Filed under: Feelings, Hey!, Identity, Struggles | Tags: blockade, Flotilla, Sandra Bernhard
A lot can change in 24 hours. Sunday night I got to watch Rihanna perform in Jafo’s Bloomfield Stadium, and she was magnificent. The concert was part of a cool initiative called the Orange RockCorps. To score a ticket you had to do four hours of community service or know my friend Beth and get given a ticket for doing nothing. This was RiRi’s first time in Israel.
I had a stupendous time at the show. I almost didn’t make it! Beth told me RiRi was performing at Ramat Gan Stadium. I set out on my bike with plenty of time – dressed in “26-year-old drag.” My friend Ashley told me that the RockCorps tickets were only for kids ages 16-26. With bad lighting, sleep in your eyes and visual impairment, I can maybe appear 32-years-old; 26-y-o would be really pushing it (#understatement). But I wore a baseball cap and little O.P. corduroy shorts and gave myself a fresh, clean shave.
Google Maps on my BlackBerry got me there easily enough, and I realized the stadium (actually in Bnei Brak) was across from two skyscrapers where I had business meetings in the last few weeks. I was feeling that “more has been revealed” satisfying feeling that (unknowingly at the time) those meetings had helped familiarize me with this location to help me find the concert.
Except, major #Fail, b/c RiRi was not performing there at all. She was performing at Bloomfield Stadium in Yafo, which is basically the southern tip of Tel Aviv. Bnei Brak was like two towns over, north of Tel Aviv.
Fortunately, this whole country is the size of a peanut, and RiRi is Diva enough to never start the show on time, and I made it to the correct stadium about :10 minutes before she went on.
I passed for 26-years-old or, they just weren’t checking! I had a ticket to stand on the floor, which was fine b/c it was very close up. Even arriving as close to showtime as I did, I still was maybe 15 feet away from her when she came stage right. It was like I was babysitting or 15,000 teenagers, but it was fine.
Don’t you love it, when you remember to bring your camera and when you whip it out to take your first shot, you’re greeted with this message on the display: “CHANGE THE BATTERY PACK.” #Fail !!! Why doesn’t the camera have a gauge that shows you battery strength as you go along, but instead tells you nothing before – “Hey, doufus – I’m done. Change me.” #Fail !!! BlackBerry pics had to suffice, mainly of the video monitor, b/c cam was not high quality enough to get good shots of RiRi directly, close as I was.
Great show. Of course, I’m gonna find all the ways she was derivative of Madonna, but she really turned it out and rocked hard. It was really fun. Since I’m building my own business, I work *A LOT*, and it’s a real challenge to make myself get out for social activities. Seeing a big act like RiRi feels tangible to me, like I can point to it and feel – See, I do stuff.
Next day, late morning I see one of the new friends I’ve made from this crowd that’s really active on Twitter, Benji, tweet something like – “So sad, can’t stop watching the news.” Part of me thinks Uh-oh, what? , but I’m swamped as usual w/ work, and I don’t pay full attention. I can’t remember how long, but later that day the twitter chatter becomes loud enough that I realize something big has happened.
I’m trying to remember now what the first coverage I read was like – was it the US and global press accusing Israel of a “massacre of peace activists” or was it links from the people I follow on Twitter, who told a different story – that the IDF soldiers were “brutally ambushed by the terrorists at sea“?
The Ynet article really made me feel better – See, we’re not barbarians…we boarded the boat and *they* attacked *us* !! In an interesting twist, right afrter reading that article, the next tweet I see in Tweetdeck is from comedian/actress/author/personality/singer Sandra Bernhard – who I have adored ever since the mid 80’s, when she seemingly appeared on Late Night w/ David Letterman every few weeks. I remember thinking – Who *IS* this chick !?! I don’t know if Sandra was out then (I certainly wasn’t), but I was captivated by the way she clearly marched to her own drummer and seemed so much more authentic and original than the celebrities I was accustomed to seeing.
Anyway, so I’ve been a fan of hers for 25 years, and I read her tweet saying:
Not mean spiritied. Just a question – a *good* question. But in this environment – when, AGAIN it seems the world is unifiyingly holding Israel to an unfair security & self-defense double-standard…and yes, I was probably taking on some of these critical attacks on Israel personally…because Sandra is influential (and Jewish) and many people pay attention to what she has to say, I didn’t want her question to go unanswered or manipulated for another person’s purposes or change the opinion of someone still making up his/her mind up about what was still breaking news.
So, I answered her over Twitter:
And I included a hyperlink to the Ynet story I had read. Then, I continued working. I was still swamped, and flotilla or notilla, that hadn’t changed. When I checked Tweetdeck a little later, I saw that Sandra had answered me. While I had half-hoped she would, I certainly didn’t expect her to. Anyway, here is our conversation:
OK, so maybe it’s less of a conversation and really Sandra’s response to my tweet, and then my 3 replies to her, plus one re-tweet from my new friend @Jewlicious. (But if you remove the 140-character limitation, then – yeah, it’s her response, then mine, then me forwarding something.)
Anyway, I continued working, but of course that means checking both Facebook and Tweetdeck (and Atraf) every 5 seconds, and I came across a link to video posted by The Huffington Post, and it made Israel look just awful. A British Al-Jazeera reporter is giving a report from the deck of the raided flotilla boat. He mentions in his report that the flotilla was “carrying aid” when the “Israeli commandos descended upon it in International waters after surrounding it with ships from all sides” and mentions that on board the raided boat were “activists, parliamentarians, women, children and the elderly” and that “tens of people were injured, and there were still sounds of live fire despite white flag having been raised.”
I started feeling bad after watching this report. Not just – Oh, shit, this is *Bad* for Israel, but more like self-doubt, like – Oh, shit is this who we are? Are we barbarians? Am I in denial when I say the world is being unfair in its condemnation of us for what transpired? Are we really evil?
Another report I read on HuffPo had a pundit calling the incident “Israel’s Kent State” and a “massacre” and referred to those on the boat as “activists.” Head was starting to spin. Were they activists delivering aid, or terrorists attacking soldiers with metal rods? What was the truth ??
The HuffPo post was updated with video from the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) that showed the people attacking the soldiers when they first boarded the boat. This did a lot to reassure me – both that we had not perpetrated a massacre, and that more balanced coverage was making it’s way to American media, if not Europe.
Here is close-up of the same footage I found on the IDF’s YouTube channel:
I felt even more reassured when I read my friend David Hazony’s report. David is a writer and author on religion, Judaism, Israel, and the Middle East. From his piece I learned that the flotilla had written a press release in advance about the attack and were able to send it to news media around the world as soon as the incident occured. Premeditate much? David’s piece talked about the need to win the media war via press releases and Twitter, and I popped a PR boner. This is what I do, man !!! Maybe this is the reason I am here in Israel – I’m supposed to offer my PR and communications expertise (all in mother-tongue English) to the Israeli government and IDF and help us win the media war the next time.
I fired off a tweet to Sandra Bernhard, with a link to David’s piece. Then, I went to the gym to get rid of some of this anxiety and fat. But first, here are two exchanges with friends on Facebook. But are friends I love. One is Jewish, and she thanks me for “getting the truth out.” The other is not Jewish, but he lived in Israel before and loves Israel. But after the news coverage he saw, he had decided Israel and the IDF were in the wrong here, and he was condemning the IDF raid. Can you see why this was very confusing and heartbreaking for me?
I got my gym on. As I opened my locker to shower after, I saw that Sandra Bernhard had replied to me on Twitter! I was really happy about this. Because our conversation did not devolve into argument, but remained kind; other people could be following it over Twitter and having their thoughts on the incident broadened, and Sandra and I found some common ground in the end. Plus, I was able to get my starfuck on with a performer I have always enjoyed and admired.
Cool, right? Look, I didn’t know when I’d ever be talking to Sandra again, so I could not resist telling her about how I first became a fan. It’s like when I met Debra Winger while working on the red carpet of the Gotham Independent Film Awards and got to tell her the scene in ‘Terms of Endearment’ where she says goodbye to her kids is my favorite moment of cinema ever. I still didn’t get what Sandra meant about my response being disproportinate. But whatevs. This was still a cool thing on a lot of levels for me. Headed to a cafe to work for a few hours. Logged on and saw Sandra had responded!
Then, when I get home, I found out she had asked me what I do for a living here in Israel. Wow, I thought that was really nice.
I could have asked her what she meant by that. Israel is a democracy and all 7.1 million citizens have full rights and participate in government and society (not just the 5.6 million Jews), but it was almost 4am, and time for a few hours of sleep.
It’s a couple of days later now, and I was happy to see more examples of US media coverage that I thought was fair. Like, when Vice President Joe Biden appeared on Charlie Rose and defended Israel’s actions. And then, this wonderful opinion piece by Charles Krauthammer.
Almost finished, those of you who are still with me. Saw this last night. Superbly powerful parody/commentary of the Flotilla called “We Con the World” (like the 1985 USA for Africa single, “We Are the World”). I think it’s brilliant and the creative force behind it, Caroline Glick, is my new hero. Watch:
Alright, it’s Shabbat, my dog is dying to get outside, and I’ve been writing this post for more than four hours. Time to get cleaned up and head to Hilton Beach. I just knew I had to do a long post about my reaction to this international incident, though. Because I am an Israeli, but not a native one. I’m an American, too, and most of my friends live in America. America is more supportive of Israel than any other country, and American news media coverage of Israel is more balanced than most coverage in the world, which has a very anti-Israeli slant – maybe because the world views Israel as an illegitimate country who shouldn’t really be here at all. From my unique perspective as an Oleh Chadash (new immigrant) living in Israel for less than a year and a half, I am in between worlds, in a way. I live here. But I read American news via the New York Times, and links to US news sources sent around on Twitter and Facebook. I have friends in both countries. I dunno, it occurred to me that my reaction to this event was probably not the same as the average Israeli, and I wanted to document it (for me) and share it – in case there are other Olim who can relate to parts of it.
xo
P.S. Here’s a good summary piece from NYT.
P.P.S. Footnote: that I have a friend in New York named Kevin, who works as a professional drag queen. His drag name?
Flotilla DeBarge !!
As much as I love my dog, I was sticking to my “not allowed in the bed” rule. I just didn’t want to become the metaphorical “Crazy Cat Lady” – you know, the guy who sleeps with his dog.
[Sidebar: people are really divided on this issue! When I posted about it on Facebook, there was a strong Of course you let them into the bed! camp and just as emphatic No! They are dirty animals! posters.]
But anyway, I was SO stressed leading up to my concurrent move and job change that I couldn’t take the pressure, and I invited him in. I have to say, cuddling w/ Pete is pretty wonderful. Like a live-action teddy bear! But, you know, he sheds so badly, that after one night, the bed looked like a crackhouse.
Then, of course he began to think the bed was his, too. So, I’d get up from the computer to get a drink or something, and he’d be nowhere to be found…until I peered into the bedroom and found:
Then, we moved, and I haven’t gotten my loft bed immediately, so he continued sleeping w/ me in the bed in our new place – and lounging on it behind me while I worked (totally sprawled out like that famous Marilyn Monroe centerfold (wish I had a real pic).
[photo courtesy of Robert Roberts]
Anyway, last week I was out at the dog park w/ Petey, Jeremy, Samadar & Merlin (dog), and said to Samaderemy – I really can’t wait until I get my loft bed. The bed is just so disgusting with dog hair and bits of bone from Petey chomping in there, I can’t stand to sleep in there anymore, it’s disgusting. Jeremy countered w/ Why wait? Kick him out tonight. I felt so guilty though! I knew Petey wouldn’t understand, and he’d be like Wha- WTF – what’s happening? What’d I do? Why? Why ??? And I’m sensitive, and I didn’t him to feel this way and be racking his little dog brain and shiz. But then Jeremy Yoda said, Are you gonna give him a bath tonight? I’m like, No, why? And he’s like, ‘Cause look at him! [Petey was chasing a few dogs and rolling around w/ them in the dirt in the dog park.] Look where he is and what he’s doing – you’re really gonna let that into your bed tonight? That settled it – NO. Sorry, sleeping-w/-your-dogs camp, even if I’m 49% with you, I”m 51% OCD/Miss Priss/no way!
So, I kicked him out, and he reacted as I expected he would – not understanding at all. That first night, even though I’d moved his dog bed next to my bed, I’d keep waking up to discover he had climbed in with me, and I had to yell and throw him out. Other times, I would turn around from the PC where I was working, or walk back into the room to find him sprawled out on the bed, Marilyn-style. Pete, no !!
So, this week, I bought him a new dog bed. This way, his old one can remain in his crate, which I’m locking him in when I leave the apartment (even though he had free reign in the old place; there is just too much stuff on the ground and not packed away here yet; too much for him to eat and destroy), and he has a nice, new, bigger one next to mine for when I’m working or sleeping. I can lean over and pet him and let him lick my face. He loves it, and that’s the end of this story.
No, this pic doesn’t explain why there ain’t been no G-Fish posts in like 4evah. But I am using this pic b/c this post has to be kind of cryptic. Or else it could be, like, evidence. In a court of law. I’m not kidding.
A couple of weeks ago, there was a situation where I had to be out of my 
apartment every day at 6:30 a.m. – with the dog – and stay out until like 5:00 p.m. To make it worse, I came down with my first cold since moving to Israel. The positive thing about that is that I’ve been here 13 months and hadn’t even gotten a single cold. The crappy thing was the timing couldn’t have sucked more. Imagine being stuffed up with body chills and having to be up at the crack of dawn w/ all your work for the day and enough supplies to keep a dog happy (water bowl, treats) for, like 12 hours. And have no place to go crash in the daytime. I went to a client’s office and worked. It blew.
Anyway, that was then. I’m back home, and soon I will be moving.
I’ve got a lot of major changes coming at me all at once. I’m starting to look for a new place, hoping to move out on April 30. And I had a fantastic new business meeting last week that could bring me a lot of new work.
This is good stuff. I put together my first PowerPoint presentation on how companies can use Facebook and Twitter, and I killed with it. I’ve been asked to put together a proposal for next week, where I would do monthly social media trainings for this company’s clients – and be available to do social media implementation work for their clients.
This is fabulous, but I’m mostly just interested in the monthly trainings. Even if a small % of their clients decide I was so impressive during a training that they want me to handle their Facebook/Twitter/Linkedin pages – say, 10 out of 138 – that’d still be a lot of new work all at one. Too much? And too much of the same kind of client – nonprofits – when I’d also like some fun, pop-culturey, commercial ones.
I’m all for replacing the remaining bit of work I’m letting go from my main nonprofit client when I stop working with them in May – but I might want to be more selective with who I replace them with. Let self-belief drive a little while and give fear a rest.
The good news is all these changes are temporary. In May, I’ll have a more stable roster of clients, and I’ll be living and working in my apartment by then. But for the time being, I’m just in major flux – with two twin-biggies: housing and working. Even though I know it’s temporary, I’ve still gotta hang on for dear life right now.
I kinda love ’em, kinda hate ’em – I’m speaking of a certain type of Israeli friend – The Pusher. I like these women – two dog friends from the neighborhood, Tali and Fanny – but sometimes when I see them coming, I’m like Ugh!
Why? Because they always speak to me in Hebrew. They know I’m an Anglo and struggling with my Hebrew, and that’s precisely why they do it. It’s totes done out of a desire to help me succeed.
But I just kinda hate it. Look, my attitude is – I’m doing fine w/ my Hebrew. I’m only here one year. I worked hard in language school my first six months to get a base in Hebrew, and even though I’ve forgotten quite a bit of it, it is just under the surface and will quickly come back (I think) when I continue w/ Hebrew night school later this spring. I’m surprising myself by being able to speak whole sentences to people sometimes. I’m at a level where I prefer that you let me speak “Hebrish” to you, and you answer me in English.
But when Tali and Fanny speak to me full-on in Hebrew, the perfectionist in me just hates that I have to struggle like an idiot speaking with them for a few sentences in Hebrew before totes lapsing into English. It’s really that “giving up” part that I hate; I hate failing. So, I feel like – Ugh! Why are you bothering!? We both know I can’t really do this – converse fluently in Hebrew – , so you’re just making me feel bad about myself. So, stop !!
Today I started a new practice at the dog park. While Pete plays, I’m taking vocabulary from last year’s Hebrew notes and writing them into a blank address book. I’m filing them under the English word, and then writing the Hebrew word below it.
Honestly, for only beginning to learn this very different language, I think I’m doing just fine after one year. ליאת, ליאת.
Filed under: Official Immigrant Stuff, Struggles | Tags: accountant, Israel Tax Authority, taxes, value added tax, VAT
Some financial dramz the past two weeks.
First I got that crazy letter from the Israel Tax Authority, saying i owed 3900 shekels ($768) and that they were authorized to bust into my house and take whatever they wanted, approximating that value. That was last month, and after changing my underwear I called my accountant, who explained to me he’d already dealt with the matter and there was nothing to worry about.
All income in Israel is subject to a 16% Value Added Tax. But my main two clients are American, and income from them is exempt from this tax. However, my accountant had failed to file paperwork with the Israel Tax Authority declaring this income. Even if I don’t owe anything on it, I still have to report it. Anyway, he dealt with it, and the problem was solved. Or, so I thought.
The next weird thing to happen was I got two more receipt-type things in the mail. I asked two separate Israeli friends to look at them for me, since of course they were all in Hebrew. Both my friends were confused by them – because they said “amount paid,” “you do not owe anything at this time and “refund” on them. We had no idea what they really were.
Thinking they could be refunds from my 2009 Israeli taxes, I checked my bank account. No, they were not refunds, as there were no corresponding deposits there. But, I was surprised to find a 1,700 withrawl from my account, and a 55 shekel fee, since I didn’t have enough funds in my account to cover that check.
WTF
I called my account to fire ask him what this was about. It seems his daughter, who was handling my account, had written a check on my behalf for that amount to pay three months of my national health insurance. (She was able to do this, b/c she convinced me earlier to sign and send her three blank checks, so they could pay taxes and such for me with less delay.)
I wasn’t comfortable with the blank check thing, but grudingly gave her three (instead of the seven she’d asked for). But, hello! – I expected her to call me and confirm that I had the funds in my account before she wrote any checks on my behalf. She didn’t, and this is what caused the problem.
Then, I got a big fat check one from of my Israeli clients that I deposited into my account. I checked a day or so later to make sure those funds were available in my account – and I was SHOCKED to see that while, yeah – they had been deposited, they had also been frozen by the government, who was trying to reclaim the 3900 shekels they said I owed from last month – that my accountant had said he had dealt with!
Double-You Tee Eff !!!
I changed my shorts again, and called my accountant back. He explained how someone from his office would call the Israel Tax Authority later that day and clear it up for me. His office called later the same day to say they had spoken with the Israeli Tax Authority and cleared up the matter. The Authority had promised to contact my bank and get the funds unfrozen. But I had two big automatic withdrawls coming up in two days – for my cell phone and gym membership, and if it wasn’t cleared up by then, I was going to be overdrawn in my account again. I went to the bank and asked them to delay these withdrawls for a few days, but they said they couldn’t help. They recommended I call Isracard, which is sort of like a credit card company, but….well, if you don’t live here it’s sort of hard to explain. But they’re sort of like a credit card company, who consolidates automatic-withdrawls and processing them together. If anyone would have the power to delay this withdrawl it was them. Only they said the best they could do was roll it into my April payment with interest (about 60 shekels interest). Fine. At least I wouldn’t be overdrawn now. I was really proud of handling that part myself.
One day passed – funds still frozen. Two days passed – funds still frozen. After three days and the funds were still unfrozen, I called my accountant back. He said he had called the Authority again and they said they would clear things up with my bank. He also said he had now done everything he could, and if I wanted to use my energy more wisely, I would talk to my bank or the Israel Tax Authority directly.
Yikes. I started with my bank. They were nice, but also said they couldn’t help. I told them my accountant said he had received a letter from the Israel Tax Authority saying I owed nothing and the funds should be unfrozen, and we could call him up and have it faxed right over. My bank said they needed an original letter from the Authority, not a fax from my accountant. Grrr.
I decided to hightail it over to the Tax Authority. It was around noon on Thursday. A lot of times, government offices close around noon or 1pm, and they’re definitely not open on Fridays. So, like, the window to deal with this before the weekend was crashing down on me hard. I punched the addy into my BlackBerry’s Google Maps, took my dog home, mounted my bike, and rode like the wind.
One cool thing was – the more time I spend riding the city streets on my bicycle, the more I coming to learn Tel Aviv. Like, here, I had arrived at my destination, which was somewhere I had been before. But I arrived from a different direction, so I was able to sort of get a better sense of how this part of the city connects with that part of it, and so on. Yay, me. (You take your Yays where you can when dealing w/ Israeli beaurocracy.)
I didn’t know if they’d be open or not, because this being Israel, no one was answering the main office number there, and the hours were not listed on the website. But things went my way, because I found this place, and they were open, and they were nice, and they confirmed the problem was resolved and gave me an original letter to prove it that I could take back to the bank to unfreeze the funds.
Now, I had to peddle like a mofo to make it back to the bank to deliver the letter before they closed for the weekend. And – I made it there in time, too! So – with a lot of help from a lot of parties – I really showed up for myself and did my part to get this cleared up. And my bank said that in less than a week, the funds should be available to me once again. Just in time for my moving costs, etc.
Damn, boy, I am proud of myself!
Not again!
I’ve been mobile-golden for a while now, having put the last of the BlackBerry in Israel problems behind me last August. But the Bold 9000 I bought used from another Oleh back in December has had trackball problems since I got it. These were getting worse throughout February, to the point where it would refuse to roll in a certain direction, making it difficult or impossible to navigate to applications or within them.
I followed the advice I found in the forums on CrackBerry.com – like using a toothbrush on it or vigorously rubbing it upside down on a table, but these fixes only worked temporarily, leaving me with the same problem reoccurring.
Finally, disaster struck. I pulled the BB out of my pocket to use it, and pressing it no longer opened up applications!
Srsly, Girl. The thing was instantly useless. I couldn’t set my alarm to wake up in the morning, couldn’t look up your address, send you an SMS, use my camera, surf the internet, Tweet or nuthin’!
Knowing the next step of using a micro-screwdriver to open the thing up and clean the ball from the inside was way beyond me, I did the next best thing: wedged a thumbtack underneath the ball and dug around. When that didn’t work, I pried off the buttons around it, removed the ball and cleaned it myself. But when I tried to apply pressure to the area that should have been activated by the pressed trackball, the BB wasn’t responding either. It appeared the circuitry underneath the ball was fried, too. (It actually probably wasn’t; it turns out it’s magnets – not pressure – that makes it work). But if it wasn’t already broken, then I did the trick when I repeatedly pressed a screwdriver against the area attempting to make it work.
Devastation.
Crap – with impending moving expenses coming up and some bullshit housing tax (arnona) that had gone unpaid for months and needed to be taken care of (thanks to miscommunication by my suitemate and landlord), I did not have the budget to buy a whole new gadget.
Was this time to seize the moment and upgrade to the holiest of holy grails….
the iPhone?
Ugh, not now! I know I’ll wind up with one of these or an as-good Android device sooner or later, but the timing was all wrong. I’m such an addictive personality, that once I had this new toy EVERYTHING ELSE WOULD HAVE TO STOP. I’d isolate for 4-5 days and just trick the thing out with a billion and one apps to make my life easier, possibly bankrupting myself in the process if I didn’t find what I needed in the free apps. With a small business to get off the ground, there was no time for this. Yet, knowing myself, it was something I was powerless to stop. If I bought it, it would happen.
So, maybe I’d just buy a new BlackBerry, then feel buyer’s remorse for not joining the ranks of iPhone snobs.
Well, fortunately, neither of those things had to happen. Bestie Anna suggested I try and repair it first. (She reads a lot of books.) I don’t know how this happened, but I managed to find the perfect shop in all of Tel Aviv to go. See, since I purchased my BB used, I wasn’t entitled to tech support or service from my wireless carrier, although I could have still tried them and seen if they’d accept payment for support. I wanted to try an indie shop first, but not one where I’d have some gum-popping adolescent not knowing what the eff to do and rolling their eyes.
By some miracle, I wound up at an indie shop staffed by techies and experts, who knew BBs inside out and knew how to repair this thing. I worried it may have been fixable at first, but that I’d done so much damage to it after it broke, rendering it unfixable. Fortunately, not. These guys really were geniuses, and in only 24 hours (and a few false alarms, where I left the store w/ it “fixed” and had to go right back inside, b/c it wasn’t quite working perfectly yet), I was back in business.
300 shekels ($80) for this. Def worth it !!!
I realized this week I am a little bit depressed. Nothing clinical – I can still get out of bed, and all. I wonder what brought it on though – was it that Cellcom rep who called me this week and offered me a better plan? It really was a better plan, so I took it – but she did tell me it was for 18-months and I’d be penalized for opting out early. I’m not going anywhere, and I’m happy with Cellcom, so I had no problem with that restriction.
….or did I?
This could have something to do with turning 40 recently, also.
Look, here’s the thing: I feel my career ran its course back in New York. I don’t want to return to the field of public relations. If I did plop back down in NYC – what would I do ??? While I want to choke my fucking boss who I can’t stand am ready to move on from my primary job, I am quite excited about the direction of these new developments – doing social media consulting for ROASTe and hopefully soon also for Seital. And, when I get enough of this new work to free myself from the hell that is my main job, I’ll have more time to work on my memoir about moving to Israel. Plus, the weather is great here, I like living among so many Jews, and I feel a strong, Zionist connection to Israel.
But for sure, the novelty of being here has worn off. Things that were at first so exciting and fun – Riding my bike around town like a 12-year-old, which I haven’t done since 1984, Whee! – are now completely whatevs. All the other things, too – now that they’re not new, but they just are, I’ve realized that emotionally, I feel right where I was back in the fall of 2008 before I left New York: wanting a husband and to start a family…wanting to be in a higher income bracket that would finally allow me to travel, live in a nicer home, dine out and actually, you know, buy things when I’m out and about (I think they call it shopping?)….just a general feeling of not being satisfied anymore with my simple life of work, gym, AA, net surfage, a diet of mostly frozen food (with assorted junk binges), etc.
I did move to Israel very quickly and with a certain degree of spontaneity, but it never felt blind. I thought about it a great deal, and it felt very organic. I had ‘done’ New York after 17 years, and with my job in jeopardy, I felt a window closing for me there….and one opening for me here with new opportunities and choices.
In AA, there is an expression of ‘taking a geographical cure’ as a method to control your drinking. You know, if I just move someplace else, things will be different and my drinking won’t be a problem anymore. The problem isn’t with me….it’s with New York. We call the shorthand for this: doing a geographic. I certainly never felt as though this is what I was doing with my move to Israel. But hell – now that I’m at where I am emotionally, it makes me think:
Was this move all about doing one big geographic?
There is no escape from yourself, though. Wherever you go….there you are.
I miss my family, but that is not the kicker. I speak to them (in Philadelphia) about as much as I did when I was living in New York. Don’t take this personally, Mom, but What I really miss is being around my deep bench of sober, gay AA friends in New York. I see and interact with them all on Facebook and many of them on Twitter, and thank God for it. It is no small thing at all; you know who you are: we comment on each other’s photos and statuses daily and 8,000 miles and a whole bunch of bits & bytes away, you are still my support system, and I love you. And I have a real & true & loving support system here, too, I do: Anna, Leah, Jeremy, Danny, Nir, Liron, Abi, Lawrence, Ronnie, Junie. I’m grateful you are all in my life. There were just more of you in NYC, that’s all.
כל יום ביומו.
“One day at a time.” That’s what the above phrase says. I have it tattooed on my arm. So, there really is no need to figure out “where I am going to be for the rest of my life.” But if I think of how freakishly cold Israeli apartments are in the winter, and their small sinks and mineral-heavy water….or everyone and their mother parking on the sidewalks, or having to seriously improve my Hebrew because this Hebrish crap just ain’t cutting it, or buildings here that just look so Third World that they appear as though they might crumble any second (and many more things native to Israel), I can easily answer myself with – Uh-uh. No way. This isn’t forever. I miss First World development & feel…places that are big & clean & spread out, that just look as though they belong in the 21st century and not from 1930 or 1860. I may not enjoy many things about my New York City neighbors who aren’t just like me, but maybe that’s something I need to work on, you know?
As for my new career as a social media consultant, there is something to be said for the fact that Israel is a very small pond (7.1 million people, less than all of New York City), and it’s a very good & safe environment for succeeding and rising to the top of your field if you are good at what you do and work hard (which I am, and I do). Not that I couldn’t make it in New York, too (isn’t that how the song goes?), but as a person who’s always been a Late Bloomer, maybe I could really benefit from doing this work from over here. Plus, the economic recovery in the U.S. continues to be fitful, and I know plenty of people out of work; do I really want to return NOW and jump back into that (economically) depressed environment? That’s another argument for remaining here, at least for the next few years.
My friend Junie said of course I’m depressed; it’s because I’m working too hard. After she said this, she went for coffee with some more of my friends, while the other people we were hanging with went to a street fair on Rothschild Street. I went home to go to work for a few hours, even though Friday is the weekend here and no one works in the afternoon. I proved her point immediately! It’s true. I may go out to a bar or club once a week, and I typically meet my friends Anna and Leah for coffee once a week, but other than that – it’s ROASTe work, memoir writing, job search efforts, errands and cleaning in the mornings, then my main job from 2-9pm, then the gym, then unwinding for a few hours online with Facebook, Mashable, Perez, Atraf, TV Shack and NYTimes.com, then sleep. Even my main break from work is getting boring – taking Pete to the dog park. Good for him, and I am making some regular friends from going there, but it ain’t enough.
No tidy summation from me at the end of this post. Just feel like I’m done musing for now. We’ll see how I feel when I read it over after hitting ‘publish.’
Maybe I’ll move to San Francisco…
UPDATE:
I swear to God, what song do you think came on my iPod immediately after hitting “publish”? Leaving New York from REM’s album Around the Sun. What does that even mean, God?
I am exaggerating. It was only 48 hours, and the net result was that I learned it is definitely possible to find a good apartment that I can afford with short notice.
The backstory: I may have to move by April 30. I can’t get into it here, b/c it involves some shadiness, but I might have to be out by then. And my ex-boyfriend boss landlord advised me to start looking at places. But I soooo did not want to. Minus the mold problem, I’ve got it made here. My place is recently renovated, in the best TLV neighborhood, right next to the park, with cheap rent. Plus, the four main apartment search sites are all in Hebrew.
You can have a Google Translate button built right into your toolbar that auto-converts these pages into English. But – when you click on the individual apartments for more information, the language translation doesn’t work, and you have to manually cut/paste into G-Translate in another browser window.
The four main sites are:
- יד 2(yad shtyme) (the Israeli Craigslist)
- Homeless
- Win-Win
- Madas
I started with Homeless, b/c that’s the one my friend Phil used to find his place. I got to give it to myself – I am super disciplined. Even with my two jobs and everything else I’ve got going on, I made time to deal with the language translation hassleness (which comes up again when you make the phone calls) and spent like an hour making calls about seeing apartments.
Most of the ones I can afford are in Florentine, an ‘up and coming’ neighborhood in southern Tel Aviv. It bills itself as Tel Aviv’s answer to ‘the village’, but it is really more like the Lower East Side pre-Giuliani/Bloomberg eras. (For comparison’s sake, right now I am living in the Old North neighborhood, which is the Upper East Side of Tel Aviv – next to the park, close to AA, my office, the language school, a little quieter, more boring and prettier than the other neighborhoods, but even within this quaint area, I am near the two swinging intersections with bars that are happening every night of the week, some really good fast-food places that are open late, and Israel’s first 24/7 supermarket. Basically, I am beyond golden right now.)
I made an appointment to see one place that evening. I didn’t realize it when I made the call, but this listing was handled by a shark real estate agent. He called back at 6pm to reconfirm, and at 7pm I set off on my bike to ride to the other end of the city to see this place. It wasn’t even in Florentine, but was a stone’s throw from it. It was….like, nowhere. I guess you could say the Meatpacking District, before it got developed; just very industrial.
But it was in a brand new building, which I liked. And the place was gorgeous. Not quite “two rooms” (which is how you say “one bedroom” in Israel), it had, like, a divider b/t the the kitchen/living room area and the bed/bathrooom, sort of like bar-height.
The amazing part? It had an enormous deck, the same size as the whole apartment, with a view of the city. I didn’t really need this, and I’d rather have that space be part of a larger apartment. But it’d still be pretty cool – for parties, patio furniture (w/ kiddie pool, custom awning?), great for my dog, parties and strorage).
Plus, as an incentive to get good tenants to move into this neighborhood, the hustler realtor offered me the place for 3100 shekels ($815) /month, when it was listed for 4000 ($1052). Hmm. Bonus: it was literally around the corner from my BFF Danny. So I dropped by afterwards for some insights. “Dont move here!” Danny emphatically told me. It’s not a neighborhood. It’s so different from where you live now, it’ll be a shock for you. After hearing about the deck and more details from me, he changed his tune Get all New York on them and tell them you want a 5-year lease at that 3100 shek rate. Plus, ask them if they can get creative with the building owner for you, and split their fee with the owner, so you’ll only have to pay them 1/2 fee (realtors here get a fee = one month’s rent). (Another good things was the realtors would accept their payment in tashlomeem, which is a credit option unique to Israel, like a payment plan. I’d have 18 monthly payments to pay this fee, which made it 172 shex ($45)/mo – or like, nothing.
Next morning I went into their offices (which happen to be down the street from where I live now) and tried all this. 5 year lease? REJECTED! Split fee with owner? REJECTED! And, even – 3100 rent the shister agent offered me? FLAT OUT LIE! (Couldn’t get the place for less than 3,300/mo). Plus, no plumbing set up for my washing machine (I’d have to use communal, coin-opp laundry in basement for the whole bldg), and the apt came with a fridge, so I’d have to sell mine.
Ix-nay on this place.
Went right back to Central Command my computer, back on Homeless, and started making more calls. Made appointments to see three places that evening – two in Florentine, one actually in my neighborhood on Ben Yehuda & Jabotinsky.
The first place? OMG, you guys,
Crackhouse !!!
Srsly, dog poop (at least I hope it was from a dog) on one of the stair landings – WTF !?! And this piece of crap was actually listed by an agent, so I’d have to pay a fee for it. Uh, no, Lady. And what a bitch of an agent she was! She didn’t come to show it to me, but kept calling me by phone. And every time I tried to talk English with her, she would read me on it, telling me (in Hebrew) Stop! You are in Israel now – speak Hebrew! You have to practice, no more English for you! True enough point, but you’re not my granny, bitch. Show me this apartment or STFU.
And the apartment was a HOLE. A studio, subdivided from a larger apartment, with two college kids inside, smoking pot. Mattress-on-the-floor-type-deal. For 3000 shex !?!
Uh-uh.
Practically cried when I saw this place. Has it really come to this? Please God, no. Divinely intervene now, pls. Called this other guy in same neighborhood. Went right over there.
Much better! Definitely a fixer-upper, but a true one-bedroom, with AC built in, tiny little deck, lots of storage space. There was some furniture that came with it I’d have to throw out, it needed a paint job but the owner would probably do that, and it came with a fridge which was problematic for me (and the fridge was tinier than mine, and needed to be defrosted and cleaned out inside, majorly). But it was only 2800 shex, and the Va’ad Beit (monthly bldg maintenance fee) and Arnona (municipal tax) and water bill were included in that! Plus, no realtor’s fee, b/c it was listed by the owner.
”]
After seeing every place, BTW, I’d call my Bestie Anna to download everything to her and get some instant analysis.
Time to see that third place. The one, actually in my neighborhood. And it was nice !!! Only 3200 shex, Va’ad beit/arnona not included, realtor’s payment couldn’t be made in tashlomeem. But totes just renovated, and two huge rooms. No fridge (which was good, so I could bring mine), yes on plumbing for my washing machine. The place was in a subdivided larger apartment, which were actually just made illegal in Tel Aviv and if the landlord is caught, he pays a 250,000 shex fee ($66,000 approx !!!), but this landlord wasn’t fazed by that.
No question, this was the place. Same neighborhood as I’m currently livin, and a lot going for it.
Which meant it would only be available for a couple of hours. Oh yeah, the good places go like – *that!* [snap]
So, I emailed my ex-boyfriend boss landlord and said, Um, I need an answer ASAP – I might have to give them $$$ to take this place tomorrow. Since we don’t have a lease on this [current] place, can I be out that fast? He flipped out on me – breaking out the Jewish guilt big guns about how he has helped me out with living accommodations since Day One (all true) and that even though he wants me out by end of April and I should start looking at places – I can’t take any of them! Plus, I maybe don’t even have to leave in April; there’s a chance I could stay put.
So, this was all for naught. And it was a lot of anxiety to go through, seeing all those places, thinking about $$$ I don’t have and movers and such, scheduling these viewings despite my two jobs, etc. But – as I stated years ago? at the top of this post, at least I know now that if I have to find a place in a hurry, I can do it.
Six months since my last cleaning. Time to go to the dentist again. Last summer, my friend Eric recommended his dentist to me. He did a great job, but turned out to be a private dentist and not covered by my government health insurance. *gulp*
So I wasn’t going back to him. I called Maccabi-Dent, the dental division of my insurance and made an appointment to go there. I went this week. It was something like $40, I forget exactly, and I was able to get by in Hebrew when dealing with the administrator lady to pay and whatnot. But my hygienest was a Russian Olah (immigrant) and spoke not a lick of English. My Hebrew is such that – it’s a crap shoot: sometimes I can recall and cobble together enough words to poorly express what I want to say. Other times, I just hit a brick wall and can’t. That’s mainly how it was with my hygienest, Tania. Luckily I have no problems right now, but if I needed to complain about a pain or receding gum or possible cavity or whatever, I wouldn’t have been able to. Plus, it’s always good to be able to communicate with a person who’s sticking stuff in your mouth, particularly when it buzzes and whirs.
I thought I would have a chance to speak when the doctor when he came in after cleaning, to quickly examine me, which is what I’m used to in the States. But apparently, even though it is free, this is something extra you have to ask for when you make the appointment. Because I didn’t know to do this, I have to come back on Jan 26 to be seen by the actual dentist. Whatevs.
Gefilte Fish Out of Water 
