Not Anonymous

I over slept and missed my class.

I'd be more pissed at myself if it wasn't the last day of this frekin' year.

If there's one resolution I'm willing to make is to get more sleep.

Because tomorrow is a new year I've decided to skip the one other class I have today and just hang out with friends on campus before we go out to party.

I'll be taking the opportunity this weekend to do some winter cleaning of my room, lots of papers have been gathering on my desk, as well as dust on everything else.

So I'm taking today's oversleeping as a sign that this old year will be done with and that will midnight local time I can concentrate on having fun, perhaps having one too many drinks (that would be three y'all) and really sleeping in tomorrow, with fresh energies to start the New Year's First Weekend.

What fun that the New Year is starting on the weekend, eh?

See you all Next Year, have a good one! Please...

I was wondering if I should do a recap of 2009.

It is soon to end and thank god for that.

It would appear that 2009 was, collectively, a crap year all around the world. I suppose I should have realised it wasn't going to be good when it started with a war.

I don't know about you, but my 2009 included cancer, a war, homophobia and a death in the family. It also included a wedding and my first long-term relationship.
Not all was bad.
Just compounded with the bad stuff.

Maybe there will be more of this to come, in which case I don't know if I want to be involved in 2010.
Maybe it's the decade giving us a jolly fare-well and our Teens will see a better world.

It's been a hard year friends.
A decade I'm glad to see over.

Just before the end, The Arbeit Macht Frei sign was found. I didn't write about when it was stolen, because I had no doubt that it either never be found or would be found quickly.
Symbols are often deemed more important to find than actual perpetrators of crime.

There was outrage in Israel when the sign was stolen.
The shooter at the gay youth club hasn't been found yet, nor will he ever, I despair.
The POW/Hostage (depending who you talk to) Gilad Shalit has yet to be released along with the other Palestinian Political/Security (again, depends who you're referring to) which are used as a bargaining chip.
A piece of scrap metal bearing words in German was found and returned over the weekend.

The world fucking sucks.

Good morning.

Talk to y'all later.

This morning I got an apology from a class-mate.

I was honestly speechless.

Last week in class, Intro to Anthropology Exercise, in which spirits rose because were were discussing polygamy, marriage and all that.
The article we read had a description of a polygamous household of the Tib [sp?] tribe in an Anfircan country that may or may not still exist - the article is from the late 50's if I'm not mistaken - in which the Wives (who call each other Sister) tell the anthropologist that they take care of each other, help each other out with their children.
The first wife is "given" to the husband by her father, all the other consequent wives the First Wife choses.

I'm like, human commodification, not so different from traditional marriages in Judaism (well, contemporary ones in these parts, the woman doesn't even get to look at the Ketubah - marriage contract).

Any way - I was shocked that so many of my female class-mates said that they were really convinced by the women living in a polygamous house-hold, that they wouldn't mind having that kind of sisterhood.

In my mind I'm went: OMG! WHAT?!?! Do you not see!?!?

What I said was: Hello, human commodification!
And some guy replied: You're really exaggerating! You know that's what they say about Marriage in Judaism?
I replied: Yes, that's why a bride costs 2 cents (2 prutot), because she isn't being bought!

He went on a bit about how what marriage was and wasn't, while I'm being called out on being waaaaaay radical about marriage.

Bullshit, of course.

Any way, today the guy with whom I argued last week apologized for his attitude and for being over aggressive.

See me be gobsmacked!

I told a friend about this this morning and she said don't let it get it out that men who behave nicely make you speechless.
Funny, haha.
I'm just not used to twenty-something men (sometimes boys) to actually take responsibility for stuff said in class.
No doubt he thought he was doing the gentlemanly thing, which I'm cool with when it is sans condescension and patronising (I can be a gentleman too!) - but wow, it was just so weird.

Regardless, it's weird being in this class, where I feel I'm gaining new perspective! But damn am I ahead of the class when it comes to theory and critical thought. I'm not bragging here - I'm a bloody Third Year taking an intro class... *sigh* Well, that's the cake I baked from the eggs that I broke.

I was sitting at the bus station minding my own business.

A man of about 50-55 comes towards me and asks if it's all right if he smokes. I thought it was very (see, overly, for the society we live in) polite of him to ask and said "sure".

This was quite obviously a ploy.

He begins to tell me a story.

"I just couldn't sit at the other bus station. There was a girl there; dressed far too revealingly for me, her chest hanging out and short pants".

I'm staring at him as though he's grown an extra head. Instead his beard, peyot, kipah (yarmulke/skull cap) and tzitzit become glaringly obvious props for his forthcoming tale and story.

In my head, I'm screaming: "Why? Why is this man talking to me and regaling to me this bullshit story!?"

He continues (sans my loud thoughts that this man is a religious nut): "I ask [the aforementioned girl] do you believe in G-d?"

In my mind: "Mercy!"

He tells her words: "'Yes' she says and I ask you [that is, me and the universe in general most likely] if she's have said 'yes, but I sin', I could live with that... But dressed the way she is... how can she say that!?".

Meanwhile, I'm trying to understand why this woman (if she indeed exists outside this man's narrative) engaged with this man, seeing as I was doing my best to Not Engage with this person and his irrational tirade about how this woman's dress somehow marks her heretic - obviously I'm the best audience ever! What with my long jeans, trainers, long-sleeved shirt and high necked top underneath it.
If only we were telepathic, nay?

He goes: "She tells me her beliefs are simple. How can creation be simple?!"

How I wished I had a desk on which to bash my head and his continuously!

Throughout this entire time I'm dying for a bus, any bus to arrive to take one of us away! I'm also silent, grimacing from time to time and keeping away from him as much as possible while not leaving the bus stop - I really did not feel safe enough to tell to STFU... perhaps if there was another person there I would have told him to stop bothering me... but *Gah*, the situation just really did not encourage aggressive-aggression and I went for body-language instead.

"Creation can't be simple" this man says, "I tell her [still this very-well-could-be-fictional-girl] 'that table? You see it? Someone designed it, yes?' she replied 'yes'. So no tell me G-d doesn't exist!"

I was ready to throw up on him. I had been feeling queasy regardless, but I could have blown chunks over this.

He continued with this line of talk and thought for a good ten minutes, in addition going on to inform me that the Bible predicted Swine 'flu (o_O) and that according to Rabbi What-ever-the-fuck 14,5-and something are going to die because that's the Gimatric interpretation of the Hebrew letters of Swine 'flu (which are שפעת חזירים).

I actaully breathed a sigh of relief when his bus arrived and he was out of my life.

It was just too odd. I don't think I'd ever been proselytised to before. Obviously him asking me if he could smoke was a ploy to start engaging me in conversation.
Good tactic.

I now have a funny anecdote about Jewish fundamentalists... who are so different from all the other ones you encounter in the street (much to our annoyance)

---

Off Topic, but related to the fact that I'm home and talking about this.
I'm feeling queasy and at the last minute decided not to go the talk tonight, because I'd rather not be sick in front of people.
I'm disappointed, but hopefully I'll be able to catch the DAM people at a later date during their visit in the region.

I don't think my internet persona is that different from my RL persona.

The one-sidedness of blogging and not having to be considerate of interrupting someone or someone interrupting me makes me more eloquent online, it also stops me from being repetitive in the same paragraph - at times, during conversation, my mind can go blank and I struggle for a word which will either be in the other language I speak (the danger of bilingualism) or I'll lose both words because I'm trying to figure out which is more appropriate.

It's frustrating, and quite obviously I'm the only one who takes it badly because hiccups in conversation happen all the time! I'm not giving a presentation or reading a speech.
I'm not an orator.
Stuff happens.

That's not where I was going with this post.

Backing up. Ah, yes.
My persona.

People behave differently depending on the context and people in which they find themselves.

I can be very shy at times, which surprises people with whom I'm very gregarious.

I've been told my internet persona belies my niceness and charm. Because, yeah, I do try to be nice and pleasant and friendly. Even with people that I don't particularly like or get along with, if I'm in the vicinity I do my best so that everyone gets along.
Until I don't.
And as I know and been told:
"Mel, when you're mean, you're scary"
I am assertive and my voice can pitch in a way that can be grating and strident and makes people tell me to "tone it down" which makes me even more irritable and thus... well, you get the picture.

I suppose because the social niceties that I pull off so well and easily IRL aren't required for online interaction. I try to be respectful to any one I communicate with, there are exceptions of course, because when I people don't bother to keep their prejudices to themselves, I don't see why I should keep my opinions on said prejudices to myself as well.

I can be rude. I often am online. Assertion is read as aggression and you have to be clear in your writing because ambiguity is so easy to write unintentionally. Intentional writing will always carry a harder punch and more often than not, I don't pull the punches I write.

If you've met me IRL, you know I'm quite bubbly and babbly. That I'm bouncy and *squeeish* (something I manage to convey online at times, for sure) and that I'm loud and have no poker face.

I'm quite sure my online persona is just waaaaay more eloquent when it comes to talking about things that make me go *ARRRRGH* seeing as IRL, I tend to go *splurterscoughshriekBWUH!Eff-U Man!I-got-something-to-say!NO-I-WONT-BE-QUIET...* - this can also be what goes on in my head, because like many a family & friends gathering, many people say things that they believe are appropriate - like racial slurs (which I try smack down when I'm within earshot), sexist remarks (which are so pervasive in interaction as well) and homophobia laden comments (har har, oh yeah, you thought she was a man, that's fucking precious, har har) - and the situation calls for decorum, niceness and charm.

That bubble was bust a long time ago, but behaviour dies hard.

I come off strong.
I'm cool with that.

It makes me memorable.

I still haven't managed to find the balance of many hours spent at Uni and Life (Online and IRL).

I'll find the time to update.

Because I'm reading quite a few new blogs which I want to talk about, but feh, time! I need to sleep as well you know.

Lots of stuff has been happening, and yes I know it's not nice to tease, but I can't write about in this post... I may write about it later I may not, because I'll forget. Yeah, I'm that scattered at the mo'.

Tomorrow I have a class at 8:30, which means getting up at 6:00 am at the very latest, gah I hate when my regular mode of public transport is not working (the trains are under repair - woe!).

Hopefully I'll be able to blog about my life, my university and everything else (i.e. The News as it relates to me, you and all of Us).

G'night friends, readers and fellow busy people trying to balance life and 42 other things.

I'll be in my jimjams saving the world thanks.

Wow, I'm tired if I'm making Hitchhiker... and Doctor Who referencing the Hitchhiker... references... what am I doing here?!

The Yanks are having a Gay Ole' Time!

Sorry, I couldn't resist.
The Interwebs are very US centric, so I know that the 11th of October is National Coming Out Day and that during Obama's address at the Equality March he promised to revoke Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
He didn't specify when, but meh.

I also read a post that resonated in me so much, my eyes stung up as I read it, you should read it too.

Coming out never ends.
You have to do it over and over and over again.

When I came out to my mother I was 15 and she said "Why don't you try the Hetero way, first" and "Don't tell your father".
I didn't tell my dad until I was 20 and he said "Are you in a relationship with a woman?", I wasn't at the time, "Then why are you telling me this now?".

I don't mean to vilify my parents, but this is such an ordinary reaction it's hardly worth mentioning. Because it doesn't matter that I'm Bi and am thus "gay" whoever I'm with, it only matters when the genitalia of the person I'm fucking is the same as mine.
Then, "I'm making my life more difficult".
As I am responsible for the homophobic reactions I'm forced to endure and yeah, those small insignificant questions are "homophobic" and yeah, I will call you on them.
Hiding behind conservatism, or old-fashioned views, or that a double standard is okay because it's social.

I don't mention my siblings, because they're awesome; despite the fact that one of them thought I said I was queer because I was looking for attention (*grrr*), despite the fact that one of them tried to excuse the police assaulting us at Jerusalem Pride, despite the fact that one of them challenged the oppression of queer identity by comparing it a different one.

I don't mean to vilify them either.

My family, I love them dearly and they love me.

But the assumption, assertion and aggressively enforced enables people, no matter who they are, to doubt my identity and this, of course, holds true for the Queer community as well.
This requires that I assert, "advertise" and repeat "I'm gay/queer/bi/the-label-that-fits-best-at-this-time-and-place".

When I was in the IDF, I was out during my training and more than anything, to the group of about 20 young women that lived together for nearly four months, I was a curiosity at first, but because none of us was fucking while we were on base sex was spoken about as something we miss and not something we do.
At my permanent unit I was not out, except to the Lunch Club, which could have been dubbed the "Bunch of Queers having a two-hour Lunch Club".
It was nice.
But none of us were out in our units.
No doubt, everybody knew.
No confession was made. no questions were asked. That was fine, but until actually spoken about, it is assumed that you are straight.
Even if you are the Dykiest Dyke, The Faggiest Fag and the Omniest Bi.

And it sucks. It forces you to be, for large portions of your life,dishonest by default and purposefully.
"It's provocative having two women together at a wedding".
"Do not introduce her as your girlfriend".
So we didn't slow dance, and you'd have to be pretty slow not to figure it (that we're together) out.

To be "out" is to be provocative.
It's a luxury I felt acutely this year, the freedom of it in certain arenas, it's utter deprivation in others.
That my life.

That's all our lives.

As promised, more on The Man and the amazing concert last night.

First of all, the getting there. It was very much encouraged that people use public transportation because, well, parking would have been an issue.
The doors to Ramat-Gan stadium (where the concert was performed) opened at half-past five pm, I wanted to be there by at least quarter to seven or seven, since the concert was scheduled to start at quarter to eight.

Suffice to say, that is not what happened. ( Read some more on how we finally arrived to the stadium )
We walked into the stadium at twenty to eight, I hugged Tami and her folks (she was the genius who managed to actually get us tickets the night sales went live, damned lucky as this concert was sold out in a few hours), we found our seats, had two minutes to relax before the lights went out, the stage lights went on and there he was.

The Man and his Hat (Tami was taking pictures the whole time, I hope I get to show them to you).

What a charming stage persona he has, he was skipping! He said it was a honour to be here and that he was dedicating the concert to Bereaved Families for Peace as per my previous post, which got me crying, it was a very clever and non-confrontational way of bringing in the "issue" I suppose. I'm glad he mentioned it at least and didn't ignore the contention of him performing in Israel, because it is a big deal and Cohen is a very big name.

He then began to sing.

Being the dork that I am, I wanted to write down the songs; I always carry a pen, but alas I did not have a notepad so I quickly rummaged around and found a post card - it was this post card, so there was plenty room to write on both sides.
Oh! Before I forget! On the big screens which broadcast his performance, there were Hebrew subtitles to almost all of the songs, because lots of Israeli artists just wanted to be able to sing him in Hebrew so over the years there have been lots of translations.
Having the subtitles was just too great no to mention.

( The Song List with some of my reactions to them )

And then he sang the Passage from the book of Ruth: "Wherever you go..." which was amazing and then he gave another prayer in Hebrew. Amazing to hear that old fashioned Ashkenazi accent, as modern Hebrew accent is Sephardic... I was all very emotional, as is evident by the amount of tears I shed.

Cohen is probably one of the more evocative poets and singers of our time. I can honestly say that he's one of the artists that when I heard for the first time clutched my heart and pulled out my lungs. And it really was So Long, Marianne, because it was the first song of his that I listened to.

It was an amazing night and getting back home was far less dramatic than getting there. My dad I were gushing the whole way and it really was one of the best evenings of my life.

I love Leonard Cohen even more than I did. His gravely and deep voice is the kind of voice I always imagine myself having when I speak about something I'm passionate about, but it's so far from the voice I actually have which is more often than not high and strident... I can never modulate it to the depth that I want.

One other thing, Leonard Cohen has a grand, beautiful and very sharp aquiline nose (I have a nose fetish, really, I'm not kidding) and he's a seriously good looking (to me) man.
I think my dad kind of looks like him.
Yeah, I think my dad is handsome.
I think youngest daughters are supposed to think that, no?

I hope I managed to convey here what a powerful evening it was. That weird and awesome feeling of being intimate with thousands of other people.

I think I need another cup of coffee.

I didn't write about the big rally that was orchestrated last Saturday night (the 8th) because frankly by then, I was pretty much wiped out.
Also, it pissed me off and I was very disappointed by it.

I had vented a hell of a lot, cried some more and as is evident by the frivolous entries of the past week, I just didn't have any more to write.

The repercussions of the shooting are still felt, though it is now old News and due to other strings of murder being reported and investigated with about as much gusto as a Lion pride at midday in the bloody savannah, the fact that no suspect has yet to have been found is not even worth an update.

Not that I'm surprised.

The shooting itself shocked me, but I wasn't terribly surprised. My society is violent and filled with strife. Not to mention that the mainstream media and mind-set refuses to see any correlation between the Occupation, the virulent racism and xenophobia of our social structures and the hatred of anything gender non-conforming (which is a large umbrella under which misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, biphobia etc all fall).

The rally, as mentioned, was a disappointment for me. The only worth while speakers were one of the wounded kids who was just heart breaking and couldn't stop sobbing and a few other people of note from the more grass-roots queer movements.

One of the things that really annoyed me, was the exclusion of former Memeber of Knesset Issam Machool (of Hadash - Al'Jabha), who wanted to speak out against the homophobia in the Palestinian communities and how it's compounded by the harsh racism of current Israeli policies.

This was deemed too "political".
Same with a representative from Aswat - Palestinian Lesbian Group based in Haifa.

It pisses me off.
Royally.

In the blog post Palestinian Gays under the Hijab, Nisreen Mazzawi writes:

While in the world the legend of the democratic country of the middle east keep announce its jingles regard its tolerant city Tel Aviv that provide a shelter of the Palestinian gays running from their society and families, The Palestinian gay community and supporters are excluded on purpose from public events specifically from the solidarity anti homophobic demonstration held yesterday in Rabin Square.
[...]
For the Palestinian gays who live and struggle for their lives under the occupation, Tel Aviv is not an alternative or a safe shelter, the few who succeed to do their way to Tel Aviv end up living and working in the streets, not once they are victims of the Israeli propaganda that use their cases to promote this image.
[...]
While we believe homophobia is equal to racism and hate is equal to hate and murder is equal to murder, the majority of the Israeli gay community choose not to see the link and to ignore other kinds of violence abundant in the Israeli society.

I recommend the whole post, it's very informative and just gives you a broader picture of the intersection of different destructive oppressions in Israel and Palestine.

If you recall, in the weeks before and during Pride month I wrote about the campaign of using LGBT Israeli culture to promote the image Israel as a "pluralistic, democratic and tolerant" nation.

Israel may not be the most horrendous place for queers, but the saturation of violence along with the Occupation colouring every facet of life whether we like it or not. That of course, in turn, colours the entire social conception of what is "acceptable" and "not acceptable", what's "In" and what's "out".

I've never really felt "In", whether it was being generally a little eccentric, outspoken, visibly queer or just not having my politics (whether during my apathy years or later/now) mesh with what is considered worthy opinions, the past two weeks very much struck me as a kind of final straw, which I've possibly mentioned before.
Compounded with crap that [Southern!Girl] and I had to deal with this year on account of our relationship which I won't get into right now... I feel as though this place just isn't it any more.

I don't know what's going to happen. I never did, but this opened my eyes a little wider.

You may find it tedious, or boring, or even just plain irritating that I'm blogging about the same thing over and over again and basically repeating myself.

Obviously this is something that needs processing and information needs to be disseminated.

As I said in my previous post, I did not know the deceased, but I know people who did, because that's how small our world is.

Those kids, one of whom is in critical condition, all of whom are still in hospital as far as I'm aware, will never be the same again.
Nor will any of us, I'm afraid.
Some of those kids do not have a home to go to because they were outed and their parents and family do not want their children to be "that way".
Can they be cured?
As though the way your body, mind and heart reacts to people is some kind of horrible disfigurement of the soul.
If we even have one.

The reason I keep writing about this (and will probably write more about tomorrow) is because I am in the belief that silence is violence.
That the police do not have the beginning of a clue as to the whereabouts of the murderer and that unless he wants to be found, he will not be found.
Call me cynical, but it's been a while since I've trusted the police with anything that actually amounts to securing me and the people I know.

As for "incitement against the religious", I'll let you read the writing on the wall again.

Thoughts? Questions? Opinions?