If I rub my stomach, people assume it's a baby and not just fat in there... will that work if I rub my butt?

Hi I’m back!

I know, I know I haven’t written in a long time… and you know why. Yes ladies and gentlemen I’m pregnant. While I could blame the lack of inspiration on hormone levels, bouts of projectile vomiting or other fun pregnancy symptoms, those are not the honest reasons I haven’t written. The real reason I haven’t felt inspired to write in quite a while (or at least I haven’t felt inspired to write anything publicly) is because finally becoming pregnant has made me really, Über, super duper… please brace yourselves… happy. Yes it appears that the tiny little human being growing inside of me has somehow depleted my sarcastic bitter edge and here I am, shiny, wide eyed, smiley and lovey dovey… I am the kind of glowy, round pregnant woman who used to make me puke (nowadays lots of other things make me puke though, quite literally).

All you readers followed angry, bitter AnKa… so how will this happy-go-lucky version manage to keep your attention? I am afraid of being a boring blogger, so for these last few months I elected not to blog at all. But now I am back… and what can I do? I absolutely love that there is a little girl growing inside of me. I already love her so much more than I ever thought I had the capacity for… sometimes, when no one is looking, I idiotically hug my stomach. Like a complete moron. Don’t tell anyone. See I may be boring, but at least I still share secrets…

I am sappy and mushy and sentimental. I cry at everything. Thank Gd we don’t have a TV or I would be crying at commercials, guaranteed. At night, when I can’t sleep (or maybe this is the reason I can’t sleep) I worry about raising her…and how exactly I will avoid messing her up... I mean, I feel pretty messed up most of the time, so is it possible for an all-sorts-of-messed-up mom to still raise a healthy and well-balanced child? Sometimes, I make lists of little promises to her.

I’ll share some of these thoughts here.


Dear Daughter,

I will try not to mess you up by moving around too much.
I will try to make sure you never feel lonely or alone.
I will feed you healthy meals which we will eat all together as a family.
I will try to understand you.
I will try not to mess you up by infecting you with my food or self-image issues.
I will try never to fight with your Dad, and definitely never in front of you.
I will try not to spoil you (too much).
I will encourage you to explore.
I will encourage you.
I will be proud of you, even when it’s not for anything in particular.
I will pay attention to you, no matter how tired or bored I am.
I will accept you as you are.
I will teach you not to take shit from anybody.
I will teach you to speak your mind.
I will teach you to always think positive.
I will teach you to believe in yourself.
I will teach you to live life to the fullest and to always appreciate what you have.
I will teach you to look on the bright side.
When the time comes, no matter how it breaks my heart, I will let you go.
And I will always hope you come back.

Love,

Mommy

The Hummus is Always Creamier on Somebody Else’s Plate…

Even before I was an immigrant child, I was a migrant child. With the explosion of Chernobyl in 1986, my parents rushed me out of radioactive Kiev and I spent the next few months of my childhood travelling all over what was then the Soviet Union, staying with different relatives and friends of my family. Then just a couple short years (memorable for canned food deliveries from friends in Moscow and prohibition from any interaction with nature) later, we packed our bags and set off with a whole lot of other sad-faced refugees on our journey through Austria and Italy to land in icy Chicago. I could write novels about my memories of those years, but that’s not the point of this post. The point is that in my 7 year-old mind, I had pictured America as a magical, glamorous, science-fictitious place, full of lights and colors and faries and flying objects, sort of how I still picture Las Vegas having never been there. I remember very clearly looking out the window at the empty, grey suburban landscape the morning after our landing and feeling overwhelmingly disappointed. This is the magical land we left my grandparents and aunt and cousin for? Of course it didn’t help that my father immediately began referring to “Americans” with the same disgusted tone that one may reserve for cockroaches, blaming all the hardships of immigration on these local Ignoramuses’ small-minded un-intellectualism.

We moved once a year for those first few years. Each year it was a new school, a new group of friends, and a new opportunity to make myself into someone knew. From our first apartment with shedding, long, lime-green carpeting and hand-me-down furniture, in the super ethnic and diverse suburb of Skokie to our second one which I loved because two of my friends lived in the same building, to our final one which would be the witness to my parents’ divorce and eventually to my brother being born, and then right before high school to my first single-family house in white bread snobby Highland Park, which still awakens in me long-dormant teenage angst and inferiority complexes. As soon as it was humanly possible I fled Highland Park, first becoming a permanent guest in my boyfriend’s dorm in college and eventually renting my own apartment. But even once I was on my own, my destiny to some extent in my own hands, I kept moving. I moved around the neighborhood in Chicago, then took the first opportunity, packed my life into a suitcase and relocated to New York, and from there, still unable to commit, filled out the paperwork for my second immigration in 23 years. The longest I have ever lived in one home (since Kiev) is the house in Highland Park, where I spent a total of just over five years, not consecutively.

Of course the minute I landed in Israel, a magical transformation took place in Chicago. Rather than being the cold, moody, colorless city I grew up in, it became an enchanting, ultra urban and cutting edge utopia. Even the weather became better! And Israel, the land I had spent so many years irrationally drooling over, became a chaotic, frustrating nuisance of a place, full of “local, small-minded un-intellectual ignoramuses.” Yes sir, it seems to be true, the apple indeed does not fall far from the tree.

But even within Israel, my love for hippy, laid back Jerusalem fades and Tel Aviv, which I used to look to me like a materialistic yet provincial New York-Wannabe suddenly starts seducing me. It seems I have a commitment problem. Whenever I move to a new place, as I unpack I am already thinking what a headache repacking will be. Owning anything that doesn’t fit into a suitcase or that is too heavy to fly with makes me break out in a cold sweat.

Today during lunch my coworkers were talking about how amazing it is to go Home and stay with your parents, how they would take their Home over any hotel in the world. Without thinking, I blurted, “I’ll take a hotel, thanks.” Everyone looked at me in shock. The truth is, I don’t feel much of sentimentality for any of the apartments or houses I grew up in (and I loooove hotels!). None of them were ever Home in the way that my coworkers mean. Sure I love going to visit Chicago because I love seeing my family – but if they could come meet me in Paris or Beijing or any other city the world, I would be just as happy. Sure there is an ease and a familiarity to good old White Bread HP, I even occasionally get a ping of nostalgia which I very quickly and systematically suppress, but certainly it doesn’t have the comfort for me which I think most people associate with Home.

When we went to Argentina a few years ago, Awesome Hubby took me all over Buenos Aires, eagerly showing me the apartment where he grew up, where he and his brother and sisters played, where they went to preschool, where his Mom grew up, where his Grandma grew up for Gd’s sake! There is no such place for me. And I see my little brother, born and raised in the Chicago area seems to be a much more balanced person, totally comfortable and happy in HP and in his house, which he has inhabited for 13 out of his 15 years. He doesn’t seem to have that need to constantly change his surroundings and reinvent himself the way I do.

Now that we are planning to start our own family, the imminent question is no longer when will I ever settle down, but how? I know what kind of childhood I want for my hypothetical children. I certainly don’t want them to be unstable and antsy like me! I want them to grow up their whole lives in one place… the question remains though, where will that place be? And how will I handle staying put for long enough for them to grow up?

Argentinian Goddesses, Ancient Goddesses, and the Big Guy Upstairs

I was very flattered this morning when I got an actual real life complaint that I haven't updated my blog in too long! The smile on my face lasted a good half hour! Thanks, my friend.

The reason I haven't written is because almost a week ago, my mother in law landed in Israel, luggage in hand, and asked to kindly please be pointed in the direction of the beach. Exact quote was something like, “I just want sun. If you have sun in the living room, I lay here in the living room. It is the same to me.” Clearly news of the possible ill effects of sun exposure has not hit Argentina... or more likely, it just does not apply to Argentinian women. Most laws of nature do not apply to Argentinian women: a species of primarily Italian, Russia and Spanish (all cultures not known for skinniness) descent who seem to survive solely on red meat, pasta, cheese, pizza and dulce de leche desserts and yet look like they walked off of a runway in Milan and accidentally found themselves in the grocery store, or catching a bus, or cleaning your kitchen. Which is exactly what Supermodel Mother in Law has been doing since she arrived here. When she is not roasting in the Israeli sun, she is scrubbing, polishing or dusting. Our apartment hasn't looked this shiny, organized and sparking since her visit last year. Some people have Passover cleaning, I have Supermodel Mother in Law's yearly visit. Just imagine having this incredibly attractive blond woman cleaning your house out of the sheer pleasure of cleaning! As far as I am concerned, she should just go ahead and make Aliyah and move in with us.

Unlike Supermodel Mother in Law, I am shaped like an ancient fertility goddess (which is ironic considering my current predicament). If you think I am flattering myself by comparing myself to any kind of goddess, please google “ancient fertility goddess” and see what our ancestor's idea of fertility actually looked like. I haven't felt as chubby and awkward as I felt on our honeymoon in Argentina since 7th grade when I found myself wearing a granny bra when most girls my age were in trainers. Yes, if G-d didn't give me this body to bear children, then he is just mean.

Which brings me to today's story. Awesome Hubby and Supermodel Mom in Law planned to go to the Wailing Wall today. Normally, I take the stance of most secular Israelis on the wall... that is, never ever going there. But today, I left work early, waited 30 minutes in the heat, sat on the baking bus for 45 minutes of bumper to bumper Jerusalem loveliness, and then walked, shfitzing, the other 35 minutes or so with Awesome Hubby stopping every few seconds to take pictures like the biggest nerdy tourist on his first Holyland visit. Why did I do this? Well, basically, G-d and I have some business to take care of.

I have a hard time with the Kotel. First and foremost, I find myself frustrated by my inability to connect. To be honest, I feel more of a spiritual connection during my yoga classes than I do standing in the holiest place in our religion. Perhaps it is because I am too easily distracted by the social issues surrounding the Wall. For example, on the walk through the old city, you are constantly accosted by religious men demanding “tzedaka”, charity. They don't act like your typical, pitiful street beggars with sad faces and sadder stories, instead they manage to demand money from you as if you owe it to them, while at the same time frowning down upon you from their ginormous religious high horse. This walk of shame and frustration already puts me in a crabby mood as I walk down the steps, past thousands of years of history to the place Jews all over the world pray towards every day and I just happen to live a short bus ride from.

Then of course I get there and I am immediately frustrated by the vast differences between the men's and women's sections. I just think it's so unfair that we women have such an obvious advantage. The poor men have so much empty wall space they could start a gallery, whereas we get all the pleasures and lovely body odor of some serious female bonding as we quietly and passive aggressively trample each other in a slow motion scramble to touch the holy stones in our tiny little section. On top of that, while men get approached about trivial things like putting on teffilin, we get these awesome poncho/shawl thingies thrown at us by angry old women who are clearly disgusted by our existence and only allow us the honor of worshiping at their wall because... well...um... they don't actually own it. Seriously, what girl can resist being looked at like a hooker at a diplomatic reception by an angry old woman who with one hand hands you a new accessory that has only been worn by like 200 sweaty secular women before you and with the other hand asks you for money? I know I can't. And I must give credit where credit is do – the shawls have an awesome new color! I like these new neon turquoise ones much more than the previous gloomy black ones, well done, Angry Ladies of the Kotel... I wonder if I could ask them where I might purchase my own?

Anyway, once I finally make it up there, I stand on tippy toe desperately stretching my pudgy arms, feeling more betrayed by their shortness than ever, out past the heads and around the shoulders of all the praying women in a dire attempt to touch the stones, while at the same time begging my mind to please focus and have a serious conversation with the Almighty, because supposedly, this odd balancing act is as close as I can ever get to Him. I am not going to tell you exactly what my conversation with the Big Guy Upstairs goes like, because I do think that some things should be kept private – or holy, if you will -- but I will assure you that there is a lot of talk about those childbearing hips of mine.

You can probably tell, I am not in a great mood. Sorry about that, I really do try to keep this blog positive. The thing is, now that I have ovulated, my obsessive baby-wanting syndrome is at its all time high. See, now I just have to wait and patience is a virtue I haven't quite mastered. I could be pregnant...I could not be. There is no way to know. Trust me, I did sooooo, so much internet research. This is my last opportunity to get pregnant before I get pumped so full of hormones I might as well be a Macdonald's chicken breast. And another cruel law of nature, the early symptoms of pregnancy are exactly the same as PMS – present irritability included. So forgive me, and please send positive baby energies my way. I promise, if that blood test comes back positive, I will curb all the hormone-infused moodiness and it will all be fluffy clouds, lollipop houses and gingerbread streets from here on out.

Typical Morning

Why I'm Smitten with Ben Gurion Airport

For those of you who may not know, when I am not exposing my personal life for the world, painting dark pictures of little girls, getting blood tests and ultrasounds, reading novels, or watching Entourage, I happen to have a full time job managing a 9-month art program for 18 year old kids from abroad. Today is the day they arrived. Being one of the newest employees here, I was given the unpopular job of going to the airport to pick them up.

Now I won’t pretend that my delight at being given this responsibility (at 6 AM) would have been the same had I not been told by the nurses that I ovulated all by myself yesterday, so today I am as giddy as an infant who just discovered he has control of his own arms (in that a formerly dangerous unpredictable menace suddenly became a delightful new toy and also the stupid wide-eyed grin on my face) but I was absolutely cheek-to-cheek thrilled to go to the airport. My reaction would not have been any more cheerful had they told me they were sending me skinny dipping in cotton candy, or to be a taste tester for Ben n Jerry’s, or on a 5-star all expense paid trip to London to hang out one on one with Paul McCartney. Yes, I am in an excellent mood. And also, I really love Ben Gurion Airport.

The awesomeness of a trip to the airport begins with an early morning phone call, when a cranky Israeli shuttle driver tells you that you had better be downstairs in 5 minutes (or else). So I gingerly boarded the shuttle, 10 minutes early even. I was unlucky enough to be the first pick up, so I spent the next two hours riding in circles around Jerusalem picking up other passengers. But I didn’t care. I love everything today! I loved the smelly garbage cans, the skinny, wild eyed cats peeking out from every corner, the sleepy, grumbly travelers dressed for the long trip ahead; I even embraced that familiar urge to puke from motion sickness.

The excitement of the airport first hits you when you pull up to the security checkpoint. It is always, without exception, guarded by the tallest, most attractive Israelis you will ever see. I remember a few years ago some photographer made a calendar full of sexy fashion models dressed in Israeli army uniforms (it was enough to satisfy any Zionism-fetish). I suspect they then hired those same models to work at the airport. Yes indeedy, if you ever join the Israeli security service and are posted for airport duty you should take it as a huge compliment and assume that you are in the top 1% of Israeli society (in terms of appearance anyway). It is the only pro-Israel propaganda this silly little country has ever gotten right. Nothing like a six pack and bee-stung lips to say “What Are You Thinking Leaving Israel?” or “Welcome to Jewish Heaven, Where Flabby Bellies, Cellulite, Double Chins, Ashkenazi Rear Ends, Nerdy Glasses and Bald Spots Magically Disappear.”

Then you arrive to the actual terminal, which is misleadingly well-organized, new and modern considering the country it represents. Survivors of near-death experiences claim that their entire lives flash before their eyes in the last seconds. My entire Israel life flashes before me each time I enter the terminal. First I am 13 years old and indifferent following my family off the plane and onto the tarmac with my nose in a book, then I am 22 with the birthright group trying to grasp the fact that I am in that very same spot on the map whose right to exist I have spent four years defending. Then I am a counselor on birthright trips, re-experiencing that first-time-in-Israel moment through the participants. And before long I am the Media Darling making Aliyah, my closest friends and Awesome Hubby greeting me in the terminal. A year later Awesome Hubby and I are back here anxiously awaiting our parents, siblings, best friends and grandparents who are arriving for our wedding. My mind pauses on the moment when my grandmother and her sister are reunited after 15 years, not knowing then that it would be the last time they would see each other. Then of course there are the memories of each time I left Israel in the last three years: the excited anticipation of boarding a plane, seeing friends and family after many months. Really, a trip to the airport is always exhilarating. There is almost never a bad reason to go.

But the best part of a trip to the airport is leaving the airport: stepping out into the wet heat, breathing in Israeli air, feeling grounded on Israeli soil. And just like all those times that I was here visiting; I still feel nothing but gratitude that I am here.

I know you may not always feel it, and I don't always say it, but I LOVE YOU!

Last night got a bit crowded in our bedroom. On one side of the-not-very-large Israeli double bed was Awesome Hubby, on the other side was me. In between us, cozily snuggled and hogging the blankets were several rude, uninvited guests: Frustration, Impatience, and their ugly little brothers Self-Loathing and Depression. And of course, lurking in the corner, providing the soundtrack with his screechy lullaby was my old sidekick The Fiddler, back so soon. Who (besides Awesome Hubby who snored cheerfully through the night) could sleep in such a crowd? I couldn’t.


So I said screw you all and got up. I am no stranger to insomnia. I have spent many a night counting sheep (and giraffes, penguins, Golden Retrievers and falafel). Insomnia and I go a long way back. I'm tough, I can take her.


According to “The Secret”, another one of the self-help books I read recently, when you are in a bad mood you should try to “change your frequency.” They suggest doing this by concentrating on things you love or that make you laugh. They say it only takes a few seconds of feeling differently to change a mood. They're probably right in theory, but boy is that easier said than done! Now that I have spent a full 24 hours feeling broody with party crashers following me around like deranged, drooling stray dogs, I will try to change my mood by writing about something I love.


The topic I have chosen is going to surprise some people. I chose the city where I live, which believe it or not, is still my favorite ever of all time. The painting I posted here is the design I created for our Katuba, which was a declaration of love to both my husband and our city.

Dear Jerusalem,


I know you and I have been fighting lately, but I will always love you. You can be emotionally abusive, infuriatingly contrary, passive aggressive and hard to understand, and I will admit that so can I. But even if I leave you, My Dear, you should know how I feel.


I first fell for you because of your smell. I remember so many guided tours, where I would look longingly at your winding roads through the tour bus window, just waiting for the moment where I could finally hop off and breathe in your sweet, bewitching mountain scent. You smell like exotic flowers and trash in equal parts. I would stand with my head thrown back arms stretched out breathing loudly while my fellow travelers looked on with a mix of worry and amusement. You are a great seductress, my Jerusalem.


When I moved to Israel people wondered why a secular, modern, girl like me would chose this theocratic, conservative city full of conflict. But those who see you that way just don’t know you very well. I was completely enthralled by your mystery. To this day, I walk up and down your narrow cobble stone streets and I feel thousands of years of lives and stories and destinies. Your hills radiate with the energy of a thousand fires; late at night you can still smell the smoke.


You are complicated, Jerusalem, a city of many levels. Each of your neighborhoods is a separate universe. Those of us who live here tend to be quite territorial about our shchunot, but I will confess that I am not entirely loyal to the German Colony where I happily live. Emek Refaim street, translated as The Valley of the Ghosts, is anything but: a very much alive street full of coffee shops, restaurants and gossipy, giggling American teenagers living the time of their lives. But there are many neighborhoods that I love. Slightly up the hill from us is Baka, the German Colony's less touristy cousin, with her grandiose historic homes, orange and lemon trees and fuchsia flowers. Then there is Rehavia, dotted with your most authentic, dimly lit hole-in-the-wall bakeries, chocolate shops and cafes. And my favorite neighborhood of all is Nachlaot with her tiny pedestrian walkways, crumbling buildings stacked on top of each other like one of Chagall's shtetl paintings. Home to a mix of young artists, secular students and ultra Orthodox families, it is a microcosm of your spirit.

And of course, I must reserve a full paragraph to your pulsing heart: the Mahane Yehuda Shuk, our outdoor market, which moonlights as a dance party, jazz club and badminton court depending on the night of the week. Mahane Yehuda is over 100 years old, dating back to the early 19th century (at least according to Wikipedia). Spread between the city center and spilling over into Nachlaot, I would bet you can travel the world and never see a more chaotic and diverse scene than our market on a Friday afternoon. When I first moved here, when the shuk was still a source of culture and language shock, I wrote an email to my family trying to describe the madness. Until this day my mom reminds me of this email, so with just a few edits, this is what I wrote back then:

I still love the shuk, but I loved it more when I could just walk around and observe and enjoy the sites and sounds and smells... it's much more tricky when you actually have to buy something and everybody is yelling and pushing and elbowing and you don't understand what they are saying to you and you can't remember for the life of you how to say cucumber in Hebrew, and some angry woman won't let you grab the plastic bag that the man is trying to hand you and when he says something to her, she answers something about me being American and then yells at me (I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but I think mostly Israelis just like to yell)
And at the same time there are the greasy men wearing wife beaters selling Iraqi food and just yelling and yelling and yelling "food for Shabbat! food for Shabbat!!!" like you don't hear them when you are standing less than 2 feet away... but then when you sit down to take a break, the same annoying yelling wife-beater wearing man comes up to you and tells you to close your purse and keep it closer so no one takes it. Oh Israel. On your right a Russian is fighting with her husband and on your left a little Orthodox girl is handing you free Shabbat candles, while Hasssidim with black top hats are walking by with huge yellow flags that say "Mashiah" (messiah)... and a Shanti Kabbalist hippie dude in a floor-length white robe with long, dangling side curls, arms spread wide is chanting at the top of his lungs in the middle of it all.

And this email doesn’t even mention the aisles of exotic spices, each with its own sharp scent, the rooms stacked with cheeses of every shape and size, the warm crusty breads and pitas, the rows of Chernobyl-sized red and yellow and orange peppers, lime green pamelos, oranges the size of basketballs, blood red tomatoes,cucumbers so sweet and crunchy they can calm a chocolate craving, dried fruits and nuts of all kinds, iced fish which is so glossy and alive that you expect it to wiggle at any moment.

Jerusalem, I love your scorching, dry days and your cool, fresh, summer nights. I love seeing the flickering glow as Shabbat candles appear in every window at sundown on Fridays and I love the crowds of young people in flowing white spilling out onto the quiet streets a few hours later. I love when the days begin to cool off and the smell of sugary, jelly filled donuts wafts out of every doorway as we approach Hanukah. I love your wet, penetrating winters and your blossoming colorful springs. I love so many things about you, my dear city.

I know I already mentioned reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love” recently. Another insight she brings about in this wise book is a new spin on the concept of soul mates:

“A true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you
everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own
attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most
important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and
smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever. Nah. Too painful.
Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself
to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it.”

That’s how I feel about you, Jerusalem. You are my geographical soul mate. It may be too intense for me to spend my life with you, but I will always love you. You have changed me forever, and for that I will remain eternally grateful.

Love,

AnKa

Sex and the Jewish (and Christian and Muslim) City

I think Awesome Hubby is starting to feel used. I guess I would too if it were so clear that the main attraction I hold for my partner is my reproductive capability. It's very caveman of me actually: You Man, Me Woman, Make Baby Now.

I on the other hand, find the whole mandatory consummation thing sexy. I sit anxiously by the phone, waiting for that romantic phone call from the nurses which will determine the destiny of our love life for that evening. But I guess only a biological clock driven female can be turned on by the possibility of getting pregnant. Not exactly a man's fantasy.

All this sitting and waiting for the phone to ring to find out whether or not I will be having sex takes me right back to my year of sowing my wild oats in New York... or rather, not sowing any oats, just thinking about it a lot. My oat sowing primarily took place right here in the holy land (the Big Apple time is more memorable for many hours of waiting for a phone to ring). So this entry will not be about baby making (I can hear your collective sigh of relief), it will be about something much more juicy: Sex and the Jewish (and Muslim and Christian) City.

Before I met Awesome Hubby, I would regularly fall in love with Israeli men whose sole worthiness of my affection was as basic as having Hebrewish English and a tour of duty with the IDF. Any Israeli who at some point owned an army uniform (regardless of what they did in that uniform) very quickly and undeservedly became my Ari Ben Canaan. I beamed my love for this country onto them with all the fury of a Megaplex Projector. Of course they were all too willing to take the naive American girl out for a spin, and so I would get swept up, hurtled through the Holy Land skies in a whirlwind of passion and idealism, and then dropped right back on the cold Jerusalem stone slightly beat up but, luckily, with little long term damage. It took a few years of these silly Zionist affairs before Awesome Hubby came along (on the white horse as usual) and swept me off my feet with his many winning qualities, his having chosen to become Israeli being just the beginning.

Now that I am out of the dating game and have been for a while, I happily serve as a dating counselor/adviser/therapist for my many single friends (all of whom are convinced that they are the last Single standing). I don't claim to be particularly good at this job, considering that I was a pretty poor manager of my own dating life back in the day, but being a third party observer does give me the distance and perspective that is impossible to have when you are the one telepathically willing the phone to ring, ring damn it. Also, having a happy ending to my dating story allows me the kind of blind optimism that is very hard (and dangerous) to abide by when you are actually out there on the playing field.

Jerusalem attracts hundreds of single Diaspora girls, who like me in my heyday, come clicking down the cobblestone streets with their kitten heels (until they switch to Naot sandals after getting their heels caught in the cracks once too many times). You can find them everywhere: sipping coffee and typing on their laptops in the coffee shops on Emek Refaim, being hit on by the vendors at the shouk, browsing the shops along Ben Yehuda and Hillel street.

These friends of mine are not just looking for their next Zionist fantasy as I did (they are slightly older and much wiser than I was). My friends are smart, successful and attractive women who know who they are and what they are looking for. I love being the fly on the wall for their dating stories. It is my way of reliving those breathless days, full of the excitement, anticipation and nervousness of the unknown.

Or course it's easy to remember it that way – when you are married and your idea of foreplay is looking at baby clothes on the internet. My friends are anxious and often times frustrated by the inadequacy of the selection out there, by the ambiguity and indifference of men, and by the time passing by.

Here is what I tell them: Enjoy this time my dear sister, when your perfect guy is still out there riding his white horse looking for you (or, let's be realistic, sowing his wild oats before he's finally ready to settle down), because right now he is still perfect and the future is unknown, unexplored territory. You are independent, the owner of your own destiny! In a few years you will wake up next to your Awesome Hubby, and he will be wonderful, and your life partner and your hero in so many ways, but he will be real and he will never again be whatever you make him to be in your mind on any given day. And if your intimacy is ever controlled by a committee of old ladies (which I pray you can all avoid), you will miss these days of adventure, risk and uncharted territory. Enjoy it while it lasts, it's only a matter of time before reality takes hold.

I am a Walking, Talking, Blog-Writing, Eye-Rolling Science Experiment

Sunday was Awesome Hubby and my 2 year marriage anniversary. Our gift to each other was a group of old ladies to take over our sex life. I will explain.

As I mentioned, in Jerusalem it takes 6 weeks to get your first appointment with the fertility clinic. If you are an overly emotional, tragedy-prone Russian/American/Israeli whose favorite tango partner is Drama, as we know the author of this here diary to be, then you will accidentally miss the appointment, having written it down incorrectly in your planner, then you will call the clinic about a half hour after your scheduled time slot to double check that your appointment is indeed next Friday (because it just occurred to you that boy that's strange – who in this socialized country works on a Friday?) Then the mean Russian secretary named Olga will tell you that it is entirely your own fault and you need to wait another month.

Remember that infertility infused hissy fit I have been throwing for a year? Well, imagine the whole year of tears all condensed into a fiery, sharp little seizure of an event, which for an almost-28 year-old- mother-wannabe, is the psychological equivalent to stomping feet and pounding the ground with angry little fists while tears shoot out of clenched eyes at 90 degree angles (and I am ashamed to admit there was, literally, some of that).

Enter Awesome Hubby on a white horse. Watch him gallantly battle the Evil Olga with his elegant sword (well, ok Argentinian-accented Hebrew) until she surrenders saying “Please Kind Knight, have mercy upon me!” or... “Fine, you Nudnik, come in today at 6:30” (in Russian-accented Hebrew).

And so My Hero and I arrived for our first appointment at the fertility clinic, “Merkaz Poriyut”. Poriyut, which means fertility, comes from the same root as Perot, or fruit (I assume, watch I could be totally wrong about that). But if I'm not wrong, isn't it poetic?

We met Evil Olga in person then, she gave me a look that made me shake in my stretchy pants and flip flops. Then we sat and waited for the doctor. The whole time as we were sitting there waiting, I was obsessing about whether or not the doctor would be nice to me. Honestly this whole infertility thing is making me regress to about the age of 5.

5 Year Old AnKa: what if he's angry that we are making him stay later and he doesn't give me the proper treatment?
Hero Awesome Hubby: Baby, you need to relax
5 Year Old AnKa: But what if Olga told on me to him!? What if he's angry with me?
Hero Awesome Hubby: Baby, you need to relax.
5 Year Old AnKa:But what if he's mean to me?


Honestly if I was Hero Awesome Hubby (or my parents), I would have grounded me and sent me to my room until I got control of myself. But Awesome Hubby indulges me and my strange needy ways.

So we did see the doctor, and he was perfectly courteous, but what I quickly learned was that just like in every good Jewish family, the doctor is not the one in charge of what happens in the household. In charge of the fertility clinic are a group of clucking, fluttering, nurturing old nurses. And THEY are really, really nice. And I love them! They are so nice and nurturing that I did not even get upset when they told me the very scary routine I was about to come into.
Every day, I have to get a blood test and an ultrasound (not the cute belly kind, the intimate kind that requires a condom and lubricant and a very close relationship with the administrating technician). This of course requires going to several different places and waiting in a whole bunch of lines and managing a whole lot of bureaucracy on a daily basis... but it's not the needles, condoms or ice cold health clinic bureaucrats that terrify me. It's that it all needs to be done by 8:30 in the morning.

When I got the first ultrasound, the Russian technician lady told me not to be afraid, that it would be uncomfortable, but not painful. I gave her an amused look and said, “This does not scare me, don't worry.” She then said, very seriously (as if we were discussing KGB torture techniques) “OUR people are never afraid of anything.”

Well.... this Our Person is afraid of one thing: Mornings. Those of you who know me well, know how dangerous I am before 10:30 and my coffee. Certainly my little brother has childhood trauma from close encounters with the Anka morning monster in his early years. Awesome Hubby became known as the Morning Nazi when he tried to get me up for Hebrew class upon my arrival in Israel (clearly he didn't know who he was dealing with). But now, the disheveled puffy eyed, frizzy Morning Monster boards the 18 bus (as even Mafia Babushkas cower in fear) by 7:30 in the morning and stumbles half asleep into the Fertility Center for her morning prodding and poking.

Later, the nurses call me and tell me whether or not to “be together” with my husband that day. And so, we received our mutual 2 year anniversary gift: the clucking old nurses, who control our sex life.

A Confession

I think I am an exhibitionist. It's a funny thing, because I always thought of myself as a relatively private person, in some ways secretive even. But ever since I started this blog, I have this Turrets-like urge to type up everything from my deepest darkest secrets to what I eat for every meal. And not only do I want to tell it, I really, really, desperately and obsessively want someone to read it! I don't only want to hang my dirty laundry out, I want people to see it, to smell it even. That my personal business is floating out there in the Universe, is not fulfilling enough. I need to know it is being read. So much so, that I hit refresh on this page quite frequently during the day to check for comments (this is not an easy thing to admit; try not to judge me. I know it's easy). And so the debate continues in my mind... to post or not to post on facebook?

Having moved around a bit in my life, I have accumulated a fair amount of facebook “friends”. All of them I have at least met face to face once, but very few of them would I define as friends in the real world. Let's be honest, I probably would not even say hi to many of them on the street (which does not mean that I wouldn't spy on their fb lives). Putting a link to this here e-diary would guarantee a fare amount of traffic to it. This blog is sort of like running through the streets of Jerusalem naked, am I enough of an exhibitionist to want those streets to be full of people that I actually know?

You know those people that update their status messages about every twelve minutes? (Attention Seeking Narcissist breathed in. Attention Seeking Narcissist breathed out. Attention Seeking Narcissist breathed in again...) I used to make fun of those people. Now I am becoming one of them. I often times catch myself thinking in terms of facebook statuses throughout the day. For example, this was me earlier today:

AnKa is on the bus.
AnKa is heading to Yoga.
AnKa is in Yoga and her mind is completely blank.
AnKa is not thinking about updating her facebook status right now.
AnKa is feeling peaceful and content.
AnKa does not have racing thoughts. This one doesn't count.
Anka can smell her own feet in this pose!
AnKa is not thinking about her smelly feet.
AnKa is wondering if the girl next to her can smell her feet.
AnKa's mind is BLANK, damn it.
AnKa can't balance.
AnKa is falling over...

And so it goes. Not having an iphone saves me quite a bit of embarrassment. In this new age of exhibitionism and voyeurism, what is the proper e-etiquette? How anonymous are any of us out here? And are we really sharing by posting our lives online? Or are we all just building an online persona? Any thoughts?

Painting

I recently started practicing Yoga. Every time I go to a Yoga class after work, I end up staying up half the night painting. I haven't quite figured out the correlation, but here is what comes out. Click on the images for a better view.

Awesome Hubby watching John Stewart

My Mercedes

My mom just called and said she read my blog and that it sounds “so sad.” This is surprising! I didn’t think I was sad – I was going more for resigned and bitter, but whatever.

My days here in Jerusalem have themes. Like there are the “I'm going to trip and fall in oncoming traffic at least three times today” days, and the “I'm going to miss every bus and hit every traffic jam possible today” and the “every random guy is going to hit on me today” days... but my secret favorite of all these are the “every old man or woman I see today will stop to talk to me”. Now I know, this may surprise some people, and no I am not being sarcastic. The truth is, I love old people. Even the scary mafia babushkas that will maim any unfortunate shmuck that may accidentally step between them and the potatoes at the shouk. While old people may seem confused and outdated, they are wise and big-hearted and they smell like my grandparents (and cabbage). One of the things that I love about Israel is that while not everyone loves old people the way I do, everyone here respects them. Every babushka is everyone's safta, and every dedushka is everyone's “abballe”.

On one such “magnet for elderly people” day, a plump and sturdy babushka came and sat next to me on the bus, parking her typical Yerushalmi plaid granny cart in the aisle. I knew she would talk to me, because that is the type of day it was. She turned to me and said, “do you know what this is?” Referring to the cart full of groceries... an “agala?”I replied sheepishly, wondering why she felt compelled to test my Hebrew. “Nope,” she said smiling with all that wisdom in her puffy face, “it's my Mercedes.” That not only made my day, it made my week.
 
Following my mother's observation about my sad blog, I decided to drop my constant companion, that fiddler that follows me wherever I go lately named Self Pity. I should remember the old lady on the bus with the Mercedes full of vegetables.
 
Unfortunately, losing the Fiddler is not as easy as it sounds. You see, he tends to pop up with his sad violin out of nowhere, and somewhat unexpectedly. For example on Shabbat my Awesome Hubby treated us to a day at the Spa. Self Pity was nowhere to be found, in fact I was even flirting with his arch enemy, Contentment… but then, out of the steamy changing room comes a gorgeous woman in a black bikini, hair blowing in the wind (in slow motion), swinging her miraculously cellulite free hips and proudly carrying her round, perturbing swollen belly with a popped up bellybutton, like a nose on a smiling face, looking better in a bikini at 7-8 months along than I do childless. And there he was, right behind her, with his annoying whiny melody, crying his crocodile tears right there in the girl’s locker room, where he was certainly not welcome, especially when I had successfully avoided him ALL DAY!

I have decided that from now on I will ignore the Fiddler. On the bus ride from work today I focused on other things. I will not let pregnant women (which are around every corner in this city) upset me. I will be kind, altruistic and generous. No jealousy here, nope.

Lalalallaa... the sun is shining... lalalala... it's about a million degrees on this bus... lalala... that old lady just about knocked that soldier over... tralalala... those screaming kids are enough to make me count my blessings... and then I noticed him. Nope not the Fiddler, a kid, about 12 years old, in fully Charedi getup, black hat, long black coat ,side curls hanging over his ears, the whole look, circa Hungary 1742. This little kid was staring at my boobs so intently I thought he might be hypnotized. Seriously, he was about a step away from drooling.

Now, in a city as divided and polarized as Jerusalem, the kid wouldn't have to be staring at a secular girl inappropriately for her to dislike him. She would be likely to do so by default. I was just about to turn my back in disgust and shoot him a look that would clearly say “you should be ashamed of yourself you prepubescent little booger”, but then I thought... it is so damn hot on this bus that I would gladly go skinny dipping in glacier water in Antarctica if it was an alternative to this ride and this misken adolescent is wearing enough layers for a Chicago winter. So if this is his only pleasure in life? Let him stare for a few more minutes, it'll be as close as he gets to a pair of these for a long, long time. And so I stayed where I was. See? I can be generous and kind and giving. The Fiddler was nowhere to be found and I rode that winding Mercedes the rest of the way home.


 

Brunch Blues

If you ever lived in Manhattan then you are probably familiar with the Sunday late morning scene in the East Village. It was by far my favorite moment of the New York week: waking up in that border state between still drunk and slightly hung over, putting on your daytime best and meeting your sunglas- sporting, vintage-clad fabulous girlfriends at 7A for shrimp and avocado eggs Benedict, cappuccinos, mimosas and juicy boy stories from the night before. Straight out of Sex and the City.

Three years later, I am still a brunch person and my favorite part of the week is Friday morning brunch at Tal Bagels in the German Colony. Definitely the See and Be Seen equivalent to 7A, except instead of shrimp and avocado it's omelets, cheeses and Israeli salad, and instead of mimosas it's fresh squeezed orange juice and “cafe afuch.”

There are a few more differences. Nobody is hung over at Tal Bagels, and the tables are not full of singles recovering from a night full of dancing and drinking, they're full of young mothers recovering from a night of diapers and breastfeeding. But much like the Sex and the City girls, these young mothers show no signs of sleeplessness or exhaustion. All head coverings are perfectly tied, hiding freshly washed curls, skirts tidy and pressed, sandals exposing manicured toes, dangling earrings framing their smiling faces. And just as my East Village girlfriends would sport their latest found vintage designer purses or shoes, these women (about the same age as their NYC equivalents) show off their tiny wrinkled bundles of joy or their swollen pregnant bellies.

I made the foolish mistake of working for a Jewish non profit and living in Manhattan (both of which are perfectly peachy decisions, they just should never be done at the same time). This pretty much left me unable to have anything new, shiny, or fashionable to show off at my weekly brunch in The City. I was lucky I could buy brunch! And who would have thought, three years later, on the other side of the world, I would find myself in the same situation.

Now I would try to paint myself as an selfless, mild, good natured person who only looks at all those young mothers and their beautiful little creatures with happiness and endless patience, but that would just be a big, fat, ginormous lie. While I am happy for my friends who have kids or who are about to, and I love my friends' babies,(I even love the ones who are yet to be born) there is a very not-so-tiny voice inside my head throwing that big Russian/American/Israeli hissy fit (previously mentioned in the last entry) screaming “WHEN IS IT MY TURN??? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?” Now I know from many a single friend that they look at me and my marriage and wonder the same thing. I know that I should count my blessings, that I am not even 28 yet (let me savor these last few weeks) and I do (theoretically), but this is my blog and I'll cry if I want to!

I wake up every morning and pee on a stick. Then I put the stick in a monitor at which point its screen begins to blink. It stares at me and blinks for five minutes and I stare and blink right back at it.

This is the conversation going on in my head for those five minutes every morning:

Maybe today it will say I am ovulating...
Don't be stupid, you're getting your hopes up! You said today you wouldn't care!
So why are you even sitting here waiting? Go brush your teeth!
I will in a minute, it's almost done.
I thought you didn't care what it said...
I don't, but maybe the bar will go up...

And then it stops blinking, I take out the test stick and inevitably the result is the same as the day before. Then I dive swiftly and quickly like a pro baseball player going for a foul ball to capture my mood before it hits rock bottom. Practically this means making coffee and listening to uplifting songs on my ipod the whole way to work. I hope I don't miss the ball one of these days, I never was much of an athlete.

To share or not to share?

I have spent a full 24 hours deliberating how honest I really want to be with this blog… in other words, how much dirty laundry is it appropriate to put out there into the e-world? And since I am quasi anonymous here, I am going to go ahead and share. Otherwise, where’s the fun, right?

I just finished the book “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert. It’s pretty cute actually. One of my favorite lines in it is when she equates the decision to have a baby to deciding to get a tattoo on your face. You have to really know you want it. Having co-raised some very young siblings, that sounds about right to me.

This seems as good a time as any to reintroduce my Russian/American/British friend “P” (previously introduced in yesterday’s entry). She will quickly become known for brilliantly simple answers to some of life’s most difficult questions (at least in my life). When asked if she and her hunky hubby were planning to have kids soon she repeated the quizzical head tilt from yesterday’s story and said “a baby? Where would I put it?”

On the other side of the spectrum is a lawyer friend of mine who used to refer to children as something along the lines of “screaming disgusting unnecessary appendages” who is now a glowing, floating on air, radiant eight months pregnant.

So what happens when you decide that yes you want the face tattoo, you save up your money, come up with the design, and go to the ink parlor all excited and ready to go… and the damn tattoo artist refuses you? Or the ink just won’t go into your skin, or whatever metaphor you want to come up with? What happens then?

I’ll tell you what happens if you’re an overly theatrical, hypo-emotional Russian/American/Israeli. You summon all the ancestral Russian tragedy, Jewish victimhood, American sensitivity, and Israeli anger and throw yourself Anna Karenina style on the train tracks of fate in a full-on hissy fit. This fit lasts about a year (because when you are a Russian/American/Israeli, if Drama asks you to tango, you do your stretches, fill up your water bottle and put on those dancing shoes, because you are in it for the long haul!)… At the end of the year you get up, brush yourself off and go see your friendly neighborhood fertility specialist. Only if you live in Jerusalem, you have to wait a month for that appointment. To be continued.

Today I start

Imagine me today: all five foot one and three quarters of me... carrying on in one hand my oversize red purse, my work bag full of notebooks, about six bags of groceries cutting off my circulation at mid forearm and in the other hand a package of toilet paper the size of a Little Person, ear phone wire tangled weaving through the whole mess, forcing me to slant my head in a perpetually questioning (but only slightly painful) angle... yes that was me about an hour ago. When my after work yoga class got canceled I decided to brave the market in rush hour, without my plaid granny cart.

Anyway, as I was wobbling to the bus stop with all this stuff, it occurred to me that it hadn't occurred to me to be embarrassed about my ridiculous situation, not even about the Little Person-sized toilet paper. Certainly three years ago I would have found this wobble of shame disheartening, in fact, if someone had showed a photograph of my current self to made-up, blond, manicured Anna of days of yore, she would have laughed in disbelief (and then perhaps applied to law school to insure a change in destiny?). And so, as I near my three year Aliyah anniversary I once again have to ask myself the question which I have been asked by the confused left side of my brain (along with many a Russian taxi driver), “why did you leave clean, organized, Chicago for this Middle Eastern Mayhem?”

So yes there is ideology, Zionism, maybe even a little bit of religion... but let's put all of that aside and take a more psychological approach... I mean let's be honest. Everyone makes Aliyah for similar ideological reasons, it's the underlying personal reasons that are much juicier (and probably much more entertaining to read about). So I will hold my breath, close my eyes, pretend to be anonymous and admit to the e-world that my move here was largely fueled by a deeply rooted Russian/Ukrainian/Jewish/American/Highland Parker identity crisis. Some naïve voice in my head (or was it the Shlichim?) told me that moving to Israel would fix the problem instead of add to it... silly, silly naïve (or misleading and manipulative) voice!

The major shock to my system of beliefs and obsessions came when after about a year in Israel my then new fiance and I were in London visiting a fabulous girlfriend of mine, let's call her P, who had followed in my trans migrant footsteps having moved from the Soviet Union to the States as a child and then immigrating to England in her 20's. In very characteristically Anka fashion, as soon as I got off the plane, emotional baggage in hand, I asked her “So how do you feel?? Now you have been here for a year, do you feel European or American or just Jewish? What is your identity?”

P cocked her pristine porcelain head, her brown pony tail swinging delightfully. She furrowed her perfectly arched eyebrows, and gave me the greatest answer ever of all time. She said, “um... I have a job.” And that was it. All my years of searching for meaning and belonging, all my years painting little immigrant girls with big bows, all the “is Jewish a nationality” conversations dismissed so simply and so brilliantly. I thought to myself, maybe that is my problem... too much time on identity, not enough on life (or career for that matter). And yet... career and money and all that stuff which I ignore to the great regret of the left side of my brain (and also my parents) just doesn't excite me... so today I start this blog with the intention of figuring it all out once and for all...sort of like all those little immigrant girls I painted, only with more letters and less colors. Wish me luck!

Also, I accept all advice and comments (except for grammatical corrections, those are annoying) with smiles and appreciation.