Ok, maybe my title is stretching the wordplay a bit.
Life has been peacefully quiet since the Russian left. Maybe too quiet. Don’t get me wrong, I love hearing crickets instead of Armin Van Buren when I go to bed, but still, I’ve been getting antsy about moving out of the dorms. Real life feels on pause when I am here, everything about campus life is so artificial. Plus the bathrooms and kitchen are nasty. I walked by the kitchen this past Shabbat and two campus cats were lying stretched out on the heaps of garbage that appear during the weekends. It’s as if the girls on this floor collect all their garbage in a corner of their rooms until the one day the cleaning lady doesn’t come.
But that will soon be history. I took a walk with a co-worker and he showed me some neighborhoods near my job. It reminded me of what it’s like to live around people outside the ages of 18-30. It would be kinda nice not being the senior citizen of my vicinity. I have recruited some people at work to ask around, and I’m meeting with an Israeli friend later this week so we can help me figure out what neighborhoods fit my budget and locations needs. I’ve been eyeing some sites but I want the low-down on what to expect or avoid before I embark on anything. It may be tough to find something right now, in the middle of a semester, but I have some have time.
Today I had my first morphology class, but we discussed phonetics. The professor is a goofy, but sweet Star Trek loving guy of a religious level I cannot decipher, with a face barely visible behind two poofs of hair- one at his chin and the other on his scalp- and a crumpled yarmulke on top of his head, covering his balding crown. I have always thought balding guys in yarmulkes are lucky – they are required by their communities to don holy toupees! Anyway, his descriptions of place and manner of articulation in speech left me bursting out laughing. He was discussing the difference between the hard and soft palates in our mouths. “Now if you take your finger and stick it inside your mouth, and move it upwards along the hard palate, and just keep moving it back, you will feel it go soft” – soft, scattered chuckles from students – “You may find it difficult to move your finger further back. You may start to get a vomit feeling” – ok, by now my face is down to hide my laughter – “I wouldn’t recommend trying that, but well, maybe if you go to a party and things get boring, you can try it then.” Ok, I flat out burst laughing. Based on the previous chuckles, I thought I would have company, but I was the only one. I quickly stopped myself and regain composure.
It wasn’t just what he said, but the finger-in-mouth visual aides he provided.. and the hair.. and the yarmulke.. and the high belted pants. He went on about the “uvula,” the little thing that dangles in the back of your mouth. “Ok, so everyone has an uvula, but some may not know because they don’t see it! It’s not one of the most well known memb- I mean, part of the body.” Aha! He was about to call it a “member!” As far as I know, only one human body part is commonly referred to as a member! Oh god! No one else seemed to pick up on this… and maybe I should be grossed out.. but I will give him the benefit of the doubt because I was so happy to have any fun moments in the otherwise painful class- I think I hate phonetics!
I am still thoroughly baffled at how well Israeli guys are both flirty and insulting at the same time. On the way out from the gym yesterday, I pushed the door to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. I didn’t want to break the thing, so I continued pushing and pulling it, until a guy behind pushed it open forcefully. He said something in Hebrew. “Ma?” I answered. In English, he responded, “Ah, I see you tired yourself out so much, you can’t open the door!” Maybe it was the tone, but it didn’t sound like some light-hearted joshing, but more like a challenge! I answered something like, “No, it’s just that after that such a workout, I didn’t want to break the door!” Unable to retaliate, he mumbled something and bid me a nice day.
When I approached the gate to my dorm, I flashed my ID to the security guard. He motioned me over to him, and took my ID. “Very nice picture… very nice,” he said in English as he inspected it. “Um, thanks.” “Very nice!” he continued. “Well, ok, I hope the reality is as good!” I joked. “Oh it is,” he said in a higher tone, as if he really was providing me with affirmation. He then asked me where I’m from. I said New York. New York City? Yes. He looked skeptical. Where in NYC? Well… “Long Island, right?”
“Long Island isn’t part of New York City.”
“Yes. It is,” said the Israeli who knows everything.
“No it’s not! There is Brooklyn, Manhattan. Queens, Bronx, and Staten Island.”
“Oh right, Staten Island. That’s what I meant.”
“Yeah well, not the same thing.”
“Ok, so where are you from?”
“I’ve lived in different areas, but most recently Queens.”
“Oh,” he said, looking slightly disappointed in that way non-New Yorkers do when they find out you don’t live on top of the Empire State Building.
He asked me how I like Israel.
“It’s ok. It’s a lot to get used to.”
“Is it what you expected?”
“I’m not sure I knew what to expect.”
“Of course you had expectations. How can you go somewhere and not have expectations,” said the Israeli with one way to view the world.
“What do you mean? Anything can happen where you move somewhere. I hoped to go to school and to work, and I’m doing that now, but otherwise it’s hard to say what I expected.”
He asked me a bit about school, and then sighed, “For me, I have a big decision to make soon.”
“Oh, what’s that?”
“I’m finishing graduate school in a few months, in Community Organization (or something like that, some kind of organization thing), and the army wants to take me back, but I don’t want to go!”
“Why not?”
“Well, first, I don’t want to cut my hair.” He did have good hair. I’ll give him that. Fully black hair in loose curls rolling around his head, level with his light blue eyes. He was very attractive in the way that a good number of Israeli guys are -as long as they are not moving or speaking. “And second, I finished the army. I can’t imagine going back to it.”
“I can imagine that. How long would you go for?”
“It’s a year contract doing exactly what I went to school for. And I’d get to live in Tel Aviv. But still, they have you for that time.”
“Well, it’s only a year. Maybe it’s not so bad. Especially with this economy.”
“The economy is always an excuse. You can find what you want, if you look for it,” he said, not in that American optimist way, but in that Israeli way that makes you feel the truth is so obvious, it’s hard to believe you’d question it in the first place. He went on, “I think I will give them a decision by tomorrow.” He didn’t give me a hint about what his decision is, but I think I know which one it is going to be- I’m imagining him walking into barber shop- nay, salon- with a melancholic Aviv Geffen song as the soundtrack.
However, I still don’t understand. If he is such a hot item, why did he have to go back to the army for a contract officer gig? Why couldn’t he just let his locks run free while finding this other great job that was obviously waiting for him, if only he looked for it?
Maybe this was part of the “flirting” and he was trying to impress me, but more likely the mix of machismo, stubbornness, and delusion that is so prevalent here!
You know that in his head, he was being totally nice, warm, friendly. Not a hint of – woah, people, I just had deja-vu writing that, seriously. Have I already said that about an Israeli on here? I’m not joking.
I wished him luck, he said he’ll see me around, and I was off. A few feet away, I nearly slipped. Damn you, wet Jerusalem stone covered in leaves!
