cutting great neck

i smell like poop.

my eyes are locking shut by themselves. i'm about to faint. i have to memorize 350 vocab words for tomorrow english. i'm too tired. i want to nap a little.

had a snowday last monday.

no pictures.

am too lazy.

play, guide post.

i realized today how useless, dull life is. i realized how there's nothing for us to live for. that we'll have to work and fight for nothing, for the most meager of prizes. children, money, sex. and i know i'm being so freudian right now, but it's truth and that's what matters.

how relationships change in the blink of an eye.

i've been listening to the idan raichel project lately. and i've--i've realized that he truly embodies the israeli spirit, the israeli identity.

i wish i could live there for a year or so. i wish i could see what i missed out on. i wish i could understand what my old friends are going through, what the world seems like to them. i want to be able to stay up till two in the morning and walk into a cafe--somewhat, cafes in israel are different than here... i don't know how to explain it--or just to wake up in the morning and look outside into the red dunes, sands, harsh white sun, cold marble floors, hot summer nights outside...

i don't know. i don't think i remember summer in israel. i don't think i remember much... from a lot of places.

my dad's been making dvds from old videotapes of us, and so sometimes we'd gather around the computer and watch... the past. and i find that i don't remember much of anything. sure, i can recall madrid or dancing and singing in the backyard in palo alto--but i don't remember so many of the places we've gone to, in san francisco, in san diego, in israel, and i feel so secluded and frightened... i feel like i've been swallowed up by my memory, by my lack of memory.

i miss it, a lot. sometimes.

but would i like to move there? oh, i'm not so sure now. i remember in september, how lonely and wretched i felt, how much i yearned to live in israel again... but now... i'm not so sure. i'm not so sure.

manhattan on saturday february 28



sometimes i feel like life is... is like a long, roatating journey packed with ennui and fatigue, at times spotted with good points that sooner or later become strenuous bores, unneeded chores--a life filled with things from a life that has been lived before, a life... i don't know.



manhattan on saturday,
manhattan on sunday,
manhattan on saturday,
great neck the rest of the week,
cold air,
same people, same activities.

sometimes i feel like there's only history to look forward to; the past, the intriguing, beautiful past, jam-packed with death, violence, peace, love, hope, fury.



we went with the shapiras to south side seaport, that tourist hole near wall street, and then we went up towards chinatown but never made it, so then we just returned and dined at the same turkish place we ate at in june.

hmm.

we have guests now and i want to tell ya'll how nice life is and how normal and how ordinary and how strange my life is still and how dark night is outside, how dangerous, how enchanting like a movie.

ohh and yes, i did see two grand movies this weekend: "all about eve" (such a screenplay, such actors) and "la strada" (a bizarre connection to the glorious "nights of cabiria.")



i want to live in europe when i grow older; not new york, not san diego, not san francisco, not israel. europe: france, england, ireland, spain, greece, italy, germany romania russia. i want to live in a place where not everything revolves around you, when society has a social aspect and does not only consist of statistics.




i've been listening to a bunch of israeli songs lately

and i want to be in israel again

just to be there, alone, independent, in a small mediterranean apartment

with some girl, just locked up

and go to clubs, and listen to music and eat watermelons in the summer:

is it all that bad?

there is something like you
in me; something capricious
and sickly, a long shadow
inside my eye that expands
and contracts with the wind,
black and vile. i see you, the
vicarious creature, the untenable
wolf; vexing and peeling away
scars that have dried long ago,
drawing blood that has poured
long ago. you extend a drooling
arm, like a curtain, waving in
the wind and rain. the and needs
to be smaller, because we all
know that wind and rain
always go together, don’t we?
like harold and maude? and
porgy and bess? and sometimes,
i think, you and me—but not in
the small and sort of way, more like
in two voices that fall into place,
red and rose, chanting hymns together
like twirling snakes. sometimes,
i think, you and me need
smaller ands, like wind & rain,
wood & fire, dark & light.
you & the and is as little as
the light at the end of the tunnel.

insert blank:

life is ___________


a)disappointing
b) horrible
c) leave as is
d) all of the above



no snow. no happiness. no life.

i am a particularly angsty teen. today has been horrible. in all of my classes, i felt... well, for a lack of a better term, not superior. or inferior. inferior to other individuals.



my friendliness with miserable eric (a disgustingly tall&pale, mindless, skittish sophomore who likes to create awkward situations and frivolously flaunts his adoration of zack efron and high school musical [1, 2, 3] who confirmed to me his bisexuality [does he know what sexuality even is?] on thursday night when i was compelled to spend an evening with him and watch benjamin button [overrated somewhat]) has not paid off yet, and as i leave my drama 1 class with him in it i feel somewhat joyous, somewhat anxious for fifth period drama rep.



second period, hebrew, as always, felt secluded. this is the only class in which i still keep to myself, still keep silent. i am the teacher's pet, a democrat and an ashkenazi, which apparently does not match the particulars of anyone in the room except moi.

third period was all right; i discovered am 82% on math midterm, which i previously believed to be a FAILED.

fourth period--88% on history test (highest of all time! YES! [well, it's AP]) and 75% on essay (YES! highest in the class!!!).



drama rep... meh.

english was a bit of a hullababoo today or whatever you wish to call it. teacher returned papers--apparently i and another girl, a particularly brainless blond, have not been given back our papers. oh well--typing it at the moment, taking an extra-long break. my heart was beating so hard. i need an a in english fuck.

spanish... 96% overall, if i turn in notebook probably 98%.



chemistry, teacher (i love ms. afkhami. i think she's muslim which makes me love her even more. the utter courage to teach in such a jewish-oriented campus is astounding. i know she is iranian, and am kinda sure she is muslim.) told me i fit in ap physics next year. yucks--am not elated, though enjoying her consideration of my intellect. maybe because told her my psat score? and because we both love obama?

after school, i had tryouts for a play. apparently we were all called back for tomorrow. it's a good play too, so i'm crossing my fingers--need, yearn those extracirriculars.




anyway, nobody in tryouts paid any attention to me. but like 3/4s knew me. gackk.

and then after terrible tryouts i had fun with loren who i never actually... met, seriously. she helped me on my shakespeare.

and a little bit extra.



came home. tireeddd. had trouble sleeping last night.



sometimes when im really not tired i lie in bed and fall into this sleep trance where i am awake but not really, like i think as if i am awake but it's more like a dream. i just lie there and consider different possibilities. it happened once with politics, but i am not sure what i was thinking about last night. and it's like you think about it and you're not sure if you're awake or not and then it's 7 in the morning and you realize you hadn't actually slept at all.



it's going to snow tomorrow.




:)

so basically, life is pretty much weird.

first post in two months: let's make it a good one.

who's reading this? no one, probably.

so i had this huge headache today and i don't know why. i'm extremely superstitious when it comes to headaches so i was not sure why this headache slapped into me on this very day. maybe because i woke up on the wrong side of the face. maybe because i drank coca-cola for breakfast. maybe because i ate waaaaay too much today, and yesterday, and the day before, and even the day before. maybe it's because...

because i don't know about israel anymore.

it's boring. it's still home, but it bores me. i expected it to be different. but israel always stays the same. the same colors, the same people, the same food, everything so stationary, so lifeless, so usual, and now i don't really understand why i even anticipated anything different. maybe i had my hopes up. expectations. maybe israel isn't really my home.

is it my home?

fuck, who even knows. i don't believe in god anymore, though it pains me. is that the reason for my headache? maybe there is a god and he doesn't like me not believing in him so he lightning-struck me with this horrid mind-wrecker?

no, god doesn't know if israel is my home or not because he doesn't exist.

the truth is, i feel like during this whole trip i've been putting up this fake front. it's the biggest one i've ever pulled, and though there are some gaping holes in it, i feel like it has been somewhat successful, considering the difficulty. anyhow, this front is destroying everything i stand for and it disappoints me that life is so hard, so miserable that human beings can't even be themselves. why should someone be scared of walking around with a headscarf around, oh, i don't know, great neck ny? or why should someone be refused their right to marry their loved one? i hope all of this will change in the next century. i hope people will be seen solely as people and not as muslims, blacks, gays, sluts.

if i become a politician, a journalist, a whatever, then i will fight for this idea to the death.

but the truth is, i don't know if there is anyone who i can show myself to, or anyone who can show themselves to me. the latter is more severe than the former. i have too many acquaintances, too little friends. if i had to pick one person to live with for my entire life in a desert island, i wouldn't know who to pick. would i pick anyone? not my father, not my sister, not my mother. names swoop around like giant birds in my head. who? who? and i feel like this plays a large part in my innermost misery. who can i lean on? no one. who can i trust? no one. i can only trust myself. i can only grow my inner soul into a mature, sociable, normal character. nobody else can do anything for me. nobody else can shape me or touch me or befriend me. because i've lived too long without good friends. i've lived too long searching, too little finding, too little settling. maybe one of these days, i'll live in an exotic land--spain, france--where i would find friends, lovers. people. i could trust them.

i feel like, due to the situations that have been thrust upon me, i'm the most miserable person in... in the vast network of human beings that i know. i feel like my life has been marked by a black omen since my delivery in schneider hospital, or that my future has been marred by a negligent upbringing and overly compassionate consideration. who has to deal with all these issues? my life has been tossed and thrown around without any care to anything like i was a, a, a basketball, like god [again, god=spit, so, metaphorically, ? ...] decided to surf a rebound and shoot me and throw me around the world. i am a broken, outcasted soul, extricated from the burning center of society into the gray-blue outposts of life. i can send letters to the center, sure, maybe even take the bust there once in awhile. but i'll never live there.

for now, i need escapes--i yearn for them, reach for them. escapes: school, journalism, politics, manhattan. another headache pill could do the trick. but i'll also be searching--searching for my whole life--for more, more, more escapes--movies, Europe, nytime--more and more and more, until i would just explode. escapes will shower me by the gallon.

my head burns like a potfull of beans and beef, or chunt in other words. yum...

water? food? shelter?

i don't know what i'm doing here. what i'm doing here in the basement of my cousin's house. in my cousin's house. in hod hasharon. in israel. in this world. what the fuck am i doing here in this world?