After work today, I jumped on the train to go home. Why I am going to work, I don't know. Yes, I do. Money. I am a prostitute. Okay, make that an editor/translator who's right shoulder hurts like the dickens. It seems only a little better and, while the pain is tolerable during the daytime, the last week of nights has been misery. I don't think it's the time of day as much as the agony of assuming any position approximating horizontal. I've only slept a few hours, but I've sluiced out my tear ducts, and have discovered that after all my years of Zen practice, I can sleep sitting up - which is quite handy just now.

Somewhere between the university and my stop, I fell asleep on the train and ended up at the airport. I had to catch the next train back from whence I came. Okay, that has something to do with the bi-directional nature of train tracks, I guess. I decided once I boarded, however, to remain standing and not chance waking up in Nahariya. I met a lovely guy from the Congo who stands more than two meters tall. (I'd give him 6'6" or 6'7"). When I remembered that it had to be either the République démocratique du Congo or the République du Congo and switched to French, he seemed much more at ease and not so impossibly tall.

I came home for an hour, took a cold shower (it was over a 100 degrees outside and I was heading back out for a check up), and then, caught a bus into town to see the orthopedist. He spent a lot of time explaining my X-ray. It's not clear if my rotator cuff is actually torn; the inflamation has to subside and then, an ultra-sound will be done. He seemed to think that the calcification of an old injury was the culprit (my Australia). He gave me meds to try for a week, and I will report back on Friday. I don't want to jinx myself, but before seeing the doctor today, I could basically pat my belly and now I can raise my arms into a credible 5th position. I think I may sleep tonight! After the doctor, it was time to head home. I walked down Bugroshov Street towards the sea, and then, headed south until I got to the Opera and caught a bus.

The people who take bus #16 from the center of Tel Aviv south are mostly headed home to our neighborhood which has its own character. My neighbors are Jews from Yemen (singer Ofra Haza was from here), Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Iran, Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union (think of all the Stans in Central Asia); Arabs, students, Chabadniks; refugees from Sudan and other places in Africa; foreign workers from China, Thailand, and the Philippines. In short, we're a bit of a mix. When I hopped on the bus, I knew it would be crowded (sardines have nothing on us at rush hour), but I didn't know that the whole bus adventure would all be set to music today. The driver put on his favorite Yishai Levy tape and cranked up the volume. Way up. At first, there was some foot tapping, but by the first chorus all of us were singing. I mean, everybody. Even babies stopped nursing in order to chime in. People were dancing in the aisle. Folks who had never heard of Yishai Levy suddenly discovered that they actually knew every word to his song, Romantic Dance ריקוד רומנטי rikud romanti. "I don't understand how I fell in love with you, girl/One of your arrows hit me in the target/ and suddenly, I'm addicted to you - how did that happen?/You flipped my life over, from quiet to storm" True, not finely crafted literature, but we belted it out, nevertheless! It was one of those bonding experiences when life imitates...well, a musical, I guess!



Can you smell the cigar? It's 11:30 pm now and the temperature has dropped back down into the 80s. Time for bed and perchance to dream ~ horizontally.

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