letters randomly. It’s not that we have to study so much, this is what medicine is abt, if you’re unwilling to have to memorise books by the gallon you have no business there. It’s that I work so hard for it and then still not pass the very tests that some of my rather dumb colleagues pass without major trauma. And when I do manage to pass a test, though it’s been a while so my memory may be failing me, I usually get a 10/11 out of 20. I don’t know what I should be doing differently, there's only the tunnel, no light. I know I should simply get up and go read abt antibiotics. But right now, ein li koach. No power left. I vont to be alone. Suspended animation as it were. I don’t want to read or see anyone or think abt anything, I just want to lie down on the couch and watch meaningless drivel on the telly. I had to go out to get cat litter. As I was driving to the gas station, I looked down at myself. My hands jumped up at me. How could they not. I think it’s entirely possible that in abt 6 months I will have turned into a pink psoriatic blob bcs it’s spreading, especially after the The tsunami might have eaten up my Tig, and even more so after the The tsunami has definitely eaten up my Tig - and I cannot even contemplate going to see a Dr. What creams could they prescribe that I haven’t tried before? It takes discipline to apply them to every single fucking lesion, and when there are this many I, pfff, I just can’t be bothered. There’s no guarantee it’ll even work. I’d rather wait for the warm weather and the sun. But I am becoming the Pink Panther and it’s no exaggeration, and my body feels alien to me, and it disgusts me. Then I looked at my clothes, jeans and a fleece jumper. Said jumper w enough cat and dog hair, no matter how much I brush it. That also makes me tired. I adore my animals and cannot imagine not having them. But sometimes I look at my flat, and it’s just been hoovered - and you would barely know it. And I just want to cry bcs it’s so fucking tiring, all this hair everywhere. And I wish I could look - composed. I don’t think I ever looked composed in my life. I don’t think I ever looked composed in my life. There seems to be turmoil everywhere. So I was driving and thinking wouldn’t it be fun if I felt like a grown-up and dressed accordingly without feeling ridiculous? Wouldn’t it be fun if I ever applied lipstick without feeling like a fraud bcs really, who are you trying to fool, make-up is feminine, the proverbial elephant jumping from water lilly to water lilly has no business wearing make-up and some day, some day someone is actually going to remark upon it and then what will you say? And I got to the gas station and there was this woman there. She was not particularly beautiful but she looked it bcs her hair was styled and she was oh-so-not-obviously made-up and her coat was absolutely gorgeous. It was a perfect punchline to my inadequacy feelings. I know I have a distorted self-image, psoriasis can do that. I cannot remember not having it, cannot remember not being at odds w my body and especially in the last few years, cannot remember not having this pink liquen slowly taking possession of me. I can’t remember ever feeling normal. Of course, living at one end of the spectrum, it’s not enough to want to feel normal once, over-compensation raises its ugly head. I’d also like to feel beautiful once [not super-model beautiful, regular life beautiful][NOTE: no need to jump in alright? I'm purging, not fishing]. I’d like to feel striking, to have someone catch their breath once in a while. Bcs they already do that you know, only it’s mostly when they notice my skin, so it’d be refreshing. I just had a houseguest, let’s not go there much bcs it’s been exhausting and parallel-universey, but not once did he mention it even though he did look at it often. And as much as I rant abt the insensitive ones who will ask and say anything, this was - tiring. This unspoken cloud of psoriasis asking to be asked abt. I’m also knackered bcs said houseguest woke me up coming in drunk at 3 am, then proceeded to let cat escape which made me get up, then snored in such a manner that I, in my room, couldn’t go back to sleep, then woke me up at 8.18 to a chorus of “shit, shit, shit” bcs at that time he should be sitting pretty on his aeroplane. And I covered my head w the duvet and pretended there wasn’t the slightest chance he’d be here for another day (I seem to have been lucky bcs he hasn’t rung or returned)(yet). But with all this I slept from abt midnight to 3, then 6 to 8, then 10 to 13 and I feel like I do when I wake up during an insomnia crisis. Drained. The gas station woman left at more or less the time I did. She walked towards a car and picked up a toddler. What, I need this? Hell. I don’t know that it was her son but why shouldn’t it be. And I thought I’ll be officially middle-aged in what, 2 years, and she is younger than me and already has a child. Not that I want a child now, I feel nowhere ready for it. I think I’d be too impatient a mother. I’d surely be a horrible mother right now. Amongst my friends, only 2 have kids. All the others want them and are scared shitless of the idea bcs they also don’t feel so ready. Some can't bcs they don't have a partner or don't know what will happen to their jobs. We’re mostly all in our 30’s so it’s funny bcs especially us women, our eggs are not getting any younger. My ovaries, well, my Gyn. could sing rhyming tunes abt them in her sleep. Whenever I see her she tells me time is running out, I may have to do infertility treatments to get pg anyway so I should seriously consider starting soon. This even though she knows that I’m not in a relationship, or when I was, it was someone I wouldn’t dream of having kids w bcs it wasn’t going well. So I had to ask her what she suggested, should I grab the first man I saw and try to get randomly impregnated. She replied w a sober “No”. My rabbi does the same, he thought I was much younger and almost fell off his chair when he realised how old I was - and I STILL HADN’T BRED. I had to ask him the same thing, to which he also replied w a sober “No”. No, I didn't think so. [Having a birthday also gives old family friends a chance to ask when I'll grace my parents w a grandchild, much to my parents' dismay. I think I'll have to start asking them back how often they masturbate.] I do want children and I do know it might be difficult and I do know eggs are ageing. As I said, it’s not that I want them now, it’s that I want to be able to have the option of wanting them and my life says NO, and my body may say it even more. Plus the stupid cow was really slim. So that led me to wondering what could possibly happen to my body if I did get pg. Stretch marks, a huge ass, boobs down to my knees - and the boob thing annoys me bcs I like my boobs. They may be the one bit abt me I have no problems w. I know all abt age and gravity but still. I may want a child but only a twat would want all the unflattering changes a child may bring. See how I unnecessarily complicate my life? WHY am I worrying abt something that may never be? I went to see a psychiatrist. This is how far I’ve come, that I’m telling the blogosphere private stuff. I decided long ago I need to see someone abt this self-image thing. Not so long ago actually, bcs I really wasn’t aware that it was this bad. I know I need tools to reconstruct myself with. But being a poor student now, and I will NOT ask my parents bcs that will not do much in the way of assuaging my inadequate-as-an-adult feelings, I was resigned to waiting till I grew up graduated and started regular work. [Shouldn’t I have more to show for my life at this stage, asks a nagging voice.] I lead the life of a poor student in her very early 20’s. It’s not a grown-up way to live and I knew it’d be so, bcs this is not an easy degree and I couldn’t possibly work full-time, but it’s taking its toll. All my inadequacy feelings have been building up in the past few years. This little Uzi death has turned me upside down and I realised I needed an assessment/inspection what have you. I'm wiped clean of emotional resources. It’s also dawning on me that he might actually be dead, obscene as it is. [Attempting to even celebrate my birthday LIKE ALWAYS - could I have been more stupid? I should have trusted my intuition, have only the core group round and rented a chick film W A VERY HAPPY ENDING. But I didn’t and it was abysmally lifeless. HA! Poor friends.] I know I need to do something abt many things now, I cannot go on not sleeping and spiralling down. So I did go there and I liked her a lot. (She didn't try to prescribe medication, was a bit afraid se would. She believes anti-depressants should be given only to those whole melancoly is such they can no longer function bcs in truth, they simply mask the symptoms. My sentiments exactly - very reassuring.) At the end of 2 hours yakking away abt my life (very very tiresome) she surprised me by asking why my suffering is not as valid as others’. I didn’t think I thought it. I know I’m very hard on myself but that’s not the same is it. I mean, really, isn’t there a difference btwn me, overwhelmed w a degree, and someone who’s beaten by her husband or lost a child, etc? Don’t they have it much much worse? My friend T. told me a few days ago, in the wake of my relating the talk w the shrink who’s a friend of hers, that I have my priorities very defined don’t I. And that I’ve decided who gets to feel MORE bad abt things haven’t I. Truthfully, it hadn’t crossed my mind that someone w fully-blown AIDS, say, could handle it better than I do my psoriasis and that I still have a right to complain, even before them (this arose bcs we were discussing group therapy, the Dr. has an heterogenous group and I was shocked and said I couldn’t possibly complain abt anything in my life in front of someone who’s dying could I). But T.’s a Dr. as well, she's seen a lot and she laughed at me. W wanton abandon, I might add, a right good chuckle. As The Manolo would say, the T., she's got the clinical eye, it might be wise to listen. And so it’s starting already, the soul-searching and re-evaluating. TIRING, this me-me-me. Bcs maybe, just maybe, they’re both right. All 3 of them actually, my shamelessly unsurprised Tweedle told me “You’ve gotten a bit better at being kind to yourself but not nearly enough”. WTF? Am I THAT hard on myself? I still can’t afford to go regularly but we’ll see. I’m tired of hearing abt me now, gah, so here’s a badger of courage (mostly for Jen P and Joe). But don’t say I didn’t warn you, pretty it ain't.

Pass the Streptomycin, here we go.

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Savtadotty just emailed me - Blogger acting up - and wrote this: "But even so, I think you have a lovely body(which just has a defective covering) and someday someone will come along who loves to touch the rough spots as much as the smooth just because they're yours. Did you even see The Singing Detective?"

Strangely enough, none of my boyfriends were ever bothered by P. That is to say, them not being total twits (and even the one who was), they weren't happy abt it but it didn't bother them. Mostly, they were saddened I had it bcs it affected me so much. They still thought I looked pretty. HA! [There is a part of me that thinks that any man who feels attracted to me is profoundly disturbed in some way. What saves me from being a mental patient is that I know this is bullocks. But it's there nonetheless.] The Singing Detective, source of a very traumatic episode. It's abt a man who is in hospital bcs of very bad psoriasis. I mean BAD, APPALLING, REPPELLING psoriasis. I was watching it w a friend when I was 15 (she'd known me for years by then) and the man looked simply too hideous for words. I said "That is absolutely disgusting, what the hell is wrong w him!" And she replied "Didn't you know? Psoriasis!". [Years later we were talking abt it and she was mortified she'd said it. But it's karmically alright, as it turned out, she was on the pill to control excessive pilosity and I apparently once remarked she had hair on her chin. GAH!] Anyway, look at his hands (no mine aren't this bad). And this pretty face? Yes.

The 18th of March

Guess who didn't ring me at [my] midnight
Guess who'll not ring me today
Guess who'll not ring me tomorrow
Guess who'll not ring me the next day
Guess who'll NEVER RING ME AGAIN
Guess whose room phone message I have recorded on my mobile
Guess what I'll be listening to over and over again today
Guess who's wishing this day will go away already
Guess what penny just dropped
Guess what I'm doing now

And bcs she went all Calimero on me,

... here's a pic of my best friend and I. [Some are confused. Best GIRL friend is alive, yes. Best BOY friend, very dead, it would seem. Carry on].

Now will YOU stop snivelling? [If you think I'm being gratuitously mean fear not, punishement is on its way. She'll give me a light slap w her leaden hand and my arm will throb and hurt for 40 min. You think I'm kidding - HA!] Aren't we adorable? We've been best friends for 20 years. TWENTY. We talk every day and our conversations - well, you'll be envious:

RING, RING!
Tweedle Her: Hallo. *chomp, chomp*
Tweedle Me: What you eating?
TH: *chomp* a feece o 'read.
TM: ah ok. So.
TH: Printing stuff, you?
TM: Studying.
TH: Ah. Oh, I bought the shirt!
TM: Oh, the one you...?
TH: Yes.
TM: Brill! *goes to the loo and pees*
TH: You peeing? Now I must pee as well, wait while I move the phone. *pees as well* Listen, I'll need you on Thursday, will you be home?
TM: Yes, make it after 19.00. *flushing sounds*
TH: It's for that text I told you abt *flushing sounds*
TM: Fine. *running water soapy sounds* I feel like crisps...
TH: Well have some. *running water soapy sounds*
TM: Can't, don't have any.
TH: Oh. Bullocks.
TM: Yes!
TH: Oh the series is starting, bye!
TM: Bye.

There's not much I wouldn't do for my Tweedle.

Ruminations XVIII

My friends and I have become very uncool though. We no longer go clubbing - excuse me briefly while I collapse my left lung in paroxisms of laughter, the thought alone! [Why yes we're over 30, whatever gave it away?] Clubbing has become too strenuous, too late, too boring, too loud. Mind you, we'd go if there were any clubs left w good 80's music but alas, it's all zoing toong-toong-toong bing. Or something to that effect.

So we meet at someone's house and just talk or play games.And then Tweedle Her falls asleep on the couch, inevitably, at abt the ripe hour of 11 pm [YES] while I read fashion magazines, and the rest play poker [BLECH]. Or in the case of my Tweedle and I, before I joined the Circles of Hell that is, I'd go visit her in the afternoon while she was working - she works at home -, read her magazines and then go home. We hardly spoke - the woman was WORKING - and yet we both DID feel much better. Or I go to my friend T's to study while she works, we buy a roasted chicken, dog gets spoiled by auntie T. and bonds w her Oh-What-Did-I-Do-To-Deserve-This cat and it's always fun, minus the stuff I actually have to learn. Or my friend B. and I go get a movie and Strawberry Cheesecake Haagendasz, determined to wait till midnight AWAKE so we can go out*, and SHE falls asleep on the couch while I quietly contemplate HOW COMFY my flat is, and HOW WARM and look here, the cat is sleeping on my leg and I COULDN'T POSSIBLY DISTURB HER NOW COULD I? What kind of an owner would I be *she asks, horrified*? Or I go visit my friend C. and curl up on his enormous leather off-white couch talking and listening to music while his cat tries to eat my toes (almost always successfully but fair enough, I always clip his nails), and I slowly become hypnotised by one of this. Or my friend A.T. comes round and we have dinner on trays in the living-room and we just talk and talk.

How glorious to be uncool. *Purrs contentendly*

BUT. Be that as may be, don't think us tame, don't think us harmless. There IS excitement in our lives (even if vicariously at times). Remember this? No? Blow me, I'm still traumatised! Not many can honestly say they're friends with a closeted Ho of Babylon. See what an interesting life I lead?

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[* Porties go out very, very, VERY late. If you want to go clubbing you tend to meet up at around 22.30, go to a pub first and then to the club at around 2.00/3.00 bcs that's when everyone starts showing up. Truthfully, I don't know how I survived my teens and my 20's, more than once my friends and I parked our cars coming in as our parents were getting into theirs, leaving for work. ]

Rosa, minha irmã Rosa*

Today would have been my little sister's birthday.

She was born two days before my 2nd birthday and died on my actual birthday. She suffered in utero for too many days - the dr [loose employ of word] didn't think foetal distress and a two week delay good enough reasons to induce labour. When the water broke it was fully infected. My father took me to see her and he says the contrast between us could not have been more striking: she was quite a big baby (even for a full term one, apparently her head was almost as big as mine. But I was a wisp of a thing until I was abt 11 anyway). She had dark hair and eyes that even then promised to turn brown - a true Portie. When she was born she was also a scary shade of blue and purple, and her APGAR... She was agonic and had been for a while.

My sister's name was Rosinha and she lived for 2 days only. Funnily enough, every year I miss her a little bit more.

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*here

What you should never do when you have a really bad migraine

Ring your friends to invite them to your birthday - and that needs to be done, migraine or no migraine, bcs you need to give them some notice - so you're using your adress book and after ST comes UV, even a tot would know that but not you, NOT YOU you stupid twat, you weren't thinking so you absent-mindedly flip the page and there in all its glory you see:

Uzi Saghi
Kibbutz Horshim
00972-3-9386###

And did you know that a robust crying fit will do nothing for the pain but increase it SO VERY MUCH? If you'll excuse me now, I'd go and kick myself but the throbbing is taking care of that so instead I'll just go and try not to puke my guts out.

And if you don't help, BOOO be unto you

I want to tell you abt Paulmonster. [Ignore all links if you must - though damn you and the mare you rode in on if you do cos you're dissing me - but please please PLEASE open the red ones for the Why and the How]

I talked abt him recently, remember? One of those people I find it hard to read at times bcs their writing is too beautiful and my life isn't right now? Paul needs your help to help build a theatre in the Philippines, where his family comes from. NOW DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION?

I was sitting here wondering what I could do to help, thinking I could ask my friends to donate some money bcs they will you know, that’s the sort of friends I have, but thinking surely I could do more - and that shows you where my intelligence level is these days bcs it was only a moment ago, in fact abt 2 min bfr I started writing this, that this sentence formed in my foggy brain: well fuck me, I have a blog! [Sorry to introduce such coarse language into your world Paul, but this is how my mind works.]

I DO have a blog and here we are. Would you like a cuppa tea? Now sit back and sip prettily as I tell you more [and I mean PRETTILY, do I have a post coming abt Traumatic Post-Prandial Disorder!]

So why should you help Paul? Why should you trust him? Let’s analyse this scientifically shall we. Either you belong to a) those who care; or b) those who don’t give a damn. If you belong to b) well, scoot off now bfr I sic the dog on you. People like you are not welcome here and believe me, I’d use the Schwartz to send you to Bloody Huis Clos in a sec if I could. Should you belong to a) [*back pat*, well done!] chances are you a) believe in everything you’re told; b) need to see proof; or c) are too lazy to get off your ass and do something if it involves the Post office and God, there was a letter from 94 sitting on your desk for three years, THREE, have you no shame? D) are a hybrid.

A) that’s a bit sad and dangerous but I understand. Believe me, I do understand; [*stupid cow*] b) I also do understand this very well, there are too many con artists making a living out of genuinely good people; c) er, yes. That too. Too sad, I know. [Oh bite me, if you happen to be reading this and smirking, you probably alphabetise your spices and clothes and coo over your microhoover - NOW who’s sad eh?] Being a hybrid, and seeing as I believe that we CAN get to know someone pretty well through reading their blog bcs people give themselves away all the time, and unless you are a sociopath you will show us who you are, I can tell you that I trust Paul. I’ve been reading him since the beginning and have unfailingly appreciated all I read and the person he is. I can also tell you I will get my best friend to go to the Post Office to mail the money. That way she’ll get to feel even more noble, I’ll avoid disaster and PLIM!, another theatre chair! [Er, and best friend, if this is the first you've heard of it - ISN'T THIS A BRILL PLAN?? AREN'T YOU PROUD OF MY INTITIATIVE? Quite.]

I can’t show you proof but I can show you Paul. Paul is funny, he really is. He’s left me some hilarious comments (PLUS has the good taste to have the Pimpafier Lurv Machine linked to on his sidebar, how cool is he?). His skin is the colour of cinnamon - and see how mahvelous I am? I don’t hold it against him just bcs I’m jealous. Finally, his writing is (in case you've missed my mentioning it loads) gorgeous. GORGEOUS. Finally, if for nothing else, he deserves Good Things for knowing how to spell theatre properly, bless his heart.

The cause is worthy. Go read him, see what you think. And then if it moves you, you can help. You CAN, you know.

Only I don't know how to just yet

Autumn Sonnets #2
by May Sarton

If I can let you go as trees let go
Their leaves, so casually, one by one
If I can come to know what they do know,
That fall is the release, the consummation
Then fear of time and the uncertain fruit
Would not distemper the great lucid skies
This strangest autumn, mellow and acute.
If I can take the dark with open eyes
And call it seasonal, not harsh or strange.
(For love itself may need a time of sleep),
And tree-like, stand unmoved before the change.
Lose what I lose to keep what I can keep,
The strong root still alive under the snow.
Love will endure - if I can let you go.

Found here

I bring you Beauty now

As promised:

Once upon a time there was a small creature that lived in a place where the sunlight came green through the leaves. It ate blueberries, and drank pilsner which a kind Taoist brewer left in a pitcher on a stump. It built elaborate hexagonal palaces out of fir cones and woven grass, and the beetles would all come by and exclaim "very pretty!"

Which made it wriggle with pleasure. Sometimes in the long summer evenings a Portuguese girl would come to read in the dappled meadow, and she would let it climb on her arm and nap in the crook of her elbow, as warm as toast and as happy as butter.

In August it would lie half-submerged in the spring, lulled by the soft lap of the cool water, and its heart would slow so near to stopping that it could watch the sun glide noiselessly across the sky, light and shadow changing places.

And then with a spring and a shake, jewels flying off in all directions, it would scamper into night, where the stars burned with a cold exhiliration. That's where the night people would gather, talking low but intense, sometimes arguing passionately, making fine distinctions, and opening world beyond world. The little creature understood not a word, but it would creep in close, and the tallest girl, who was a watchful thing, would always pick it up, and laugh fondly when it scurried all the way up her sleeve to her shoulder, and nestle under her ear. All the eyes of the night people would glitter, when the moon rose.

And then when the east went pale, and the night people slipped away in their twos and threes, The birds would begin to sing. The little creature understood this, at least. All the joy and desire rose up in a swirling net, and the little creature's heart did not quite break, but it almost did.

And then it would forget, and run, run, run to the fresh pitcher left on the dew-damp stump.

Care to guess who wrote this? Who else could but Dale? I keep going back to his blog to read it all [this is only part of it], over and over again. It works its magic every time, I'm simply grateful I can read this and don't understand how he has not been published yet.

I read the first paragraph and was enamoured, so so lovely. SO LOVELY! Imagine what I felt when I reached, well, me*. Oh to be there! Both in the present and wishful form. Too pretty. It is easily one of the most beautiful things that ever happened to me. So Dale dahling, THANK YOU. from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Your blog has always been a haven, a place where one re-learns how to breathe but this... This was sanctuary. Yours is a marvellous gift. So I'll answer you again, if you don't mind. I know I'll be repeating myself but THEY haven't heard it yet and I want to do it from here as well.

It is a pleasure to have you curl in the crook of my elbow, for I've been in the crook of the Mole's elbow more times than I can tell of, and butter and toast yes, butter and toast.

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*Here's hoping it's not some other Portuguese girl!

And The Mare It Rode In On

Tonight I was woken up at 3 am by the dog, she was barking furiously and at first I thought someone was trying to break in. When I woke up I was actually sitting up in bed, screaming NOOOOOOOOOO!!! Then I remembered what I'd been dreaming of. I was having a nightmare abt Uzi, a truly unbearable dream. And I realised I'd woken up wondering, as I so often do during my waking hours, if he was very frightened, if he suffered for very long when that unimagineably monstruous wall of water fell on him and swallowed him whole and threw him about and eventually killed him but not fast enough, surely not fast enough - and that's why I was screaming. And for a moment I was sorry there were no burglars bcs it's just things you know, who the fuck cares abt them.

High On Dead Bits

There's loads I wanted to say but it will all be hopeless bcs I am high on stupid phormol. I am, really. Phormol - aka formaldehyde 37%, formaline, methane - is what is used in our vet school to keep organs and organ parts in. So they keep, you see. (Solemn pause while I enjoy these last 2 sentences. Really, who says I CAN'T write? Green-eyed twat and all that.) Anyway, I really am having a hard time writing this bcs there were 21 pieces of organs for us to examine and they were all soaked in phormol, reeking of it.

Let me tell you, phormol induces the most hideous headache. The class started at 14.00, it's now 20.00 and the little garden gnomes who lodge in my brain are still gnoming. It makes the eyes water and the throat itch bcs it's terribly, TERRIBLY irritating . I looked like some seriously distraught ingénue in class, tears rolling down my cheeks, eyes red and swollen, Professor tenderly shoving a piece of gastronomic delicacy tripe my way as I almost fell off the stool REPEATEDLY trying to keep my distance. NAUSEATING. Three hours of this, I tell you, three hours looking at toxic pieces of intestines and stomachs and kidneys. It would all have been very interesting actually if:

a) I could have actually SEEN said bits;
b) my head weren't throbbing like a motherfucker;
c) phormol weren't actually carcinogenic.

Oh you read so right. CARCINOGENIC. CAR-CI-NO-GENIC. As in, cancer-inducing. I kept wanting to press a button to lure the friendly spacesuited men in bcs surely that can't be good. My professor walked around dripping phormol, LITERALLY. His gloves were full of the stuff, there were little pools of it in them bcs they're so bloody short [Alright this is what I want to know, and this time capslock IS screaming: WHEN WILL SOMEONE INVENT LATEX GLOVES THAT COME ALL THE WAY UP TO THE ELBOWS? MUST I RESORT TO RECTAL PALPATION GLOVES WHICH ARE NOT FLEXIBLE ENOUGH?] But don't take my word for it, go read here. Oh the joys of Southern Europe. At around 16.30, 2 and a hald hours in, some of my colleagues started fanning themselves like mad and crying as well, or just generally complaining abt the smell. Seems I'm more evolved, finer-tuned receptors, see? Oh the joys of me.

It still hurts.

Moving on. Lord Chimmy [if you visit prepare for INSTANT myopia. Just saying...] gave me this link. It's a video of a dog who was born without the front legs and is now... a biped! Yes. It IS an amazing video, please go see. Kudos for her not having been put down bcs of it. Reminds me of a woman I saw in a Children of Our Times documentary [BBC of course - BOW NOW], who has no legs or arms to speak of and is raising a child on her own. Fucking amazing, these are the brave ones, these are the ones who make me feel I don't have much to complain abt (oh ok, maybe not so much now but in general).

Kristin emailed and asked how I am doing. It surprised me bcs I'm not sure. I think I'm alright. I'm not crying though and that's not a good sign for me. I know how I react to things, I know how I ruminate. Therefore, I don't think the worst is over yet - actually I know so bcs the truth is, Uzi, my Tig, is not dead yet. He just isn't. And this after I went to the funeral and had the actual proof before me. It's still not real. When it becomes real, ahhh hell, the shit will hit the fan and all surrounding soul structures.

This reminds me of something that puzzles me. Some of you have told me, in comments and emails, that I am strong - let's not turn this into a "Oh yes you are, are too, ARE TOO!!". I really am not fishing for anything, just want to talk abt it. I find it bewildering bcs I don't think I am all that strong. I don't think I'm handling this in a particularly brave or wise way. I'm trying to survive w my remains reasonably intact. I really do NOT see it. Also, some of you are surprised I'm writing again, so soon after his death. Let's digress shall we.

I've always read and I've always written. Those are simply things I do - better yet, things I must do. I am an amazingly fast reader. My definition of the perfect holyday is loads of heat - not one iota of cold anywhere - and a book a day AT LEAST. When I go abroad and buy books - which is always - I actually have a very hard time leaving the hotel/friends' house bcs I want to stay in and read. REad, read, read. I am given grief by all sorts of people who decide I cannot be really reading. I mean, you turn the pages but you're not really reading are you. You don't really UNDERSTAND the story do you. Like, when he met his aunt, what did she say? Oh. Ok but what abt when the car turned up? Well nevermind, what colour was his jumper on p.27? WHAT, YOU DON'T REMEMBER? I KNEW YOU WERE JUST SKIMMING THROUGH IT!

Well, this is very annoying. I am a fast reader. I'm sorry you're not. I'm sorry it takes you a month to finish a book. Fuck off already.

Also, I write. I write when I must, not when I want to. I once wrote a story, it's 17 pp longs. I BLED. It actually wrote me. It took abt 5 years from beginning to end bcs I cannot write just bcs I decide i want to. This is the most amazing thing I ever wrote and it took FOREVER! The suspense nearly killed me. It's also the most bizarre thing I ever wrote and I remember my surprise - and delight - when a fully new character simply showed up. Out of the blue [HA! Little pun here for those in the know]. I really did not know he was going to appear (there were only 4 characters to start with and i knew that was it) and I couldn't wait to write more so I could see how it ended. Sometimes a friend would say "How does it end, I need to know!" and I'd just exasperatedly say "I know, SO DO I!!!" What, I need this? It's not like I have any power over it you know.

Re Uzi, sometimes I feel bad and I need to write abt it. Sometimes I feel bad and I cannot face words at all, I cannot even read [worst sign of all]. Sometimes I feel good and need to blog abt it. Sometimes I blog to try and find out how I am, to make sense of it. Sometimes I don't even know what I'm going to say. At the end of the day, my not being able to blog is an indicator of things gone bad, as is my not being able to comment or even read other blogs. The past couple opf days have been good and I try to use those to go say hallo.

Oh, almost forgot, there's one more thing I want to say: I BLOODY LOATHE FIREFOX! Thank you, I DO feel better. CSI on tonight. Play amongst yourselves now.

Inglish Quis blahblah - NOT

There was a post here but I deleted it, along w the What's Yellow, Arboreal and Very Very Dangerous riddle post. PLIM! Because they were [*shudder*] boring. Painfully so. So boring, SO BLOODY BOOOORING! English Quiz blahblah grammar mistakes blahblah medical blogs blahblah may the Shwartz be w you blahblah. *coughs up disgusted furball*

*sigh*

HELP!

Remember when I had fun in this blog? Anyone? I don't know how to write me anymore! IT'S GONE!!! I re-read So Sexy It Hurts. WHO WROTE THAT and WHAT DID YOU DO WITH HER? Why is she booooring now? You want I should smack you? ARGH! *insert sound of self-daggering*

Have you seen our Snarkiness*?

Bigger than average size, well-groomed, healthy, glistening fangs. Answers to whistling though not always politely. Very un-PC. Last seen at the end of December. Bobbing. Please help bring Snarky-Pooh home to us.

We miss our gonads.

*Would you believe I first wrote “Snarkiness lost at sea”??? Then I had to laugh really, bcs it’s funny. Padded-cell funny. [Which may also account for the bobbing bit) Considering the D-Soap Opera of Yore - oh no wait, not of yore, of YORE'S TRULY *cackle cackle cackle*

Oh hell.

For the love of God why are you still here??? Go read some terribly testosteronic author as I quietly wither from penis envy. I do miss my balls.

My Lovely Ones KICK ASS!

Well, they do. To note:

Picture this: on the days when I don't have morning classes I settle on the living-room couch early and start sudying. There's a splash of sun near the book case and I place the beds there. Some scuffling ensues, in which the Dog will want to lie on the orange cat bed (v cute bed shaped like a cat's face, ears and all) bcs it's fluffier, Tripod (dark brown one) will settle next to her/on her witjout any worries, Tortoise will meow and whine bcs she too wants the orange bed but does not want to provoke Dog into playing w her (which could happen simply by cat moving) since Dog's idea of fun is to grab her by the neck while hovering over her and bark excitedly. Only one of them enjoys it. I sometimes have to get up and sort limbs out and reduce feline panic level. Then as the sun moves, so do I, so do they. I get up regularly to move the beds so they stay in the sun. And then there's bliss for a few hours, plus a lot of Vit D production.

Re Tripod, which is what I call her here bcs she only has 3 legs now, I had a disquieting conversation w someone while in Israel, along the lines of "if my dog/cat ever lost a leg I'd have to put him down bcs I couldn't bear it". NO!!!! THIS IS WRONG!!! Cats and dogs adapt extremely well to the loss of a limb and even eyesight. NO NEED TO PUT THEM DOWN. So if anyone reading this is in a similar situation please email me privately, leave a comment, talk to your vet, I don't know, do something but DON'T PUT YOUR PET TO SLEEP JUST BCS IT LOST A LIMB!

You don't know this but Dog is abt to leap and flee bcs, as we all know, cameras steal one's soul and her dense little brain has decided her soul is a good thing to have around. So she ALWAYS flees now upon seeing a camera. [For some reason, writing this reminded me of that scene in the Douglas Adams' book where the whale is falling, and so is the petunia vase. No, the petunia vase fell first. Or did it turn into the whale? I need to re-read them all, *she says, while staring loathingly at her Virology and Biochemistry textbooks*]

And so you know, the title of my blog comes from - oh never mind, check the blue text within the sidebar, I'll blog abt it some other time, this normalcy wore me out. But hey, BLOODY WELL DONE LIONESS! Kol hakavod.

(o)

And this is why I am crazy abt Dale. Go here to understand why I found it particularly meaningful and fitting that he should leave one here.

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UPDATED: There are things I cannot do so well nowadays. I can't write much and when I do it's all abt Uzi. It makes sense bcs in my mind it's all abt him too, all the time. I can't read blogs like I used to - and that's funny, bcs till we heard he was truly and hopelessly dead I could, and it was a blessed distraction. I can rarely comment, which is no news. And some blogs I find particularly hard to read, like Paul's and Dale's. I think it has to do w the way they use language. Their posts are beautifully written, convoluted at times, woven w apparent simplicity. It's as though they bleed while they smile at times. They require my use of parts of me I cannot use right now, parts of me I don't know what to do with. I don't particularly welcome them now. Dale can take something like trees and spin a post that takes your breath away and causes you to see all of it. His site is the one I go into when I want to feel like the grain of sand I know we are, and like a miracle. Do you see now why he's especially hard to read right now? On another note, Dale also gives the best hugs (no, we never met. But you can tell. Must be a Buddhist thing.)

Yesterday I went to visit him bcs I miss him. I miss reading him. I miss the excitement of finding a new post, and i wanted to just check on him before I emailed him. I found the Pebble post (see link above). Dale had done his magic again and I was floored. I left a comment and he emailed me back, a very Dalish email, and he pointed me towards some posts of his. And if you go read Old Friends - which you should, you should trust me bcs right now I'm sitting on a cusp w the very beautiful and the very grotesque right by me so think of me as a temporary vessel for this sort of distorted truth and just go there - you will understand even more. And if you read Involution there you'll find grief - and he makes it almost beautiful, which is another Dalish thing, to make the grotesque sound not as ugly and not as deadly. Because maybe it isn't.

Dale's loom weaves little winged beings that, much like dragons, breathe down your neck and change your moment - but, unlike dragons, they are soothing and allow for a brief respite from madness.

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I sometimes doubt I can do this and retain a modicum amount of sanity. I bought 2 frames for 2 of his pictures. One is cerise and has a cat and fish engraved it in a quiet way, and in it there's a picture of U. and I from Purim 99. I'm wearing a red wig w braids, he looks like a queer pirate. The frame absolutely fits it, I'll get someone to take a picture of it so you can see it. The other one is white and chunky and has a picture of him smiling. It's a simple picture, taken right after we met, before we became a couple. He's wearing a green t-shirt and smiling. Just smiling. You would not believe how utterly gorgeous, young and pure he looks. I can barely bear to look at it and I cannot bear not to. Reminded me of this post bcs he truly does look some Archangel who deigned to briefly honour us w his presence - no pun intended - and yet so... human. You just want to reach in and grab him and have some of all that goodness touch you. I so want to reach in and grab him and touch him again, and tell him everything I haven't bcs I was too lazy, too busy, too alive and we had time right? There's always time. he's grinning at me as i write this, and how can I even be writing this, since it means he's dead and I'll never see him again as we were? I don't care if we meet again in a future life or end up happy as Spring sheep in the meadows of heaven right now, i want him here, where he belongs, I need to tell him things, I need to see him make his Chewing Camel face, I need to check out that incipient beer belly of his, I need HIM.

I really don't see how people do this and remain sane. I know they do but I don't see how.

YOU OWE ME?!

[This post was written by Lila. Her posts will be this lovely aubergine colour from now on - unless she hates it - so you can easily find them. Maybe I can even convince her to start her own blog - for which I could use your help so go on, give her a cheer.]

When I was 13 I mentioned to myself that if there's any boy worth being friends with it must be Uzi, the one who hides behind golden hair, laughs shyly and never humiliates other people (kibbutz’s national sport). But since it's a shy being we're talking about, and I'm busy thinking I'm so ugly and strange I'd better hide somewhere - no contact.

Our mothers are best friends. When I was born they decided since Uzi is 3 years older than me we were probably meant to be. But when I'm 14 and he's 17 it's no subject to discuss, too embarrassing. We don't even talk in family meetings. Hardly saying "hi", no eye contact.

Another boring Friday night in the kibbutz. Uzi's friend who's more communicative suggests I go with them to eat hummus somewhere. I go. On the way the radio plays "starry-starry night", or "Vincent", I think it's called. Uzi says, "50 shekels if anyone knows who sings". I say "Don Mclean". I win! I win to Genius Uzi… Everyone knows Uzi is the smartest boy in school. And I got to impress him, or them or myself. Just a small victory to make me feel a little better, or in short - HA!

School's over, thank god, we became neighbours. One day Uzi came in to my room, sat and refused to speak. That silence has become a beautiful friendship... I reminded him of that 50 shekel promise a few times, just to remember that stupid time when we were too embarrassed to recognize each other... He still owes me.

I forgive the 50 shekels bit. I can't accept never laughing about it again.

For Lila

This is Lila, my kibbutznik friend. [Hi, hamudah.] [And that is kibbutznik fashion, though poor one, her t-shirt isn't even inside out and is not torn at all.]

She is playing her flute in front of the pine tree in honour of Aristides Sousa Mendes, in the Righteous Avenue in the Yad Vashem Museum (check sidebar for post abt him). Old songs, pioneer songs, soldier songs. Lila and I have this tradition of mixing the beautiful and the grotesque to the extent that the beautiful is a tad tainted but still overcomes the very ugly. Nowadays it is a bit hard to make this work though. Sitting there she taught me abt Brenner Despair. We know it well now. And Brenner suffered enough in his time [don't say "suffered"], in case you were wondering. He had a whole new brand of despair named after him, could it be any bleaker. The Holocaust Museum was a fit place to meet him.

Lila grew up w Uzi even though they only became friends later. She misses him as much as I do. She may want to kick his ass for dying and leaving us less bcs she is sweeter than me, but she misses him terribly. Lila is the one person I know who was grinning like there's no tomorrow [er...] in her soldier picture. For the Israeli army. GRINNING. Like only she can. If there's is a Brenner Despair, there is a Lila Radiance. I've never met anyone quite like her and don't expect I will again. Lilas are created every other millenium, I should think. She thinks of Uzi every time she listens to this song. She did even before she knew him well*. The story of how is for some other time [don't say "time"], I may yet ask her to write it for this blog. Since it's sort of OUR blog now.

I just wanted you to know there's a Lila, and that there being a Lila is one of life's small miracles. [Oops.]

[*And in YOUR honour, Lila, and Zohar's: don't say "well", people have been known to drown there... as WELL.][HA.]

Kessem

Some called him that. "Magic", "Charm".

.

.(At age 15)