If you only read one post this year ...

If you only read one post this year, make it ... oh God I can't handle the pressure! No, don't make it this one! Read another one somewhere else somebody else's blog something on the other side of the world wide web it's a big web there's got to be plenty of other things that you should read just please don't make it this post I don't want the responsibility I can't handle it!

But if you've already read that post, and you want to read another one, then stop over, I'll find you something nice, do you a good deal, you my friend I like you very much I give you good price please, come sit, have cup tea and look at my extensive array of alarm clocks.

The Pumpkin

Someone once told me that "tikva" in Russian means "pumpkin". This could easily not be true. But it has spurred me on to offer a not-quite translation of the Israeli national anthem, for English speakers.

Call odd ballet - fav - per knee, ma.
Neh, fish yer hoodie, homie, yah!
Elephant, hey! Miss rach - cardi, ma?
Iron lets Ian Sophia.
Odd law huffed a tick forte, nu?
Ha! Tick far, but snot? Al! Pie, Em?
Lee, Yotam, Hoff, she ... bay art, say ... nu?
Air Rhett see yon, yer roo shall lie in!

A pint-sized herring

Well. I just created double the liability for myself by taking out a lease over a new, airy and well-located piece of the either - a new blog by the name of "Love Davka". It is a testament no less to my short concentration span as to my absolute inability to resist a pun that I now have another blog, with no real idea as to with what I will fill it (dear Eliza, dear Eliza). Because of the name, I gave it a subtitle hinting that I would fill it with all of the things that I love about Israel, in the vain desire of one day achieving one of those prestigious awards received by websites which blatantly propagandise and inform the world that Israel is a wonderful place to live, if only people would stop shooting at us.

In a sense that may be true, I guess. But I've never really felt comfortable propagandising about anything (not least because I'm not even sure if "propagandising" ought correctly to appear in a dictionary - and being in the lazy 2am frame of mind which would prefer making an internally referential comment than opening www.dictionary.com in a new window) and what's even worse, I've started learning to spell like an American. "Z"s have started popping up in all kinds of places previously inhabited by "s"s. It's quite disturbing.

My soul is tired. I find the exposure of a blog to be more than my heart can bear. Is this what is really bothering me? I can just as easily not push "Publish Post" - let this posting fall away into the realms of nothingness - or if I were to click "Save as Draft" keep it in suspended animation in the way that I do with emails that I receive from people to whom I simply do not know how to reply. It would be easy. But a part of me knows that I want to post, that I want to go public with my innermost thoughts, even if those thoughts are inane and uninteresting to anyone but ... no, really to anyone. Even I am not truly interested in my innermost thoughts - my only interest lies in keeping innermost thoughts alive and moving - like a mother of a sick child, I don't care if little Timmy is a crap human being, just so long as he's not dead. The perpetuation of some kind of inner movement is most probably what encouraged me to write in the first place.

So what's news? I always like to hear other people speak, because I always find them infinitely more interesting than I find myself. I mean, I live with myself. Twenty four hours a day. In these circumstances, I am surprised that other people like to speak about themselves so much. Don't they get bored? Don't they get sick of that friend who's always hanging around them, wherever they are they're there, whatever they're doing they're doing it right there inside them, even when they're sleeping they're there sleeping right along within their skin. Only it's the friend that's snoring, not them (maybe)? Or are people generally good friends with themselves, the kind of friends that can't get enough of each other, so much so that the person is compelled to talk to third parties about their special friend all of the time?

Maybe. Lucky people. They got cool friends. I got a guy that plays Scrabble and chess and occasionally the piano.

Should I interpret the above as meaning that I really don't like myself? Possibly. But at least I don't bug myself. You know, I pretty much let myself alone. Don't put too much pressure on myself. I should probably give myself a call sometime.