A wise friend told me-

Just keep on trying, just keep on doing what you're doing, and things will work out for you. Amazing things will happen, you're going to be happy, just keep trying just never give up. I know it will, Stuart, I know you're gonna be happy.

She had asked me how things were, how's my mom, how's my sister. "Same old," I said. Didn't know what else to answer. Then she gave me a loving, inspiring speech, filled with hope for my life. I listened, and felt a bit out of it, and wanted to-

________
I started writing this late last night, but it appears that i must have fallen asleep without posting it. Weird. I don't even remember how the sentence was supposed to end. But the point was that her reassurances actually had the opposite effect, and left me feeling empty and not inspired. And then I felt guilty for not being able to just absorb her love and incorporate it into my own being.

yep.

One of several habits that promote spiritual health

Hey, look! I found the website for my first true love. She's got a PhD, and a husband with a PhD. I don't have the gumption to post the picture. But you can click. She pretty much looks the same as she did when she was 16. But I bet she doesn't still feel like a confused teenager, unlike some of us.

What did you do tonite?

Anonymous Commenters Get No Croutons.

Come on, kids, sign yer comments- it helps this sensitive blogger feel the love.

The "Marakia." Marak means Soup. That's why I wrote (souperia). Marakia is the name of a cute little soup place in Jerusalem. They have a nice patio out back, and a piano in the tiny dining room. They serve nothing byt soup. And bread and drinks. One night I saw Bukowski playing piano there.

(the staff dances at the "Camp Dance")




At this very moment, the teens at my summer program are dancing in the Schwartz auditorium. Some of them aren't wearing too too much, but that's how they dress every day. I mean, I know that I made out with a girl and even slept in her room after the camp dance when I was 16, but... I don't think that back then we had so many songs about backing up your your ass or being a ho or, well, screwing.

Here's me, sitting on the side, taking pictures of myself with my laptop:



I'm making eyes at the laptop, not at the teenage humpfest spread out before me. What's amazing about pluralistic Jewish Community-Building (that's what I do here) is that the tall, snobby, pretty girl secular with a bad attitude ran over and grabbed the pasty, nerdy, twitchy orthodox kid the minute he ran into the room. The same kid who fearfully asked me a few hours ago if there would be mixed dancing......

Here's me an coworker Dan Held, two chubby bearded guys sitting like aged dorks with our matching MacBooks whilst the yunguns shake it.

Ooh! They're playing Sir Mix-A-Lot!

Oh yeah, one more note from the H for Humanity

They comes back to haunt you with love

Phew. This job is intense. IN-TENSE. Like camping. Like the Bedouins. Not as physically exhausting as being an outdoor Camp Counselor, but more deeply, insidiously mind-tweaking.

One of my co-workers was also in Israel last year. When we met 2 weeks ago, we chatted a bit about Jerusalem, and the Marakia (the Souperia), an excellent noshing spot in the city. She is also an HUC DropOut (also transferred to a different Rabbinical program). This bit of chat led to this led to that, and after figuring out that we knew some folks in common, I got a hunch that we had, in fact, been at the Marakia on the same night last summer. Finally, we checked her blog, lucyvincentbeach.blogspot.com (this damn software won't help me put in the real link), and look who's there!!!!!!


Sarah is the one crouching in the middle.

Meanwhile, I just tonite received an email from one of my first Hebrew School students from Coral Springs in 1997, when this whole maddening adventure began (WanderingStu celebrates 10 years of Holy Hysteria). He is back at Camp Coleman in Cleveland, Georgia, where me and Val worked the summer before I left for Israel the first time (the first time in my adult life, that is)-- when i first ended up in Bat Ayin. Here's the scrawl that marked the end of the beginning. Or vice versa.



The gentleman up top is, of course, Klaus Kinski in the role of Aguirre, the Wrath of God. I think he kinda looks like Ariel Elisha. Monkey not included.