This is a representation of my day..

Work bogged me down, health was not on my side either, but I didnt start this post to complain.

I came to ask. How do you shake the snake of sleep out of your head?

Waking up in the mornings is one thing, getting out of bed something else. I find myself letting time drip by because I just want to stay home. It is lazyness, and more.

Coming home at the end of the day - each person behaves differently. Some are more of night people and they flourish at night. Some just topple over to the sofa/couch/chair and spend most of the evening lazying till its time to sleep.

Which one are you?

This depression/annoyance isn't mine. It's of my girl. It makes me feel bad too.

She won't talk to me about it, and there doesnt seem to be anything I can do. She's there for me when I feel bad, and I cannot be there for her. It gets me frustrated.

Comforting from a far is difficult to begin with. I have some idea about how she feels, and I feel her pain.

I keep telling her that I love her and I miss her and I do care about her. But for now it's all words, until we're together and she can put her head on my shoulder and be comforted in my arms.

Being apart sucks.

Sitting at my girlfriend's room in singapore, passing time till the end of Yom-Kippur (look it up people!), and as my thoughts revolve for some reason (again, look it up, it's a google away) about food, my mind takes me back to a few days ago when we were both still at Bangkok - walking it's streets (not more smoggy than Tel Aviv, which probably only reflects on Israel badly), smelling the smells, tasting the tastes (really good tastes too) had REAL thai food - nothing like the thai restaurants in my country, and, not to forget, a good brazillian meal - they just keep bringing you meat, and roasted pineapple.. I warmly recommend ostrich meat by the way.

But enough of all those food thoughts. Still have a few hours to go till I can eat. So on I move to the massages. I had two sessions of massages there. Both are of the Thai Massage kind, and both were good

The first was a foot massage. Roughly one hour (or maybe more) of tending to your feet, your toes, your banyons (if you got any), and at the end you also get some shoulder massage just to make you feel good in case the foot treatment didnt.

Anyone who's ticklish should be warned, and naturally, clipping your toe nails beforehand is always a good idea

The second massage was the full body massage. And sorry to disappoint anyone with other thoughts - there was no sexual hunky punky involved.

We went to this big (maybe 10 floors) spa complex, all lined with stone and inside with tick wood hallways. Waited our turn and were taken to the 7th floor where we were shown into a quiet room and been given clean spa garments. That's needed, since you come off the street drenched in sweat and smoky from the buses and whatnots.

Two masseuses came in and started the session. They gave us about a two hour treatment which included popping all joints, using pressure points ranging from the head and scalp to the feet and toes to alleviate tension and energize blood flow in the body. I felt as if my body was used in an Origami folding session, but it was really good. I can testify that my body felt strangely light afterwards.

In a few hours, I'll be on my way to visit a country I dont know, with someone I know and want to get to know much better.

New places are always exciting to me. And exploring it with her holds so much prospect.

There's some nervousness but it's only natural in this case. I have great hope in me. A force that drives me forward without hesitation.

Sometimes reasoning is not enough, you follow your heart and let it take you where ever it leads.

I'll be out and about for a few weeks. The world will change, I will change, people will change. How I feel will not.

I leave you with a recommendation: Visit new places, have new experiences, taste the world and let yourself enjoy it. Life is about moving.

Tommorow night is the beginning of the Hebrew new year.

Our calendar is a combination of the lunar and solar cycle. So it resembles the chinese calendar more than it resembles the gregorian one.

There are some symbols related to our new year. One is apples, which are dipped in honey, to symbolize a sweet year to come. Another is the greeting of family, friends and colleagues with a "Shana Tova" which means "Good Year" (to come upon you). Pommegrantes are also a favorite food of this holiday. It's seeds represent 613 jewish decrees - according to tradition.

Rosh Hashana (the head of the year in hebrew) is a time for new beginnings, forgiving one another, and opening a new year with a clear mind and soul.

Shana Tova everyone!

A post my girlfriend Gwen wrote on her blog, made me think of life and its fragility:

"I thought about Oren, and that part of his life, the magnitude of his grief that he can never share with me, does he think about his brother's last thoughts? I imagined it was me..and so I didn't ask him cos it would too hard too answer. And I don't expect him to do that, to have to dig into those feelings now, not even for me."

She mentioned it in relation to a suicide case which aftermath she witnessed.

Life is like a flake of snow. It shines in beauty for a brief spell, and than dissolves. To us it seems much longer, but in the great scheme of things, It's but a flake of snow.

But Life is built on duality. Where there's sorrow there's joy. where there is anger, there is tranquility to oppose it. (or emphasize it, depending on the context)

I like to think of it as a game of balance. You receive a blow, and after a while (maybe) you'll find that life compensates you for it, in one way or another. A set of weights, and balances.

Sometimes, the blows and compensations are not as apparent as you may expect. Did you really expect things to be that simple when life is in concern?

Without evil, there is no good. Is that sentence true? if it is, than the same can be said on the reverse of it: Without good, there is no evil..

It's like you need a contrast. A backdrop of a certain color, or trait, so you can see the other side of it, the negative of it. It's true to a degree. but why? Because life is all about shades. Not about black and white, but about all the rainbow of colors in between them. And so, extemes stick out. Black stands out between the pastel colors, and White stands out between the darker shades.

Than what makes "white" better than "black"? Is it human conventions? A lasting fashion of sorts? Or is there something more?

Mostly, in my eyes, its the concept of God that makes "white" better than "black". God represents "white", while Satan (his fallen angel) represents "black". And so, all who wants to be on the good side of god, better go with "white" rather than "black".

Weekends. We live from one till the next one.

Well, I do anyways. If you find your job fulfilling, than maybe you're not of the same opinion..

Thursdays (I work sunday-thursday) are the days I expect the most, but they also seem like the longest days of the week. Sometimes even worse than a sunday (monday for all those who start the work week then).

You know how you make tons of plans in your head for the weekend? How many of those do you actually bring to fruition? I know that I only (if at all) execute 1 or 2 of those at the most. Time is just never enough, or you go lazy when free time comes.

What are your weekend plans? I'm gonna try and catch a movie, and meet as many friends as I can without sacrificing too much rest time.

Have a great weekend!

* Warning: This will be a non-photo-including Post! *

I am in a long-distance relationship.

If you thought love was difficult, try doing it in remote control over the span of thousands of kilometeres..

My girlfriend.. She's pretty, she is funny, she is smart, she is a person for whom I'm willing to withstand all the strains and tension related with a long-distance relationship.

We have problems. Those problems has to do with trust. I plead guilty to being the cause of the mistrust issues. Yet we together decided to look past that, and rebuild the trust, and make it work between us.

My fear of losing her causes me to "walk on eggshells" when we speak. A loop of mistrust and suspicion is created when I don't stay consistent with my answers, when all I'm guilty of is trying to make her happy. She feels unsafe when she cannot really know what I am doing and feeling unsure as to my truthfulness.

She asks me why do I want to keep going, when it's so hard.. that it's not supposed to be that hard in love. To tell the truth my experience in love and relationships generally is pretty poor. However, I know (not believe, know) that we can be great as a couple. And I love her, and she loves me. So any obstacle, any bump, pothole, roadkill or any other metaphorical or non metaphorical blockage in our way to being together is just temporary to me.

I ask her to trust me, and understandably, she finds it very difficult. Especially with me failing to be constant with what I say, changing my mind about things, being forgetfull. These are all sympthoms of difficulty. Girls cry when its difficult, Men (or me at least) manifest it in other ways, and not necessarily better ones.

Do you know how it is when you're on a test, and than the tester lift his head from the table and says: "You have 10 minutes left. No exceptions!"?

And you look at your test sheets and realize that you only got through (maybe) half of it? what happens? You start to panic..

And that's what happens to me when distrust appears. I feel guilty (even though I'm not) and scramble to come up with an answer.. and when the answer is not satisfying, I change it, which immediately aggrevates things.. planting me that much deeper in the s**t hole.

Thing is, I do love her. And she asked me once why do I tell it to her so often. The reason is that like a champagne glass tower, my love  to her overflows, and when it does, I have to move some of it towards her. Both to let her know and remind her, and also to make room for more love.

Baby, I love you.

This evening, I came home to find a HUGE cockroach moving its tentacles at me from the kitchen's wall..

I don't know about you, but with everyone I know, when encountering a cockroach - their response is "Fight or Flight". Girls are assumed to run screaming, Boys are assumed to grab an aid, or their (preferably covered) foot, and squash the big bug's life out.

The good boy that I am, I followed suit. However, you know how it's said? that they are more scared of us than we are of them? Naturally, it's true, even with the evolutional equation which puts them as the last survivors of great catastrophes, they know that for each of them, they stand no chance against a digusted/scared human, aiming a sandal, shoe, or a broom at their fast moving bodies..

Brrr.. for a minute there I felt sorry for them! But to me, insects are invaders (regardless if unknowingly) to the privacy of my home, not to mention the privacy of my food (just let those ants a chance and they'll throw an acid party in my sugar jar!). I don't feel sorry for them, since it's an occupational hazzard that they and their ancestors take. We humans try to extinguish them, and they try to outsmart us.

And in a sharp screeching change of subject,

I like this kind of movies, and I don't feel a need to appologize for it, like some might. In the past I also wrote about the first F4 movie, which I liked as well, and not just because of Jessica Alba :P (which by the way, doesn't look so good in this sequel)

The flow of the movie is good, even with the multiple sappy scenes (is this a trend? I saw it happen in Spiderman 3 and it pretty much destroyed half of the movie for me) it's balanced with good action scenes, snappy lines and the return of the.. hmmm, maybe I should leave some things for you to see? :D

Also the appearance of Andre Braugher which you may remember from "Homicide: Life on the street" which may be the best cop tv show ever, struck me as a surprise. The friend that came with me said that this fine actor is "slamming" (or something to that effect). I think he was just enjoying himself doing a character that's not entirely good, but not really bad, not to mention an army type, which is not something I'd think of him as.

The rest of the cast gave a decent performance, and I liked the small joke involving Stan Lee :) so, you better go see it!

Have you ever put on a pair of sound blocking headphones? and when you were astounded by the complete lack of sound, you probably moved them a bit off your ears just to check if you can still hear..

My feeling the last couple of years is like that. I go through a filtered life. Almost everything is muffled. Emotions are muffled, sounds are not as clear as they ought to be, things that used to excite me, or make me laugh, rarely do so anymore. Even my pain threshold and reflexes have been affected.

I once wrote a book about a man who meets god. God, so as not to flood the man with too many surprises all at once, comes to him (at first) in his dreams. What's even more, the first dreams are all muffled. Blurry images, muffled voices, life inside a plastic bag. Man tries to deal with the disturbing dreams with all the tools society offers: medicine, advices, reflection. Nothing seems to help, as the problem does not lie within him, it comes from outside.

I do deal with the problem that comes from outside. It just is such a long process, that sometimes I doubt if it will ever work, if I will ever really gain my senses back. Or maybe I'm destined to live like this?

 Do you know when you're running a fever?

I always do.. It's a feeling behind my eyes. A bit of a burning sensation.

 I run a low fever mostly, so I dont always take the degrees to heart.. I just know how I really feel.. a thermometer reading won't change it one way or another.

Do you get all miserable when you're sick or do you put on a brave face and get to work, school or where ever you're supposed to be?

I think Men are more prone to get miserable than women when they're sick, but that's just my opinion..

Anyways, gotta get home sometime soon..

wish me luck!

Been a while since I last wrote here.

I watched "Pan's Labyrinth" last evening. I won't go into details about the movie here, I'm sure there are lots of reviews to be found around the web (try Here for some).

It's one of those movies that makes you think beyond the obvious. It's not the eye candy, it's the two layers of stories that are entwined, and where the magic/imagination meets the cold hard reality. Sometimes you just cannot tell the difference, and that is where the film's greatness lies.

You come to empathize with the heroine of the film. That's a big thing, since she isn't one of those plastic superheroes you find in fantasy films.. Her strength is in her humanity.

It all made me think of choices in life (I think I wrote about it back when), and how each choice we make brings us to a different place in life, a new branch, a new situation, and another crossroad where you need to make a new choice. You can let the wind decide your destination, or take control (even if a partial one) of your own course in life.  

Change is difficult, but it doesn't have to be (or maybe its just what I try to tell myself ).

It basically has to do with how you take things, how you approach the world. Your attitude. Some fear change, other just like stability. And to adopt a new attitude is like having a new character transplant..

Back after a month away..

To talk about.. you guessed it. sleep. we seldom give a second thought about it. especially those who keep the busiest schedules.

I love sleep. probably because I rarely feel I got enough of it. Often I wake up and take an HOUR to recupperate enough to be able to see straight, let alone start my day.

Sleep for me is blessed whether its filled with dreams or void of any meaningful happening or memory. It's just my own refuge at the end of each day. And even so, I never go to sleep early.. why? I guess it's because I dread waking up and having to go through a new day. It sounds bad, but that's the way it is right now.

How do you feel about sleep? Is it a happy/important thing in your day, or just an redundant ending/obstacle in your busy day schedule?

Can you really see pain? Can you really see loss? Can you really see how a person is inside when on the outside he's all civil, and smiling, and tries to refrain from complaining? The inside is the negative image of the outside. A person tries to figure out why he's feeling so bad... it must be physical he says, it must have a medicine, a cure. After all, Its not coherent thoughts that makes him feel so bad, so lost. Its a knot over another knot in his stomach. Its the Tiredness, the fatigue that runs so deep that sometimes he doesnt understand how he manages to keep his head aloft, to drive to work and back every day.. or at least most days. Life seems to pass him by in high speed, but his thoughts slow him down to almost a grind. They're flashing so fast, most times he just cannot discern one from the other. So he tries to fix it. Tries to fix the inside, which seems to be way too slow for any comfort. Tries to fix the outside, the shell. But to fix the outside, you need to figure out exactly what's wrong.. so what is wrong? He takes countless tests. They seem to draw so much blood over time.. but everything is fine. All the tests come back negative. Nothing is wrong with him. Yet he feels bad most of the time.. and sometimes even worse. One of the things that he really wants to avoid is whining and complaining. He knows that it drives people away. Friends, family. So he keeps it all, or most of it at least, inside. To himself. What really drives him? What can really help? He remembers when he was happy.. back when he was travelling. Only now he's not so sure even that would help. He's been accused of running away. But sometimes its all that left to do.. Maybe if he runs away far and fast enough, this hurt wont follow in time. Maybe it'll give him some time to breathe.

I thought I would avoid this subject, even though I am an Israeli.. but decided against avoidance.

War is never a cut and dry issue. Each side is sure that they're right. Lots of emotions dictate the course of the war, and even more, it's outcome.

I wish for both israelis and lebanese families to know no more sorrow and death. With the same breath, I wish death to those terrorists responsible for the ignition of this war and the death that ensued! By those terrorists I mean the Hezbollah.