Category: 400 thoughts

  • What could have been.

    Being back ‘home’ is always a pleasure. After almost seven years, the bad has faded away, and the good nostalgia remains. The hometown is glorified, the old friends still taste fresh in a few quick bites. It allows the pangs for what could have been to creep to the top. What could have been if…

  • Some answers at the end of an era.

    Three months ago, my company, a profitable American-Israeli-start up-turned-public-on-NASDAQ, was acquired for $127 million by an American holdings firm. A week ago, something terribly sad happened. My company felt one of the hardest pains of being acquired; two-thirds of my office were laid off. As TechCrunch put it, it was ‘gutted.’ The saddest thing about…

  • Gay peeps can get married, Gilad Shalit can’t.

    I’m trying to enjoy the excitement I feel over New York State’s legalizing gay marriage, giving some of my friends a chance at an alternative-alternative lifestyle, while simultaneously trying to work out the torment I feel over the fact it’s now been a way-too-long five years since 18-year-old beginner soldier Gilad Shalit was taken captive during non-‘war’time,…

  • You don’t know who you are…

    Today is the day that kind of floats by every once in a while. Maybe once a year. I realize, out of nowhere, people from the past who I suddenly miss terribly. You don’t know who you are; and if you did, you’d be pretty surprised. A professor who I adored and looked up to……

  • That’s a long diaper-change.

    “Ok, Beebs, let’s stop here on the side of this shop and get that diaper changed… Man, that’s a big one! Lady you are not…” …eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee… “Oh, the bomb siren drill. Weird that it’s a siren and we don’t have to stand at attention, eh, Beebs? Actually, no one is even close to taking this…

  • Free to be… sixty three.

    Had a great day, especially since Park Begin wasn’t a disheveled, polluted mess by the time it ended! I love how a bunch of immigrant friends can get together, no local family aside, and have a great time of a national holiday. To the %#@! asshole who let his Doberman Pinscher run loose through groups…

  • Still here.

    It confuses me that about one half of myself can’t believe we’re still here, and can’t believe things will continue the way they are – growing, productive, surviving… and the other half of myself thinks, look at the progress! Look at how far we’ve come, and how far we’re poised to go! We build buildings…

  • Symbolic? Prophetic? Or just reality?

    Or is that realty… Is it not a little telling when the little עץ האושר you were given as a housewarming present 3+ years ago falters and withers the week you pass along the first bank check from the mortgage? Here’s hoping a little water will revive the אושר. It’s definitely not going to revive…

  • My travel agent’s words of wisdom.

    Today my travel agent (la di da) and I were commiserating over traveling cross-Atlantic with kids. Can I get a hell, yeah? She had some words of wisdom; not necessarily advice but an appropriate sentiment I had not been able to express until she mentioned it: Flying with children is like giving birth – it…

  • The Russian haircut problem.

    Question: Why is it that whenever an Israeli cuts my hair I end up with a Russian haircut? Note, I don’t mean the crazy short, hot-red kind. I mean the long layer in the back, thick shorter layer in the front. Also note, it seems to be a universal phenomenon, no matter if the hair cutter is a…

  • Bodies.

    I think I can say now with certainty that death is different once you’ve created life. Somehow, unfortunately, I’ve been to two funerals since Koala was born. One was just a few months after, a year ago; the funeral of a 12-year-old girl. The second was tonight, the funeral of a middle-aged mom. Bodies. When…

  • Writing, Etgar Keret, and where the &%*# is Peter Pan?

    Every year or two I get an itch to complete something on my bucket list. Last year, it was performing in the Vagina Monologues. For the past six months, it’s been getting back into my writing habit. I’ve been on a quest to discover the right outlet for skill-sharpening. It’s no shock that Israel would…