Shalom, a menage trois

I am sitting in my room, the walls are pure white. My suitcases are busting at the zippers, but they stand sentinel, ready to wheel on home. I'm leaving this place in 7 hours. I'm comforted by the fact that Israel will always be here for me to visit, however, it will be impossible to recreate specific moments and revive the feeling of living here. I've gotten over the shock of leaving and ending this chapter several days ago. Now, as I return my phone, my keys, and put one last coat of white paint where photos, postcards, and other memories used to be, the fear has transformed into excitement. I don't know if this is my last post, so I don't want to say goodbye. "Shalom" has three meanings, and I like to think I am experiencing all of them now. I really don't want this to be corny, sappy, and mournful. My entire blog is the true testament to my journey this year.

Goodbye

- Israel

- Kfar, I learned to love your cats, loathe your reeking elevators, and admire your Jerusalem stone charm.

- Town, for your tourists to mock and sometimes identify with, haggling with your taxi drivers, haunting your streets at night for some food and drink, and shlepping beautiful produce from your shuk

- Cafe Kadosh, and your delicious savory french toast

- Mamila Mall

- Afula, and your lulling kibbutz life.

- Egged and Dan busses...I did my best sightseeing and thinking while looking through your windows.

- Tel Aviv, old stomping grounds

- Bezalel, my messy studio, lugging canvases and drawing paper through your labyrinth hallways

- Teachers. I grew so much as an artist thanks to them. Specifically my drawing and pottery teachers. I now know how to express myself differently.

- The dank piano room (dank is used with a negative connotation, but without you, oh piano room, my musical inclinations would have been unrealized)

- Friends with a history of living together for a year.

- My room, festooned with photos, transvestite wrestler figurines, and every flavor of Must gum. Oh...and bless those shades that make the midday dark like 9 PM.

Peace

- to israel

- to everyone i've met, and to everyone I will meet in this next chapter

- to the few readers of this blog

Hello

- family

- bagels and lox

- our swimming pool

- wild raspberries in the backyard

- the grand piano

- netflix

- fireworks

- sleepovers with friends

- hottub

- drumming for the old people

- skim milk

- summer thunderstorms

- Sushi sunday

- driving in cars

- concerts on the green

- Sparky

- the ECA crew

- shakespeare in the park

- grilling

- cape cod

- camping

- my room

- the sound of crickets at night.

Free Cofe and Tee???

I was skimming the internet for things to do this weekend.

hmmm...tiberias, maybe.

There was this Tiberias hostel's website that literally made me laugh out my liver.

wow. its funny. the video is hillarious too.

http://www.tiberiashostel.com/

"If you be a lympho, i'll be a lympho"

If the body is a temple, then mine is the Second temple. Like the Beit HaMigdash, my purity was poisoned by an enemy...a microscopic military desecrated the hallowed hallways of my sanctuary, my veins.

Friday night I hosted 12 people for Shabbat dinner in my apartment. I complained to my friends about this itchy thing on my hand that looked like a popped blood vessel. They reassured me it was only a bug bite as they proceeded to devour my challah. The itching and swelling woke me up late saturday morning. From my inner wrist to my elbow, something was creating a trail through my veins.

The trail of tears.

It was hot and puffy. I calmly got out of bed. It was just me in the apartment so i ate a mango with museli. But my inner voice was pressuring me, "yo...you're eating granola while an unidentified pathogen is trailblazing through your forearm?!" I dressed my best, preparing for the worst: my American Apparel red hoodie and a headband. I made sure i packed my book and took a decent crap before going to the clinic (i wanted to be comfortable...who knows how long i'd be). Keep in mind, it was shabbat, so i had to hail a cab with an arm that looked like it had been crying in the bathroom for two hours. Was it blood poisoning, an alergic reaction, a parasite? The nurse took my temperature and blood pressure. Only Dr. Gazim knew what my prognosis was. He took one look at my arm. "Lymphangitis," he said, his Tom Selleck moustache twitching a little. Then he left.

okay...

He came back with a script, "Take two pills, three times a day for a week."

Then he left for real.

What's Lymphonjitiz? I wondered, What am i swallowing these pills for? Am i going to die at home surrounded by mango peels and museli crumbs with an arm consumed by red rash?

I went to the pharmacy that the receptionist said was open on Shabbat, but when i got there, i found my insurance policy was not supported by the drugstore. I paid out of pocket, took the pills, popped the first dose in my mouth, and said, "Salaam alaycum."

One hour and a 210-sheckel cab fare later, i got home and did some research:

Lymphangitis is an infection of the lymph vessels (channels). It is a common complication of certain bacterial infections.

I then began to read about signs, tests, and treatment. This is where Dr. Gazim fell short:

Signs and tests

The doctor will perform a physical exam, which includes feeling your lymph nodes. The doctor may look for signs of injury around swollen lymph nodes.

A biopsy and culture of the affected area may reveal the cause of the inflammation. Blood cultures may be done to see if the infection has spread to the bloodstream.

(I don't think he even touched me.)

Treatment

Lymphangitis may spread within hours. Treatment should begin promptly.

Treatment may include:

• Antibiotics to treat any underlying infection

• Analgesics to control pain. Nope.

• Anti-inflammatory medications to reduce inflammation and swelling. Nope.

• Warm moist compresses to reduce inflammation and pain. Nope.

Surgery may be needed to drain any abscess. Thank God, Nope.

I was mostly upset I didn't receive warm, moist compresses.

I'm fine. It's late. I finished "Bonnie and Clyde," and i'm going to sleep (until 8 when my alarm will wake me up for my pills...man, does that make me feel like Grandma Joyce). I'm going to the beach tomorrow. Shavuah tov.

Oh...i also did some other cool things this week, like having my work exhibited in our group's gallery showing, going to Jerusalem's Light Festival in the Old City, and making turkey neck soup for shabbat. Maybe i'll talk more about that later. Right now I need to itch my infamous inflammatory infection.

Morning update: My arm's still itchy, but the red line is barely visable. I took the antibiotics and had this trippy dream that I was tripping on antibiotics....kind of like in that boat tunnel scene in Willy Wonka..."there's no knowing where we're going..."

This post will Wow your pants off.

I will post some remarkable things, but mostly unremarkable things.

Remarkable:

Went to a craaaazy concert on Israel's National Student Day. My friends and I stayed up thanks to unlimited, free Coke Zero (wait...does that mean it also has zero caffeine? It must have been placebo then). We saw the sun rise to the rhythmic, resonant rumblings of Balkan Beatbox. (If you replace all the B's in Balkan Beat Box with F's, you almost get a comprehensible set of words. Falkan [I'm thinking more, falcon] Feat Fox. Coolio.) I had no idea who the other bands that performed before were. I rode a mechanical bull. I got home at 8:30 AM. Aren't I cool? staying up late like that?

My achilles is better so I'm back at the gym.

Went to Afula for Shavuot on kibbutz Beit HaShitah with the Ahuvia family. It was quite a retreat. I ate cheesecake two nights in a row. Butter, butter, dairy, butter was the motto of the weekend. Delicious food in the company of a warm family. Berthe and Amir's daughter, son-in-law, and two little grandchildren were also there. Very cute. I wanted to tell them how cute they were. Except they only spoke Danish. So, I faked a little Danish accent and even picked up a few words. "Again" means again. "Yeah" means Yeah. "Tractor" means Tractor. "Angry Birds" means Angry Birds. Amir took us to Israel's national kite-surfing competition on a fishpond nearby. It was EXTREME! Later, I went to a Shavuot harvest ceremony in the field where the kibbutz children sang and performed. Then massive tractors and other agricultural equipment harvested the wheat crop before our very eyes! I left on Thursday morning very rested, my backpack weighed with jars of Berthe's homemade jam and fresh-picked corn from the fields.

Unremarkable:

I think I finished two paintings for our exhibition. The crab one, and the car crash. Those are the titles respectively.

I got kicked out of the Kotel AND the Church of the Holy Sepulcher because my skirt was a centimeter above my knees. Even though I was wearing a modest, long black cardigan, and there were plenty of other people dressed sluttier than I. One woman literally herded me out of the Kotel. She waved a "complimentary modesty shawl" at me like some bullfighter. Is that what you want? You call yourself a Jewess, Bat Yisroel? Fine. I'll go to church. Uh. Not welcomed there either.

I got some things back from the kiln. The intricate designs I painted on my ceramics became washed out after the glaze firing, and some of my pieces are mysteriously "lost". My pots are aesthetically disappointing, but they are functional! I drank a glass of water from one of my cups!

Saw three unremarkably remarkable things today:

- a naked kid running around the botanical gardens while his father was sleeping.

-a dead raven

- the pages of "Cages," by Dave McKean...the most beautiful graphic novel I have ever read.

Starting to think about packing. The thinking is scaring me. Imagine when I actually have to pack! 19 days!