iLiza's eyes

The thought of leaving is terrifying now that the world is so big.

posted by iliza @ 9:23 AM 0 comments

Today my "Murphy's Law Waiter Boy" told me a story about his friend in the army. One day, they were riding in their tank through a dangerous Arab area where "most people would not want to go," and a very young child started running towards their tank holding out a teddy bear.

The friend, 18 years old, shot the child dead.

When they went out to inspect the child, they found explosives in the teddy bear that the child had been instructed to throw under the tank in a "suicide mission." The friend had saved himself and 7 soldiers.

The friend left the army soon after that because he was starting to go insane. Before the teddy bear shoot-out, he was standing next to another soldier who got shot in the head, and miraculously came out alive but with a mutilated face.

"Yes," my "waiter-friend" says, "I have met him a few times. That's the sad part. Everyone feels bad for the child who was shot, or the children who throw rocks. They should feel bad for the soldier."

"I think I'd rather have the guns with rubber bullets than be the children throwing rocks," I tell him.

"No," he says. "Because the soldiers have to be there, in a place where they don't want to be, doing what they don't want to do. The children are free, they can throw rocks and go home to sleep or play when they get bored."

No, he's never shot anybody, he says. But he becomes a giddy little boy as he tells me he can hit a balloon 700 meters away.

posted by iliza @ 4:31 PM 1 comments

Today Dan bought a 4 foot hookah in Yaffo. How fitting.

I'm somewhat still in culture shock, as my third day in the Holy Land continues. I went to two markets today, and of course forgot my camera. I loved the market in Yaffo-- it was filled with funny things, beautiful clothes and furniture, and everything was so...middle-eastern. I loved it. We walked down this street that had about 15 refrigerators for sale, and next to them this old Arab man was sleeping on a leather couch. Men were loading furniture onto trucks that were covered with oriental rugs and yelling at eachother in hebrew: "Do it soft, what are you, an animal??" And of course, in the midst of all this jewlery, there was a rack of porn videos in Hebrew and in English. My favorite cover said: She will make all the sexual you have fantasies come true. The translation cracked me up.

Anyway, then Dan bought his hookah at a hookah store. He got a 4 foot hookah with 3 hoses, coals and nargila for the equivalent of about $45. Yeah, take that over-priced hookahs in the US! I'm not ready to buy mine yet, but you know me, a hookah store? Please, the day could not have been better.

Anyway, we finished it off with a few-mile walk home along the Mediterranean Sea in the scorching heat, carrying the 4 foot hookah. Then we went to the mall and had huge sandwiches. And then we came back here to chill before the reggae party on the beach tonight. Yeah, this was all one day.

posted by iliza @ 12:20 PM 2 comments

Thing I love about NYC #1

I think it's so funny when it starts to rain in New York City. For some reason, the rain always feels like it's coming out of nowhere. It's hot and gross out and all of a sudden, it's pouring rain and everyone looks at eachother and says, "Well that came out of nowhere!" I think it must be because we can't see the clouds rolling in and there isn't that calm in the air before the storm. New York City air, especially in the summer, is always still. Every once in a while there will be an eerie gloss that hangs in the air and tells you it's going to rain. But mostly it's the Weather Channel that gives the heads-up.

But here's what's so funny about rain in New York City. It's the way people react to it. Most people stop and go under an awning, so you get the most interesting smattering of humanity, huddled together so they don't get wet. Other people freak out and start dashing around, while still others will just whip out the umbrella that they always have in their bags for occasions just like this.

And finally, the taxis. The second it starts raining, it's impossible to find a taxi in New York. They're all taken instantly, probably by the people who freaked out and started running.

If you didn't notice, I'm soaked to the bone because I just got stuck in an East Village thunderstorm in an outfit I was going to take on my flight tonight. At least summer rain smells good.

posted by iliza @ 3:46 PM 0 comments

For the past two weeks, work has been slowing down. Follow-up calls turned into searches on MonsterTrak or email conversations between cubicles, and I can certainly in part attribute this blog to my growing disillusion with the company I dedicated so much time to. So this morning, I rolled in fresh as a daisy, prepared for my last day in Freah Air prison, with a content little smile on my face.

Today was my last day of work. Congratulate me-- I'm 20 years old and I managed to spend 8 months as an intern at a non-profit, and live to tell about it.

The last day of work is always really weird. It's about about tying up loose ends and making lists of unfinished tasks that you need other people to complete for you and packing up the random assortment of things your collected at your desk. For instance, here's what I ended up bringing home today:
1. A Fresh Air teddy bear
2. Spiedie Sauce (if you know what this is, you get a million bucks!)
3. Two pairs of shoes
4. Nalgene
5. A "Fresh Air" bracelet
6. Advil
7. A hair clip
8. A folder with my resume and some receipts
9. My reimbursement check

For the rest of the day, I went through my outlook contacts and wrote down the names and emails of everyone I might ever want to contact again, and emailed a whole slew of people thanking them for the good times. I had sushi for lunch and I spent 45 minutes on the phone with a supervisor for another organization I'm part of. And then I had a good-bye ice-cream cake and almost cried.

That was the weird part-- I got choked up. After 3 weeks of being miserable getting out of bed every morning and spending my days searching for new jobs, I realized that I am going to have to mourn the loss of this job from my life.

I can never figure out why I get sad at times like those-- why freeing myself from a tedious obligation and moving on to bigger and better is somehow always painful. I don't think I was sad about leaving the great friends I have made or the children who once upon a time "needed me" so much.

The older I get and the more times I choke back these tears, the more I realize how unexpectedly horrible change can be. When you pull into Grand Central station at least 6 times a week for 8 months, it's scary to think about not being there anymore. What will happen to Grand Central if I am not there twice a day? What will the little man at the convenient store do without my hello?

Perhaps change is something to mourn: something to feel sad for as it steals the familiar from your everyday life, as it takes away a part of who you are used to being. Perhaps we must mourn change in the same way we mourn a death or a break-up: like the death of a lifestyle or pattern.

And maybe I are lucky that my reaction to change is always be this painfully nostalgic. As moments graduate from present to past, we all need something to remind us not to take anything for granted.

posted by iliza @ 9:52 PM 0 comments

I hate my roommate. That's right-- I hate him, and I have NO idea why.

Okay, I kind of do-- I can list many things that he does that make me squirm or make my blood curdle, but apparently they don't drive anyone else nearly as crazy as they drive me. This is why I hate him:

1. He has a mullet-hawk and gnarled yellow teeth.

2. I think he's a vampire-- who covers up the windows in their beautifully-lit bedroom in the summer with a black cloth other than a vampire?

3. He uses a lot of electricity. The rice cooker has been on for 3 days and counting, and he leaves the air conditioning on all day, while no one is home.

4. He doesn't clean his dishes.

5. He leaves the toilet seat up-- huge no-no when you're the minority sex.

Finally, 6. He's a hoverer-- That's right, in Iliza's world, he's the worst type of person you can be. He hovers, badly. He follows the other roommate around all in the morning, he follows me around when I get home from work. Example: last week, I get home from rollerblading around the city for two hours. I'm tired, sweaty, it's one of those horribly humid days from last week. ALL I want is to get my disgusting clothes off and get in the shower. I walk in the door, and head straight for my room. Roger appears in my doorway as I'm closing the door, and stands there trying to talk to me for at least three minutes. Fine. Except he badgers me. You seem like you had a bad day, where were you? How was work? Who did you go with? I roller blade too. Do you work out a lot...blah blah blah.

Moral of the story is, I finally just got the guts to turn off the air conditioner because he left. But no, he came back, comes immediately to my door and says, "you didn't like the air conditioner??"

I hate my roommate. I need to get out of the city.

posted by iliza @ 7:52 PM 3 comments

When I was little, I used to be really afraid of the world. I came from a family who didn't travel farther than Disney World, and lived in a suburban town that my 9th grade English teacher said should be deemed "The Best Town in America." Everything outside my bubble seemed threatening. For a while, I was afraid a tornado would come destroy our house. When I told my parents that, they explained that tornados didn't come to Pennsylvania, and I felt better. I remember at some point seeing an article on the Gulf War in Newsweek magazine on my coffee table. There were pictures of soldiers, blood, dirt, and I remember being terrified by it-- thinking that we would be attacked and my perfect little town would turn into the Gulf. My parents made me feel better by explaining that we lived in America and that didn't happen to us because our government was strong; all wars would be fought on someone else's soil, and destroy someone else's town, but it would never destroy ours.

So when I was young, I was the safest little girl in the world because I was cozy in my comfy bubble.

There's an article in the New York Times today about kids living on the Gaza Stip in Israel. The kids play games about soldiers and police officers and jail and terrorism because that's what they live in all the time; that's the way they make sense of their world because their parents can't deny that a war is already there. I used to play cops and robbers too-- but where I'm from cops and robbers is really just another name for tag. These kids pretend to blow themselves up because that's what someone did on their school bus.

I'm going to Israel next weekend, as Israeli troops force their own people out of the Gaza strip, amid much controversy. So today I'm wondering when I started hating my bubble. I figure at some point I began to resent it--somehow I got to this point where I want to run away from it, pop it and immerse myself in all the shit. And I'm about to--I'm going to the place that I used to fear as a child, I'm going to see the children whom I was afraid I would become.

Last year, I got a giddy call from my mom, and a couple of emails from my friends from the "Best Town in America." There was a freak F1 tornado that touched down in the local field and knocked down some trees. I remember laughing, and being so amused that this dinky tornado had blown through my perfect world. Funny how that works, isn't it?

posted by iliza @ 2:53 PM 1 comments

Again

So, it happened again. But today, it was worse.

I was on my way to the Astor Place Barnes and Noble in search of this praised book on the Middle East written by one of my favorite NYTimes opinion writers. The approach was again a double threat-- two young guys with Children International in their baby blue crew neck t-shirts looking chipper in 98 degree weather.

The first one holds out the clipboard, "got a moment?" Friendly.

I look him straight in the eye. He looks nice, he's probably about my age and I think Children International is a decent cause. And as I side-step him, I say, "I'm sorry," as meaningfully as I can.

I keep walking. Sarcasm follows me, "are you really though?" I hear him say.

What? I want to spin around and tell him off. I want to turn around and look at him. It crosses my mind for a second, but I take control and roll my eyes instead.

Fifteen feet later, threat number 2. I don't even have to look at him, he's already glaring me down. A sneer on his face.

Practically shaking his head in disappointment, he snides, "it's just for the children."



Perhaps I should give them the benefit of the doubt-- maybe standing there in the scorching heat all day in a baby blue crew neck can make you a little psycho. But if your job is customer service, is that an excuse? Is there any excuse?

The way they approached me, I could tell they'd been doing it like that all day. Watching one another's backs, pulling a guilt trip on people who said no, being sarcastic with the various responses they got.

Regardless, I walked away once again angry and bitter towards a good cause. And as I climbed the steps to Barnes and Noble, I literally paused and considered giving them my piece of mind. "Who do you think you are, " I imagined myself saying, "that you can intimidate me on the street for not participating in your cause? Who are you to know enough about me that you can sneer as though I don't help 'the children?' I don't help your children, the ones in your fancy binder who you've never even met. You know what? I would if I could-- I truly would. I'd help every child I possibly could, I'd save every poverty stricken, un-educated, malnurished child in the world. But I can't-- and just because I don't stop to talk to you on the street in one of the richest areas in New York City, does NOT mean that I don't do anything. I'm wearing this skirt and these heels because I spend my days slaving away in an office in an effort to help children. Children who I have touched and seen and spoken to and helped. I spend a zillion hours a week trying to educate children on my own time. And yet you have the audacity to sneer at me because I won't give you my credit card information and give you your commission?"

What kind of campaign to save the children of the world are we leading if we get people to sign up by putting them on the defensive? Why do we feel like we have to pounce in order to get others to hear us? Why do we attack eachother in the name of peace?

As I left Barnes and Noble I almost gave my intimidators the finger when I walked by them again. I held back because you can't fight fire with fire-- I just fumed for the next 2 hours.

I have never disliked Children International-- in fact last summer, I was very close to sponsoring a child. Now I'm bitter towards the organization, and I probably will never give them the time of day again. I can't help it. The thing is, this isn't about Children International. It's about the way advocates drum up support in a mostly apathetic nation and encourage people to step outside their bubble. What a huge, looming goal. What a worthy cause.

The thing is, these goals can't be reached through intimidation--they need education. And I saw today that we really can't fight fire with fire, because we'll end up watching all those causes burn.

Just think: when a child throws a temper tantrum, ignoring it is the fastest way to make it go away. And I know THAT because I care about "the children."

posted by iliza @ 8:25 PM 0 comments

Work

An anonymous wiseman once told me that if two people can work well together, the relationship is meant to last. And although that particular relationship he spoke of did not last, I still keep what he said in my memory, because I think it's true.

Sitting in my living room, smoking my grandpa hookah tonight, I brought those words up to a good friend. We were talking about a relationship she's in, and they came to me. And then I kept thinking about them--not who said them or why, but rather how true they are.

Everyday we interact with colleagues. All types of people with whom we problem solve and depend on and trust. Beyond our cubicle neighbors nine to five, we do business with almost everyone we talk to. We exchange money at the deli, we sign leases with our friends, we participate in class in hopes of a better grade.

And when we date, we interview on a couple of evenings over wine and movies, and eventually sign a verbal contract of monogamy. And one day, we sign a written contract, get an ID to wear around our finger and maybe get a baby as a signing bonus. Perhaps dating relationships, maybe even all relationships, are really just esoteric business ventures. Afterall, co-workers who work well together rarely break a contract. I mean, you could land in court for that.

posted by iliza @ 10:46 PM 0 comments

Do you have a moment?

“Do you have a moment… for gay rights?"

It’s a boy standing on the sidewalk. He’s holding a clipboard, and as I was walking across the street towards him, I could have sworn he was going to ask me where I get my hair done.

I was wrong. He’s skinny, medium height, brown hair, insignificant features, except he looks at me with this look that makes me feel bad for him and his gay rights. I brush it off.

“Sorry.”

I turn away from him and accidentally lock eyes with predator number two. She’s less passive, and I know she just saw me casually reject her doe-eyed friend and his signature-seeking attempt.

“Do you have time to spare for gay rights?”

She stares at me directly. Her question seems innocent, but she penetrates me with the accusing stare-down. And I feel a pang of guilt as I say, “I’m sorry,” and drop my eyes.

As I walk away, I think of Dan, and the agitated sigh he would release if he were standing next to me. He hates people like that, and for the first time, I do too.

It’s not because they’re interrupting my walk home, I decide, I’m used to people standing on the corner with clipboards and blocking my way or shoving flyers into my face. That’s fine, that’s New York. What made me fume was the fact that, in a matter of 10 seconds, the Gay Rights duo had managed to make me feel guilty for saying “no.” They made me feel bad for not stopping to support THEIR idea of how to improve gay rights.

Perhaps it was the wording, “do you have time?” “do you have time to spare?”. Well, of course I have time to spare for gay rights! I read the paper, I took a class on sexuality and American Public life, I’m an informed voter who thinks about those issues when I go to the polls, I have numerous gay friends, and yes, I’m for equal rights—not just for gays, but for everyone.

But that’s not what my street-corner accusers meant, was it? What they meant was, “do you care enough right now to stop and listen to what I think about gay rights and agree with me and sign my paper?”

And I said no. And by the way they stared me down, that means I don’t care about gay rights. And I’m a bitch. And for a second, I agreed with them. And I felt bad for not stopping.

By the time I get to the next street corner, I no longer feel guilty. I feel annoyed. I’m annoyed by what just happened, I’m annoyed that it bothered me for even just a second, and mostly I hate the fact that I can’t stop thinking about it.

There are so many ways to incite change, or to be a good citizen, or to care about important issues. There are so many ways to serve others and to serve the world, and so many different issues and people who deserve to be served. And yet some overly-righteous strangers on the street can shut-out their should-be allies. And all for a signature on a two dollar clipboard.

posted by iliza @ 9:42 PM 0 comments