Confessions 1-7

Confession #1:
For the past 5 nights I have been waking up at around 4.30.

This is not my typical insomnia pattern. The typical pattern, however, does manifests itsef slightly in that regardless of how little I sleep, I don't fall asleep easily.

Confession #2:
For the past few nights, I have been able to fall asleep only bcs I stayed in the living-room, reading.

This is nothing new to me. Uncomfortable as this sofa is, I remember the last time I was studying for Bones I didn't sleep in my bed at all during the 4 days of exams or the days immediately leading to them, I always stayed in the living-room. I dislike this subject very much and studying for it truly is a sacrifice, a physical one in many ways as well. By staying away fom my beloved bed I am keeping it untainted and will return to it when the nightmare is over. [It is also entirely possible that if I'd used the bed during those days I'd have simply taken to it and refused to get up again, ever.] And I am deeply anguished over the Bones exams and it doesn't help that in the first 9 days of September I will have 6 exams - and I don't even know whether some overlap yet. It could also be due to the novel lack of nicotine galore coursing through my receptors, I suppose.

Confession #3:
CENSORED CONFESSION BLABLABLA

Much more impersonal, yes?

Confession #4:
This whole post has been a veritable sand-in-the-eye fest.

Everything I wrote is true, that is not it. Everything I wrote is contributing to my physical and mental discomfort.

Confession #5:
To a varying degree, this fest has been happening for a good while now.

However, those are not the reasons I wake up w a start and some pressing question trapped behind my lips. Usually, some elaboration of Did you suffer.

.

.

Confession #6
My exams start on the 1st of September
September is almost upon us
September will soon be over
October is almost upon us
Uzi was born on the 19th of October
The 19th of October is almost upon us
December is almost upon us
February is almost upon us

.
.

I spin the questions my fingers know by heart endlessly. [Did you suffer, are you very sad, exactly how dead are you, do you know it, do you see us, are we holding you back, did you suffer] They resemble fractals in their deadly beauy and reliability.

I seem to dream of him more and more, and w increasing detail. Sometimes the dreams are a gift in the sense that he will do something specific, however tiny, and I will remember it and realise he used to and I’d forgotten. Inevitably, I will start crying and wake up. But never bfr I remember. I seem to have lost my ability to keep him alive through my words - I seem to never taalk abt him anymore, write abt him anymore, or ring is Mum or Lila, and I certainly never email them.

I will have to soon. I will have to ring I. on his birthday and oh good God the horror, THE HORROR, how will I do this, how. I miss taking to Lila as well so it’s a mystery why I don’t want to do it. No it isn’t. I can’t very well be in denial anymore and I am not - but I can not fancy acknowledging that he is dead and I haven’t fancied acknowledging it.

It is more typical of me to dissect things obsessively and word out the poison than to not want to or no longer not know how to. I feel like I'm having an out-of-body experience while trapped in mine. Dissociation, yes?

Confession #7
I need to shed my skin

mahvellous.org

[Let us endeavour to make this a bit clearer lest more think the Seed is upon me.]

• On the How exciting, dahlings! side, there have been no ciggies since Friday evening.

But. I have, to make up for it, been munching non-stop. And growling, growling as well. I wish I were kidding.

• On the Oh bloody hell! side, am becoming The New Hottentot. Tsk.

Ingested Saturday
- 10 big (truly) sushi pieces (my 8 plus 2 from Loverboy)
- 3 bags of crisps (chips)
- 1 peanut crisp (nougat)
- 2 bags of Japanese snacks
- Half a box of (1L) mint ice-cream (communal property)
- 1/5 of mint ice-cream (single ownership)
- Big bowl of greeny salad mixed w big bowl of tomato and onion salad right before bedtime

Ingested Sunday
- 5 bowls of seitan casserole w loads of tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, zucchini, onions and something else
- Remainder of my ice-cream (4/5)
- 3 peanut crisps (nougat)
- 1 bag of crisps (chips)
- 2 peaches
- 1 roll w cranberry jam
- 1 bowl of grapes
- 1 carrot

Ingested Monday (so far)
- 4 carrots
- 2 bowls of gizzards w rice
- 1 bag of crisps (chips)
- 1 more bowl of gizzards w rice
- 1 more bag of crisps (chips)
- 1 bowl of tuna salad w tomato
- 1 peach

Update, Tuesday:
Father - Say, you've gained weight haven't you? Excellent, excelent!

Hitnakut - Disengagement

Some of you have asked me how I feel abt the Disengagement from Gaza. For some reason, I cannot even begin to process it mostly bcs what I am absolutely convinced of, regardless of whether I believe it is the right thing to do, that the outcome vis a vis the Arabs wil be disastrous. This will be seen as an act of weakness and their victory. This will fuel them. Why stop at Gaza when we can have Jerusalem? When we can have it all? Four wars have proven this is how they think. The withdrawal from Lebanon as well. Fasten your wings, for many will die.

I have no words, as I so often say here, but some do. Please read:

David for the big picture, and then here and here.

House of Joy

Imshin (click on title for full post), especially this.

Jewschool (terribly moving photograph)

Jewlicious (a must-read article that Imshin translated partly as well)

Lisa (scroll down for more posts)

Impressive Photos of a mass prayer at the Kotel (Western Wall) for peace among Jews

Something refreshing

Sarah, and here as well.

Feel free to post more links in the comments, I am scattered all over the place what with my computer being dead. Frankly, I think we are all doomed and the carnage to come will make the past pale by comparison. Apologies for cowardice but I truly cannot think abt it for very long.

How to diagnose a full moon- again

1- Decide to live more healthily and do not drink Coke at all. Forget to drink green tea instead. Get coke when it's too late already for you not to have a migraine. Spend the day in the throes of said migraine for no other reason than your having been amazingly a tad stupid. YET AGAIN.

2 - Crawl into bed in the evening wondering how on earth you'll make it alive to your father's surprise party tomorrow, w relatives you haven't seen in many a year. Force yourself to read your bones book. MANDIBLE: The mandible has one body, two rami. It forms a single bone in the Horse and the Pig and is not fused in other species. Etc.

3 - Crawl out of bed at top speed when your mother rings you to ask that you pick them up at top speed to drive them to the hospital bcs your father is having that pain again [right side, abdominal/thoracic. Father just tested positive for – surprise! – Helicobacter pylori and has had chronic gastritis for decades now]. Manage to not have an accident despite the lethal combo migraine/flickering, moving lights. Be kicked out of hospital by your mother after a couple of hours bcs it will take forever and father is resting wile they wait for the blood tests results and mother has also occupied an armchair and is ready to sleep some and she will only worry more if you’re there and you’re looking awfully skinny and pale anyway and please try to avoid the sun because those brown spots on your face [known everywhere else as "freckles"] are getting bigger and bigger. You exit the hospital shortly before midnight and are very careful to avoid the sun, as per mother. Mother will keep you posted. Father is diagnosed with – surprise! – acute gastritis at 4 am and is given prescriptions galore and sent home.

4 - Family are warned that they are not to come after all. Father lying on the sofa, slighty feverish, and utterly miserable and sweaty bcs he wrapped himself in a bathrobe and covered himself with a sheet and mother cannot convince him to unwrap bcs, well, can’t she see he is dying [implicit] and she is is wife and needs to take care of him [verbatim]. [Adorable, yes? Mother thinks so as well despite father being a PITA when ill, remotely ill or contemplating being ill.] Mother wonders what she is to do with food for 11 people but Good God no, don’t come round to help, it’d make it worse! Decide you’re too generous a person to take offence.

5 - Realise your moribund computer has completed its dying overnight and is now lying belly up on the table, bloated and pong-y. Bcs it wasn’t full moon yet, you were successful in saving mostly everything a few days ago. Get ready to drive it to the shop, wonder when you will see it again.

6 - Get ready to spend the afternoon in the Archaeology Museum handling old, smelly and VERY BRITTLE bones of animals long gone.

Shabbat shalom. Hopefully.

Noorster, please don't hate me!

Overall, I don't care abt U2 all that much. There are only a few songs I truly like and they're mostly from Under a Blood Red Sky, an album I fell in love with when I was 12 - a musical accomplishement I am quite proud of. I know enough abt U2 to know that One is NOT a love song, however, and to know the story behind it, and to not quote it wrongly a propos everything like so many so daftly do these days. But as I said, overall I don't much care for their music and have in fact become acquainted only w the songs that are played on the radio.

That being said...

The U2 are playing a packed stadium in Lisbon as I type. And I must admit that there's something rather cool and almost touching abt the fact that I am sitting here by my open window, the night splayed out before me and the balmy air, learning how to best agglutinate serum while Bono serenades me from not too afar.

Bcs I can hear the concert, see. I can hear them and sing along:

I will be with you again,

I will be with you a-a-again

And they named their firstborn Wasabi, and there was much rejoicing across the land

Sushi. Sushi. SUSHI!

SUSHI!!!!!!!!!

Love that shit, absolutely love it, adore it, want to anoint myself with it and rub it in my hair, want to wrap myself in nori and frolic amid the fish, LOVE SUSHI! I knew I would, I knew it - and I do. Lioness hearts sushi!

When I worked in the Lisbon Ocean*arium I used to have the same thing for lunch every day in the German Restau*rant: smoked salmon w horseradish paste and latkes. Loved that shit too, could have eaten it every day. As a matter of fact, I did! Simply adore the spicy taste of horseradish. And wasabi is basically what, pray tell? HORSERADISH! I took one sniff and swooned, oy! Hullo baby! *Enter varied slurping sounds in memoriam*

Sushi! Must have more sushi, must have more sushi NOW! SUUUUUSHI!

Lorem, you're absolutely right. Sushi makes one feel sexy. I'm all hips and boobs now, all hips and boobs...

Well, fuck. FUCK.

Sometimes, very often, Judaism is a struggle. I could never understand the point of, say, not eating certain foods for no good reason other than it being a fortitude test. Well, they cannot eat pork or seafood, eels, what else? The ostrich, you say? But that’s a bird, we've established they may eat birds! Oh, to throw them a bit, eh? Excellent, good thinking, let’s do that! If you thought kosher was abt dietary hygiene kindly re-think. There is so much abt Judaism that is ruled by this reasoning and I don’t see the need bcs life takes care of testing us most efficiently. I find it a bit cruel. [The idea of the Jewish God as a cruel one may come as a shock to you.]

There are also things I find downright hypocritical. The shabbos goy is a gentile that is responsible for doing all things on Shabbat that a Jew is forbidden to do. What bothers me is, if YOUR God tells you you cannot do XYZ, you either accept it or you do not. Hiring someone to do it for you simply bcs he has a different religion is circumventing the issue, feels like deceit and is entirely too self-serving. Not to mention that it implies that all gentiles are somewhat less worthy and therefore it won’t harm them [I know theoretically is bcs God commanded only the Jews to do this but see, I have this notion that we all have the same God and this preciousness and specialness of ours is a tad hard to swallow. And don't get me started on pikuach nefesh, the notion that saving a life supersedes all restrictions and how some Jews disgracefully think it doesn't apply if it concerns a non-Jew, or how some Orthodox will not save their pets from a fire bcs IT VIOLATES SHABBAT. Fuckers.]. And the ma’alit shabbat? Bcs you are not supposed to create fire, and electricity may cause sparkles, you are not allowed to turn on the lights etc. In Israel you have, in hotels frequented by religious Jews, an elevator that goes from floor to floor automatically, stopping on every single one. Someone please explain to me why this is ethical and any different than pressing the button yourself. The elevator is moving, ON SHABBAT, and is run by electricity and yet you're allowed to. Miraculously, you are allowed to profit from it simply bcs it was already moving, you had nothing to do with it, metallic shabbos goy at your service. But you wouldn't get into my car even if it were already running as well and I hadn't started it for you - and how is it different? The ma'alit shabbat to me embodies all that is wrong with a certain type of Judaism and you know what? You do what you want and you'll never find me by the door urging you to take the stairs but I am bloody entitled to my beliefs as well.

I am not a rabbi and it's not up to me to decide who may do what within the bounds of Hallachah. And I realise Hallachic living is hard in modern days and rabbis do indeed try and find ways to integrate thousands of years of obligations and what not into our present. More power, I say. But to NOT admit it's hypocritical drives me mental especially bcs it is possible, if much harder, to live like our forefathers did. Hey, the Hamish still do it (and are for the most part very well adjusted and live very contented lives). So you choose not to, and good for you, but go on, having a second circuitry in an electrical connection so you can press the button and raise a hospital bed on Shabbat if you happen to work there and are religious doesn't make it NOT your action, are there perchance house elves living in that second circuitry? And isn't pikuach nefesh enough? Is it respecting the spirit of the law that says no pigs shall set food on Israeli soil to have said pigs live on wooden planks? NO. The letter maybe, they certainly never touch the soil, but I am reasonably sure that's not what was originally meant. So, again, choose to live in the modern world, very sane of you honestly, but don't try and convince me that a fair amount of hypocrisy isn't what allows it. There really is no way to avoid it but pretending it's perfectly normal and not a deception of sorts is just beyond me and my patience. And as for seriously religious Jews seriously debating whether one ultimately is allowed to read Harry Potter... That's having your priorities sorted out indeed.

I am having a very hard evening and my point is, I don’t care if it’s Shabbat and right now I couldn’t care less abt the destruction of the Temple. If that makes me a bad Jew, so be it. This is my personal rebellion against… something. We are still here, we are still thriving, my best friend is dead and quite frankly, that is far more important than all the buildings in the world. Religion is abt people, not places, ultimately [leave Jerusalem out of this]. We do not worship idols, false or otherwise, but, even though the line btwn the Temple obsession and avoda zara (idolatry) exists, it seems thin to me at times. [Oh I know it’s not really the Temple itself, it’s the way of life, the loss - I don’t care. I’m pissed off and lashing out and I don’t care.] And if God has a problem with my using the computer on Shabbat he can step right down and address me directly or I will not care one bloody bit. And if he happens to take the time to, I’d love to ask him if my theory is correct and God is indeed above such pettiness as deciding who lives and dies [ignore fallacy in argument, i.e., if God indeed stepped down and talked to me - or smacked me abt - he’d be an involved God and therefore my question would be automatically answered]. And if it turned out that he wasn’t, well then - I’d have to hurt him. [I think I’ve now burnt all the bridges I could, Lioness The Heretic. I still don’t care.]

I DON'T CARE!

My best friend is dead and

[LONG CENSORED BIT, BASICALLY SHOWING HOW MENTAL HIS DEATH HAS MADE ME AND CENSORED BCS IT INVOLVED PEOPLE MADE IRRELEVANT]

I’m just heartbroken bcs Uzi remains adamant abt remaining dead and I’ve been having the nightmares and the flashbacks to prove it, and I thought I was doing rather brilliantly but today I was with a friend at an outside café, the sort of friend you talk to maybe once a year but you pick up where you left off and life being what it is why the hell don’t you talk more often, and I had to tell her and all I could say was “Uzi was in Thailand…” and this horrendous knot formed in my throat and I realised I might yet cry, and she didn’t even understand immediately, it took her a while to realise what I was trying to say but my face eventually got the message across, and then she looked horrified and teary-eyed, and suddenly I was crying in an outside café, so: Uzi = dead and I couldn’t find the words to explain to him the desolation I am feeling bcs we were talking, see, not writing, and so here I am and Uzi looms smaller than death and I truly don’t know what to do with myself and feel I am quite efficiently going out of my mind.

And that was a tendril of hair, you think I’d post a bloody hickey? IT’S A TENDRIL! But I do feel a bit better now and God? You’d better be happy for me, Shabbat or not.

---------------------------------------------

UPDATE: A bit better but fully demented, I left an apalling comment on some blogger's site in the wee hours of the morning, always a bad decision, she'd been wondering whether the ocen doesn't sometimes just up and eat you - ha! I leave it to you to imagine what that did to my macabre sense of humour, I have sent an email and apologised.

[SAME]

The Av within

On Friday the 13th, August 2004 I thought of creating a new blog. And so I did. How fitting.

The Jewish month of Av (July/August of the Gregorian calendar) is not a good month for Jews. This upcoming Sunday is Tisha b’Av, literally the 9th of Av, the culmination of nine days of remembering the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, and a few more terrible events. [The Jewish calender is lunar and therefore the date of Tisha b’Av varies. Last year, when I created my blog, it had been safely behind us for 2 weeks.]

The whole of Israel and the Jewish world are busy w the disengagement from Gaza these days. Dany wrote a post that absolutely explains how I feel abt it: heavy and hopeless and full of dread. Av, again. Again, how fitting. Tisha b’Av should be ended on a hopeful note bcs we, after all, have survived. And we will, after all, keep surviving. Shabbat starts soon and Sunday is a day of fasting so I am posting this now. And this is all I have to offer you:

1. I celebrate my one year blogging anniversary tomorrow, 13th of August
2. Loverboy and I will celebrate our 3-month anniversary on the very same day by finally going out for Sushi
3. The pictures from the post below
   

Bcs, see, I am grateful, so grateful that I started blogging in my blissful ignorance. And I am certain I will want to say more abt it at some point. But right now all I can think is, My blog is one year old and my Tig is gone. Uzi is dead, UZI IS DEAD,

UZI

IS

DEAD

And I have really nothing left to say.

.

My country is burning

My country is on fire. Nothing has got any better since February, it has all got so much worse. We have become accustomed to it and shrug our shoulders collectively. We Porties are elegant shoulder-shruggers for we are Latin indeed, and it is a beauty to behold.

FACT
- Portugal’s area: 92.391 km² (35,553 sq mi)
- 73% of the territory: extreme drought
- 23% of the territory: severe drought

You see images of dead animals scattered on the fields, a slow, painful death. Can you imagine dying like that? Can you imagine being a farmer and knowing your animals are condemned and so are you bcs you can no longer afford feed and water? Bcs there is no water to be had when it doesn’t rain, and we have had no rain for months and months and months on end. The government 2 years ago didn't see fit to declare the situation a Calamity and activate the proper funds. We had a stupid bitch from Europe come and "analyse" what was happening - and she too does not see the need for special measures or funding. It is, I suppose, easy enough to do when you can drink and eat and shower when you want, and have enough money not to worry abt your livelihood and your family starving.

FACT
- Forest area: 3.349.000 ha (38% of the Portuguese territory)
- 2.584.895 ha of land burnt between 1980 and 2003.

FACT
- 2003: Abt 421.000 ha burnt
- 2004: Abt 130.000 ha burnt
- 2005: 68.290 ha burnt (Jan-July only)

FACT
- Spain, Italy, Greece, France: total of burnt area lower than the average for past 25 years
- Portugal: total almost 20% higher than same average

FACT
- Total of burnt area in Portugal = 37% of the value for the whole of Southern Europe
- Total of fires in Portugal = 41% of the value for the whole of Southern Europe
- Spain, Italy, France, Greece and even Morocco often have to lend their planes and come to our rescue

Sirens. Sirens make me feel physically ill, always have. Sirens are bad news, horrible ones. My stomach turns into a minute knot and my mouth goes dry when I hear them, sirens spell tragedy. A minor concert just flew by my window, ambulances and fire whizzing by and my soul is heavy and very very small.

2003 saw me in the Wolf Rehab Centre helping evacuate the animals. Do you know wolves? Not the most social of animals when it comes to humans. These are wild wolves who cannot be released back into the wild bcs a) not enough natural prey and b) the average life span in the wild for a wolf is 2-3 years bcs villagers will kill them on sight. Wolves only kill what they eat. Wild dogs, those abandoned by our hunters, those cowards who wield guns, those cowards who find it simpler to dump their dogs and bitches by the side of the road once hunting season is over, and all those no less cowardly who go on holiday and suddenly realise a pet is an inconvenience, all those who find it all right and even natural for their pets to roam the streets without being sterilised or neutered and therefore add to the humungous problem of strays we have bcs everyone knows one dog’s shag is more important than the quality of life of all animals - these dogs will form packs and slaughter sheep and chicken and whatever else comes their way. We could not simply enter the enclosures and look for them, anaesthesia was attempted using blow pipes. Then the animal was retrieved and sent off to the zoo for housing, w one of us travelling w it ensuring it would stay under. We managed to dart 3 wolves, I think. We had over 20 then. The centre is abt 30 min away from Lisbon and we could see a flame ridge along the top of the hill right in front of us. Away but too close, unless you've seen it there's nod escribing how fast fire travels. We could only pray the wind would change and we wouldn’t be trapped. If it didn’t change, we could only hope the animals would die of smoke inhalation. The whole of Lisbon where I lived was covered in soot and smoke, it reeked of it everywhere even w windows closed, the city was shrouded in thick grey fog. If you’ve never been in a situation where you know dozens of animals may die horrible deaths and you will be powerless to prevent it you won’t know how it feels, how much of a nightmare it is. And you choose to worry abt only your animals and block all others from your mind. Only so much you can take. The wind did change so 2003 was a lucky year. 2004 was too. This year it was close, again, but apparently not too bad. 2005 is not over yet and I fear for our wolves and the others in a nearby reserve. The casualties among wolves and deer and other wildlife in that reserve, in our forests and parks? Appalling.

Our firemen? Our firemen are minor heroes, all of them, and so my parents taught me from a very early age. My mother would get a murderous glint in her eyes whenever she saw - and she saw it often - people refusing to donate money to them. Most are volunteers and risk losing their jobs by staying put to help. And their lives, which so many take for bloody granted. They are poorly paid and have often no means and not enough manpower. Porties do what they can to help when there's a fire but how can water buckets and garned hoses help against the huge hunger that a fire displays? My Porties are also the stupidest, most selfish people on earth and will persist in planting trees around their houses in high risk areas and last year’s fire has slipped their minds already, even if the charred walls and ruins are there every day to remind them. My Porties don’t see fit to put away pyromaniacs for life, and my Porties don’t see fit to throw the criminals who plant said trees in the utmost disregard for the properties of others, for fire flies swiftly and deadly, in jail for a couple of months so they can reflect upon how fires, swift and deadly, are to be taken seriously. My Porties wring their hands and wail, you can see it on the news, and claim for help and lament all that will be lost. All that has been lost. My Porties do not believe in prevention, though it’s been proven that increasing the means to fight fire does not work well enough. But there never are enough means anyway. We are a tiny, tiny country, soon fires will no longer be a problem for there will be nothing left to burn.

My Porties are sods, we are a decadent nation who can only get a boner, and a small, fleeting one at that, over soccer. The rest of everything else that comprises the world is none of our business. We still rave abt how we once onwed the world, discovered it. The Great Seafarers. My Porties are curious and inventive but easily distracted and grey through and through. My Porties worry so much abt what the others think of them, we are empoverished snobs with an inferiority complex. My Porties don’t think much of recycling or saving water - and I am called a leftie when I complain abt faucets open while teeth are brushed, beards are shaven, dishes are done, and I am called a leftie when I see lawns being watered at noon and hunt everywhere for recycled toilet paper for my arse is no Renoir, and I am called a leftie when I see people wasting food. My Porties will throw their fags on the ground, will park themselves against a rubbish bag holder on the beach but NOT use it and will leave their sad trail of rubbish scattered all over upon going home. My Porties will make a fire in the middle of a forest in August bcs it’s such good fun, my Porties loudly bring up their phlegm and loudly spit it on the floor, spreading germs as they re-arrange their balls. My Porties' idea of a good time is to dress up in your best training suit and take the offspring and the MIL to the nearest shopping mall on Sundays. My Porties will stand and coyly wave at the cameras as the fire eats away their villages.

Are you a patriot? Well done! I don’t much care for patriots. Patriotism has a way of killing young men in the prime of their lives and amputating their limbs. Patriotism has a way of killing the young and the innocent and the old, of making whole nations starve and whole ethnic groups be exterminated and relocated. Patriotism smells of old farts, fast guns and taxidermised moose heads over the mantelpiece to fit the bear rug in front of it. Patriotism is obscene to me and can go fuck itself - and if you would sooner get off your sofa bcs someone burnt the flag of your country, OH NO NOT THAT!, than mind the daily horrors that befall people and animals everywhere and are as selectively uncaring as always, fuck you as well and no need to thank me. Loads more where this came from.

My country is on fire, there is nothing I can do.

And my Porties shame me so, so very much.

"And the enemy was within us"

Am back, somewhat rested, more than a bit tanned, soaked full of sand, sun and ocean.

Am in no mood to talk abt light stuff bcs of this. Am in no mood to talk, period. May he rot in whatever hell exists for people like him, the bloody pig. Am happy he's dead, too bad he didn't die sooner. What a waste of breath. The magnificent ones are killed by tsunamis and people like him roam the earth freely and concoct obscene ways to - oh go read it, can't even talk abt it anymore. Read David.

Off to the synagogue now for Kabbalat Shabbat. Can't wait, need some cleansing NOW.

Letters from Miluim - 2

See here for the ones before this, and to understand what this is about. I'm black, Uzi is green. There's something to be said for tidying up, I've found the baby pics of his I had misplaced. [As I said, there's loss in chaos.] Both him and Z. looked absolutely scrumptious when they were small. Still do. Well, you know what I mean.

I am at the beach as you read this, sun sand and ocean. This post is brought to you courtesy of Loverboy. (Lila, ani etkasher alaich besof hashavua, besseder? Tagidi li im ate babait.)

----------------------------

29 May 1999
18.30

I’m on a guarding post, 4 metres high or so. 30 metres from me there’s an Egyptian guarding, probably as bored as I am. We’re not allowed to interact. I nearly finished a whole book in this shift that ends in less than half an hour. And then I’m on again at 23.00 at the gate. These guarding shifts can make you lose track of the days (much like you). But they make days move really fast. Three more nights and I get to have two whole days home with you.

The ravens here are huge and totally black: no wonder Alfred Hitchcock made a movie about birds, they really are scary. There are a few dozen others of them around the base. That’s the time of year they can be dangerous, before their chicks mature finally. Don’t worry, I didn’t see any aggressiveness from them. The desert it marvellous but there’s hardly a mountain that’s not cut in half by the marks of an errant jeep. The miserable Egyptians are doing the patrols on foot. Can you imagine that? I really feel sorry for them. A bit.

Letters from Miluim* - 1

Tig, this is everyone. Everyone, meet Uzi.

These are his words.

24 May 1999
22.39

O Pip,

Well, end of first day.

I got to that office I had to report to at sometime before 15.00 and there we waited till about 18.00 doing nothing at all, except getting the gear and that metal stick I have to carry around to anywhere I go.

Amazing, just when you think you saw everything in the army something surprises you. They want us to sleep in these cement buildings, the type you see in Forrest Gump. I thought IDF got rid of them all. Now I’m waiting for a bed and a mattress. They said they’ll get here within half an hour an hour ago. The guys are great. We’re a very small unit. I like the officer in charge so far. Although he’s kind of arrogant.

I was taught the difference between trance, hip hop, techno, house and trip-hop music.
Trance: the UFO music with changing beat and changing loudness.
House: constant beat, loud bass
Hip hop: black rap music - like Will Smith
Techno: constant beat with addition of things such as saws and engines
Trip-hop: Prodigy-style

[Then a bit here that Lila would love]

Anyway, I’ll continue tomorrow.

Tig

---------------------------------------------------------

25 May 1999
23.00

Another wasted day.
All we did today was shoot 10-20 bullets to see that the rifle works properly, and some explanations about our job here. The mosquitoes here are killers and I didn’t bring my anti-mosquito product. Tonight I’ll buy the army one. I took a freezing shower, wow. Horrible. But it was unavoidable. As far as I know I’m gonna be guarding for the next 10 days or so.

Good night, Pip.
Tig

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28 May 1999
18.58

Well, time does move here. I neglected writing for 3 days and didn’t even notice it.

Yesterday some guy wanted to have me tried for not checking the people at the gate. Who the fuck does he think I am? I am a civilian who temporarily wears a uniform. Anyway my officer got me out of it saying that if they charge me with anything both me and him are out of here.

I had a mouse in my bag, he ate some of my wafers. Cute, fast little bugger. I slept 3 ½ hours tonight, finished guarding at 3 and got up again at 6.30. Somehow I don’t feel so sleepy. I’ll try to sleep now cause I’m free till 3 am

Beijo**

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* Reserve duty. Israeli men, after they’ve served in the army, are called back every year for some weeks, consecutive or not, until they reach 45? 50?
** Kiss