Move, bitch.

So tonight was fun.
This afternoon Kat and I hung out and tanned by her pool (much needed). And then I was home packing because I leave for Cape Cod on Monday when Kate calls me. She wants to know if I want to go out and get coffee. (Am I breathing?)

After we got out mocha latte half-caf half-skim no fat what's-her-fuck shit, we drove around a bit. Kate is quite the opposite driver as Chris. She pretends to be all bad-ass with her rap music blarring (Move, bitch. Get out the way, get out the way) and AC/DC's "Back in Black." But she goes the speed limit or a little above it and is only agressive when it comes to cursing or flipping people off.

We drove around until we got lost and then until we got bored. So we just came back here. Now I'm exhausted but hyped up on caffeine so there's not going to be much sleep tonight.

Tomorrow is Ash's graduation party down the shore. I'm happy and I'm sad.
I don't know if I can say goodbye to her, not yet.

When I went to your town on the wide open shore,
Oh I must confess, I was drawn,
I was drawn to the ocean.
I thought it spoke to me,
It said, "Look at us,
We're not churches, not schools,
Not skating ponds, swimming pools.
We have lost people, haven't we though?"
That's what the ocean can know of a body.
That's when I came back to town,
This town is a song about you.
The ones that can know you so well
Are the ones that can swallow you whole.
I have a good and I have an evil.
I thought the ocean,
The ocean thought nothing.
You are the welcoming back from the ocean.
But the ocean can't come to this town.
This town is a song about you.
You dont know how lucky you are.
You dont know how much I adore you.

Currently Listening: "Chop 'em Down" by Matisyahu
Currently Reading: "The Kiss" by Kathryn Harrison
Current mood: Ants crawling behind my eyes (is that a mood?)

p.s. (I like parentheses tonight!)

What do you hear? Nothing but the rain.

Last night, Chris took me out for ice cream. He'd owed me it for awhile and I managed to finally coerce it out of him. Chris has an Audi TT Roadster, a manual. He's an Republican asshole with a trust fund, but he's only an asshole to cover up the fact that he's a nice guy becuase he's afraid people will manipulate him. The conservative side of him is cancelled out by the fact that he's a Red Sox fan.

Anyway, we got our ice cream and then drove around for awhile. At some point I said, "Let's go to Delaware."

Chris said, "Why Delaware?" And I said, "Becuase it's away."

I think he understood because I found myself careening down 295 South at 100 mph, give or take twenty or so. I was laid back in the seat, in the darkness, the Red Hot Chili Peppers softly serving as our soundtrack. My hand was on the gearshift and his hand was on mine and everytime he pulled for more speed, he pulled me. That short snap and the way I could feel the gears rubbing against each other and the hum of the car's engine made something burn way down deep inside me. We were going headlong into night, feely accepting that we had no destination, no future, rain wetting the road around us.

At some point during the night, I felt the need to ask where we were going. But I was afraid that if I spoke, if I broke the magic, whatever was driving us would disappear. I felt like I was breaking open at the seams, but for the first time, I was ok. The night was warm and the wind wipping in the windows wrapped me in its arms. But I knew that all the car rides, perfect drugs, and superheroes wouldn't be enough to put be back together if I fell apart.

When Chris let me off, he asked me:

"What do you hear?"

I looked up at the opaque sky with no stars.

"Nothing but the rain."

Second wind...

I spent some time looking over other people's blogs and, even though I'm sure no one reads this, I discovered that my posts are too self-involved to merit any sort of comment, interest, or remark. So I will fulfill the title of this blog and get back to talking what it is like to be a sabra.

My father first started calling me "sabra girl" when I was a little kid, one of the many nicknames I've collected. I'm a first generation Israeli, born in Israel and raised there for the first five years of my life. My parents left me and my older brother Joshua with my Israeli cousin Tal for five years, raised in a kibbutz in the resort town of Eilat. Tal and his wife Rina gave me an afinity for Jaffa oranges, salt, and handcrafted jewelry; this I remember. I also remember Barak, Tal and Rina's youngest son as well as a teenager, Itai, who became a sort of mentor to me. I learned to respect water and life at a very young age.

My parents, who had been securing a home for me and Josh in the US, returned before my sixth birthday. I was sad to leave what I fondly call my homeland and my family and I make trips back there as often as I can. I feel Israel's tug on my soul; there is still sand in my hair.

I am in love with Israel. It is my first love, my heart is there. Ani ohevet yisrael.

But anyway, as a sabra, I have opinions on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which is a long and complicated struggle which cannot be given justice in one blog entry. The stuggle is one of the most enduring conflicts in history. Three groups identify Jerusalem as "The Holy Land": Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Although these groups have different traditions, religious differences are not the sole source of conflict, even though each group have complex motivations.

Essentially, it is a struggle over land.

Until 1948, the area was known as Palestine. As Britain and France scrambled for allies during WWI, they made many promises they didn't intend on keeping, including the Husayn-McMahon Agreement (if anyone has seen Lawrence of Arabia). Before the Husayn-McMahon Agreement, the land of Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. However, this area did not constitute a single political unit. The northern districts of Acre and Nablus were part of the province of Beirut. The district of Jerusalem was under the direct authority of the Ottoman capital of Istanbul because of the international significance of the cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem as religious centers for Muslims, Christians and Jews.

The British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, secretly corresponded with Husayn ibn `Ali, the patriarch of the Hashemite family and Ottoman governor of Mecca and Medina. McMahon convinced Husayn to lead an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire, which was aligned with Germany against Britain and France in the war. McMahon promised that if the Arabs supported Britain in the war, the British government would support the establishment of an independent Arab state under Hashemite rule in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, including Palestine.

At the same time, Britain made other promises that conflicted with the Husayn-McMahon understandings. In 1917, the British Foreign Minister, Lord Arthur Balfour, issued a declaration (the Balfour Declaration) announcing his government's support for the establishment of "a Jewish national home in Palestine."

A third promise, in the form of the secret Sykes-Picot agreement, was a deal that Britain and France struck between themselves to carve up the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire and divide control of the region.

After the war, Britain and France convinced the new League of Nations (precursor to the United Nations), in which they were the dominant powers, to grant them quasi-colonial authority over former Ottoman territories. France obtained a mandate over Syria, carving out Lebanon as a separate state with a slight Christian majority. Britain obtained a mandate over the areas which now comprise Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jordan.

Arabs were angered by Britain's failure to fulfill its promise to create an independent Arab state, and many opposed British and French control as a violation of their right to self-determination. The situation in Palestine was heightened by the British promise to support the creation of a Jewish nation. Palestinian Arabs opposed the British Mandate because it thwarted their aspirations for self-rule, and opposed massive Jewish immigration because it threatened their position in the country.

Clashes broke out between Arabs and Jews in which roughly equal numbers of both groups were killed. In the 1920s, when the Jewish National Fund purchased large tracts of land from absentee Arab landowners, the Arabs living in these areas were evicted.

Without passing judgement on either side, displacements, rising tensions, and further arguments led to increasingly violent confontations between Jewish and Arab settlers. And the conflict goes onward in long deadly throes that are both exhausting and depressing.

Stripping all the complications, complexities, and religious/cultural differences, it all boils down to this: they bomb us. We kill them in retaliation and they bomb us again in retribution and on and on. But it'll never end. Because Arab children are growing up in refugee settlements to hate Israelis and vice versa.

In the words of a jarhead,

"We are still in the desert. We are always in the desert."

A common saying of sabras when speaking fondly of Israel,

"In the end, I want to be standing at the beginning with you."

I'm not really sure what that means, given what I've just said.

Stars Punch Holes in the Night (one of my short short stories)

As he sits in the crowded booth with her foot running up his leg, he remembers that he had nearly wet his pants earlier that evening at the diner. He excuses himself to the bathroom where he examines his baggy jeans carefully in the bathroom mirror. He is content when he finds no dark patches on the fabric but he still feels dampness clinging to him like sweat, oozing, slicked with something gross and ultimately biological in nature. He swallows, throat tight, and goes to join the others. She is gone, she's risen to go to the bar, to order herself something so that everything becomes blurred and happy. He can tell she's been here before, walking up to the bar with a long, casual glance around the room. Girls who make eye contact have always been there before.

She's laughing at the bartender's jokes, so he can tell she's thinking about what the guy will be doing after his shift. That hair flip thing she just did tells him she's interested. Or she could just be flirtattious by nature. She looks back at him in the booth from where he watches her and her eyes, brimmed in quiet, drill into him like the stars punch holes in the night.

When she leaves her perch on the bar stool and places her drink on the table, she excuses herself to the "powder room" for the second time in an hour. From that instance, he knows she's got a habit. She might not be sniffing in the ladies' room, but she's at least checking her bose for blood. The ones that go sky-high always fly too close to paranoid.

He fidgets with her drink while she's gone, staining the wood table with little rings of condensation, making them ripple around in rivulets. He is suddenly reminded of his own unpleasant, though apparently psychosomatic clamminess. He squirms, no longer comfortable among his boisterous friends.

The awkward feeling bubbling to the point of suffocation, he grabs his coat and excuses himself. He walks the long walk past the witheringly curious gazes of his friends. He dithers on the stoop of the pub, pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes stolen from a drugstore in Canada, tired eyes blurred and washed clean of their color, not drunk enough to enjoy the loudness of the pub, not sober enough to drive home...

That is when he senses her come up behind him, his breath stopping in his throat even as a cigarette balances between his lips. He sighs and lights up with the characteristic ease of long practice, exhaling smoke away from the glowing tip once the flame catches. Nervously, he draws the cigarette away from his lips after a long drag.

"I would like to step out of my heart and go walking beneath the canvas of the sky." Her voice crackles in the silence; she is playing the artist for him. He looks up, curious to see what she could in the infinity of the night. She is close enought that he smells the orange citris of her shampoo faintly beneath the stench of cigarettes and leftover alcohol. He thinks: what is it with women and produce? Bursting in her perfect eyes, he sees the brightness that illuminates the impossible night for her, the imaginary colors that her tempestuous mind makes. He hears the unwritten songs in the auricle of her ear.

All of this is happening the way it is supposed to; all of this will happen again. She will try to kiss him soon, but he is not there. He is wholly himself, yet fully another. He should have spoke, should have said something. Instead, he puts out the cigarette on the underside of the heel of his three-year-old shoes, destroying the last bit of brightness that he can see. He goes down the dark road, arms under his coat, eyes frozen shut, his feet walking the same route he has walked many times before. Tonight, he only remembers her as a shadow, except for her eyes; they shine in the dark of his brain and he thinks to himself:

"Why, in order to love, must I first break her apart?"

When it's over...

I'm on about three hours of sleep here so I can't assume responsibility for anything I say here.
Last night, Ashley and I had Movie Night, Part II, which consisted of "The English Patient," "Garden State," and "Requiem for a Dream" in that order.
Let me just ask, has anyone seen The English Patient? It's almost 3 hours long. And after about the first 2 hours, not much happens. There were a couple really intense moments and Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas had amazing chemistry (as Ashley said, "They've been eye-fucking all night!")
And then after Requiem...let's just say that movie ended with Ash and I curled up in the corner of the couch, in the fetal position, hanging onto each other for dear life. Fuck the whole DARE thing, just say no bullshit. Show them THAT movie and they will never feel the need to get addicted to anything. The hopes and dreams of four ambitious people are shattered when their drug addictions begin spiraling out of control. The movie profoundly and uniquely expresses the destruction that runs rampant in the lives of drug addicts who are so desperate that they'll shoot up in an infected arm. Have you ever seen an infected arm?

http://www.geocities.com/rfad2001/harry/dudearmsif2.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/rfad2001/harry/dudearmsif1.jpg

It's fucking insane.
I'll never be the same (or do heroin, for that matter. Not that I had the urge to do so in the first place...)

Right now, I'm chilling with Julia who is home from Minnesota for a couple of days. And then...well I have no plans. It's nice to have no plans.
Oh wait, I lied.
I have a date on Saturday!

Goodbye to Ashley Alter, to Sean Mulligan and Mike Levy, Fare thee well Sarah LeCates and Very Sincerely Dedicated to You

Today, I realized
I am the sole repository of all my own life.
I am the custodian of my past.
From my very first memories (it is of orange leaves, bright orange leaves that I am buried in, and leaf was my first word, say it, say leaf, it is a pretty word, a happy little girl word)
My first kiss (it is with a boy named daniel he wears blue wire frame glasses and he is shocked and stunned at first and then he is very happy and he returns the kiss and we kiss five times, five times, FIVE TIMES and everyone at camp talks about it for the rest of the week)
The first car accident, me, slamming forward, mmy enitre body torso head neck spun
Forward my eyes spinning my head rolling I close my mouth and smeel vomit and steel
And the cold taste of shame
And fear, and pain, and the ugly gray feeling of childhood closetmonsters
And the first words the woman said were, "Are you okay?"
The last time I ever saw you (you were standing on your doorstep studying me behind mousebrown hair and a pair of specs).
These are my charges, I have to remember them, and remember every good and bad thing, not just to remember them, but to recall them well, to recall the sights and sensations and the electric shock feeling of a guy pressing his lips to my neck.
I am not just responsible for my own memories but the related memories of every person who has ever told me of their past.
I must remember Castor's stories about walks in the park, and James telling me about getting bananas in Soviet Russia and getting arrested twice at American University, and my granfather's stories about the now long dead tress of the Muncie Valley.

This is my job also. I must fulfill my job.
I will remember reluctantly the sudden breakdown, flashbacks my brother would have, he would say, deep in the dark of the car rides home.
If I ever asked MY brother anything, I wouldn't be able to see straight for a week. And my eyes fill with tears , I blamed it on the heat in the car it was stifling but then, then, I remember, I remember, I remember, I am built on these memories, my brother exiting the car, my daddy looking down at the man in the middle of the road lying down my daddy saying, someone call 911, my daddy, me crying, tears now everywhere down my chin dripping forming puddles and the puddles are my mother's eyes when she sees me with my right arm bent backwardsways, it is a glorious disgusting tingly red mess, she says, "Oh yes, I think you broke it," she is stifling laughter, she is a good woman, she is a calm woman.

This is a way of me saying goodbye. This is a way for me to tell all the little boys and girls who are telling me
Day in
Day out
Oh, Alana, please stay, oh Alana, don't leave, oh Alana, oh Alana.
But I have made my decision. I will live among the rocks. And I will live roughshod. And I will drink life like champagne.
I am filled with a deep sadness,
I cannot convey
I can't relate
How is it that of all the people in the world given the job of remembering my past, I'm the one who got that job? I'm a terrible rememberer.
I mix up names in conversation and say the punch line too early in jokes and I always skip lines in plays.
Now I'm stumbling away into the incoherent
But before I leave I must say this.
Thank you for giving me your memories. And for giving me sensations. And thoughts. And ideas. But mostly for your memories. These are good gifts.
And I have given in return.
Soon I will make an exit, and become a prominent social security number, a college professor, fighter pilot, a resistance leader, a mother, a friend, a lover.
And I will drink life like champagne.

with help from S.M.

I was hoping that you would know better

Today was an interesting Saturday.

Last night, I saw the Neo-Futurist play "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind." Back on my old stomping grounds, I brought my friend Kate (who I confide in but I trust less and less with each passing day, with each tiny betrayal) and saw Lori (my old friend who was supposed to be away). I received cold receptions from both ends. I pretended not to notice. I went down to the green room to see Ashley before the show and Mark ferried me out, the suffocating room filled with activity.

Later, when Ashley or at least someone should have been down there, I walked down the cold hard steps into emptiness. It was like they'd left forever. It was a more profound leaving; it was a slow moving. There was still water bottles, make up, shoes. The lights were on, bright. I stood in the doorway, suddenly missing them. All of them, each and every one. Just as I began to love them, each and every one, they vanished off to their own separate places, like smoke disappears in air. But there's always something smoldering somewhere. I feel the burn.

This morning, this afternoon, this night was like a flashback to my childhood when I cowered in the corner with the dog and whispered, "It's all right, it's all right. Don't be afraid," trying to soothe him when I was really trying to assuage my own fears. For a couple hours after his outburst, once the swelling had gone down, the odious rumblings began. After Josh throws a tantrum (for it can only aptly be described as such), my parents and I fight. We feel so stifled, so subordinate to him that once he leaves, our anger bubbles, explodes, in fiery pools and fitful starts. Sparks of anger, of snarky comments, rude things we'll take back later once we can see straight.

And we drink life like champagne.

If today was not an endless highway

Let's see....what happened today. Nothing new.

It is strange; in my head, there are so many secrets I want to spill, things that have happened long ago. Secrets, half truths that I can somehow feel comfortable spilling to strangers or possible acquaintances. It is the mystery of anonymity. I can see "nothing new" with a bad conscience: I admire the way humans can lie, to themselves and others, almost seemlessly.

Because I feel the bubbling secrets of old that have renewed themselve freshly humming inside of me like some transistor radio, I feel the need to talk about Sarah. I almost wish she was reading this because at first...well, let me start from the beginning.

I first noticed the feeling of uncomfort a couple months ago. I had that quivering feeling that people tend to get when they are being stared at, or observed. I looked around and the only gaze that met mine was Sarah, but she was turned in such a way that she had to go out of her way to look at me, could only have been looking at me. I met her eyes and she quickly turned away, in the furtive method the starers and stalkers use when they want to remain undetected, a movement that only serves to make them more suspicious.


This continued for quite awhile, added in with her sitting so that her legs would brush against mine. I would move my legs away and she'd move closer. And so on until we were both awkwardly contorted away and towards one another respectively. It could have been paranoia but she was creeping me out. There were several incidents with unnecessary touching involved, nothing past PG rating but suspicious enough. Ashley and I decided on two things:

1. she was a lesbian
2. her friends would unceremoniously abandon her if they knew

We devised not to mention the incidents further. But somewhere between my disgust, inference, and curiousity...I found I wouldn't have a problem with her, which was an interesting decision to come across. I would never confront her on the issue but I think about her a little bit. I wish I could tell her, let her know that she's safe with me, but on the slight chance I have the wrong impression or the more likely chance that she's unwilling to admit the truth, she'd most likely pummel me.

And Sarah could beat me up twice a day and three times on Sunday.

Currently reading: "The Tenth Circle" by Jodi Picoult
Currently listening to: "Cigarette" by Graham Colton Band

(I imagine our conversations going something like this:)


A: You, you gotta be the one, who's in on the action.
I'm wondering when we're leaving.

S: You gotta meet everyone before it's all over.
Why? They're gonna be here next weekend.

A: And you gotta be something else,
Cause we all got older with you.

S: You, you're gonna be someone,

A: You make me wanna smoke a cigarette.

S:You make me wanna be someone else.

A: You make me wanna be somebody you would leave,

S:And I could forget.

A: You gotta be the one to get a reaction.

S: I don't want anyone to see me.

A: And you gotta be something else.