ET[A] Phone Home

I was two and a half feet tall the day that my little sister was born. I know that because I remember how tall I felt when my head came just underneath our new counter-tops.

Earlier that morning I found my mom in the kitchen stuffing random things in her purse. This meant only one thing. That she was about to go somewhere and by the looks of what she was putting in there it appeared as though it was going to be crazy fun.

“Where are you going?” I asked, trailing her to the garage, where she took out a plastic bag and began filling it with more stuff.

“To the doctor,” she said.

It wasn’t what she said that was deceiving, or even the words she had selected to say it. It was her tone. Calm. Casual. Collected. The same tone one might use to talk about going to the dentist to have their teeth cleaned. This is not the tone one typically uses when they have just gone into labor and their husbands are waiting in the car, beeping on thirty second intervals.

But my mother never was typical. Later she would not elect to have an epidural, as she hadn’t in her previous ten births and afterward she would say it was virtually painless. Mom maintained that if she could have her tonsils taken out with a pair of scissors and no anesthesia, a little childbirth was nothing she couldn’t handle.

The Phone Call came later that day. It called to tell us something exciting had just happened and its name was Ita. At once, I climbed up on our brand new leather sofa and began jumping and whooping. I had no idea why I was so excited or who this Ita might be, but the general lack of parental supervision combined with the eccentricity and hoopla coming from my brothers and sisters had thrust me into a state of irrational, drunken bliss.

My mother was cradling her in a big white blanket when we arrived. She was a dainty little thing with gigantic baby blue eyes. Also, she was bald and she had an alien shaped head. But her head wasn’t what bothered me. Frankly, what was particularly bothersome was how she had just shown up out of nowhere without so much as a warning. Where did she even come from!?

As my brothers and sisters fussed and cooed at the new baby, a terrible thought occurred to me: I was getting replaced by a newer model and there was nothing I could do but watch.

Worse yet, I realized- as the goo-goo ga-ga’s yielded way for weird cartoonish faces and strange clucking noises- she had only been around for a couple days but already she was hogging over two thirds of my designated attention. Or maybe all of it.

And just when I thought we might leave, so I could go to my room and play house, they told me to sit in the chair so I could hold the new kid. They said it real slow, in drawn out syllables and big animated smiles, like I had just won a million dollars.

Yippie-freaking-kayay.

She was very flimsy and awkward in my arms but I tried to cradle her like I saw the others, so I might steer attention away from her and showcase my sudden spurt of maturity and quick maternal instincts. Only too bad for me, because as I was rocking that baby I accidentally bumped her head on the arm of the wooden chair, which stirred chaos and panic among my family. I guess subconsciously I was trying to say, “Go home. You stupid baby.”

She did. But her home happened to be the same as my home. She was everywhere I didn’t want her to be and no where I wanted her to be (gone). And to make matters worse, she was cute. Real cute. When she cried, people came running, like she was performing Les Misérables on Broadway. But when I tried imitating her ET-ish noises I was told to be quiet because I was giving everyone a headache.

I wasn’t accustomed to this. I was not used to this at all. Before she came around, I could run around in concentric circles chanting “yagul, yagul, yagul” and everyone would think it was drop dead adorable. I said things like “I don’t drink coffee; only peoples do” and got rounds of applause. Now, thanks to a bald-headed yet still mysteriously attractive baby, I had to work for my attention.

I’d heard about kids who sold their baby siblings for money on the playground when their parents weren’t looking. But it was hard to even imagine doing that considering she had nine adults guarding her at all times.

What it was that was so special about her was confounding to me. I doubted she could count to twenty like I could or do consecutive somersaults or even pick up her alien head. In fact, it was funny to entertain the thought of her even attempting to do any of the grown-up things I was able to do. She was the size of a ruler for gods-sake.

But none of my plans to rid her proved effective. Not listing the things she couldn't do that I could do flawlessly, neither did dressing her up in stupid clothes or even pointing at her and laughing.

After a while I could only hope that the spacecraft that had brought her here might take her back. But sadly, even as time progressed she showed few motor skills and it began to seem doubtful that she would ever pick up a phone let alone, dial it.

For Ita. My favorite little sister. I'm glad you never phoned home :)

When I Was Adopted

While the other kids were moving through stages of cognitive, emotional and behavioral development, I was going through stages of my own. In between my adorable kleptomania and uncontrollable pathological lying, I entered a new stage. One that was entirely different from the previous and subsequent stages, except exactly the same in the sense that they were all ploys for attention. This time I convinced myself that I was adopted.

“Nobody adopts a kid when they already have nine.” my sister told me flatly.

What a buzz kill. I would never tell her that she wasn’t adopted.

I was rapt with the entire concept. It amazed me that parents could just trade in kids like x's and z's in Scrabble. How did it work? I was dying to know. Did children get lined up at the market in height order while potential buyers browsed through their qualifications? Was it just for infants or could big kids play too? How did these parents network to know which ones were for sale?

Eventually, after noticing that I did kind of look like my sisters, I had to admit that I probably wasn’t adopted. Unless all eleven of us were from the same birthparents, which was highly unlikely.

But just because I wasn’t adopted didn’t mean that I couldn’t be. After seeing how easy it was for the girl in Matilda, I suggested that my friend Zoe’s mother adopt me.

“Mom, could we adopt Mushka?” Zoe would ask whilst I put on what I was certain was my most adorable puppy face. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what Zoe stood to gain out of this, but all I really wanted out of life was to lay on a couch and watch Looney Tunes while eating Skittles and peanut butter cups. Also I wanted a Tickle-Me-Elmo and a fabulous Beeney Baby collection. Was that too much to ask for?

Apparently, it was. Her mom just laughed. How rude. Did it sound like we doing this for kicks and giggles? Was my puppy face not puppy-ish enough? Was I too old? Not African enough? Did I have to do cartwheels, list the ways I could improve her family, pull out a broom and start cleaning her house? What did a girl have to do to get adopted around here?

25 things u probably never cared to know about me. but its my blog so i get to post it anyway

I get a buzz from public speaking only because it absolutely terrifies me.

I can eat anything in the morning. I don’t discriminate against food based on time.

I fell into a dreamless sleep at Inception.

You probably wouldn’t be my friend if you saw me dance like no one was watching.

I had no inhibition as a child.

I’m intimidated by really smart people.

I used to think when people said “Newark” they were just saying “New York” really quickly.

I cry when I see people crying in movies.

I wanted to be a rock star when I was little.

Carrie Bradshaw taught me to write.

I find it difficult to respect people who don’t respect Family Guy.

I never graduated.

When I was bored I memorized the world capitals.

When something is really funny, I smile to myself for a couple minutes after.

I wish I were more like my mother.

I’ve been in six schools and learned in five cities.

I had blue eyes until I was about nine and then they turned green.

I think all newborns look exactly the same.

Driving really really fast is the closest feeling I get to flying.

Redbull gives me wings.

I like constructive criticism. I love the way it stings.

I receive hate mail. I find it both amazingly humbling and dangerously amusing.

sdaskhdakjshdasjkhdaskljdlfjaklsgja.

I would love to climb a rainbow. Sit there and watch the sun bathe in the iridescent clouds. Sip a flute of champagne as the moon pushes the sun over the edge of the world. Gaze at the stars, as they come, one by one to play. I would love to lay on the moon, the cool black air like a symphony of silence. The other planets would put on shows and dance and twirl and their colors would inspire me. Their rings would glow as I floated around them, swimming in the thick abyss. I would love to lay on the grass, an awkward heartbeat next to me, watching the rainbows vanish and appear, the suns falling, the moons rising and the silvery stars winking over the velvety sky.

September 19, 2007

It's been several years since i wrote this. initially, i believe, they were just words bred from my subconscious. questions that were dormant and were destined to mean something only when I'd begin to understand them. and the better i get to know my questions, the answers only grow more elusive.

September 19, 2007

Is there any one mistake you’d give anything to take back? One scene in your life, you’d pay dearly to erase? Is there one turning point in your life that took you to the wrong side of the tracks? One where you wish you hadn't swerved?

It’s almost Yom Kippur; the most significant day of the entire year. A lifetime in a day. A lifetime of the collection of shame, regret, nullification and raw hope for something better out of yourself and life. It’s the day apologies actually mean something. We’re kneeling before a G-d that prays that we pray to Him. It seems we have it made. G-d tells us that if we do it right we could be forgiven. That’s it, completely forgiven, just like that. For all our sins, our mistakes, our errors in judgment . For anything we’ve ever thought, said or done. So we can go to sleep with no stains on our conscious. So we could count our sheep and fall into a fantasy land where our sins miraculously morph into flying ponies.

Is it that simple, truly? Are sins really like chalk on a blackboard? Can you just erase mistakes, like you do hang man survivors and math equations? But where does that white dust go when it seems to be gone? It never quite disappears. It stays, lingers around you, inside you. No deed goes unnoticed. Unpunished, maybe. But it’s all seen, all heard, all felt. By someone. Secret wounds don’t exist, neither do they vanish. So where do our sins go when G-d forgives us? What do they become?

True, G-d forgives us. Because it’s easy. Because he can. But does cleaning up the debris ever change the fact that the train crashed? That people got hurt? The question remains, just because G-d forgives us, does that mean we can forgive what happened? Does that mean we can forgive ourselves?

When Stealing Is A Mitzvah

When I was in third grade everyone who was anyone had a Tomagotchi. It was an egg shaped toy with features meant to mimic the demanding needs of a baby and scare high school students into abstinence. Its efficacy was questionable but its appeal was obvious. While teenagers may have been thoroughly uninterested in caring for a two inch faux offspring, eight, nine and ten year olds were very enthusiastic to do so. Thus the not-so-clever scare tactic swiftly turned into the must-have toy of the season.

I use the term ‘must-have’ loosely, since I didn’t have a Tomagotchi. My parents didn't share my belief that I needed an electronic baby who cried a lot, asked to be fed and needed its diaper changed an unnatural amount of times throughout the day; especially when I already had a little sister who demanded this stuff for free.

Finally, after weeks of begging, I got one. Although, I didn’t so much ‘get’ one as I did hide in the closet and steal it off the backpack of a college student. The fact that a person who was old enough-and presumably mature enough- to be in college had a Tomagotchi hanging off a key chain was unsettling to me. This helped justify why stealing it was probably a mitzvah.

Apparently the joke was on me. I soon learned that this thing was an obnoxious pile of colic. And I began to suspect that the guy had set me up to "steal" his bratty pocket-baby just to get it off his hands. Thanks to this irresponsible frat boy I now had to slave away to care for a whiny piece of plastic that had a nasty habit of dying and resurrecting itself.

As my tenth birthday approached, I began to lose interest in the oddly shaped toy. This gave me more time to invest my curiosity in a little gadget they were calling ‘Gameboy’.It looked ah-mazing. But since I couldn’t lift something this expensive I had to take drastic measures to acquire this glorious toy. It was obvious what I’d have to do. Yes. I would have to demand money from my friends and family in the name of my upcoming birthday.

In retrospect, I realize fund-raising for your own birthday is sad. But I knew, as the tenth child in my family, if I didn’t advocate for presents I would simply not get them. My parents were not religious gift-givers, most likely because they didn’t care much for receiving them. Whenever I would ask my mother what she wanted for Mother’s Day she would respond “nachas” even though I’d patiently explained to her on multiple occasions that nachas was not an actual thing. She would also say “We don’t believe in Mother’s Day; every day is Mother’s Day.” This was obviously her subtle way of inviting us to be decent, well-behaved children every day of the year. Pretty unfair. You didn't see me going around telling people every day was my birthday, did you? No. You did not. Although that is a crazy good idea and I must make a mental note to consider doing that at another juncture.

It occurred to me as she continued to speak of this "nachas" with stars in her eyes, that if I didn’t take action-and quick- I would be unwrapping a great big heap of "hug" for my birthday.

Sad, I know. But true. Let's look at the facts. She grew up in France in the Olden Days where they probably didn't have gifts. It wasn't her fault but this was 1998. And in 1998 we gave gifts. And we received gifts.

After much deliberation I determined that just because she appreciated intangible presents did not mean that I had to. I immediately got to work crafting a donation bucket from an empty coffee canister and colored construction paper and began trolling for donations.

When I had my Gameboy, I reassured myself, it would all be worth it.

Tales of a Fifth Grade Nothing

Mrs. E used to carry around a clipboard of recycled paper which she would use to tally up the points we earned for good behavior. Once we reached one hundred she would give us a penny with a single splat of red nail polish. Later we could use these pennies to purchase prizes from a file cabinet that was filled with the kind of stuff you'd find in a homeless man's shopping cart. Things that, under different circumstances, would have been remarkably unexciting to us but that had magically accrued in value simply because she was "selling" them. There were foreign coins in there, iron on patches, soap, and random odds and ends she found in the garbage on the way to school.

Ordinarily, it might have been incredibly offensive to be rewarded for hard earned academic achievement with an iron on patch in the shape of Louisiana but it was easy to see that these things really meant something to her. And even if we laughed at her eccentric teaching methods, we secretly shared this inexplicable longing for those red dotted pennies. Of course we could just as easily buy nail polish from the dollar store and paint some pennies as we could steal goods from peoples’ trash. But we did neither. Receiving crap in exchange for answering a question correctly was called fifth grade; going out of your way to gain set of “previously owned” pool balls, however, was just plain sad...This is how you teach children to be honest.

Twice a day she would stop teaching and announce it was time for a “bathroom break”. Wasting class time as a rule was fantastic, so this might have been a glorious tradition, had she not insisted on lining us up in single file and walking us there together. To be seen walking single file behind your teacher in fifth grade, alone, is incredibly mortifying. To be seen trailing behind your teacher for a “bathroom break” was on whole other level of mortification. The store of crap was one thing but this was another and it was becoming increasingly apparent that she needed to be taught a lesson.

Devil Candy

His conviction fascinates me and yet I can hardly discern whether it is conviction or an extraordinary lack there of that makes him an atheist.

I don't know how or why I consistently find myself debating perfect strangers on a variety of topics, all of which i am vastly unequipped and uniquely unqualified to debate on. As I ride the dark Jerusalem-bound transport from Tel-Aviv, the ambiance is that of a foreign black and white film. Across from me sits the classic intellectual; wire-rimmed glasses, skeptical eyes, with the faintest hint of hunger in his laugh. Ten minutes in and we’ve already begun wrestling the tired debate about the existence of G-d; as if either of us understand the first thing about G-d.

The thing about being an atheist, I’ve always believed, was that you had to be logical. You had to be calculated, which meant you had to be cold and fantastically unfeeling. It was for those reasons this school of thought was forbidden to a person like me, given my track record of emotion.

Something about this guy tells me he too possesses few of those qualities. His questions are hot, his accusations passionate, laced with what seems to be the accumulation of years of pain and challenges. Tetris blocks of hurt and resentment that fell for some time but never quite fit together. Until one day his screen jammed and shut down. And he shut down too. Never played again.

He's smart, I can't deny him that, but as an atheist, he simply is not compelling. I get the feeling he thinks about G-d more often than I do.

But his questions are good. So good, it makes me wonder how many people he's bounced them off before me. How long has he had to manipulate his words so that we can dance in circles around the truth?

I tell him what I’ve learned. Stories of kings and rabbis and paintings so exquisite they couldn’t possibly be the result of accidental spills and random encounters. I tell him about this, about that, I rack my brain for anything that can prove to him that my faith isn’t futile. But nothing I can summon on such short notice is impressive or earth-shattering. Even I am not convinced.

He smiles at first, like he’s going to give in, but then he shakes his head. “Your stories are nice”, he tells me, “but they’re just fables."

He’s quiet for a while, now it's just us and the silence I created. And it gives me time to consider the fact that I can’t properly validate my own beliefs. Loathe as I am to admit, I can't help but wonder if one day my default faith might exhaust. It’s an odd feeling to know you believe in something so urgently and yet you can't explain it, you can't justify its presence or reason with its force.

The silence lasts for several moments before he moves in for the kill. As the words form on his lips my heart sinks deeper into my chest. It dawns slowly, growing voices and faces with each vowel, each syllable confirms my deepest fear.

Of course I believe in G-d- I was never given the option not to. I was told since before I could talk that there was a G-d, as my mother led my right hand to cover my eyes. I was taught in the first grade that in the beginning He created the heavens and the earth. It ran on loop in my head like a chant. I was convinced in elementary school that He's suspended in the air and brainwashed all through high school to know that I could never understand His perfect existence. How convenient... how brilliantly executed, how cunning the efforts to keep me from questioning, from uncovering the truth.

He's right, isn't he?

I was forced into this faith, was I not? I can't remember having been given a choice...Now my heart is beating outside my chest... What if he's right?

"Tell me I'm wrong," he dares me. But I can't; I'm mute with doubt. I can't think of a single response to the proud smile that begins in his eyes and spreads like an avalanche over his features.

"Truth is," I whisper, on the cusp of surrender. And really whatever comes out of my mouth next could narrate the rest of my life.

"I don’t know why I believe...I just do."

As the words tumble from my mouth, I’m not sure whether I’m talking to him or myself.

"You're right. I was taught that there is a G-d. I was taught for years to understand His existence. I was taught to appreciate an existence I could never understand...But never, in all those years was I taught to believe."

No longer do I care to sound trite, or cult-ish, because I may very well be both, and chances are I'm neither.

"Belief can't be taught. And it can't be learned. And the crazy thing is, once you have it you can't unlearn it either."

I have no more points to prove. When I forsake my stupid-smart philosophies and pretentious theories, when I'm not so arrogant as to believe I can understand, my mind shuts down and submits to an inexplicable power. To simple, un-glamourous, honest-to-god belief. Something I cannot nor do I wish to understand.

Is it exhausted? Maybe. Is it cliche? Probably. But it doesn’t stop it from being completely, ridiculously, obnoxiously true.

"Hey it's okay," I tell him, "if you believe." I attempt a wink, which turns out to be more of a face twitch "...I promise I wont tell."