bits of ink

In order to jump-start this blog again (having finished redesigns of both blogs, plus a bit on an as-yet-unclear project) I’m introducing a brand new program, called Question Thursdays (alternate, more clever titles are welcome and encouraged.) Here’s how it works:

• Thursday arrives in Israel, whatever the time zone you may happen to be in. This generally happens once a week, though there was that time when NBC scheduled two Thursdays in a row, so everyone could fulfill their must-see-TV obligation. They were showing a Very Special Friends episode (The One Where Ross Becomes a Heroin Addict But Gets Better and Phoebe Blows Up Burundi.)
• For 24 hours, you, my adoring readers send me questions - anything ranging from the idiotic to the inane. Seriously, any question at all (yes, you can ask me where you left the car keys, but I’m telling you for the billionth time, they’re on the counter next to the phone.) Use the email address in the sidebar*, and don’t fret if you feel like sending it earlier in the week.
• I will choose one or more questions to answer in a manner of my choosing. Please understand that “in a manner of my choosing” could mean “as I were a 15th-century villiage idiot (’Forsooth, while reading your missive, I didst soil myself in publick.’) or it could mean “while riding Tobias, my pet manatee.” (He’s a magic manatee - much like a normal manatee, only more full of himself.)
• You read and commend me for knowing so darn much.

That is all. The answers should be up before Shabbat in Israel. Let’s get rolling! And when you’re done rolling, send me questions, you dizzy readers.

*Edit: You can Either post your questions or use that email address. See the 2nd and 3rd comments.

סבלנות - sav.lan.ut - n. Patience, specifically patience for the speaker from others.

Note: there is no word for patience in the other direction.

I’m trying to figure out if the triumph I felt upon successfully fixing a difficult paper jam in the printers warrants the emotions that came with it. I stood up, and wanted to raise my arms and yell “Ta-da!” It reminded me of this entry from An Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life:

Children get to say ta-da!, and I guess magicians, but other than that, it’s an underutilized expression. I’m trying to think—an adult might say it as she waltzes in with the turkey, or a homemade cake. But a self-congratulatory ta-da! would certainly be warranted for any number of daily accomplishments. I cleaned out the trunk of my car. Ta-da! I finished filling out the insurance application. Ta-da! I made the bed. Ta-da!

I agree. I think we should be allowed and encouraged to exclaim and proclaim our triumphs. Even little ones.

This must be what going mad feels like.

So it’s almost Purim, the one Jewish holiday totally saturated in silliness. And yesterday, I was dressed up in a makeshift diaper and eyepatch, standing in front of 50 people, sucking my thumb.

And the show hits…a new low.

You see, our office has fun activities from time to time. And Purim, I imagine, is one of the bigger ones. Fine, no problem. But I wasn’t in the mood for silliness and fun today. I wanted to just sit and do my work, or at least get distracted accidentally, not intetionally. But one of the managers came in to my cubicle and told me to go. I asked if I have to. She said yes. (I soon expected the German-accented “you veell be go-ink and you veell be enjoyink eet.”) So I went.

They introduced the game: each group would use the available materials (pipe cleaners, large pieces of construction paper, etc. to make costumes, and the best costume would get a prize. So our group decided to dress up one of us, and I let them bicker about it, having no desire to participate at all in this silliness. And I got increasingly annoyed and just wanted this silly thing to be over. I was in a bad mood, I guess. So finally, after like seven minutes of this I threw my hands up and said I’d dress up. Anything to get the agony over with. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been paying close enough attention to what they were planning on doing, which is how I ended up prancing about the stage, supposedly dressed as Moshe Dayan’s great-grandson. This, mind you, in front of many people I had not even met, but who will now likely remember me as “the guy who dressed up as a baby.” Great.

Oh, and to top it all off, though I tried washing off the red makeup they used to make me “rosy-cheeked,” it just kind of faded, so I looked like I was blushing for a while afterwards. Which maybe I should’ve been.

That’s it. I’ve entered the Twilight Zone. There’s something on the wing, and only I can see it, and no one’s gonna believe me.

P.S. I’m back in Israel, for those of you who didn’t know. I intend to give you some stories about Arizona and returning to Israel sometime soon. LOTS of writing to do, and a lot of other things. Like finding a place to live.

(Yes, still putting off part 3. So sue me.)

I was thinking today about trends and fashions. No matter how radical or off-the-beaten path a cultural group is, they’ll all tend to do things a certain way, just because a few of them started doing it that way. I wonder what it is about us that makes us flock so readily.

Heck, I bet the even the Amish churn butter a certain way, ’cause that’s how all the cool kids were churning.

There is a fine line between a superhero and a man in tights who likes to sit on rooftops and watch people.

Maybe it’s the cape.

In response to a letter I had sent him, a friend of mine emailed me the following:

How’s the weather out there? What exactly are you learning during this ‘training’ period? Are you learning how to build a nuclear bomb from silicone? Really?

Now, this was an odd series of questions, to say the least. I responded in kind:

Ok, you got me. We’re building bombs. Not out of silicone - which is used as a sealant, for firestops (whatever those are), and certain types of -ahem- implants. I think you were referring to silicon - without the ‘e’, which is used in making computer chips. But we don’t use those to make bombs either.

In any case, the training is going just fine, except for the interesting effects of prolonged radiation exposure. I now lack eyebrows, but have developed some interesting powers. I can
now detect mimes at a distance of 100 kilometers and I read people’s minds, but only in haiku form. It’s a interesting talent, that last one. Often when I try to use it on women, I get something like the following:

Creepy guy staring
Really have to go get a
Restraining order.

And sometimes, it’s hard to understand what they’re saying, so I get things like this:

My thoughts don’t always
Make sense or flow together.
Cauliflower duck.

There are some questions better left unasked.

A few weeks ago, I was in New Haven to take a flight to Philadelphia. Mind you, I didn’t want to be in either New Haven or Philadelphia, but airports tend to be the kind of place you are with no clue why you’re there and a strong desire to leave - like the dentist’s office, or Germany. You don’t like the place you’re going any more than the place you’re leaving, but you’re at the airport, so what the heck. You fly.
This was, without a doubt, the smallest airport I have ever been in. Unfortunately, it wasn’t comically small, or this would be a more entertaining blog post. In any case, in the airport was this sign:

(I know it would seem that I was drunk or not wearing my glasses, but neither is true.) In case you can’t read it, it says “ATTENTION ALL PASSENGERS: TWEED NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT!” Needless to say, this was a bit perplexing. Why would tweed need my support? It seems to be a well-supported fabric, what with the abundance of elderly and/or stuffy British men. And why not promote support of some of the more flamboyant fabrics? Where is the taffeta lobby? The chiffon promoters? (Yes, those are both great band names.) Furthermore, how does one support tweed? Is there a Tweed Workers’ Union or a Tweed Foundation?
This truly is one of man’s great mysteries.

(It turns out that the airport is named Tweed, and apparently needs handouts. But I still think that Tweed Foundation idea has merit.)

Interrupting your regularly scheduled blogcasting…

I eating lunch today with a couple of my Israeli co-workers, and one them mentioned Ashkelon, and how nice a place it is.

“How far is Ashkelon from Gaza?” I asked.
“One Kassam.” he replied, without smiling, without missing a beat.
“Oh.”
“We measure distances in Kassams now. Ashkelon is one Kassam, Ashdod - two Kassams, Tel Aviv - three Kassams.”

I laughed. We all laughed. What else can you do?

So I said I would tell the story from after I arrived at the airport to go home for Thanksgiving. I get to the airport plenty early, and jump through the various hoops security makes you jump through (”Please remove your jacket, sir. Please remover your shoes, sir…..No, sir - j-just your shoes! Sir, please put your pants back on.” “But they were chafing something fierce!”) and arrive at the gate with nothing to do for an hour and a half. So I take my suit and my carry-on bag and go to see if I can’t get caught up on my email and blog reading.

I take out my laptop and behold! There is free wireless internet access, and lo, it is good. Well, I start going through my reading, and soon my 1.5 hours become 3 hours, due to a delay. I realize that I should keep my laptop battery charged for the plane, and I look around and find an outlet. I close my laptop, put it in my bag, and take my bag and suit and go over to the seat with the outlet. Put down suit, put down bag, open bag, get plug, plug in, get laptop, open laptop. And then I think I hear my name over the loudspeaker. Ok, I unplug the plug, close the laptop, put it and the plug in my bag, pick up my bag, pick up my suit, and go and wait in line to talk to the person at the information desk.

In retrospect, I think I’m so obsessed with my own name that I just assumed it was me they were calling. I’d probably respond to any name with a reasonable number of vowels and consonants. For example, I could see this scene playing out:

LOUDSPEAKER: Marie Antoinette, Marie Antoinette, please come to the front desk. There’s an mob of angry French peasants waiting for you.
ME: Hi, my name’s Ilan, there’s a mob here for me?
AIRLINE PERSON: Um, yes…over there. Are you-
ANGRY PEASANT 1: Hey, I thought she was prettier!
ANGRY PEASANT 2: Hey, I thought she was a woman!
ANGRY PEASANT 3: Hey, I thought love was only true in fairy tales / Meant for someone else but not for me / Love was out to get me, that’s the way it seemed / Disappointment haunted all my dreams. / Then I saw her face, now I’m a believer / Not a trace of doubt in my mind….
[At this juncture, a wonderfully choreographed dance starts, complete with the peasants twirling their pitchforks and juggling their torches. At some point, the real Marie Antoinette shows up, and the control and grace the dancers exhibit when setting up the guillotine and executing her - without missing a beat, mind you - can be described as nothing short of "masterful."]

Eh, where was I? Oh, right. So, as you see, my tendency to assume everyone’s talking to me can dangerous. Beheading-level dangerous, or worse - spontaneous-public-musicals-level dangerous. But nothing so dramatic happened. After waiting for fifteen minutes on line, holding my carry-on and my suit, I get to the front of the line, where I am promptly informed that I wasn’t called at all. Shoot, I could’ve spent that time I wasted in line watching a cat attacking an air conditioner on YouTube! (My money’s on the air conditioner.) So I go to sit down again and discover my outlet’s been taken. Oh, well. Suit down, bag down, laptop out, laptop open. And then I hear the announcement again. It sure does sound like my name, but they’re saying to go to the desk by the gate instead. Well, at least there’s no line there. I ask the woman sitting next to me if she heard what name they just called. She says no. (I will note at this juncture that I have no qualms speaking to total strangers. The reverse is not always true.) Close laptop, put in bag, pick up bag, pick up suit, go over to desk. As I’m walking there, I hear an announcement for a woman named Linda with the same last name as me. I pause and check my ID. No, I’m not Linda. It must’ve been her they’ve been calling. I go back to my seat, smiling sheepishly at the woman. “It wasn’t me,” I say, not wanting to seem like a crazy person. She just smiles in my general direction and goes back to her computer. Then (wouldn’t you know it) comes another announcement, and they most definitely just called me to the gate desk. Close laptop, put in bag, pick up bag, pick up suit, and march over to the desk.

“Did you call _________, party of one?”
“Yes are you [checking the list] Ilan?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, well, there’s a problem with your assigned seat.”
“There is?”
“Yes, it doesn’t exist.”
“It doesn’t…?”
“Yeah, there isn’t a row 23 on the plane.”
At this point, I consider going mad, perhaps gibberingly so. I decline.
“So….now what?”
“Oh, we’re assigning you to a different seat.”

And I get a new boarding pass, and go back to sit down. I was worried for a moment there that I would be forced to sit on someone’s lap for the whole flight. I mean, that could be ok, depending on the comfortableness of the lap in question, but non-lap seats are certainly preferable. Anyhow, I put down my suit, put down my bag, sit down, open my bag, take out my laptop, and soon, a plug becomes available, so I plug it in. Then, after a while, the boarding call finally comes. Plug. Laptop. Bag. Go! I stop, turn around and go back. I pick up my suit and go back towards the gate.

Sighing, I enter the line for boarding. This is going to be a long flight.