so I'm sick. just some gross cold thing that has me randomly feverish and achy. all I'm eating is soup and oranges, occasionally sunflower seeds for protein. mmmmm good.

anyway, I've been sick since Sunday night, so I'm more than ready to be done with it, particularly since my mom is coming to visit this weekend AND we have an all-day tech rehearsal on the actual stage with the actual sound equipment on Friday.

so I've been using up all my energy at rehearsals (which are draining to begin with), coming home, making soup, and collapsing.

last night I woke up in the middle of the night after about three hours of sick-heavy sleep, and couldn't get back to sleep. laid there bargaining with myself about getting up to make tea or eat something. reason #74 I want back to Brooklyn and a shared bed.

I did write a poem while I was awake, based on a bunch of research I'd done before bed. it might be awful, I'm waiting to get some feedback on it from GK -- I'll include it at the end of this, and you (whoever "you" are) can let me know what you think as well.

tonight I got home, new cans of soup and a box of orange juice popsicles in hand, and discovered I had no housekey. I have the key attached to my regular keys with a big safetypin, because last week when I decided to try to take up jogging (before falling down at death's door) I'd pin it to my clothes while I ran.

so it must have detached, and there I am, sick, with popsicles and soup, needing to pee, and no key, no number for the landlord who lives in the Valley anyway (which is reportedly really far from here). So I try to reach someone from the office who would have her number, to no avail.

I try windows, but most of them are barred. One in front opens, but only a few inches before the safety latch kicks in; I can just about get a foot through. not helpful.

I finally find one that is unbarred but screened. I remove the screen (feeling very handy), open the window as far as it will go with the safety latches, and determine that I can probably fit through, if I can push the table out of the way and get myself up high enough. so I pull over a chair, almost destroying the wicker, and slip through.

success! though of course it's a little disturbing to know the window's been that accessible all along. the extra window lock is on it now, don't you worry.

so the moral of the story is that I can never gain weight. had I weighed maybe 15 pounds more, I would not have fit through that slot. I felt like a mouse, the way they collapse their bones down to get through those tiny little gaps.

but a mouse with a cold. and a desperate need to pee. or a spy. that was actually my first thought: I'm a spy. remember, I had a fever. speaking of which, I should go to bed.

here's the 2-ish a.m. poem. I'll explain the reasoning behind it some other time, if at all:

grey

I am also discovering a degree of strength and of basic ability for humans to remain human in the direst of circumstances - which I also haven't seen before. I think the word is dignity.

I'm a bulldozer driver. I prepare the way
for the wall. I don't build
the wall, I prepare the way for the wall.

Yesterday, I watched a father lead his two tiny children, holding his hands, out into the sight of tanks and a sniper tower and bulldozers and Jeeps because he thought his house was going to be exploded

yes, I remember her. dumb blonde
American yelling Arabic, sloppy
tongue Tohar Haneshek

Atah MeTachat Degle Shahor
(you are carrying out immoral orders)

Marilyn Monroe in an orange coat
yes I crushed her yes I sleep
am I happy?

Nidal's English gets better every day. He's the one who calls me, "My sister".

you bury your dead. I bury mine.
dirt is dirt.

it was house in the way of a wall
I prepare the way for the wall

I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don't think it's an extremist thing to do anymore.

dirt is dirt / one story said
I had the honor of looking her
in the eye, this martyr / she had

a sloppy tongue, this woman

The count of homes destroyed in Rafah since the beginning of this intifada is up around 600, by and large people with no connection to the resistance but who happen to live along the border.

you bury your dead / I remember
they said she burned her own
country's flag / this martyr

I think it is maybe official now that Rafah is the poorest place in the world.

this Rachel / I'm a bulldozer
driver. it was a house. I prepare
the way for a wall / coming

bury your dead / deep



(all italicized sections are direct quotations from emails written by 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death by a bulldozer as she tried to prevent the Israeli army from destroying homes in the Gaza Strip.)