Motherland

So I went to Israel.  NBD. I also haven't written here in almost a year. So here's my journal excerpt (if you can call this novel an excerpt). Keep in mind I wrote it for my grams, so it's a bit more descriptive than I might normally be.



Feb 6


I landed in Israel today. What a long day of travel. Had the most frightening interview when checking in at the airport: the attendant at El Al asked about my Jewish heritage and traditions (sure I've celebrated Passover and Hanukkah lightly with family - insomuch as I know I hate Gefilte fish and love Matzo ball soup and latkes), have I ever been to church (uh oh, does the reenactment of Jesus' resurrection on Easter every year of my life count?) the 10 passover items (wait there are 10 right?)...UHMM...sweating hardly covers it and those women are NOT friendly. My five minute mini-study of Jew-pedia on my iPhone before my turn hardly made up for my lack of bat-mitzvah. I think I confused challah (a braided bread) and unleavened bread (Matzo cracker) in my stuttering distress which disgusted my interviewer even more. She also asked if I had reason to believe that my Israeli-US power converter could contain a bomb. They really take it seriously and I feared I wouldn't even make it to the security line.


Some of the people in our Taglit group of 40 are really peppy, but I suppose you have to admire the energy after a 14-hour flight. It's turned out to be great that all of us are from the Bay Area as we instantly have something in common. Most are friendly and don't know what to expect as much as I don't. I met a kid named Spencer who is a sweetheart and I could tell instantly he's my kinda people. After a long bus ride we arrived at the Kibbutz, which is a community of people that kind of socialist; they all grow the food they eat, raise the children in one place and have an even playing field when it comes to money and education. They also rent out rooms to the public similar to a hostel, and we had wifi surprisingly which meant my dad was able to locate his ipad and send me a photo of my location, in the middle of the desert. 


We all ate in the dining hall and the hummus is amazing as you might expect, but there was far more neon colored food than I'm used to (bright purple?). Spencer and I talked at the bar, which oddly was decorated in a Western theme with a large John Wayne-esque mural, about travel to Cambodia and India. It was nice to bond with someone in that way and know that we have similar passions. 


As I'm writing there are LOUD jets flying overhead - the Kibbutz where we are staying is near the Gaza strip, which we will be seeing tomorrow. I have no idea what to expect but I'm excited and a little nervous.


Feb 7


Unfortunately it was extremely cloudy today so we didn't see much in the way of views on our hike nor when we went to overlook Gaza. We pulled up to the Anzac Memorial (which reminded me of Anzac Day in Australia, when we had holiday from work. I asked about it and was reminded that there were many Australians that traveled far to fight in WWI and WWII). There was a cluster of armed IDF soldiers who stopped us from taking photos and prohibited us from climbing up to the view point. Hagai, the guide on our tour, spoke in Hebrew to ask them why not - to which they said "we have stuff up there". He kept joking that we didn't want to disturb their "stuff" with air quotes - you could tell the soldiers were struggling to balance being loyal and secretive servants, and being young men very interested in the group of Americans.


Hagai laid out a map of Israel weighing down the corners with nearby rocks and began to give us our bearings. Israel is only roughly the size of New Jersey and he tried his best to simplify what is a lengthy and complicated political situation - Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians...TBC


Feb12


Today we went to the Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem. We entered a hall that was shaped like a triangle. At the front was a film collage meant to depict normal daily life for Jewish people in the 1930's-40's. The video seemed to float down a street sidewalk peering into the windows of apartments where families were eating, children were playing, and musicians were musing. There were rooms on either side of the main corridor, the design being such that you could not walk from one end (where the film was screening) to the other (a vista of present-day Jerusalem), until you walk through and acknowledged the events of the Holocaust.


We talked about the Righteous Among the Nations, people who risked everything during a very difficult time in history, to help Jewish people survive. The most famous of which is Schindler of course thanks to Mr. Spielberg, but there were artifacts and stories from a whole variety of people, even a thief who knew the underground tunnels so well that he was able to help people escape the ghettos. They used to plant a tree for every Righteous person whose story came to light, but they ran out of room so their name can still be engraved along the pathway.


The first several rooms were right out of the books of my high school history classes - although how intriguing to see the real Nazi flags and propaganda and huge Mein Kampf books hanging all together on the walls to give the effect of what it might have felt like to experience Jewish people through the eyes of the Arian Germans. Namely as rats, thieves, gluttons, parasites, and worse. Scapegoat is a term they weren't aware of at the time but I guess in hindsight there is so much that's painfully obvious.


One of the rooms we went to was dedicated to a camp in the Czech Republic, Theresienstadt or Terezin, which my friend Rachel and I had tried to visit when we were in Prague in 2006 (See blog about Americans lost in Czech countryside.). Her grandparents had been and there so she had wanted to visit but we never quite made it. Apparently, there was a large group of children in that particular camp so the visuals were quite disturbing. One young man had envisioned what it would be like to go up into space, and as a tribute to his life and imagination, they took his painting up in a shuttle. Unfortunately, the shuttle didn't return but it's symbolic I guess if you're willing to overlook the pathos.


Our guide had time to share only a few stories and anecdotes as we made our way through the museum - how can you cover all those years in just a couple hours? While it was unfortunate to walk briskly by so much information with the voices of survivors and their memories echoing through the rooms, it was also a relief to be excused from experiencing the heartache over and over again. The guide told us about a young woman whose mother had handed her her glasses as they exited the train car before they were hastily split into separate lines, heading to separate work camps. At the time the girl didn't know she'd never see her mother again, but I can only imagine that moment as the time passed, when she started to accept and realize that reality. How many regrets must she have had for not being able to say goodbye? The girl managed to keep the glasses tied to her clothing and through the years they turned into just bits of plastic in a cloth pouch. It was the only physical item she had to remember her mother by--no photos, no letters, no family. Walking by the case you could see the skeleton of the glasses, the fragments of rose-colored plastic arranged as if trying to display an ancient relic. It's a story I think everyone can relate to; what it would be like to lose your mother and how tightly you would hold on to any memory you had. I got teary-eyed because so much of what happened is unimaginable but seeing a pair of glasses is so much more tangible than the almost sub-human photographs of skeletons in the camps. 


The museum was packed with tour groups and high school students, but amidst the bustle were people sitting with their heads in their hands. Maybe they're tired. Maybe it's too much to take in. At the end of the museum is a room like a cave with photos in a cylinder above. Jewish people of all ages and walks of life. When you look down into the well below, their faces are reflected above our own. The guide said this is like our memories, faded but ever-present. The room is full of bookshelves holding 2/3 of all the names of those who died in the Holocaust. She said it's important to remember them as faces, names, people with lives and individual stories. Not just a number, 1 in 6 million. 


We filed out of the memorial cave and into a small auditorium where we listened to a survivor, Rina Quint, who was 3-9 years old while she was in the camps. She was passed from "mother to mother", she explained, after she ran from a synagogue being attacked in the ghetto. In a way, it's a mitzvah (see what I did there) to have been so young and to still have lived a full life. But how difficult to have gaping holes in your memory. To not even know what your parents look like. To have had 5 different names every time you are passed to a different family. The scariest part for me is that when I was learning about this at the age of 15 I truly thought to myself "That was SO long ago, it could never happen again." But it still does. I stood in the killing fields in Cambodia where the ground is littered with the colored shirts of the dead and I walked through the classrooms that had been turned into prisons and torture chambers. What do we do about it?


One of the things that Rina said about being a tour guide at Yad Vashem and visiting thereafter, is that people always walk around the shoes of those sent to the gas chambers. They are displayed underneath glass in the floor, and there seems to be an unspoken respect as if it were a gravesite.


After the tour, we went to Mount Herzl where the Israeli politicians and military are buried. The first tomb we visited was Theodre Herzl of course, who is considered the Father of Zionism: "The national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty". Of course as Hagai says, this was not a "new idea" - at the end of the Passover seder it says "and next year in Jerusalem". But it was Herzl who said, why do we keeping waiting for a Jewish state? Next year and next year? 


There is a politician named Yitzhak Rabin who helped to give territory to Palestine and was assassinated during a peace rally by a fellow Israeli who disagreed with his plans of "land for peace". Our guide Hagai read the speech his 17-year-old granddaughter read, after Bill Clinton, at his funeral. It being an emotional day I couldn't help but think about my own grandpa - she spoke about how she missed his hugs and how her grandma cried and it is like a Holocaust for her family:


You will forgive me, for I do not want to talk about peace. I want to talk about my grandfather. One always wakes up from a nightmare. But since yesterday, I have only awakened to a nightmare -- the nightmare of life without you, and this I cannot bear. The television does not stop showing your picture; you are so alive and tangible that I can almost touch you, but it is only "almost" because already I cannot.


Grandfather, you were the pillar of fire before the camp and now we are left as only the camp, alone, in the dark, and it is so cold and sad for us. I know we are talking in terms of a national tragedy, but how can you try to comfort an entire people or include it in your personal pain, when grandmother does not stop crying, and we are mute, feeling the enormous void that is left only by your absence.


Few truly knew you. They can still talk alot about you, but I feel that they know nothing about the depth of the pain, the disaster and, yes, this holocaust, for -- at least for us, the family and the friends, who are left only as the camp, without you -- our pillar of fire.


Grandfather, you were, and still are our, hero. I want you to know that in all I have ever done, I have always seen you before my eyes. Your esteem and love accompanied us in every step and on every path, and we lived in the light of your values. You never abandoned us, and now they have abandoned you -- you, my eternal hero -- cold and lonely, and I can do nothing to save you, you who are so wonderful.


People greater than I have already eulogized you, but none of them was fortunate like myself [to feel] the caress of your warm, soft hands and the warm embrace that was just for us, or your half-smiles which will always say so much, the same smile that is no more, and froze with you. I have no feelings of revenge because my pain and loss are so big, too big. The ground has slipped away from under our feet, and we are trying, somehow, to sit in this empty space that has been left behind, in the meantime, without any particular success. I am incapable of finishing, but it appears that a strange hand, a miserable person, has already finished for me. Having no choice, I part from you, a hero, and ask that you rest in peace, that you think about us and miss us, because we here -- down below -- love you so much. To the angels of heaven that are accompanying you now, I ask that they watch over you, that they guard you well, because you deserve such a guard. We will love you grandfather, always.


We went to the cemetery of the soldiers where on the graves are "pillows" carved of stone and a lantern for a candle. Hagai told us about the grieving process when someone dies: they are buried as soon as possible, hold the funeral, visit the week after the date of the funeral, then in one month, and then only once a year on that date. Hagai said that to go more is to "trouble them" to come down from heaven to sit with you. I think it's a really healthy process that we as Americans could learn from, removing some of the stigma around grieving, we say "Everyone has to do it in their own way", but who really knows how? There is a whole section of the military dedicated to maintaining the burial sights and lighting the candles. 


We walked over to a particular section where there was a unit of men who all died in a helicopter crash. Unlike the uniformity of the others (even the soldiers' ranks are not written on their headstones because each life is considered equal), these had photos and trinkets and flowers instead of rocks that normally indicate that they have been paid a visit. Omer and Neev, the Israeli soldiers who joined us on our trip, spoke about the soldiers in the unit whom they knew. While they spoke Yanni was knelt down over a grave behind us paying his respects emotionally which was somehow beautiful. Sometimes we can be so detached from anything real because we don't want to hurt or feel awkward. I wish I could have taken a picture to capture it. There was a poem written by the mothers of the soldiers about how their children will never come home or become the person they were meant to be, never take the car out again, or see their friends, or have children of their own. The Israeli's sang their national anthem, the tone and cadence was very somber. As we were leaving Omer told us about a solider who jumped on a grenade to save six other soldiers. In the two seconds he had to make a decision that was his instinct. Who of us would do that? 


In Israel, their Memorial Day starts with a siren and everyone stops to pay their respects. The whole day everything payed on TV and on the the radio is Zionist - related to the Holocaust or the wars and all the music is Israeli. In Israel, the memory isn't some distant person in history who died in a different country, for each person it's only 1-2 degrees of separation to someone who has died. At the end of the mourning, the alarm sounds again and even people who are driving on the freeway will stop their cars, step out, and bow their head in silence - and then return to their vehicle and continue driving. The day after Memorial Day, they party and celebrate their independence so it's a reminder of what they died for. 


Hagai's daughter was only 5 years old when she asked him 'Dad, do you know why we are silent? It's to pay respect for the soldiers who have died". He was probably both proud of her and sad at the same time that it's part of the rhetoric from such a young age. He said that all the parents promise their children they wont have to serve in the army but so far it's a promise none of them have been able to keep. Each Israeli citizen, men and women, serves for 3 years in the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) and they get called for a month once a year for their reserve training until they are 42 years old. What a different world for militia and battle to be so entrenched in daily life. Even walking through the bus station there are soldiers with AKs slung over their shoulders as gingerly as I carry my purse.

Worst Bath Ever - Ode to ye ol Victorian.

Imagine, if you will....


I feel the itchy/scratchiness of a cold coming on.  The kind where it hurts on one side of your throat to swallow and you feel mostly otherwise fine and look mostly fine so you can't call in sick for work until your nose starts running down your face when you are nowhere near a tissue.  That kind of sick.


It's a quiet night in my new house and I think to myself, self, you should hop into that claw foot bathtub for a restful soak.  Brilliant idea, Mich.  (I like to give myself kudos.)

But first, I probably should scrub it out, because who knows really.


So I get the comet and a scrub brush and I go to work, totally proud of myself for my incentive amidst my looming illness.  I rinse out the now sparkling ceramic and light an aromatic candle (a flavor I like to call Christmas but it's probably just cinnamon or pine or something).  Then I think, well, I should probably shower first so any leftover soapsies will go down the drain.  A comet bath probably does not do wonders for the human skin.


Shower show, crap!, I need to find the plug for this bad boy.  So I climb out (it's a high tub) dripping wet fumbling around in an as yet un-traversed below-the-sink cupboard which per usual is full of bits and bobs that aren't mine making it difficult to carefully find something - and I locate the damn thing.  And I'm fucking freezing because let's be real, it's San Francisco.


Even prouder still, I get back in and start to run the bath and sit in the basin marveling at how I can lie down fully and, in theory, submerge, boobs and all!  The size of the tub begins to turn into a pitfall as I see the hot water is trickling-at-best out of the faucet and the .5 inch layer of water at the bottom is not serving to keep me warm.  And you know the water at the back is always cold.  So I'm shivering again trying to cup handfuls of warmth over my balled up body.  Flashback to that scene in What's Eating Gilbert Grape.  Poor Leo.  

Ponder ponder ponder.  I will make this work.  How can I make this work.  I get out, leaving the tap running (I know wasting water blah blah but the drought is over right?), and I rush to the kitchen to boil some water in our newfangled boiler pot thing!  All the while, not noticing I'm standing in front of the kitchen window in plain view to the buildings across the yard.  Oh well, I'm busy.


So now I'm shivering in the kitchen, and we all know what they say about waiting for water to boil.  Or a watched pot doesn't boil?  Maybe we don't all know and it's electric anyway so it finally did.  And I then toss that into the bath and hop in!  Victory!


Cold.  Everything cold.  Defeat.


Fine I'll shower.  But low and behold; the shower water is now cold, as I wasted the mid-temp on my shit-town bath that was destined for failure. 


Best part is, P. Kitty watching me run back and forth the whole time likely thinking, you idiot.  Whatever cat.  Whatever.

I want LOVE.

Revisiting an old friend, Rudy Francisco:

“I want that ‘my friends think I’m crazy’ kinda love.


That reckless kinda love.


That ‘wake up early, make you breakfast’ kinda love.


That ‘crack open my life and say look, you gotta see this’ kinda love.


Forget the shallow stuff, I want the deepest kinda love. That ‘I wanna stay up late and tell you all my secrets’ kinda love.


That ‘every time I see you, I fall in pieces’ kinda love.


I want that ‘stand next to me’ kinda love. That ‘you are my destiny’ kinda love.


That ‘no matter what happens, you’ll always get the best of me’ kinda love.


That ‘you get my heart and my mind; this world gets the rest of me’ kinda love. That ‘invest in me’ kinda love. That ‘you already know that I’ve invested in you’ kinda love.


That ‘you come home upset, you don’t even gotta say nothin’, I already know what to do’ kinda love.


I want…I want love.”

I LOVE today.

Even though I (allegedly) owe $640 to the government day after tomorrow, and don't know where I'll be living in 2 weeks (again), and will be officially over the mid-twenties-hill on the 17th (embracing my wisdom and astoundingly enviable life-stability) - today was a good day.

I'm helping to co-facilitate a life-coaching group in Oakland through the non-profit I work for. Everyone in the group is hoping to exit their career counseling sessions with the skills to achieve a job in the "Green" industry (installing solar panels etc). Most of the students have had children at a young age, or didn't graduate high school, and/or have had other familial and life hardships. Although they are motivated to get the most out of the experience, they also have a(n understandably) tough exterior - says the only white girl in the room today dubbed "college-girl".

One of the exercises we did this afternoon was to sit one at a time at the top of the group while each classmate told you what they liked about you. Everyone was respectful, everyone had something to say, and everyone was smiling. At the end, a particularly quiet student said this in reflection:

"Sometimes I am really shy in this group and I don't say much. But I appreciated the chance to tell everyone how I really feel. We see each other every week and soon we will go our own ways, and I realize without this activity I would have never said anything."

I swear I didn't cry. But I wanted to. That might have deteriorated my authority as "college-girl". Who seems like I could also be a "home-girl". So true. So true.

D Day.

Or Q day, as it were. Q as in Quit. Not sure if they covered that one on Sesame Street, but they should have because I could have used a step by step guide.



My friend Dani, who is in sales, offered me free quitting consultations where she indicated "less is more" and emphasized "the silent close". Which, loosely translated is (with the grain of salt that is my mind), "I've received a better offer, I'm giving you 3 weeks notice, and am happy to answer any questions you may have if you put them in writing." Scene.

I said loosely.

It was good to go in with this in the back of my mind because it kept me from jabbering, or revealing too much - for the most part. I mean who is worried about their bosses feelings? While they're quitting?

The conversation was followed up by a dot-pointed e-mail from my boss outlining the reasons I shouldn't leave. Awkward.

So in the new year I'll be back in the non-profit world which is really exciting. Yet another transition! Keep 'em coming I guess.

In other holiday news - my sisters and I recorded a Christmas album for my parents containing such smash hits as "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" and "Walkin' Round In Women's Underwear". It's a sad attempt for the most part, but the super raw/uncut version contains snippets of Jessica clearing her throat, me telling her to shut up, and Stephanie smashing peppermint in the background. Even GarageBand and autotune couldn't help us. I'll see if I can post something so you can get a taste of what it's like to be our parents. They were SO proud.

I LOVE my iPhone. Yup, I'm that girl.

I mean, honestly.

Boizer the Cat.

Last month there was a mini fire in the apartment next door to us, I think it was a stove fire or you know, an 'experiment' gone awry. In SF style about four fire trucks lit up our street and after peeking my head out the window, I made the executive decision to pull my room mate out of the shower. 'Put on a towel. Seriously you HAVE to come see this.' We stood out on the fire escape in the foggy night and watched the crazies file out of the building one by one like a clown car (one of them wasn't wearing shoes or a shirt - so the other neighbor took off his second layer of socks to gift his friend in need). None of this was surprising as Jenna can rarely catch a quiet nap due to the echoing conversations between our neighbor and his cat, Boizer.

While I was making lunch the other day, I overhead one such interaction and tried to capture it. **Turn up the volume, it's a rare moment of hilarity:

"I'll see you tomorrow

Love you Boizer!

Behave now ok?

Come up whenever you can ok?

Boizer if you wanna come up now you can come up...

Oohh - what do you sense Boizer?"

I think he sensed me....

Sometimes you have to wear a feather in your hat. When the hat belongs to a conductor.

You may know that I was recently in the wedding of a close childhood friend. The ceremony was held at the Trentadue Winery in Healdsburg and festivities spanned 4 crazy days. To summarize in a choppy fashion - wine tasting, hot tub, 15 women stuffed in one hotel room, brief moments of starvation, champagne, terror inducing speech (video, which exists, to be filed along with that of me falling down the stairs at my college graduation - I vow to never watch them), more wine/booze, HANGOVER. It was a blast. And I think this picture speaks to that well, and also to the fact that I did not meet my "no cleavage" challenge.

What can you do but Enjoy.

I got my aura read by a Balloon Man.

So I'm at my new job, maybe day 3 or 4, and I'm tasked with tracking down a balloon artist to sculpt a ginormous piece for the Salesforce.com event at Mascone later this year. I do some preliminary research - said artiste has traveled the world (a la www.wherethehellismatt.com) doing a sociology study on happiness meets balloon making for cute kids/people of varying nationalities. This is, by the way, my interpretation based on a 5 minute overview upon which jealousy overwhelmed me and I was forced to close the tab. Mr. Balloon Man calls me after I send through an inquiry and the conversation goes, loosely, as follows:

ME: "Hey, I was wondering if you would be available on blah date, for what cost, do the balloons last 3 days - blah details blah"
Mr. Balloon Man: "I might be traveling, I'm involved in this TV show - what kind of event is it? What kind of people will they be? What kind of information will they be getting?"
ME: "uhh...it's a Salesforce.com event, which is an online database....
SILENCE
...and the attendees will be their customers from all over the bay area and the world..."
SILENCE
Mr. Balloon Man: "Can I ask you a question?"
Me: "OK".
Mr. Balloon Man: "Do you like your job?"

Simple question. Awkward timing. No answer.

It was the right question at the wrong time as I had to think about the answer and simultaneously speak some formation of a lie. And although my boss is extremely intelligent and motivated - I've sold my soul again for another job that's not really advancing my career or my bank account.

But alas, I HAVE a job. I'll admit I like a schedule. And a paycheck - well many paychecks really. So complaining shall cease.

Here's to you, balloon man. Maybe one day I too will get to ask people questions like that whilst I sit on my high horse of happiness and my own business. And if I'm lucky that high horse will actually be a unicorn made of balloons and I can fly into the rainbow sunset.

I'm not bitter.

Why Try To Change Me Now

How I never heard this song before, I don't know. But it speaks to me. Or sings to me. Whatever.

Operation Avoid Homelessness

It's funny that 2 of the stereotypes of San Francisco are extremely high rent, and the inability to pay rent. I currently reside in the awkwardly shaped and uncomfortably cramped part of that venn diagram . Usually I have the confidence that "I'll figure it out no matter what" - I'm no stranger to canned-tuna poverty or being stranded in another country. But I won't lie this time I don't feel the drive to do whatever it takes. Seems like it was that mentality that got me into the job that wasn't right for me in the first place. What's the point of taking whatever arises amidst my desperation if it won't pay my bills or get me anywhere in my journey around the monopoly board? Or maybe I should have gone with Life as my pseudo reality in childhood game format.

Anyway. This month I'm pimping art. Not in any formal way, I'm sure my parents will be my primary customer base along with a few of my ever devoted friends. But at least I won't feel like I'm selling out - neither being a mid twenties nowhere-to-go townie living at home (not that there's anything wrong with that mom - you're great and feel free to cook for me anytime) nor taking another job working for a camel-toed troll. Yeah, picture that.

Is there a middle ground? Is it possible to find yourself or a passion that pays under the pressure of eviction? Stay tuned, T minus 30 days to find out.

In the meantime, peep my flickr and let me know if you can't live without one of my photos on your wall!

www.flickr.com/photos/michellekoffler/

I can also be commissioned for art - but keep in mind I'm a bit amateur.

What to say when you have nothing to say

"When you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything." But where's the fun in that?

What I learned after getting fired: when all you want to do is wallow in self pity, booze, and bedding - the hardest thing to do is not.

And in a stroke of unfortunate coincidence it was also a mere day 2 of my diet I'm determined to stick to (I need to fit into the bridesmaid dress by September so as not too look too different than my size zero co-BM - I'm sure she'll like that name). So no sympathy drinks, no comissery ice cream. Aware that comissery isn't a word but it felt right. And hey, nothing like deep rooted hatefulness and simultaneous hopelessness to get you in a great work-out mood!

What you may be thinking is, "Don't you hate your job?" REGARDLESS. No one wants to be taken advantage of, or for "the man" to get the last word, or to be unemployed with San Francisco rent and student loans for baggage! And last I checked, being fired for being "unhappy" is not legitimate termination practice. I would know, I read all the HR policies that they don't follow.

Has anyone been applying for jobs lately? I hate to join the long line of whiners with much more to lose than I so I'll keep it short; is my only option to make $12/hr doing something I'm overqualified for? Truly I think the only solution is to start a business. Yes, I'm a control freak and what more perfect way than for me to get my way, all the time. I mean really.

Had much more to say - but it all feels blurry now. Off to 15-hour road trip to Arizona. I know.

Rubix Cuba

Today's Cliche: I'm a little uninspired by my job(s) and listless direction.

How unfair is it that we spend the majority of the waking hours of each waking week of our waking lives doing things that are uninspiring? By 'we' I'm assuming that I correctly infer a majority, save a select few: like the guys on The Buried Life. They probably aren't included in that lot.

Yes, I did just allude to an MTV miniseries documentary that I've been unconventionally obsessed with. The simplest idea and a quote we've heard a million times, "Live each day as if it were your last" - And these guys are doing it. The result is kind of perfect: they meet new people, cross their goals off of a Bucket List one by one, and often times the process of getting what they dreamed of turns into a sucky full-time job. Yeah I wouldn't mind going to a party at the Playboy mansion, but waiting inside a wooden cake for 6 hours dressed as an oompa loompa is not my idea of a good time regardless of the outcome. Holler for perseverance. So as envious as I am in the 22 minute airtime of each show (more of their youthful drive and less Playboy bunnies), I realize if I truly did live every day as if it were my last, I would be homeless in a hot second. And perhaps have some broken bones....or an STD. I'm just saying!

Same goes for traveling I guess. And by same I mean wait for me to explain. Most everyone in my generation's radius is toting a BA degree in one hand, and a Euro/Latin American/study abroad Facebook photo album at their fingertips - many of us have more than one and I'm the guiltiest of them all. As easy as it is to be envious of those that are cruising the streets of Spain while you're sitting staring at [enter monotonous Microsoft Office program here], if you try very hard the subtle nuances of travel can make you appreciate your desk job. The ones you only hear about when you REALLY listen to someone's travel experience or sit around long enough for them to let out the whole truth. Long lines, getting lost, money stolen, great food which leads to prolonged toilet trips (pray you're not in India for that one), horrbile food too, more time spent with your travel companion(s) then the people who actually live in the country you're in, and inevitably one form of 'white guilt' or another.

But I have to admit, sometimes those moments where the only place you want to be is home in bed, are the times you remember most and make you truly stonger: my 22-hour train ride to Beijing, the pouring rain (and beer) during Carnaval in Brazil, getting lost outside of Prague in the Czech Republic, staying on a boat hostel in Amsterdam, or sleeping in a questionable-at-best hotel in Tokyo. Granted I just moved back from Australia 6 months ago, but I'm already itching for an adventure, something to look forward to.

VIVA CUBA!

Why do I want to go to Cuba?

To learn about and from the people, the history but also their daily lives. To see the country that is suspended in time (at least in my imagination) with its vintage cars and colonial architecture speckled with aged pealing paint. To experience the dancing, the Jazz, the rum - and I don't even like rum. And take pictures the whole time.

Cuba is a big challenge for me. It'll be the first trip I'm planning alone, saving for as a big girl while still paying for my apartment and bills etc. And there's the whole, it's kind of not allowed thing...But I've been reading up on it and its not a big enough threat to make me feel nervous. Hopefully Obama has my back. Cuba just feels somehow special.

And I want to be a more mature me when I go. There's so many photos I've missed out on because I didn't want to bother anyone with my camera, so many conversations I missed because I was self-conscious of my Spanish. I want to go and get it right. Even if 'right' means riddled with mistakes. Who's coming?

On a San Francisco Note: this city is amazing. Did a Saturday morning brunch and hike/jaunt through the Haight - Castro neighborhoods and Kristen, who is probably sick of being my model couture, led me to one of the most beautiful views I've seen in a long time. An adventure is always just around the corner in my dearest of cities.

Ended the arvo, nod to my Aussies, with some mimosas at Dolores Park along side the hipsters bubble blowers and obnoxiously small dogs. Afternoon delight in the highest order.

Yeah, she saw me.

To end on several awkward personal notes:

1. There is a mouse in my house. I'm not cool with it. And my landlord used my gourmet peanut butter that has thus far, only fed little mickey and not captured him. Unless he starts making ratatouille he has to go.
2. I'm writing this blog by the light of an amish candle. No you didn't miss anything, I'm dead serious.
3. I lost a friend this week. It blows, to simplify several teary nights. But I'm glad I'm finally cool with me. My biggest achievement, this week if not in 24 years, is being truly able to say, "I'm a good friend and person." and mean it despite what anyone says. Who knew that could be so hard?

Fighting with Feathers

Turns out it hurts.

One second you can be staring in a mirror with distaste at the ever-present zit that is so big it came right out of My So Called Life (aka the 90's when I should have started and stopped getting them), then you are going to the gym and grocery shopping and errand running like a good 24 year old should, and then, you get pulled back into a world where a stranger at the check out counter actually talks to you and asks how you are, even when you look like crap, and tells you to go to a pillow fight in the Embarcadero. I love San Francisco.

So you call up your good friend Kristen, who despite having a boyfriend of a lovely sort is willing to overlook the necessity to be with said lover for the entirety of the loverliest day of February, hop on a Muni at the corner of Dolores Park with the hipsters and pajama wearing pillow toting others, and make way to the water.

(I don't even know what tense I'm writing in at this point but it has to stop. Don't judge me).

When we walked the remaining block of Market, we were heading straight to the photographer/paparazzi line. Sometimes it feels less special to be just another lens in a sea of lenses.

I lifted to the tippiest top of my 8'5" tip toes and saw the blur of popcorning marshmellows as people slammed each other with pillows. Softness and acknowledged intention buffering what in any other circumstance would be such an awkward public blow. Part of me wanted to get right up close, like as if they were behind glass - and just see the slow motion impact of cotton to face. Talk about a way to get out aggression (I just remembered how to spell that word by reciting the cheer b-e-a-g-g-r-e-s-s-i-v-e in my head. Not a good look). Every few minutes feathers would explode upward into the air as if a dove had been shot, and then rain down like snow. At one point some firecrackers went off in the crowd. The urban people ducked. Yes I said urban - the thing about blogs is you never know who's reading.

We stood chucks deep in feathers watching the weary emerge red faced, panting, and aged by white fluff. It only took one stray feather fighter molting in our direction to send us on our way. Luckily the fight followed beyond the battlefield as anyone walking down market with a pillow was automatically entered into a duel with a miniskirted, shrieking girl. Fiercer than you might imagine but just as annoying.

Then atop a 39th floor hotel with a cocktail view of our dearest city, Kristen and I discussed boxes. How intense the world would be if you had to think of every detail of every little thing from the table you're sitting at, to the person you're talking to, to the universe you're in. Like when you pass a homeless person and you wonder, what is your life like? Who were your parents and what crazy stories to do you have? What normal stories do you have. And when you take the time to let someone out of the careful box you packed them into, they always surprise you, in some way. You surprise yourself sometimes.

Ended the night with some Castro queenies, a Hot Cookie, well several, and an awkward phone call.

But you know how some days you just feel like you have a clean slate? Nothing really holding you back but you? I felt like that.

Happy Valentines Day!

P.S. I love Cherry Blossoms and Painted Ladies.

You Know You Live in San Francisco When...

• On your walk home you pass people smoking weed on their doorstep.

• You have to spend 30 minutes every night looking for parking. And then always manage to walk uphill home from wherever you parked.

• You get to wake up an hour later to get to work (my personal favorite).

• You can eat at any time of the day,

• You drive by prostitutes on your way home.

• People have art galleries in their garage, or rent it out for $400/month, rent in some places!

• You start making friends with the crazies.

crazy lady: "Hey girl! Is it raining?"

me: "No, just carrying my umbrella"

crazy lady: "Ohh shooo I see you just ::::::siiiiiingin in the raiiiiinn, just siiiiiingin in the raaaain::::!!!"

me: "yup."

• You stop honking a tourists. They are everywhere.

• There's a liquor store, bar, coffee shop, and laundry mat all on your street.

I'm sure there's more - but hey I've only been here a couple days.

SF Apartment Hunt Highlights

So it's 2010, I'm going to be 25 years old soon. Consequently, sharing a bed with my 17 year old sister, closet with my mom, and couch with my dad was not what I foresaw as the way I wanted to begin the new decade. Thus initiated the apartment hunt in San Francisco allowing me to stay in the bay area (which after 24 countries of travel I still find to be the best place in the world), while situating a modest red bridge between me and my 'past'. Accessible, but a $6 toll.

Saw a few places and the noteworthy commentary is as follows:

Sutter/Pac Heights: We wanted it, and so did 30 others. Nice view, small, newish. Into it.

Polk St: A barrage of color on every wall. "Vaulted ceilings" = unfinished architecture with collections of old cleaning supplies and god-knows-what on the top of the faux walls. An eclectic sketch of a centaur playing the flute (literally a penciled sketch on the wall), saturated sleeping pads on the floors, duct taped windows, mounds of dishes in the sink, and my personal favorite - a friendly vine growing INSIDE through the vent. As Jenna so aptly put, "The listing needs a scratch and sniff sticker" to account for the smells de Asia emanating through the walls and the bathrooms you have to pass in the hallways. No wonder they duct taped the windows...

Pine St: First location, great on paper with a yard and dishwasher and washer/dryer in the apartment. But had the feeling of a psych ward and all its associated charm. Second Pine locale was reaching our list of perfect, but one room was MASSIVE, and the other the size of a closet. This is getting frustrating.

Lombard/Marina: 3 bedroom for 2 grand, don't mind if I do. Tell me more please. Changes up the living situation a bit but totally worth it! Hardword floors and big windows, close to the Presidio. Read some reviews on the crackhead broker who warned us about all the trouble they have with homeless people in that location - and Citibrokers were aptly labeled "Slumlords" on Yelp. Said 'nay' to the apartment but it wasn't for naught as 'Slumlord' is my new favorite word.

Also found our IDEAL situation that was literally too good to be true. A young, 'nice Jewish boy', as my dad would say, showed us a two bedroom apt, deck on top of the roof with a view of the golden gate, adorable 50's style bathroom, utlities and cable/dsl included...Catch-No kitchen. Sorry what? I didn't realize I even needed to specify that as a requirement! And that turns out to be the only catch that would stop us from living there. The current tenants seemed to be making do using the bath tub, but after a slice and a beer from Pizza Orgasmica, yes, even I needed a beer after that disappointment, Jenna and I decided that the backlog of food leftovers and subsequent environmental damage we would be doing with our disposable goods - would be a deal breaker.

Western Edition: We found our place! Hard wood floors, near Divis, backyard area, closet space, big kitchen. Signed the lease yesterday on my lunch break and technically can move in tomorrow!





Currently facing the soul-searching dilemma of - What is my style? Never really had to think about it before, but I have some RANDOM shit. And Craiglist is a sespool of furniture, seriously not only will I not take that couch for free, you couldn't pay me to sit on it. But maybe that's the Marin in me coming out. You can take the girl out of the county...







Reality: I AM MOVING OUT! An exhausting process but I am SO excited. Now to procure a moving team.