I punched my wife for the first time today. Here's how it happened. Spoiler alert: it's not my fault. It's my uncle's, and that creep's in my bedroom. Also, Clay's and Josh's.
I had a tough night.
I was hanging out with my uncle and my aunt. We were talking about how his co-workers have no sense of humor. He plays pranks on them and they just don't appreciate it. Oh, they laugh, but the laugh doesn't reach their dead eyes. Sometimes it doesn't even reach their mouths, they just make huh huh sounds like they're trying their best but the botox is a cruel master. Also, my uncle takes them all on vacation sometimes, but they don't appreciate that either. They want to be taken to Thailand or something, but he only takes them to the cold Appalachian mountains, way up in Maine, and puts them through a grueling bootcamp. It's for their own good of course. Engineers sit more than ever these days. If they don't give their body a little shock every once in a while to remind it who works for whom, one day it's going to give them a big one. They're going to need a friend with a defibrillator to un-shock themselves.
But his co-workers? Zero appreciation. Not that my uncle needs it. He's the kind of guy who can laugh at a joke in a packed auditorium and lose zero volume when no one else laughs. Maybe he gets even louder, who knows.
I don't know my uncle very well is what I'm trying to say.
Then I realized my parents were about to come home, and I was only wearing a loin cloth. I decided I'd better go change. I ran upstairs to my room, flashing my uncle and his wife a little on the way I think, those one-size-fits-all loin cloths have a different standard for "fits."
When I got to my room, it was pitch dark. Then it was slightly less so, because there was a truck pulling into the driveway. That would be my parents. They must have bought a truck on the way home. I turned on the light, because I'd forgotten my night-vision goggles and saw a strange man standing in front of me. I didn't have time to decide whether he was a threat or not, because I punched him in the face.
I think I woke up mid-punch. I guess the shock of seeing a stranger in my room in the safest little town in the country flipped a Rambo switch I didn't know I had. But it also threw me right out of the Matrix and back into the real world, or at least one level up in the simulation. I felt my fist connect with meat and realized I had just punched my wife in the shoulder. We've only been married for a few years so we still sleep in the same bed. We even laugh at each other's jokes sometimes. Huh huh. And now I punch her sometimes, unprovoked.
In the moon's weak light, filtering through the shades alongside the rapt gazes of the sleep voyeurs across the street, I saw my wife turn her head towards me and crack her eyes open.
"What?" she said in a sleepy and indifferent voice, like I'd just gently whispered her name into her ear instead of permanently tattooing my knuckles into her deltoid.
"Nothing," I said. "I just remembered a joke."
But she was already asleep.
So the question is, in light of this new information, should I work out more or less?
Hold on. I forgot to say why it's Clay's and Josh's fault. It's not on principle. It's not because we have some kind of pact where we share the blame for everything. That would be cool, but I can probably find safer partners in that enterprise. Preferably someone in a coma. It's because we're scheduled to meet at the Brooklyn Zoo gym Tuesday night, two days from now, and I woke up at 2AM with the strongest antipathy to the idea. I reached over my wife, grabbed my phone, checked the time and made a mental note: 2AM - strong antipathy to Brooklyn Zoo. I'm a very responsible person.
Then I lay there for thirty minutes, or maybe two hours, tossing and turning and whining to myself about how I was going to have to drive for nearly two hours there, only to have to drive nearly two hours back a few hours later. I really didn't want to do it. Really really. I'm not sure I remember not wanting to do something so strongly in the recent past as I didn't want to do all that driving.
Why had I agreed to it? They're just friends, fuck 'em right? I don't need friends. Sleep is what I need. If scientists had to choose between sleep and friends, they'd pick sleep any day of the week. How long can you survive without friends? No one's successfully tested the upper limit. How long can you survive without sleep? A few days if you're not competing on an international level? QED. That is why the American Heart Association, as of the year 1776, strongly recommends that when faced with the either-or choice of friends vs sleep, you should always choose sleep.
The punching incident came soon after this. Thanks for nothing guys, and see you in Brooklyn. I'll bring the blame game.
Monday, January 7, 2019
Friday, December 28, 2018
Clay's disgusting joke
Clay is a wonderful person. I feel like I should say this now, in case you're only looking for one takeaway before you stop reading. Have a nice day.
Still here? Ok, so Clay told me this disgusting joke. I wouldn't say it's objectively disgusting. It's not disgusting cause of the blood. It's not disgusting cause of the incest. It's disgusting because I've already attached the label "disgusting" to it in my mind, and now it's too late to reevaluate. It's disgusting, and that's final. In fact it gets more disgusting every time I think about it, without thinking about the content of the joke at all. Like the fisherman's fish that grows with every telling. The curse of having a good memory, eh?
Now, if it were up to me, I wouldn't breathe a word about this to anyone. Clay is a friend, why would I want to replace him in everyone's head with a disgusting joke? Think about it, what's the most memorable impression you have of Clay? Was it that time he made you laugh? That's sweet. If it's also true, then I'm insanely jealous. Was it the time he said something really profound, and you thought to yourself, "holy shit, Bob, I had abandoned all faith in enlightened thought!" If that was the case, pass that holy shit forward, I could use some enlightenment in my diet.
For me it was Clay's joke. Every time I think of Clay, I think of blood and incest, and the griffin's squawk the joke tore out of my throat before I curled up into a fetal ball and mourned the loss of our friendship's innocence. Or as Jews say, celebrated our friendship's bar mitzvah. And still, I consider him a dear friend, which tells you something about how wonderful he is. It doesn't tell you anything about me. I'm just a man with no innocence left.
So if it were up to me, I would try in vain to forget this for the rest of my life. Just a little more garbage on the ever-growing mental landfill. Unfortunately, it's not up to me, because past me, specifically me from two days ago, the fucker, already leaked the events to the press. We can only pick up the pieces now, and lie to each other that they fit. Don't worry, it's not that hard. Picasso did it for a living.
Here's where things get complicated. Clay didn't just tell the joke to me. Ben was also present. Yes, that Ben. The second one from the left in my mental picture. He's grinning, because he loved the joke as much as I did, and he's looking worried now that I dragged him into this. He should be, he's not getting out of this one easy.
Still, this is a containable situation. As long as everyone just sits back, has a beer, maybe a lobotomy, and doesn't wax too curious, this joke can be buried forever.
Alas, someone waxed. You know who you are. You know what you did. Steph, please come forward. Can you hear me? A little closer to the mic? How about now? Yes, well, you just couldn't put your curiousity in your mind vice and crush it, could you? You had to ask. Remember, you pushed that domino.
After buttering me up with compliments on my unique hairstyle, Steph asked me if she should ask Clay to tell her his joke, or if it was better left unheard.
Steph: ok, now that I've buttered you up with compliments, should I ask Clay to tell me the joke? Or do I not want to know?
Me: the joke that I warned him explicitly, in a public forum, against telling anyone ever again?
Steph: yes, that joke. Why, was there another joke?
Me: yeah, Clay told me this great joke about this Russian war hero that...no wait that was me. Also you should ask Ben about the difference between jelly and...never mind.
Steph: ooh, do I want to know that one?
Me: I think you're too far down the rabbit hole. You're stuck, like Winnie the Pooh
Steph: you're right, the only way is through. Oops, pooh, through, that rhymed, sorry about that. Also, how did Winnie the Pooh manage to get his big bear head into a rabbit hole in the first place?
Me: he used his poetic license
Steph: I'm going to ask Clay to tell me the joke
Greek Chorus: the old Steph is dead! Long live the new Steph!
Did you see how nonchalant I was? Well I wasn't really. Meanwhile, in a chat with Clay:
Me: Clay, you're going to have to leave the country
Clay: shit. How long do I have?
Me: about thirty seconds
Clay: not enough time. Just hold me
Me: [hold Clay emoji]
Clay: it's been thirty two seconds. I'm still alive. Was this a joke? Oh shit, Steph just messaged me
Me: put her on hold! Don't answer any of her questions! Pretend she got the wrong number!
Clay: she's asking me to tell her that joke! I told you that in confidence!
Me: Ben made me do it!
Clay: ok, this is no time to panic. We need to think. There has to be a way out. I've been answering her messages with a five minute delay from day one, for just this eventuality
Me: really? I need to refactor my thirty seconds estimate then. Hold on
Clay: hurry
Me: uh...ok, the math shows that if we didn't waste time doing the math, you would have had just enough time to escape to Canada
Clay: phew. And fuck
Me: Amen to fuck
Clay: ok, wait, I think have an idea
Me: I think I just had the same idea
Clay: on three?
Me: on three
Clay: one
Me: two
Clay: Ben!
Me: Ben!
Clay: ok, what did you mean by "Ben!"? Cause I meant we need to get our story straight with him, so we can substitute in a different joke without Steph suspecting anything
Me: exactly. Except that'll never work, because Steph might have already gotten to him. You know how intelligent she is
Clay: shit, I wish it was her trying to dupe me. Or her trying to dupe you. You know, something feasible
Me: or Ben
Clay: which Ben?
Me: the second one from the left in my mental picture
Clay: right. For a second I thought you switched them. Ok, so what did you have in mind?
Me: well first, Ben's lost. Collateral damage. We don't know if Steph got to him already, so we can't trust a word he says. We can only trust each other. Because we would never lie to each other, never ever, right?
Clay: right. Well...if we're being completely honest with each other from now on, remember when I told you your sun hat looked good?
Me: it's one of my best memories from the trip
Clay: oh. Well, in that case, I don't think I properly conveyed how much I loved it. Some things just aren't meant to be expressed in words. By me
Me: wow, that's beautiful. All those words you didn't say, they're really speaking to me
Clay: yes. But go on. Ben's lost, you were saying. Who's Ben?
Me: "who's Ben?" exactly. It's sad to lose four people in one go, but we have no choice. It's just you and me now. Here's what we say in the group chat, or rather what you say: "guys, I know you're wondering what the joke was that Mark said I should never tell, so in the interest of never telling it again, here it is." Then you paste the substitute joke
Clay: perfect. I'm going to find a plausible replacement right now. What do they know about the joke? Just that it's disgusting, right? Piece of cake. Googling "mildly sick joke"
Me: and when any of the Bens say something like "that's not the joke!" we have to act all affronted
Clay: like, "Ben, I thought we were friends! We snored to each other, doesn't that mean anything to you? Why would you want to frame me like that?"
Me: poor Bens, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes now
Clay: who's Ben?
Me: right, sorry. But you do need to know his name, in case he says something in the chat
Clay: good point
Me: ok, it's settled then. You tell the joke in the group chat, we commit the Bens to a mental asylum if necessary, and we can all move on with our lives. Steph won't think you're a monster
Clay: because I'm not
Me: you're a man that got mixed up with the wrong joke. It could have happened to anyone
Clay: ok, I've got the perfect joke
[Chat with Steph]
Steph: I bugged Clay till he told me the joke. He says he's going to tell the whole group in a minute
Me: oh yeah? How are you feeling?
Steph: uh, fine? A bit underwhelmed if anything. Kind of offended, actually. You guys thought a little bestiality would freak me out?
Me: bestiality?
Me: I mean, yes. Bestiality
[Group chat]
Clay: guys, I know you're wondering what the joke was that Mark said I should never tell, so in the interest of never telling it again, here it is:
Dr. Jesse had sex with one of his patients and felt guilty all day long.
No matter how much he tried to forget about it, he just couldn't.
The guilt was overwhelming.
But every once in a while he would hear a reassuring voice in his head that said:
"Jesse don't worry about it. You aren't the first medical practitioner to have sex with one of his patients and you won't be the last. Just let it go, Jesse."
But invariably another voice in his head would bring him back to reality, whispering:
"Jesse... Jesse... you're a veterinarian, you sick bastard!"
Steph: lame. This joke was so oversold
Clay: I blame Mark
Me: hey, what's a little hyperbole between friends?
Ben: uh Clay...I don't remember you telling that joke
[Chat with Clay]
Clay: here we go
Me: remember, present a united front
[Group chat]
Clay: what?
Ben: no, you definitely told a different joke. Does the word "jelly" ring a bell?
[Chat with Clay]
Clay: wtf? He's trying to stick his own jelly joke on me!
Me: stick him in the mental hospital. All four of them!
[Chat with Steph]
Steph: I thought the jelly joke was Ben's
Me: uhh...
[Group chat]
Irad: what's the jelly joke? It sounds legit
Clay: I have no idea, ask Ben
Ben: don't be coy Clay, tell the man the joke. Irad likes a good joke
Me: yeah Clay, tell the man the joke
[Chat with Clay]
Clay: wtf man?
Me: sorry. The pressure...
[Chat with Steph]
Steph: wait, the jelly joke was Clay's too?
Me: ugh, I can't do this anymore. Okay, the truth is, Clay's sick. I've just been covering for him
Steph: wow. So you guys have been lying to everyone this whole time? Is there even a "jelly" joke or are you just getting all our hopes up?
Me: "our hopes up?" Steph, I think you might have a problem. Being disgusted by a joke isn't exactly winning a Nobel prize
Steph: tell me the fucking jelly joke! I have a right to be digusted!
[Chat with Clay]
Me: hm, I'm not sure Steph is who we thought she was
Clay: fuck you, dude. I'm in Canada
[Group chat]
Ben: well if Clay won't tell his joke, I will!
Still here? Ok, so Clay told me this disgusting joke. I wouldn't say it's objectively disgusting. It's not disgusting cause of the blood. It's not disgusting cause of the incest. It's disgusting because I've already attached the label "disgusting" to it in my mind, and now it's too late to reevaluate. It's disgusting, and that's final. In fact it gets more disgusting every time I think about it, without thinking about the content of the joke at all. Like the fisherman's fish that grows with every telling. The curse of having a good memory, eh?
Now, if it were up to me, I wouldn't breathe a word about this to anyone. Clay is a friend, why would I want to replace him in everyone's head with a disgusting joke? Think about it, what's the most memorable impression you have of Clay? Was it that time he made you laugh? That's sweet. If it's also true, then I'm insanely jealous. Was it the time he said something really profound, and you thought to yourself, "holy shit, Bob, I had abandoned all faith in enlightened thought!" If that was the case, pass that holy shit forward, I could use some enlightenment in my diet.
For me it was Clay's joke. Every time I think of Clay, I think of blood and incest, and the griffin's squawk the joke tore out of my throat before I curled up into a fetal ball and mourned the loss of our friendship's innocence. Or as Jews say, celebrated our friendship's bar mitzvah. And still, I consider him a dear friend, which tells you something about how wonderful he is. It doesn't tell you anything about me. I'm just a man with no innocence left.
So if it were up to me, I would try in vain to forget this for the rest of my life. Just a little more garbage on the ever-growing mental landfill. Unfortunately, it's not up to me, because past me, specifically me from two days ago, the fucker, already leaked the events to the press. We can only pick up the pieces now, and lie to each other that they fit. Don't worry, it's not that hard. Picasso did it for a living.
Here's where things get complicated. Clay didn't just tell the joke to me. Ben was also present. Yes, that Ben. The second one from the left in my mental picture. He's grinning, because he loved the joke as much as I did, and he's looking worried now that I dragged him into this. He should be, he's not getting out of this one easy.
Still, this is a containable situation. As long as everyone just sits back, has a beer, maybe a lobotomy, and doesn't wax too curious, this joke can be buried forever.
Alas, someone waxed. You know who you are. You know what you did. Steph, please come forward. Can you hear me? A little closer to the mic? How about now? Yes, well, you just couldn't put your curiousity in your mind vice and crush it, could you? You had to ask. Remember, you pushed that domino.
After buttering me up with compliments on my unique hairstyle, Steph asked me if she should ask Clay to tell her his joke, or if it was better left unheard.
Steph: ok, now that I've buttered you up with compliments, should I ask Clay to tell me the joke? Or do I not want to know?
Me: the joke that I warned him explicitly, in a public forum, against telling anyone ever again?
Steph: yes, that joke. Why, was there another joke?
Me: yeah, Clay told me this great joke about this Russian war hero that...no wait that was me. Also you should ask Ben about the difference between jelly and...never mind.
Steph: ooh, do I want to know that one?
Me: I think you're too far down the rabbit hole. You're stuck, like Winnie the Pooh
Steph: you're right, the only way is through. Oops, pooh, through, that rhymed, sorry about that. Also, how did Winnie the Pooh manage to get his big bear head into a rabbit hole in the first place?
Me: he used his poetic license
Steph: I'm going to ask Clay to tell me the joke
Greek Chorus: the old Steph is dead! Long live the new Steph!
Did you see how nonchalant I was? Well I wasn't really. Meanwhile, in a chat with Clay:
Me: Clay, you're going to have to leave the country
Clay: shit. How long do I have?
Me: about thirty seconds
Clay: not enough time. Just hold me
Me: [hold Clay emoji]
Clay: it's been thirty two seconds. I'm still alive. Was this a joke? Oh shit, Steph just messaged me
Me: put her on hold! Don't answer any of her questions! Pretend she got the wrong number!
Clay: she's asking me to tell her that joke! I told you that in confidence!
Me: Ben made me do it!
Clay: ok, this is no time to panic. We need to think. There has to be a way out. I've been answering her messages with a five minute delay from day one, for just this eventuality
Me: really? I need to refactor my thirty seconds estimate then. Hold on
Clay: hurry
Me: uh...ok, the math shows that if we didn't waste time doing the math, you would have had just enough time to escape to Canada
Clay: phew. And fuck
Me: Amen to fuck
Clay: ok, wait, I think have an idea
Me: I think I just had the same idea
Clay: on three?
Me: on three
Clay: one
Me: two
Clay: Ben!
Me: Ben!
Clay: ok, what did you mean by "Ben!"? Cause I meant we need to get our story straight with him, so we can substitute in a different joke without Steph suspecting anything
Me: exactly. Except that'll never work, because Steph might have already gotten to him. You know how intelligent she is
Clay: shit, I wish it was her trying to dupe me. Or her trying to dupe you. You know, something feasible
Me: or Ben
Clay: which Ben?
Me: the second one from the left in my mental picture
Clay: right. For a second I thought you switched them. Ok, so what did you have in mind?
Me: well first, Ben's lost. Collateral damage. We don't know if Steph got to him already, so we can't trust a word he says. We can only trust each other. Because we would never lie to each other, never ever, right?
Clay: right. Well...if we're being completely honest with each other from now on, remember when I told you your sun hat looked good?
Me: it's one of my best memories from the trip
Clay: oh. Well, in that case, I don't think I properly conveyed how much I loved it. Some things just aren't meant to be expressed in words. By me
Me: wow, that's beautiful. All those words you didn't say, they're really speaking to me
Clay: yes. But go on. Ben's lost, you were saying. Who's Ben?
Me: "who's Ben?" exactly. It's sad to lose four people in one go, but we have no choice. It's just you and me now. Here's what we say in the group chat, or rather what you say: "guys, I know you're wondering what the joke was that Mark said I should never tell, so in the interest of never telling it again, here it is." Then you paste the substitute joke
Clay: perfect. I'm going to find a plausible replacement right now. What do they know about the joke? Just that it's disgusting, right? Piece of cake. Googling "mildly sick joke"
Me: and when any of the Bens say something like "that's not the joke!" we have to act all affronted
Clay: like, "Ben, I thought we were friends! We snored to each other, doesn't that mean anything to you? Why would you want to frame me like that?"
Me: poor Bens, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes now
Clay: who's Ben?
Me: right, sorry. But you do need to know his name, in case he says something in the chat
Clay: good point
Me: ok, it's settled then. You tell the joke in the group chat, we commit the Bens to a mental asylum if necessary, and we can all move on with our lives. Steph won't think you're a monster
Clay: because I'm not
Me: you're a man that got mixed up with the wrong joke. It could have happened to anyone
Clay: ok, I've got the perfect joke
[Chat with Steph]
Steph: I bugged Clay till he told me the joke. He says he's going to tell the whole group in a minute
Me: oh yeah? How are you feeling?
Steph: uh, fine? A bit underwhelmed if anything. Kind of offended, actually. You guys thought a little bestiality would freak me out?
Me: bestiality?
Me: I mean, yes. Bestiality
[Group chat]
Clay: guys, I know you're wondering what the joke was that Mark said I should never tell, so in the interest of never telling it again, here it is:
Dr. Jesse had sex with one of his patients and felt guilty all day long.
No matter how much he tried to forget about it, he just couldn't.
The guilt was overwhelming.
But every once in a while he would hear a reassuring voice in his head that said:
"Jesse don't worry about it. You aren't the first medical practitioner to have sex with one of his patients and you won't be the last. Just let it go, Jesse."
But invariably another voice in his head would bring him back to reality, whispering:
"Jesse... Jesse... you're a veterinarian, you sick bastard!"
Steph: lame. This joke was so oversold
Clay: I blame Mark
Me: hey, what's a little hyperbole between friends?
Ben: uh Clay...I don't remember you telling that joke
[Chat with Clay]
Clay: here we go
Me: remember, present a united front
[Group chat]
Clay: what?
Ben: no, you definitely told a different joke. Does the word "jelly" ring a bell?
[Chat with Clay]
Clay: wtf? He's trying to stick his own jelly joke on me!
Me: stick him in the mental hospital. All four of them!
[Chat with Steph]
Steph: I thought the jelly joke was Ben's
Me: uhh...
[Group chat]
Irad: what's the jelly joke? It sounds legit
Clay: I have no idea, ask Ben
Ben: don't be coy Clay, tell the man the joke. Irad likes a good joke
Me: yeah Clay, tell the man the joke
[Chat with Clay]
Clay: wtf man?
Me: sorry. The pressure...
[Chat with Steph]
Steph: wait, the jelly joke was Clay's too?
Me: ugh, I can't do this anymore. Okay, the truth is, Clay's sick. I've just been covering for him
Steph: wow. So you guys have been lying to everyone this whole time? Is there even a "jelly" joke or are you just getting all our hopes up?
Me: "our hopes up?" Steph, I think you might have a problem. Being disgusted by a joke isn't exactly winning a Nobel prize
Steph: tell me the fucking jelly joke! I have a right to be digusted!
[Chat with Clay]
Me: hm, I'm not sure Steph is who we thought she was
Clay: fuck you, dude. I'm in Canada
[Group chat]
Ben: well if Clay won't tell his joke, I will!
Thursday, December 27, 2018
Birthright with Israel Outdoors, and extended adventures in Israel
I took notes for the first few days of the trip so I could blog about it later, but fell off the bandwagon around when we headed for Jerusalem. Oh well, I guess we'll have to do it again some time.
***
It's been a long first day, with lots of short-term memory abuse, along with more traditional forms of travel-induced stomach troubles. Grandma, I follow humbly in your footsteps.
The first adventure was the check-in at the airport. I was making small talk with other trip participants, and had just finished dropping an information bomb on serverless tech on a fellow coder (known to future me as Josh S), when it was my turn to check-in with El Al airlines. For the non-Hebrew speakers out there, El Al means "flying jew." The conversation went something like this:
Woman: where do you live?
Me: New Haven, Connecticut. But honestly, New Jersey.
Woman: who do you live with?
Me: my Chinese grandma
Woman: has she ever been to Israel?
Me: no
Woman: have you been to Israel before?
Me: once, when I was a small Chinese child
Woman: how old were you?
Me: around eight or nine. Or seven or ten or eleven.
Woman: do you know anyone in Israel?
Me: yes, I have some family there, and friends of family
Woman: oh yeah, like who?
Me: well, my sister lives there now. She took the birthright trip and never came back
Woman: really? She never came back?
Me: you're right, she probably came back
Woman: you don't know if your own sister came back to the US?
Me: well she's in Israel now, I don't remember the details of her back and forth
Woman: where in Israel does she live?
Me: uhh, I think around an hour from Tel Aviv?
Woman: you don't know the name of the city?
Me: no
Woman: so you're not close with your sister
Me: Israel's the size of New Jersey, that's not close enough?
Woman: do you know where your other family members live in Israel?
Me: uhh...no
Woman: how is that possible?
Me: good question, my mom asks me that all the time. "You met with your friends and didn't ask what their jobs are? Does Eric have a girlfriend? Did Lee end up changing his name to Peter? Are you sure you didn't stay home-"
Woman: stop talking. Next question: do you celebrate the Jewish holidays?
Me: I did as a kid
Woman: which holidays?
Me: Hannukah, ...Purim, I think?
Woman: how did you celebrate them?
Me: by eating too much? Sometimes we lit things on fire. Sometimes my grandma would take me to the synagogue
Woman: you said Purim. Do you know what Purim is about?
Me: mm, I remember waving little gizmos around and making a racket
Woman: [sighs]. Do you belong to any congregation?
Me: no
Woman: do you ever go to the synagogue?
Me: no
Woman: do you have a synagogue in your town?
Me: yes! There's one right down the street from my house
Woman: what's it called?
Me: uhh...I call it the local synagogue
Woman: how do you not know anything about anything!?
At that point, she wrote TOO INCOMPETENT TO BE DANGEROUS in large invisible letters on my forehead and let me through. It was lucky for her, she seemed to be headed for a heartattack.
Apparently I had it easy. Some people got grilled by several agents, and then got slips of paper with a room number and time for a second interrogation. "Don't be late!" the paper read, "or you won't be interrogated." Winn, in particular, seemed to have gotten the full treatment, and Dmitry was unfortunate enough to have passed a Lebanese person in the street during his four years in college, which made him a person of interest. None of us were used to such rigor from security, and there was incredulity and jokes to go around.
Before boarding, right in the middle of our second ice-breaker exercise (what did I miss, guys?), I got called in for a bag search, which I admit, freaked me out a little, but I think the search team was warned that further questions would get them nowhere. They did find the pound bag of cocaine I'd smuggled into Ben's guitar, but it was within the airline's limits.
The plane ride was uneventful, the best kind of plane ride. I met more friendly people, including my future roommate Justin, who gave up his aisle seat to big Dave and sat between us, looking decidedly un-Jewish. He was probably extra Jewish on the inside, I decided, though he looked far too skinny to have an inside at all. Justin, care to defend yourself?
Looking back to standing in line at the airport, some people were still in their shells, me included. Not everyone though. Andreas was eminently approachable. Hal was a font of friendliness. I'm sure others had their friendly faces on, but from the suffocating safety of my comfort zone, people looked cool and intimidating. Josh S made standing in line look so impressive, I briefly considered changing careers. I made a brave (and good) decision and forced myself to talk to him. Ellie was standing somewhat warily on the sidelines of a nearby conversation, and I remember hesitating to introduce myself. I imagine my face broadcast the same wariness, because she didn't volunteer for friendship either. "I'm a turtle," she told me later, when there was no doubt that we'd hit it off.
***
Our first night, we stayed in a kibbutz in the Golan Heights, near the Syrian border. The little cottages were not what I envisioned a kibbutz to be like. In my mind it was more like a barracks from the flash-forward cut-scenes of the future in the Terminator movies. I didn't even realize we were in a kibbutz till Lila mentioned it to me the next morning on the bus. It felt like one of those little communities in the Poconos, cozy and mostly comfortable, with the addition of a dining hall, a Yoga & Bullshit room, and half a dozen stray dogs, enough for them to enjoy each other's company, but not so many that thoughts emerge of shrugging off the yoke of human oppression.
It was a tough night, despite having been awake for over twenty four hours. There were three of us in the room, two friendly guys and a sarcastic guy. There was no ice to be broken--Ben and Clay are warm inside and out--and conversation was effortless. We chatted for a while, then turned off the light and somehow got to telling jokes. Really really bad jokes, the kind that make you laugh and cringe at the same time. The kind you're not sure you should tell anyone ever. Ben, thank you for the jelly joke. Clay, don't ever tell that joke again. Yes, that joke. We eventually ran out and said good night, both disgusted and pleased with each other and ourselves.
"Good" was the wrong word.
I was on the cot near the window, Clay was in the middle, and Ben was at the other wall. Oh, that poor wall. It snored all night like it was dying of enphysema. The other walls relayed its suffering with breathless enthusiasm, the echoes layering into a hideous harmony.
Clay doesn't sleep well under duress apparently, because all of the times I woke up to the raspy tune of a lawnmower choking on gravel, the din was punctuated by frustrated sighs in his voice (it was dark, so I suppose Clay could have been out cold while Ben engaged in Tuvan ventriloquism). Several times an angry "fuck!" pierced the air, to be quickly drowned out by fresh material from Sweeney Todd's garbage disposal. At one point Clay reached over and violently shook Ben's bed, which was followed by an eerie but short silence. Ben resumed drilling for oil with a vengeance thirty seconds later. I wish I'd recorded the two of them. We could have probably sold it to a contemporary art museum.
In the morning, the first thing Ben said was, "how did you guys sleep? I couldn't sleep all night!" We instantly forgave him.
***
Breakfast at 8AM was an exercise in self-control that I didn't score well on. Buffets bring out the worst in me. I tried to remember what foods were high in fiber but I wasn't sure I saw any there other than cereal, which I'm irrationally prejudiced against. I stared at the spread and tried to ask each item mentally, "can I poop you out?" They weren't optimistic. I ate them anyway. Spoiler alert: there was pooping sometime later.
On the bus and during lunch, Daryl, Clay and I discussed law and the legal system. Daryl's a lawyer, and she loves the law. No, love is too weak a word, she luuurves it, you know? She loaves it, luffs it, two F's, yes. (Annie Hall, anyone?). I wish I could remember all the stuff I learned, but I'll have to settle for hoping I internalized some of it. Thanks, Daryl, I wish I was that passionate about software engineering! Or anything.
The burgers were good too.
***
It's been three days, and I've already lost three things. First, my water bottle. This is tragic, not just because it was a nice water bottle, but because it was Yuanechka's, which means I can't go back to the US or look her in the eyes ever again. I'll have to look at her breasts instead...which is what I've been doing all along anyway. Maybe I can go back after all?
I left the water bottle in the place we had lunch and law, and remembered it when the bus driver was pulling out, but couldn't bring myself to stop him. I let a single tear of pure masculinity roll down my cheek, and made my peace with cowardice.
The second was not my passport. What a relief! It was my Kindle. I searched through my entire backpack, then took everything out of it and looked on both sides of each item, in case it was hiding (except for the items that were folded into Mobius strips). It wasn't there. I leaned back in my chair and shook my head in disbelief. Then I noticed a big bulge in my pants pocket. It was my Kindle. Right next to the other bulge. My water bottle!? Sadly, no.
The third was my swim trunks. We visited the hot springs today, and spent an hour or two soaking ourselves in hot water and discussing biohacking techniques. Josh S swore by a breathing technique he'd learned from a Dutch superhero, Wim Hof, which Wim supposedly uses to hold his breath for extended periods of time, survive long immersions in ice water, enable his body to reject injections of Ecoli, and fit more than 280 characters in his Tweets. Wim trained twelve disciples in the art, and the results supposedly stood up to scientific scrutiny. Josh himself has tried the breathing technique and says he increased the number of pushups he could do in one set to 2X. Previously he could only do X. I know, as if X wasn't impressive enough!
But back to my lost swim trunks. I didn't realize I'd lost them till I started listing the things I lost just now, and while mentally reviewing the items in my inventory I hadn't lost yet, realized I should probably take my towel out of my backpack, as it's still wet. Unfortunately, my swim trunks were supposed to be rooming with the towel, and they were not. I must have left them in the changing room. Anyone could be wearing them now, but statistically speaking, it's probably someone famous.
***
We visited three countries' borders today: Lebnanon, Syria, and Jordan. We didn't cross any of them, as I imagine the forces of the bordering countries haven't heard of Birthright's peaceful mission, but we got within a mile or so and observed them with a mix of curiousity, fear, and incomprehension. Irad, our guide, gave us the gist of the current and historical geopolitical situation with each neighbor. We also went down into one of the bunkers, which was like descending into the belly of a submarine. It was a claustrophobic tunnel with metal walls, the rings reinforcing it at regular intervals making it look like I was inside the ribcage of a dinosaur. Or the belly of a giant worm.
Tomorrow we're getting some fresh Kosher meat in our group: six native Israelis. Our American group leaders, who sometimes feel like camp counselors with their infectious enthusiasm and encyclopedic knowledge of icebreakers, broke us into groups and assigned us an Israeli to prepare some kind of theatrical welcome for. Our poor Israeli is going to have a very strange idea of Americans. No stranger than the truth, but strange.
In other news, Clay and I decided to learn Hebrew, and then, like fucking heroes, went ahead and learned it. We are now fluent, check this out:
Ani mevin - I understand
Ani lo mevin - I don't understand
I think that pretty much covers any possible conversation we could have in this country. If they say one of those two phrases, I answer with the first pharse. Else, with the second phrase. Software engineering makes everything so easy.
***
Shit, this is where my notes get sparse. All it says is: "you loved it, bitch."
***
Extended adventures in Israel, after the tearful but hugful departure of over two thirds of the gang. We miss you, gang, but also, I miss you.
-------------------------------
Thursday morning, after breakfast with the other orphaned Extendables, I headed over to meet up with my sister Michelle to drop off my suitcase and do some troubleshooting for my startup, Tradle. I had to take a bus to get there, which was a little daunting, but with Google Maps I felt invincible, albeit dependent on a tiny, old and cranky battery for my superpowers. I felt less invincible when I realized the bus had zero English in it, not even the scrolling display with stop names. I arrived without issues however, or at least met up with someone who bore a striking resemblance to my sister. I camped out at her office for an hour or so, got chatted up by some of her co-workers, got my butt sniffed by some of the office dogs--brick and mortar dogs, not virtual or metaphorical ones, it's one of those retro offices--then decided to head over to Jerusalem and take a walk through the four quarters of the Old City.
I booked a night in a 4-bed mixed dorm at Abraham Hostel in Jerusalem, hugged my sister (or her replicant doppelganger) goodbye, rated her hospitality 5 stars on Google Maps, and hopped on the first of two buses. On the second bus, I was the only passenger, and spent the forty-five minutes or so of the trip chatting with the bus driver. He suggested, at length, that I not get stabbed walking in the Old City at night, and take a walk in the morning instead. I didn't take much convincing, but patiently listened to all forty-five minutes of it.
Abraham Hostel turned out to be an industrial mega-dorm, with the maximum occupancy of a small province in China. There was some kind of ecological lecture + panel scheduled for the evening, followed by a meeting of the UN in the adjoining hall. No amount of imaginary coffee made that seem survivable at the time, so I grabbed my free drink and the nearest friendly looking person at the bar and we went to browse the market and grab some dinner instead. My new friend turned out to be a Belgian psychologist who works with refugee children from Afghanistan. We had a nice chat, culminating in the rebranding of her profession as "brain engineer," before I headed in for an early night. There I go again, making engineers whereever I go. It's unsustainable is what it is.
Sleep was not to be, though Ben was thousands of miles away. Just as I was fading out, the door burst open, and a jolly gentleman in his late sixties or early seventies burst in and shouted Hi! at me in Russian. Naively, I responded in Russian. He lit up like a light bulb, shook my hand like he had just sold me a car, and asked me where I was from. Upon learning that I was from the US, he cried that it was an amazing coincidence because the person that had my bed before me was also from the US, and both the current and previous girl in the bunk above me were Italian. I didn't understand the import of this statement until later. Spoiler: those two people had asked to switch rooms because of a certain friendly someone. Two other people offed themselves when they panicked during their escape, and couldn't figure out which way the doorknob turned.
With the pleasantries concluded, the professor, as I'd dubbed him in my head, produced a folder from the room's desk's top drawer, and without preamble, began to lecture me on autogyros. I was unfamiliar with the term, but not for long. My poor ignorance, to be tortured at such length. tl;dr: the autogyro is superior to the helicopter in every way except financial success. But the world was finally ready for the autogyro, and he was the one to take it into the future.
Forty minutes later, the lecture drew to a close, but sleep was not on the dessert menu. Without so much as drawing breath, the professor launched straight into his next story: how he became an Olympic champion weight-lifter at the age of 62.
At one point, in the middle of this second high fantasy epic, the Italian girl came into the room and I was temporarily abandoned as the center of attention, as he tried to converse with her in Russian. She repeated his words back to him nonsensically, which he took for understanding, then rushed out before he could autogyro her. The weight-lifting saga resumed.
According to the professor, there are many categories in weightlifting competitions, and after conferring with a former champion, he chose the event that tested how many times you could lift a given weight in a limited span of time. He trained for three months, competed, won, then went home to present the medal to his wife and daughter. This was where the story took a strange turn. When he showed the certificate and the medal to his wife, she appeared not to believe him, or to use his terminology: "I could see it written on her face: bullshit!" Dismayed, he showed it to his daughter, whose response was along the lines of: "Dad, stop! It's not funny!" At that point he packed his things, walked out, and never saw them again.
Nap time? Wrong again. Next came the story of how to achieve happiness. tl;dr: take an item from your Problem drawer, and turn into a set of tasks to put in your Task drawer. When your Problem drawer is empty, close it so no more problems can get in.
Next came the story of why not to boil water. Why not? Boiling destroys its vitality!
Next came the parable of how men tricked women into abandoning telepathy as a form of communication in the garden of Eden, in favor of a much more deceptive form of communication, sign language, which itself was the early prototoype of spoken language.
At this point I have to admit that the whole time, I was begrudgingly fascinated. I desperately wanted to be left alone and get to sleep, and at the same time, I was consumed with curiousity for what was coming up next.
Eventually, another roommate arrived, a German kid, who looked half-amused, half-terrified at the prospect of a sleepless night full of educational programming. I knew that look. It was like looking into a mirror. The professor allowed him to turn off the light, however, and climbed into his own top bunk, but not before proclaiming that due to his drinking of bottled water (the water of vitality), he hadn't needed more than four hours of sleep a night in years. Seven hours later, I snuck out of the room to his delicate snoring. I thought I could hear words emerging from those fuzzy sounds, but it was probably just my brain taking poetic license, or secondhand schizophrenia. I'll have to see a brain engineer when I get back.
***
I was originally planning on staying with my sister in Ra'anana, but Andreas offered me to crash at their Airbnb in Tel Aviv. Or rather, Iron Man's Airbnb. It was a two-floor three-bedroom three-bathroom apartment, with a giant terrace looking out onto the city, a garage with a car elevator, and military bunker style shades that descended over the windows at the push of a button. I didn't mean to push that button, actually, and was careful about pushing any others afterward, in case they triggered some post-apocalyptic protocol, initiated a self-destruct sequence, or launched the apartment to Mars. I'm not sure how the owner planned to get us out of there if we decided to hole in.
Andreas, Justin and big Dave had rented the place for several nights, and security guard Ben had already made himself a little nest on the 2nd floor. I made myself another out of a lounge chair from the terrace and passed out upon reaching the horizontal. I woke up only once that night, to Ben screaming "why, Mark, why!?" He later explained that he was worried the lounge chair wasn't comfortable enough for me.
***
The 2nd day started slowly. No one had a clear idea of what they were doing, but everyone felt that time was limited. Panic slowly mounted, pressing on everyone's hangover. I was immune because I had a family visit scheduled for the afternoon, but I yelled at people a bit to fit in. Finally, the boys headed for a long walk to Jaffa, while I headed for some breakfast to kill time before my aunt picked me up.
***
Dave was leaving the next day, and I was invited to be the new Dave. I accepted, on the condition they call me Mark. We decided to extend the Airbnb for a few more days, rent a car, and drive it to all the places we'd missed or didn't get a close enough look at. I ordained myself Minister of Transportation, and took on the petty details of booking and picking up the car. I'd kept in touch with Ellie during the past two days, and she was now done with family matters. We planned to pick her up on our way to Haifa.
For the next two days, we criss-crossed Israel, treated each other to our respective musical tastes, learned to identify all the plants we passed (thanks Andreas!), engaged first shamefully, then shamelessly in selfie culture, and drank ourselves silly enough to go to a local strip club, which we were suprised to find out was more like an anteroom to a whorehouse. We went at a leisurely pace, achieved objectively little, but enjoyed a long look at the countryside and each other. It was great.
On the morning of the 18th, I drove Andreas and Justin to the airport, had breakfast with Ellie, and drove her to the bus station. Then I checked out of the apartment, and tried in vain to find parking in Tel Aviv. I finally found it, but at the cost of returning the car. Then I headed back to my sister's workplace. It was a deja vu moment.
***
Extended adventures in Israel, after the tearful but hugful separation from team Iron Man's Airbnb
-------------------------------
I had a very positive experience today in Israel, which had nothing to do with the local flora, fauna, cuisine, history, architecture, etc. It was the kind of experience that makes travel interesting for me.
Michelle and I were roaming the streets of Tel Aviv, me with a backpack and a suitcase, as my flight is tomorrow morning and I haven't made any accommodations for it, and Michelle with a backpack and a waterbottle with flowers in it. It's her birthday this week, so at any given moment she's packing flowers. There are also blanket forts in her near future.
We had just falafeled up, and were making our way to the bus stop.
Out of the corner of my eye something fell, and there was a clatter that could only have been a bike taking a spill. I whipped my head around to see a bike on the ground next to a telephone pole, a toddler strapped to the back of the seat, sticking out from it horizontally. The toddler didn't look particularly distressed. The mother, who'd probably dropped the bike as she was putting on her backpack, was bent awkwardly over it, trying to pick it up but unable to gain the leverage. My feet moved slowly in her direction. I think I would have been there in three seconds or so, when out of nowhere three figures whooshed in from different directions. The next instant there were four women picking up the bike together, one bracing the toddler with her hand. They had the bike up in seconds. I put my foot back back down where I'd lifted it from, and picked my jaw up off the dirty ground.
I aspire to always temper the pita of incredulity with the hummus of skepticism, but I don't think I've ever seen that before. I've seen people help strangers pick up a dropped item, hold doors open for them and perform various other courteous gestures. I've seen a college student give a $20 bill to a beggar, because he didn't have smaller bills. I've seen a man urinate on a police car. But for three strangers to respond simultaneously with the alacrity of trained lifeguards was not something in my experience bank. "I notice that I am confused," I recited the mantra of rationality to myself. I looked over to Michelle, and saw that she was practically bursting with pride for Israel, and I couldn't think of anything snide to say.
***
I didn't have accommodations for the last night, and had planned to crash at my sister's in Ra'anana, but Shoham offered me to crash at her apartment the instant she learned of my situation. I felt like I was imposing, but imposed anyway. Ra'anana seemed so far away... We met up for dinner at the Avocada with Claire and Ben M, where we shared three avocado-based entrees. Then Shoham took us to a bar with live music. It was some kind of high-powered riff-centric cousin of reggae, equally repetitive, but with no singing. It was skillfully rendered...but I can't honestly say I loved it.
Back at Shoham's, we chatted till around 2AM before going to sleep. We're both curious people-watchers apparently, and we compared notes on everyone from our group, trying consciously not to let conversation devolve into gossip. We had pretty different impressions of many people, which somewhat undermined my confidence in my assessments. Thanks Shoham!
***
It's been a long first day, with lots of short-term memory abuse, along with more traditional forms of travel-induced stomach troubles. Grandma, I follow humbly in your footsteps.
The first adventure was the check-in at the airport. I was making small talk with other trip participants, and had just finished dropping an information bomb on serverless tech on a fellow coder (known to future me as Josh S), when it was my turn to check-in with El Al airlines. For the non-Hebrew speakers out there, El Al means "flying jew." The conversation went something like this:
Woman: where do you live?
Me: New Haven, Connecticut. But honestly, New Jersey.
Woman: who do you live with?
Me: my Chinese grandma
Woman: has she ever been to Israel?
Me: no
Woman: have you been to Israel before?
Me: once, when I was a small Chinese child
Woman: how old were you?
Me: around eight or nine. Or seven or ten or eleven.
Woman: do you know anyone in Israel?
Me: yes, I have some family there, and friends of family
Woman: oh yeah, like who?
Me: well, my sister lives there now. She took the birthright trip and never came back
Woman: really? She never came back?
Me: you're right, she probably came back
Woman: you don't know if your own sister came back to the US?
Me: well she's in Israel now, I don't remember the details of her back and forth
Woman: where in Israel does she live?
Me: uhh, I think around an hour from Tel Aviv?
Woman: you don't know the name of the city?
Me: no
Woman: so you're not close with your sister
Me: Israel's the size of New Jersey, that's not close enough?
Woman: do you know where your other family members live in Israel?
Me: uhh...no
Woman: how is that possible?
Me: good question, my mom asks me that all the time. "You met with your friends and didn't ask what their jobs are? Does Eric have a girlfriend? Did Lee end up changing his name to Peter? Are you sure you didn't stay home-"
Woman: stop talking. Next question: do you celebrate the Jewish holidays?
Me: I did as a kid
Woman: which holidays?
Me: Hannukah, ...Purim, I think?
Woman: how did you celebrate them?
Me: by eating too much? Sometimes we lit things on fire. Sometimes my grandma would take me to the synagogue
Woman: you said Purim. Do you know what Purim is about?
Me: mm, I remember waving little gizmos around and making a racket
Woman: [sighs]. Do you belong to any congregation?
Me: no
Woman: do you ever go to the synagogue?
Me: no
Woman: do you have a synagogue in your town?
Me: yes! There's one right down the street from my house
Woman: what's it called?
Me: uhh...I call it the local synagogue
Woman: how do you not know anything about anything!?
At that point, she wrote TOO INCOMPETENT TO BE DANGEROUS in large invisible letters on my forehead and let me through. It was lucky for her, she seemed to be headed for a heartattack.
Apparently I had it easy. Some people got grilled by several agents, and then got slips of paper with a room number and time for a second interrogation. "Don't be late!" the paper read, "or you won't be interrogated." Winn, in particular, seemed to have gotten the full treatment, and Dmitry was unfortunate enough to have passed a Lebanese person in the street during his four years in college, which made him a person of interest. None of us were used to such rigor from security, and there was incredulity and jokes to go around.
Before boarding, right in the middle of our second ice-breaker exercise (what did I miss, guys?), I got called in for a bag search, which I admit, freaked me out a little, but I think the search team was warned that further questions would get them nowhere. They did find the pound bag of cocaine I'd smuggled into Ben's guitar, but it was within the airline's limits.
The plane ride was uneventful, the best kind of plane ride. I met more friendly people, including my future roommate Justin, who gave up his aisle seat to big Dave and sat between us, looking decidedly un-Jewish. He was probably extra Jewish on the inside, I decided, though he looked far too skinny to have an inside at all. Justin, care to defend yourself?
Looking back to standing in line at the airport, some people were still in their shells, me included. Not everyone though. Andreas was eminently approachable. Hal was a font of friendliness. I'm sure others had their friendly faces on, but from the suffocating safety of my comfort zone, people looked cool and intimidating. Josh S made standing in line look so impressive, I briefly considered changing careers. I made a brave (and good) decision and forced myself to talk to him. Ellie was standing somewhat warily on the sidelines of a nearby conversation, and I remember hesitating to introduce myself. I imagine my face broadcast the same wariness, because she didn't volunteer for friendship either. "I'm a turtle," she told me later, when there was no doubt that we'd hit it off.
***
Our first night, we stayed in a kibbutz in the Golan Heights, near the Syrian border. The little cottages were not what I envisioned a kibbutz to be like. In my mind it was more like a barracks from the flash-forward cut-scenes of the future in the Terminator movies. I didn't even realize we were in a kibbutz till Lila mentioned it to me the next morning on the bus. It felt like one of those little communities in the Poconos, cozy and mostly comfortable, with the addition of a dining hall, a Yoga & Bullshit room, and half a dozen stray dogs, enough for them to enjoy each other's company, but not so many that thoughts emerge of shrugging off the yoke of human oppression.
It was a tough night, despite having been awake for over twenty four hours. There were three of us in the room, two friendly guys and a sarcastic guy. There was no ice to be broken--Ben and Clay are warm inside and out--and conversation was effortless. We chatted for a while, then turned off the light and somehow got to telling jokes. Really really bad jokes, the kind that make you laugh and cringe at the same time. The kind you're not sure you should tell anyone ever. Ben, thank you for the jelly joke. Clay, don't ever tell that joke again. Yes, that joke. We eventually ran out and said good night, both disgusted and pleased with each other and ourselves.
"Good" was the wrong word.
I was on the cot near the window, Clay was in the middle, and Ben was at the other wall. Oh, that poor wall. It snored all night like it was dying of enphysema. The other walls relayed its suffering with breathless enthusiasm, the echoes layering into a hideous harmony.
Clay doesn't sleep well under duress apparently, because all of the times I woke up to the raspy tune of a lawnmower choking on gravel, the din was punctuated by frustrated sighs in his voice (it was dark, so I suppose Clay could have been out cold while Ben engaged in Tuvan ventriloquism). Several times an angry "fuck!" pierced the air, to be quickly drowned out by fresh material from Sweeney Todd's garbage disposal. At one point Clay reached over and violently shook Ben's bed, which was followed by an eerie but short silence. Ben resumed drilling for oil with a vengeance thirty seconds later. I wish I'd recorded the two of them. We could have probably sold it to a contemporary art museum.
In the morning, the first thing Ben said was, "how did you guys sleep? I couldn't sleep all night!" We instantly forgave him.
***
Breakfast at 8AM was an exercise in self-control that I didn't score well on. Buffets bring out the worst in me. I tried to remember what foods were high in fiber but I wasn't sure I saw any there other than cereal, which I'm irrationally prejudiced against. I stared at the spread and tried to ask each item mentally, "can I poop you out?" They weren't optimistic. I ate them anyway. Spoiler alert: there was pooping sometime later.
On the bus and during lunch, Daryl, Clay and I discussed law and the legal system. Daryl's a lawyer, and she loves the law. No, love is too weak a word, she luuurves it, you know? She loaves it, luffs it, two F's, yes. (Annie Hall, anyone?). I wish I could remember all the stuff I learned, but I'll have to settle for hoping I internalized some of it. Thanks, Daryl, I wish I was that passionate about software engineering! Or anything.
The burgers were good too.
***
It's been three days, and I've already lost three things. First, my water bottle. This is tragic, not just because it was a nice water bottle, but because it was Yuanechka's, which means I can't go back to the US or look her in the eyes ever again. I'll have to look at her breasts instead...which is what I've been doing all along anyway. Maybe I can go back after all?
I left the water bottle in the place we had lunch and law, and remembered it when the bus driver was pulling out, but couldn't bring myself to stop him. I let a single tear of pure masculinity roll down my cheek, and made my peace with cowardice.
The second was not my passport. What a relief! It was my Kindle. I searched through my entire backpack, then took everything out of it and looked on both sides of each item, in case it was hiding (except for the items that were folded into Mobius strips). It wasn't there. I leaned back in my chair and shook my head in disbelief. Then I noticed a big bulge in my pants pocket. It was my Kindle. Right next to the other bulge. My water bottle!? Sadly, no.
The third was my swim trunks. We visited the hot springs today, and spent an hour or two soaking ourselves in hot water and discussing biohacking techniques. Josh S swore by a breathing technique he'd learned from a Dutch superhero, Wim Hof, which Wim supposedly uses to hold his breath for extended periods of time, survive long immersions in ice water, enable his body to reject injections of Ecoli, and fit more than 280 characters in his Tweets. Wim trained twelve disciples in the art, and the results supposedly stood up to scientific scrutiny. Josh himself has tried the breathing technique and says he increased the number of pushups he could do in one set to 2X. Previously he could only do X. I know, as if X wasn't impressive enough!
But back to my lost swim trunks. I didn't realize I'd lost them till I started listing the things I lost just now, and while mentally reviewing the items in my inventory I hadn't lost yet, realized I should probably take my towel out of my backpack, as it's still wet. Unfortunately, my swim trunks were supposed to be rooming with the towel, and they were not. I must have left them in the changing room. Anyone could be wearing them now, but statistically speaking, it's probably someone famous.
***
We visited three countries' borders today: Lebnanon, Syria, and Jordan. We didn't cross any of them, as I imagine the forces of the bordering countries haven't heard of Birthright's peaceful mission, but we got within a mile or so and observed them with a mix of curiousity, fear, and incomprehension. Irad, our guide, gave us the gist of the current and historical geopolitical situation with each neighbor. We also went down into one of the bunkers, which was like descending into the belly of a submarine. It was a claustrophobic tunnel with metal walls, the rings reinforcing it at regular intervals making it look like I was inside the ribcage of a dinosaur. Or the belly of a giant worm.
Tomorrow we're getting some fresh Kosher meat in our group: six native Israelis. Our American group leaders, who sometimes feel like camp counselors with their infectious enthusiasm and encyclopedic knowledge of icebreakers, broke us into groups and assigned us an Israeli to prepare some kind of theatrical welcome for. Our poor Israeli is going to have a very strange idea of Americans. No stranger than the truth, but strange.
In other news, Clay and I decided to learn Hebrew, and then, like fucking heroes, went ahead and learned it. We are now fluent, check this out:
Ani mevin - I understand
Ani lo mevin - I don't understand
I think that pretty much covers any possible conversation we could have in this country. If they say one of those two phrases, I answer with the first pharse. Else, with the second phrase. Software engineering makes everything so easy.
***
Shit, this is where my notes get sparse. All it says is: "you loved it, bitch."
***
Extended adventures in Israel, after the tearful but hugful departure of over two thirds of the gang. We miss you, gang, but also, I miss you.
-------------------------------
Thursday morning, after breakfast with the other orphaned Extendables, I headed over to meet up with my sister Michelle to drop off my suitcase and do some troubleshooting for my startup, Tradle. I had to take a bus to get there, which was a little daunting, but with Google Maps I felt invincible, albeit dependent on a tiny, old and cranky battery for my superpowers. I felt less invincible when I realized the bus had zero English in it, not even the scrolling display with stop names. I arrived without issues however, or at least met up with someone who bore a striking resemblance to my sister. I camped out at her office for an hour or so, got chatted up by some of her co-workers, got my butt sniffed by some of the office dogs--brick and mortar dogs, not virtual or metaphorical ones, it's one of those retro offices--then decided to head over to Jerusalem and take a walk through the four quarters of the Old City.
I booked a night in a 4-bed mixed dorm at Abraham Hostel in Jerusalem, hugged my sister (or her replicant doppelganger) goodbye, rated her hospitality 5 stars on Google Maps, and hopped on the first of two buses. On the second bus, I was the only passenger, and spent the forty-five minutes or so of the trip chatting with the bus driver. He suggested, at length, that I not get stabbed walking in the Old City at night, and take a walk in the morning instead. I didn't take much convincing, but patiently listened to all forty-five minutes of it.
Abraham Hostel turned out to be an industrial mega-dorm, with the maximum occupancy of a small province in China. There was some kind of ecological lecture + panel scheduled for the evening, followed by a meeting of the UN in the adjoining hall. No amount of imaginary coffee made that seem survivable at the time, so I grabbed my free drink and the nearest friendly looking person at the bar and we went to browse the market and grab some dinner instead. My new friend turned out to be a Belgian psychologist who works with refugee children from Afghanistan. We had a nice chat, culminating in the rebranding of her profession as "brain engineer," before I headed in for an early night. There I go again, making engineers whereever I go. It's unsustainable is what it is.
Sleep was not to be, though Ben was thousands of miles away. Just as I was fading out, the door burst open, and a jolly gentleman in his late sixties or early seventies burst in and shouted Hi! at me in Russian. Naively, I responded in Russian. He lit up like a light bulb, shook my hand like he had just sold me a car, and asked me where I was from. Upon learning that I was from the US, he cried that it was an amazing coincidence because the person that had my bed before me was also from the US, and both the current and previous girl in the bunk above me were Italian. I didn't understand the import of this statement until later. Spoiler: those two people had asked to switch rooms because of a certain friendly someone. Two other people offed themselves when they panicked during their escape, and couldn't figure out which way the doorknob turned.
With the pleasantries concluded, the professor, as I'd dubbed him in my head, produced a folder from the room's desk's top drawer, and without preamble, began to lecture me on autogyros. I was unfamiliar with the term, but not for long. My poor ignorance, to be tortured at such length. tl;dr: the autogyro is superior to the helicopter in every way except financial success. But the world was finally ready for the autogyro, and he was the one to take it into the future.
Forty minutes later, the lecture drew to a close, but sleep was not on the dessert menu. Without so much as drawing breath, the professor launched straight into his next story: how he became an Olympic champion weight-lifter at the age of 62.
At one point, in the middle of this second high fantasy epic, the Italian girl came into the room and I was temporarily abandoned as the center of attention, as he tried to converse with her in Russian. She repeated his words back to him nonsensically, which he took for understanding, then rushed out before he could autogyro her. The weight-lifting saga resumed.
According to the professor, there are many categories in weightlifting competitions, and after conferring with a former champion, he chose the event that tested how many times you could lift a given weight in a limited span of time. He trained for three months, competed, won, then went home to present the medal to his wife and daughter. This was where the story took a strange turn. When he showed the certificate and the medal to his wife, she appeared not to believe him, or to use his terminology: "I could see it written on her face: bullshit!" Dismayed, he showed it to his daughter, whose response was along the lines of: "Dad, stop! It's not funny!" At that point he packed his things, walked out, and never saw them again.
Nap time? Wrong again. Next came the story of how to achieve happiness. tl;dr: take an item from your Problem drawer, and turn into a set of tasks to put in your Task drawer. When your Problem drawer is empty, close it so no more problems can get in.
Next came the story of why not to boil water. Why not? Boiling destroys its vitality!
Next came the parable of how men tricked women into abandoning telepathy as a form of communication in the garden of Eden, in favor of a much more deceptive form of communication, sign language, which itself was the early prototoype of spoken language.
At this point I have to admit that the whole time, I was begrudgingly fascinated. I desperately wanted to be left alone and get to sleep, and at the same time, I was consumed with curiousity for what was coming up next.
Eventually, another roommate arrived, a German kid, who looked half-amused, half-terrified at the prospect of a sleepless night full of educational programming. I knew that look. It was like looking into a mirror. The professor allowed him to turn off the light, however, and climbed into his own top bunk, but not before proclaiming that due to his drinking of bottled water (the water of vitality), he hadn't needed more than four hours of sleep a night in years. Seven hours later, I snuck out of the room to his delicate snoring. I thought I could hear words emerging from those fuzzy sounds, but it was probably just my brain taking poetic license, or secondhand schizophrenia. I'll have to see a brain engineer when I get back.
***
I was originally planning on staying with my sister in Ra'anana, but Andreas offered me to crash at their Airbnb in Tel Aviv. Or rather, Iron Man's Airbnb. It was a two-floor three-bedroom three-bathroom apartment, with a giant terrace looking out onto the city, a garage with a car elevator, and military bunker style shades that descended over the windows at the push of a button. I didn't mean to push that button, actually, and was careful about pushing any others afterward, in case they triggered some post-apocalyptic protocol, initiated a self-destruct sequence, or launched the apartment to Mars. I'm not sure how the owner planned to get us out of there if we decided to hole in.
Andreas, Justin and big Dave had rented the place for several nights, and security guard Ben had already made himself a little nest on the 2nd floor. I made myself another out of a lounge chair from the terrace and passed out upon reaching the horizontal. I woke up only once that night, to Ben screaming "why, Mark, why!?" He later explained that he was worried the lounge chair wasn't comfortable enough for me.
***
The 2nd day started slowly. No one had a clear idea of what they were doing, but everyone felt that time was limited. Panic slowly mounted, pressing on everyone's hangover. I was immune because I had a family visit scheduled for the afternoon, but I yelled at people a bit to fit in. Finally, the boys headed for a long walk to Jaffa, while I headed for some breakfast to kill time before my aunt picked me up.
***
Dave was leaving the next day, and I was invited to be the new Dave. I accepted, on the condition they call me Mark. We decided to extend the Airbnb for a few more days, rent a car, and drive it to all the places we'd missed or didn't get a close enough look at. I ordained myself Minister of Transportation, and took on the petty details of booking and picking up the car. I'd kept in touch with Ellie during the past two days, and she was now done with family matters. We planned to pick her up on our way to Haifa.
For the next two days, we criss-crossed Israel, treated each other to our respective musical tastes, learned to identify all the plants we passed (thanks Andreas!), engaged first shamefully, then shamelessly in selfie culture, and drank ourselves silly enough to go to a local strip club, which we were suprised to find out was more like an anteroom to a whorehouse. We went at a leisurely pace, achieved objectively little, but enjoyed a long look at the countryside and each other. It was great.
On the morning of the 18th, I drove Andreas and Justin to the airport, had breakfast with Ellie, and drove her to the bus station. Then I checked out of the apartment, and tried in vain to find parking in Tel Aviv. I finally found it, but at the cost of returning the car. Then I headed back to my sister's workplace. It was a deja vu moment.
***
Extended adventures in Israel, after the tearful but hugful separation from team Iron Man's Airbnb
-------------------------------
I had a very positive experience today in Israel, which had nothing to do with the local flora, fauna, cuisine, history, architecture, etc. It was the kind of experience that makes travel interesting for me.
Michelle and I were roaming the streets of Tel Aviv, me with a backpack and a suitcase, as my flight is tomorrow morning and I haven't made any accommodations for it, and Michelle with a backpack and a waterbottle with flowers in it. It's her birthday this week, so at any given moment she's packing flowers. There are also blanket forts in her near future.
We had just falafeled up, and were making our way to the bus stop.
Out of the corner of my eye something fell, and there was a clatter that could only have been a bike taking a spill. I whipped my head around to see a bike on the ground next to a telephone pole, a toddler strapped to the back of the seat, sticking out from it horizontally. The toddler didn't look particularly distressed. The mother, who'd probably dropped the bike as she was putting on her backpack, was bent awkwardly over it, trying to pick it up but unable to gain the leverage. My feet moved slowly in her direction. I think I would have been there in three seconds or so, when out of nowhere three figures whooshed in from different directions. The next instant there were four women picking up the bike together, one bracing the toddler with her hand. They had the bike up in seconds. I put my foot back back down where I'd lifted it from, and picked my jaw up off the dirty ground.
I aspire to always temper the pita of incredulity with the hummus of skepticism, but I don't think I've ever seen that before. I've seen people help strangers pick up a dropped item, hold doors open for them and perform various other courteous gestures. I've seen a college student give a $20 bill to a beggar, because he didn't have smaller bills. I've seen a man urinate on a police car. But for three strangers to respond simultaneously with the alacrity of trained lifeguards was not something in my experience bank. "I notice that I am confused," I recited the mantra of rationality to myself. I looked over to Michelle, and saw that she was practically bursting with pride for Israel, and I couldn't think of anything snide to say.
***
I didn't have accommodations for the last night, and had planned to crash at my sister's in Ra'anana, but Shoham offered me to crash at her apartment the instant she learned of my situation. I felt like I was imposing, but imposed anyway. Ra'anana seemed so far away... We met up for dinner at the Avocada with Claire and Ben M, where we shared three avocado-based entrees. Then Shoham took us to a bar with live music. It was some kind of high-powered riff-centric cousin of reggae, equally repetitive, but with no singing. It was skillfully rendered...but I can't honestly say I loved it.
Back at Shoham's, we chatted till around 2AM before going to sleep. We're both curious people-watchers apparently, and we compared notes on everyone from our group, trying consciously not to let conversation devolve into gossip. We had pretty different impressions of many people, which somewhat undermined my confidence in my assessments. Thanks Shoham!
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Sponge Superpowers
Yuan Yuan called from her tour yesterday, and gave me an earful of righteousness about her uncultured clients who throw their garbage on the ground whenever they happened to be disposed to dispose of it, regardless of whether there's a trash can within 2 light years or 2 feet of them. All right, you got me, the 2 light years case wasn't actually tested using the scientific method.
Whenever this kind of thing happens, I feel as giddy as gossip girl who just got back to New York and first thing she sees when she opens the newspaper is the rumor she started while vacationing on Alpha Centauri B. Yuan Yuan is a human sponge for things I say, behaviors I exhibit, opinions I bray. She's like a gravitational vortex addicted to the nonsense that's accumulated in my star system. And of course, to her, they're all historical documents.
When I first met Yuan Yuan, I spent a good 3 months scolding her for throwing her trash on the ground of the street. The change didn't come naturally to her, though it wasn't for lack of trying: we would be riding home on our bike, her sitting behind me on the little platform behind the seat, and she would lean out, forcing me to turn the bike in that direction, and then she would attempt to slam dunk whatever trash she magically produced during the last 5 minutes, into the nearest trash can. More often than not, I would hear "damn, that was so close! Oh well, we tried our best." I would then give her mixed signals by not stopping to force her to clean it up.
It's been years now, and I still can't say she's broken the habit completely. But the righteousness about other people doing is now completely Pavlovian for her. I can't decide if this is an upgrade or a downgrade.
Whenever this kind of thing happens, I feel as giddy as gossip girl who just got back to New York and first thing she sees when she opens the newspaper is the rumor she started while vacationing on Alpha Centauri B. Yuan Yuan is a human sponge for things I say, behaviors I exhibit, opinions I bray. She's like a gravitational vortex addicted to the nonsense that's accumulated in my star system. And of course, to her, they're all historical documents.
When I first met Yuan Yuan, I spent a good 3 months scolding her for throwing her trash on the ground of the street. The change didn't come naturally to her, though it wasn't for lack of trying: we would be riding home on our bike, her sitting behind me on the little platform behind the seat, and she would lean out, forcing me to turn the bike in that direction, and then she would attempt to slam dunk whatever trash she magically produced during the last 5 minutes, into the nearest trash can. More often than not, I would hear "damn, that was so close! Oh well, we tried our best." I would then give her mixed signals by not stopping to force her to clean it up.
It's been years now, and I still can't say she's broken the habit completely. But the righteousness about other people doing is now completely Pavlovian for her. I can't decide if this is an upgrade or a downgrade.
Friday, August 9, 2013
End of an era
Two 30-day trials are ending today: being vegetarian and blogging every day. That means tomorrow I can have a healthy KFC lunch and not tell a soul about it. The exercise and sugar-nazi trial are still in full swing, and the stretching trial died an inglorious death the same day I said we were going to start it up again. Coincidence? Morpheus said it's providence. Fasting on 3 apples a day once a week might as well become a trial since I've already done 1/4 of it. Maybe I'll change the fruit to chocolate bars.
I started a new book yesterday, the Black Prism. I got roughly five sentences in before I fell asleep so I'll be seeing them again tonight. The Mote in God's Eye has gotten flushed down the toilet. The Dresden Files got translated to Afrikaans and then the 6 million original English copies died in a tragic gasoline fight accident. I'm not about to learn Afrikaans just so I can finish that book. Another book got dumped, I forget its name but the relief I'm feeling didn't just come out of nowhere. Of the last 4-5 books I started, only Trash, Sex, Magic is still hanging in there. Angry fans litter the streets, don't stay out past curfew.
I started a new book yesterday, the Black Prism. I got roughly five sentences in before I fell asleep so I'll be seeing them again tonight. The Mote in God's Eye has gotten flushed down the toilet. The Dresden Files got translated to Afrikaans and then the 6 million original English copies died in a tragic gasoline fight accident. I'm not about to learn Afrikaans just so I can finish that book. Another book got dumped, I forget its name but the relief I'm feeling didn't just come out of nowhere. Of the last 4-5 books I started, only Trash, Sex, Magic is still hanging in there. Angry fans litter the streets, don't stay out past curfew.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Tomato and Egg and Urbien
Yuan Yuan is off to Hangzhou for the next 10 days, on two back-to-back tours. Daddy's all alone at home putting the bread on the table, where it's currently growing mold. Tradition. Can't live with it, can't get moldy bread without it.
My roommate, a guy who works in finance, was asking me today what kind of stuff I work on. After completely confusing him with specifics he couldn't possibly understand without a basic background in Web technologies, I resorted to my best friend, the analogy. The analogy is a great device for when you've lost that caring feeling, when more important than "do they understand you" is "do they think you're working on some complicated shit." I'm a seasoned veteran of terrible analogies, and so I hit him right in the face with a tomato an egg parable. Try to imagine the following in Mandarin Chinese, the language it was first heard in.
Once there was a farmer, who loved to eat tomato and egg. How he came to love it is one of those mysteries of science. Perhaps his wife told him he better love it or else. Perhaps he had once been kidnapped by a tomato and egg chef and it's a permanent side-effect of the severe case of Stockholm syndrome he took away from that experience. Perhaps it was some kind of genetic predisposition that trickled down into his genes from the future. The past isn't the only force in genetics, as science fiction tells us.
In any case, this farmer loved tomato and egg more than anything in the world. But he had no freaking clue where tomatoes came from. He opened his prehistoric refrigerator over and over but they didn't appear to grow there. He looked out into the forest and didn't see any tomatoes swinging from trees. Even more baffling was the egg. How the hell did it get into that shell? And if it could do something like that, what else could it do? The people who hunted those must be very brave, he thought.
But then along came JQuery Mobile and Sencha Touch, and suddenly people could build web apps that actually had a chance against native apps. Really? No, not really. Ninjas could build those kind of apps, armed with Backbones and Zapiers and other magical gadgets whose names only six fingered people could spell correctly. Ninjas knew what to do when the JQuery Mobile page they swung to knock the banana off the tree worked liked a charm when swung to the left, but denatured the instant you swung it to the left. Ninjas could build steaks out of salads. The rest of us were still chopping down cells in the Excel forest, because everyone knows tomatoes have a non-zero chance of being found inside the trunk of a tomato tree cell. And the tomato tree, sneaky tree that it is, looks like any other tree!
All was lost. But all was not lost! Along came Urbien and they brought a tomato gun and an egg cannon with them, not to mention Jesus, who would multiply the ammunition whenever they were in danger of running out. All that was left for the non-ninjas to do was to design the models for their apps, to use their "domain expertise" (oops, 4 billion non-ninjas just fainted dead away) and write the recipe for tomato and egg. Suddenly entire armies of klutzes were leveling up and becoming ninjas just by waking up in the morning. Fine, the afternoon. For the sake of realism.
The moral of the story is that everything is relative. You may be an idiot, but tomorrow, when being an idiot is all you need to be to be able to paint the Sistine Chapel, you're no longer an idiot. You're eating a delicious plate of tomato and egg.
Of course the story I told my roommate was a little more embellished. I couldn't risk him understanding it all in one session. What would I have to say to him next time?
My roommate, a guy who works in finance, was asking me today what kind of stuff I work on. After completely confusing him with specifics he couldn't possibly understand without a basic background in Web technologies, I resorted to my best friend, the analogy. The analogy is a great device for when you've lost that caring feeling, when more important than "do they understand you" is "do they think you're working on some complicated shit." I'm a seasoned veteran of terrible analogies, and so I hit him right in the face with a tomato an egg parable. Try to imagine the following in Mandarin Chinese, the language it was first heard in.
Once there was a farmer, who loved to eat tomato and egg. How he came to love it is one of those mysteries of science. Perhaps his wife told him he better love it or else. Perhaps he had once been kidnapped by a tomato and egg chef and it's a permanent side-effect of the severe case of Stockholm syndrome he took away from that experience. Perhaps it was some kind of genetic predisposition that trickled down into his genes from the future. The past isn't the only force in genetics, as science fiction tells us.
In any case, this farmer loved tomato and egg more than anything in the world. But he had no freaking clue where tomatoes came from. He opened his prehistoric refrigerator over and over but they didn't appear to grow there. He looked out into the forest and didn't see any tomatoes swinging from trees. Even more baffling was the egg. How the hell did it get into that shell? And if it could do something like that, what else could it do? The people who hunted those must be very brave, he thought.
But then along came JQuery Mobile and Sencha Touch, and suddenly people could build web apps that actually had a chance against native apps. Really? No, not really. Ninjas could build those kind of apps, armed with Backbones and Zapiers and other magical gadgets whose names only six fingered people could spell correctly. Ninjas knew what to do when the JQuery Mobile page they swung to knock the banana off the tree worked liked a charm when swung to the left, but denatured the instant you swung it to the left. Ninjas could build steaks out of salads. The rest of us were still chopping down cells in the Excel forest, because everyone knows tomatoes have a non-zero chance of being found inside the trunk of a tomato tree cell. And the tomato tree, sneaky tree that it is, looks like any other tree!
All was lost. But all was not lost! Along came Urbien and they brought a tomato gun and an egg cannon with them, not to mention Jesus, who would multiply the ammunition whenever they were in danger of running out. All that was left for the non-ninjas to do was to design the models for their apps, to use their "domain expertise" (oops, 4 billion non-ninjas just fainted dead away) and write the recipe for tomato and egg. Suddenly entire armies of klutzes were leveling up and becoming ninjas just by waking up in the morning. Fine, the afternoon. For the sake of realism.
The moral of the story is that everything is relative. You may be an idiot, but tomorrow, when being an idiot is all you need to be to be able to paint the Sistine Chapel, you're no longer an idiot. You're eating a delicious plate of tomato and egg.
Of course the story I told my roommate was a little more embellished. I couldn't risk him understanding it all in one session. What would I have to say to him next time?
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Yum
I had lunch with Yuan Yuan, her mom and her step-dad today. Just one lunch, not three. We went to pick up our butcher knife from her mom's place, she has a smithy or a special rock or something that sharpens knives. We got the knife. It's sharp. There will be no more playing the grapefruit game with the knife.
The lunch was an unexpected bonus. I wasn't really in the mood to see anyone other than Yuan Yuan and myself in the mirror, so when we went for a walk and Yuan Yuan suggested we pick up the knife, I said that that was fine as long as we didn't have to stay there and be social. Yuan Yuan swore a terrible oath that we would sneak in, grab the knife and run back faster than it is polite to run from family. But when we arrived, complications arose. Yuan Yuan's step-dad was in the vicinity, we didn't know in which direction to run and then Yuan Yuan's mom rushed out with a bag full of food, stuffed us both in her armpit and carried us to the nearest restaurant, where we ordered two dishes and a soup for appearance's sake and then unraveled the smorgasbord she'd prepared in the 3 seconds it took for Yuan Yuan to get her hands on the knife.
Lunch was fine, but it reminded me, very quickly and with tremendous special effects, why I don't like eating out. When I'm at home, in relative safety, there's no danger that I'll be kicked out or an impatient waiter will swoop in and clear the dishes before I can dislodge the half of a potato from my throat and shriek in protest. But whenever I go to a restaurant, my body, which is after all just a product of the long and painful evolution of a lonely starving monkey trapped on a glacier to this beautiful specimen of man meat, decides that it needs to stock up on food and turns into a Roomba, devouring everything on the table that's smaller than it and that doesn't skitter out of the way. This binge continues until the oxygen flow to the brain is all but cut off and the brain starts panicking and issuing gag reflexes and knee jerks. But by then 6-7 pounds of fuel has made itself a warm little nest in my belly. Blech. And I mean that literally.
The lunch was an unexpected bonus. I wasn't really in the mood to see anyone other than Yuan Yuan and myself in the mirror, so when we went for a walk and Yuan Yuan suggested we pick up the knife, I said that that was fine as long as we didn't have to stay there and be social. Yuan Yuan swore a terrible oath that we would sneak in, grab the knife and run back faster than it is polite to run from family. But when we arrived, complications arose. Yuan Yuan's step-dad was in the vicinity, we didn't know in which direction to run and then Yuan Yuan's mom rushed out with a bag full of food, stuffed us both in her armpit and carried us to the nearest restaurant, where we ordered two dishes and a soup for appearance's sake and then unraveled the smorgasbord she'd prepared in the 3 seconds it took for Yuan Yuan to get her hands on the knife.
Lunch was fine, but it reminded me, very quickly and with tremendous special effects, why I don't like eating out. When I'm at home, in relative safety, there's no danger that I'll be kicked out or an impatient waiter will swoop in and clear the dishes before I can dislodge the half of a potato from my throat and shriek in protest. But whenever I go to a restaurant, my body, which is after all just a product of the long and painful evolution of a lonely starving monkey trapped on a glacier to this beautiful specimen of man meat, decides that it needs to stock up on food and turns into a Roomba, devouring everything on the table that's smaller than it and that doesn't skitter out of the way. This binge continues until the oxygen flow to the brain is all but cut off and the brain starts panicking and issuing gag reflexes and knee jerks. But by then 6-7 pounds of fuel has made itself a warm little nest in my belly. Blech. And I mean that literally.
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