Undeniable Proof That I Am (Still, Always) a New Yorker:

Things I Love:
Twizzlers

Things I Hate:
Red Vines


The End.

Can you find this for me?

The poem called "My God Father of the Gentiles". I want to read it.

Thank you.

Oh and by the way.....

I BOUGHT A CONDO. I CLOSED LAST TUESDAY. I OWN A CONDOMINIUM.

I need a couch. A dining room table. A bedroom set. Hell, a decorator (ha). Because I'm the sort of kid Anna Quindlen could love:
"I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves."

Special Topics in Calamity Physics

The Top Three Reasons I Have Not Yet Put This Book Back On My Shelf, Even Though I Read It A Year And A Half Ago

0. "America's greatest revelation was not the atom bomb, not Fundamentalism, not fat farms, not Elvis, not even the quite astute observation that gentlemen prefer blondes, but the great heights to which she has propelled ice cream."

1. "Not returning phone calls is the severest form of torture in the civilized world. Haven't you read Hit and Run: Crisis in Singlehood America?"

2. " 'Onstage I make love to twenty-five thousand people and then I go home alone,' moaned Janis Joplin, bleary of eye and disheveled of hair."

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - not just for Bugs Bunny anymore!

"I know there is no Santa Claus."
"Yet you must teach the child that these things are so."
"Why? When I, myself, do not believe?"
"Because," explained Mary Rommely simply, "the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe. She must start out by believing in things not of this world. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination. I, myself, even in this day and at my age, have great need of recalling the miraculous lives of the Saints and the great miracles that have come to pass on earth. Only by having this things in my mind can I live beyond what I have to live for."


Ok, so that's really the end of my post, only I just love this about this book, also, seeing as how it was published in 1943, that is just shows how the more things change, the more they stay the same or somesuch soundbite wisdom:
"Send Francie. The last time I asked for sauerkraut he chased me out of the store," complained Neeley.
"You've got to ask for Liberty Cabbage now, you dope," said Francie.
"Don't call each other names," chided Katie absentmindedly.
"Did you know they changed Hamburg Avenue to Wilson Avenue?" asked Francie.
"War makes people do funny things," sighed Katie.

Freedom fries, indeed.

When in Rome... get out before the earthquake hits.

So, I'm in Israel right now and apparently completely jetlagged, because it's... oh, 4:30am and I'm blogging instead of sleeping.

I'm having an AMAZING time, and enjoying every minute. I'm doing a much better than usual job of calling people up and making plans and doing stuff, and my Hebrew is holding up reasonably well - it's the first time that I'm here with any reasonable Hebrew to try out, so it's a pretty awesome experience to actually understand some shit.

I had a 7-hour layover in Rome on my way here, and I was extremely tired, having already stopped over in Paris. The next leg of my flight was on El Al Airlines, so I had no idea how much time I'd need to deal with security and transferring my luggage and stuff, so it was hard to resist the temptation to spend the hours eating, sleeping, and shopping in the huge airport... but I didn't! I asked a million people a million questions, changed some dollars to euros at a ridiculous loss, took a train and then a subway, and emerged from the Metro tunnel directly in front of the Colosseum. WOW. I spent about two hours walking around the area and taking pictures, ate an eggplant pizza at a cafe from which I could have hit the Colosseum itself with my crust if I'd thrown it hard enough (next time :) and went back to the airport. Amazing, perfect, fabulous. I was so freaking proud of myself!

And then, you know, a few hours later, 130 people died. Sharing that SoCal love? Oy.

I went dancing only one night out of three so far, but I have nine nights left and I intend to dance on seven of them. Yeee-haw!

The first thing to do is to survey the estate.

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:

0. Pincher Martin is an incredibly boring book.
1. I desperately need a new computer.
2. I am going to Israel in a few weeks and I am soooooooooo not prepared.
3. I am unbelievably bad at talking on the telephone.

QUESTIONS I HAVE:

4. What is it with Joe's colon?
5. Why is it first Mi Chamocha and then Mi Kamocha? No one I know ever knows.
6. Why can't my computer successfully download the California State Tax program for TurboTax, after I finally ponied up and bought the damn thing and spend all this time installing it and doing everything and I have an internet connection and the other updates work yet THE STATE TAX THING ISN'T WORKING AND I'M VERY FRUSTRATED. I mean, ?

But not today.

One day, I'll stop thinking this is hilarious:

or that this is awesome:

My friends write books and you should read them! And buy them! And give them as gifts!

Restore Yourself: The Antidote for Professional Exhaustion by my dear friend Dr Edy Greenblatt is now out, yay!.. Honestly, if I could have imagined a book that I more needed to read, it might have to be called "Restore Yourself: The Antidote for Professional Exhaustion for people who teach Israeli dance and drink Diet Coke and are way behind on blogging". Or something.

And...
My friend and yoga-buddy Einat spent time in Nepal this summer and wrote In Our Global Village which includes her words, pictures, and artwork. Amazing. Get it!

Catch-up. Mustard.

I have three urges now:
0) to attempt to catch up on the last couple of months, as though this were my diary and you cared about the minutiae of my life
1) to link to the random things I've felt like pointing you to lately
2) to tell you all about my amazing birthday and my amazing friends
3) to say that I have three urges but to really list four.

Well, glad I got that one out of the way. They say you never do anything big, you just do lots of small things that add up to something big. Don't they? Here's a thing:

My dance company, Keshet Chaim Dance Ensemble, had an amazing show on February 1st, called "Keshet for Life: 25 Years and Counting". Alumni came back to celebrate with us, we did a great mix of classic repertoire and new choreography, and it was a freakin blast. There was waaaaay too much rehearsal for me in the month of January, but the show was fabulous. Next up - we perform on the Capitol Steps in Sacramento at the Jewish Heritage Festival. That'll be my first time in the capital, woo-hoo!

The trip to Sacramento is in May. I'm also going to San Francisco for like a day in March, Israel for two weeks in April, San Diego for a gig also in May, and New York for five days to chaperone a school field trip in June (almost definitely, but not yet quite definitely definitely).

And it looks like I'm accompanying Neon Specs to the Skirball to find out the answer to the pressing question: Can Food Really be Authentic?

Good times.

I miss you too.

Thanks for noticing. I miss you too, and I intend to be back, but it's been a crazy time. (Yeah, RDB, what else is new? When was the last time you weren't having a crazy time? 1994?)

I've been sick (again) and yesterday was my birthday (yay!) and I'm working a bit too much these days (only two gigs on the actual day of your birthday? What's the problem, RDB?) but things are great and I feel like writing, so I hope that'll actually happen soon. Hope you're good too.

love,love,love,
RDB