blogging

Everpresent

Sometimes I find it amazing that humans have managed to exist as a conscious race at all. Think about it for a moment – we’re each stuck with our own mind and our own emotions all the time. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, there isn’t any escape. When we live with other people, we have to “endure” them all the time as well, but we’re only dealing with the outward projection of this person’s thoughts and emotions. Even living with children, who speak out about what they need and want rather more than adults, isn’t the same as how we live with ourselves.

If I sound rather gloomy or negative here, I apologize, for that is not my intention at all. Of course we all have painful moments where we have a difficult time with ourselves and we feel the need to escape from something that we can never escape from. But that’s not what I’m alluding to in this post – I’m mostly thinking about the mundane, everyday thoughts that we deal with. Our minds are always buzzing with thought and emotion, always trying to figure things out, always thinking things we’d rather not think about. We have control over ourselves, but only to a point. How many times have we tried to get rid of a tune or song that’s stuck in our head? We only succeed when we’re truly distracted by something else, outside of us.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that it’s incredible so many of us are still sane, stuck with ourselves as are.

Move [Part VI]


Marianne was in a chair that resembled the kind found in dentists’ offices, except that there were no trays full of sticks for fiddling in mouths beside her. Instead, she was loosely strapped into this chair at her wrists and ankles, and she was alone. Opposite her she could see a wall that was one long mirror. She knew that this wall must be a one way mirror and that the people who gave her instructions were, in fact, on the other side and watching her every move. As if it’s not bad enough that they get to see my thoughts, she thought bitterly.It had been three days now since Marianne had been taken from her cold, steel room. Miss Flanders, the woman who had collected her from there, had taken her to a spacious room, steel like the first, but warm and full of comforts. She had a comfortable bed with a thick mattress, a desk with some writing paper and pens on it, and, best of all, a bookcase crammed full of books. There was also a spare bed in the room, but Marianne was quite alone and there didn’t seem to be any other occupant at any time.

Marianne felt that she was now pampered, as if to placate her after the bad treatment she had received. Miss Flanders and the others greatly wanted her cooperation, and she was ashamed that she had given it to them, mostly because she was too weary and too scared to defy them.

But not for much longer… No, mustn’t think about that, or they’ll know. She quickly began to think about her mother again and about her sadness and aching heart and the way she missed her home. But in the back of her mind, which she had learned to hide away, a plan was forming…

Nightclub

As you enter, you hit not so much a wall, but rather a whole cathedral of sound. There is no escape, no corner where relief from it can be found. If you’re there, you’re not looking for that kind of relief anyway. No, if you’re there, if you’re one of the mass and crush of bodies that fill the place, you’re looking for the kind of relief that can be found only in surrounding and drowning yourself in sound.

Darkness – though punctured by swirling colored lights one moment and a bright flashing white light the next moment – is still the feeling and the living presence that dominates the space. You can feel it in every square inch, the darkness being beckoned and welcomed as a savior, as a necessity, as a living thing to be worshiped. The throng of people treat the darkness as a blessing, a way to keep their anonymity, a way to overcome shyness or fear, a way to live out their wildest sides.

The music is no less important than the darkness. It seems to induce madness, or perhaps levitate towards ecstasy, as people lose themselves in the movement, in the noise, in the never-ending thrum of the bass in their hearts and stomachs. Smoke coils endlessly in the air, the pungent smell of strong alcohol mixing with it, as cigarettes are lit one after another, as drinks pass from hand to hand.

Filler Post

I’m rushing out of the house and I’m moaning about the fact that I can’t write anything until I get back from my outing.
And so, as a filler, I will post a joke that I found very funny for some reason. It’s translated from Hebrew, so if it doesn’t flow right, it’s because of my translation:

A man walks down the street and sees another guy walking towards him with a penguin. The first man asks the second one, “What are you doing with a penguin?!” and the second man replies “I’m taking it to the zoo!” The first man is satisfied and walks away.
The next day, he sees the man walking along with the penguin again. He stops him and asks, rather angrily, “I thought you took it to the zoo!” to which the first man blinks innocently and says “Well, I can’t take it the same place every day, can I? One day the zoo, the next day the movies, you know…”

Good Impression? Defintely Not.

I am going to share a little story with you. As most of you know, I’m applying to colleges and am currently waiting for answers from most places. One of the places that I applied to was Yale. Yes, it’s definitely one of my reach-schools, and I have no real belief that I’ll get in, but who knows?

I got a call the other day from a woman. She was one of those women who talk through their noses, and Hebrew through the nose is even more annoying than any other language spoken that way. She asked me if I was who I was, I replied that I am, and she then started saying something along the lines of “I understand my boss is supposed to be interviewing you…?” I, of course, replied confusedly that I have no idea who her boss is and I don’t know if he’s supposed to interview me.

Eventually she managed to figure out that her boss was a Yale alumni and that he wants to interview me, as part of the application process. We agreed on a time and date, and eventually hung up, to my ears’ great relief.

The interview is tomorrow, the alumnus is  a lawyer, and I’m already nervous that he’s going to be the biggest prat on the planet – if only because he had his secretary call me [the Brown alum called himself] and didn’t even tell her who I was or what sort of interview we’re supposed to be having. I ask you, is this the sort of impression I’m supposed to have about Yale right from the start? Pompous asses who don’t really care much?

Little Stories

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about children’s books. When you’re a child, the books you remember most are the ones that you’ve either read with your parents over and over again, or else they’re the ones that tell about everyday events, things you can relate to. For instance, I remember this book I read again and again as a girl, a book with three whole chapters! I felt so proud of myself, reading a book with chapters – it was a book about a little girl going to school; how her lessons are harder and how she plays hopscotch with her friend and how she makes friends with a boy who’s always picking on her.

I’ve been wondering though, how you go about writing a children’s book. They’re often so simple on the surface, so rudimentary and easy to read and sometimes even so mundane – and yet, the good ones are enchanting. You never forget the books you’ve read as a child. But how does a writer go about writing a children’s book that could be published? How do you write a children’s book that’s good enough to be something you charge for and isn’t just a story that you tell your own kids?

It can’t be as easy as it would seem, writing a children’s book.

Casual Warfare

If there is one thing that people who live in stable countries don’t understand, it’s how casually a country can slip in and out of war. Perhaps I’m being unfair though – perhaps it is only this odd country, a so-called “Holy Land,” that acts this way. This place, Israel, Palestine, The Land Where Jesus Walked – whatever you want to call it, it has been, and apparently forever will be, a battleground.

It is an extremely odd feeling to realize how casually and nonchalantly we accept the state of warfare and the murderous activities that suddenly flare up around us here. The most people seem to be doing is starting different Facebook groups, so now my inbox there is filled with invitations like: “Join the ‘Boycott all Israeli Arabs!’ group,” “Join the ‘I agree with Israel invading Gazza’ group,” and “Join the ‘Everyone change their profile pictures to the Israeli flag!’ group.”

It’s horrid. It’s horrible. It’s, most of all, weird. It’s not normal to sit at work and hear people getting phone calls about rockets landing in their cities of residence and not to have that bother you particularly. It’s not normal to see people joking on the inter-office emails about how they hope they won’t get blown up on their rides home. It’s not normal to need to wish your coworker to feel better when she leaves work early because of a cold and to tell her in the same breath to be careful and not to leave the house too much.

Every time this country slips casually into war, almost without my noticing, I feel that humankind must be insane.

Move [Part V]

Something was different. Marianne knew it the moment she woke up, because she woke up naturally, for once. There was no rattle of the dumbwaiter; there was no muffled crackle of the speaker. She sat up on her mattress, crossed her legs, and rubbed her eyes. She looked around the room, and immediately saw a difference. A difference so staggering that she felt her stomach clench – whether with fear or excitement, she didn’t know.There was someone in the room with her. Someone was sitting on a simple, steel chair that was right against the opposite wall. Marianne gaped. She took the person sitting there in, inch by inch, while they scrutinized her right back.

The person sitting in the chair was a woman. She had very high cheekbones that were prominently displayed over the black doctor’s mask that was hiding the rest of her lower face. A pair of eyes, the iris’s so darkly brown they appeared black from afar, were above the cheekbones, perfectly framing a slightly long, very straight nose. The woman’s hair was rather surprising – she was a redhead. Though her hair was swept back in a tight bun, it seemed like it wanted to break out and spring back into its normal state of bouncy curliness.

The woman crossed her legs and placed her white hands upon her knee. She then spoke, and Marianne knew instantly that it was this woman’s voice that pierced her through every day, the voice that emerged from the crackly speaker. It was deep, for a woman, and slightly rough, but there was a musical tone to it as well, as if this woman could sing jazz easily.

“Well,” she said. “It’s nice to finally be able to greet you in person, Marianne.”

Marianne didn’t know what to say, so she continued to stare at the woman. She wondered if the woman expected her to be pleased to see a human face, perhaps even be grateful for it. She got her answer in a moment though, when the woman spoke again.

“I’m sure you hate me, Marianne. That’s alright, I don’t really care one way or another,” the woman’s eyes crinkled as she spoke, as if she were smiling beneath the mask. “I am glad, however, of how obedient you’ve been since those first few days when things were… shall we say, difficult. You’ve become a model subject. Your progress is impressive, I must say. It is time, therefore, to get you out of this room and into the next stage of our facilities. I think you will find them more comfortable than these rooms.”

The woman stood up, and moved the chair to one side. The panel of steel wall behind her instantly slid open. She beckoned to Marianne, and gestured toward the open doorway, which seemed to lead into a hallway made of some more steel.

“Well…?” she said. “I hope you’re not going to make this difficult.” A threatening note was evident in her voice as she continued with “You know what happens then, don’t you, Marianne?”

Marianne got to her feet. She strode through the door, shivering slightly at the thought of what would happen if she struggled now. She really, truly didn’t want to know.

Paranoid Much?

I haven’t written about my clients before – both because they’re not always very interesting and because I’m not technically supposed to. I work for a credit card company, so I get to talk to just about every sort of person you could imagine: Smart, dumb, confused, annoyed, happy, thankful, nice, sweet, appreciative, secretive, and a hundred other moods and traits. It’s interesting to hear the different people and the different voices, and it’s interesting to see how differently people act with their money.

Today, however, I actually have an interesting story about a client, a specific one. The call started out nice and polite – he wanted to know his credit limit and what money will be coming out of his bank account. He was very sweet, talking to me a bit about where our company is in the country and making sure we were away from any danger [Israel is in a “situation” right now.] Then, somehow, slowly but surely, he started telling me about problems he had with banks in the past.

I thought, at first, that he was just a rambler – there are some people like that, who are lonely or bored and take the opportunity to get some conversation into their day when they call us. Soon, though, he started telling me, in a calm voice, about how his phones are tapped, how he’s followed everywhere, how his mail is examined and stopped, how he’s been cheated in place after place.

Eventually, he made me understand that the sole reason for his telling me all this was because he knows our calls are monitered and recorded for future reference if needed, and he told me he planned to use the calls he makes to us in court – to prove… something or other. I really have no idea. It was rather creepy though – the man sounded so sane and on top of things, and then I felt, as the call progressed, that there was something seriously wrong here.

But who knows, right? Maybe in six months there will be a big story in the paper about this man. You never know I suppose.

Just A Bench

Think of a bench you know. Just a bench, a regular bench – just made of some planks of wood and a few rusty nails. Picture this bench that you see every day, on your way to work or the supermarket, and never think about twice. And now, indulge me for a moment, and really think about it. There is life in that bench.

A thousand people have sat on that bench. Hundreds have put their arms around the back of it, or perched on the edge of it, or lay down upon it. So many have stopped to tie their shoes there, or put down their grocery bags on it for a moment, or even walked along on top it for fun.

This bench, this commonplace, every day object has witnessed so much: Old men sitting on it and schmoozing for hours, watching the world go by; Old women putting down their purses on it and waiting there for the bus into town; Children have walked on it, holding their parents’ hands and squealing, feeling so high up; Those same children, years later, sitting on it and fervently passing a cigarette around late at night, feeling naughty; The homeless have made homes of it; The drunkards have made beds of it; The mad have had conversations with it; The weather has, of course, never shown it one bit of mercy.

This bench has probably encountered more people than we will speak to in a lifetime. This bench, in a way, has held more life than we will ever know upon its rickety wooden planks, carved and scratched and scarred as they are, holding the memories of hundreds upon hundreds. This bench is more alive and full of memory and experience than we will ever be able to comprehend.