A Room of One's Own

"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."  -- Virginia Woolf

"A woman must have no money and a room of her own if she is to write non-fiction."  -- Me

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Well kids, I finally have my own apartment.  Whoop whoop!  I still share a kitchen and laundry room with M, but yesterday I settled into my very own bathroom, bedroom, and enormous living room.


 What's that you say? You'd like to see pictures?


 First, a look around the living room.  There's my front door on the left -->

The view standing in my doorway

And a view towards my room and the kitchen.  Note the glorious instrument sitting against this wall!  It is at present, however, in wallopingly-bad tune.  Also note the very French-ish or Japanese-ish couch-thing (they call me Captain Description over here) which folds out into a queen-sized bed, just for my visiting friends and relations! {NOT SO SUBLTE HINT}. 

This is the sweet little bedroom.  I'm sort of liking this exceedingly-low-mattress thing.  That way I can literally roll out of bed in the morning.  Seriously, I already tried it.  It is fun.

a few items from market

And a nice little B&W shot looking towards M's section of the apartment.  She's got a serious Japanese thing going on.  Simple, modern, full of iron teapots.  It's great.

Yesterday I had an a-typically artsy day.  In the morning M and I went to a gallery opening north of the city center.  It was my first real gallery opening, complete with bizarre modern art and a few really excellent photographs by a Danish artist.  She was there, and had totally hip earrings.  The German ambassador was also there, and the French consulate showed up.  But the coolest thing was wine on the roof of the museum overlooking the old city, and these little sesame-seed coated balls stuffed with green olives.  I... I ate a lot of those.  So many, in fact, that I started getting the stink-eye from the chick serving the wine.   But a kid's gotta eat after all that weirdness.  

After that M and I walked through the YMCA in Jerusalem, which is not at all like any YMCA I've ever seen in the States.  It's magnificent, like a shiek's palace in a desert oasis.  (Or do shieks live in tents? And is it inappropriate to use Arabic similes here? These are questions I don't want to ask.)

Anyway, they're having a music festival a the Y this weekend, and M introduced me to several choir folks who I'll audition for next week.   Hooray!

That evening M and I were in for a special treat: we were invited to have Shabbat dinner with Elan, who is the owner and chef at a rather famous restaurant here in Jerusalem.  We sated ourselves on glorious fare while Elan regaled us with stories of the dramatics of restauranteering.  One particular story was quite recent, and the dramatis personae included a young woman in the role of hostess who made a HUGE mistake of the sort I know I would certainly make, if ever asked to be hostess at a famous restaurant.  And so after the story was done, I offered up a silent thanksgiving for gainful employment in the realm of academia, where these sorts of mishaps are so regular they are almost expected.

Here's what happened.  One of France's former prime ministers was in Jerusalem this week, and so of course he had his people make reservations to dine at Elan's place (so says Elan, who is by no means shy about his establishment's fame).  For some reason Elan was not at the restaurant the day the foreign dignitary and his entourage arrived, and the hostess didn't know who this very famous person was.  (Can you recognize ex-prime ministers of foreign countries? Neither can I.  But then again, neither of us work as hostesses at internationally renowned eating joints).  

So the girl seats the four Frenchies, and it just so happens that at about the same time, four other completely ordinary French tourists come to the restaurant to eat.  While they are having their respective meals, the restaurant receives a call from the big-wigs in Paris instructing that the bill of the Frenchman's table be paid in full, and the big-wigs proceed to give pertinent bill-settling information.  The hostess says right-o, that's swell, got it, hangs up, and proceeds to tell the wrong table of French diners that their bill of fare will be paid in full by some important-sounding people in Paris.  Of course, the tourists are amazed and surprised and don't for a second stop to ponder pourquoi dans la terre verte de Dieu some prominent Parisians not only happened to know exactly when they would be eating at that exact place on that exact day, and to randomly foot the bill.  So of course, they accept this generosity and continue to order dishes and drinks and desserts, enjoying to their touristy hearts' content a meal fit for... well, fit for a prime minister.  And the big-wigs in Paris get charged for this random, unintentional act of extreme kindness on their behalf toward their own common-folk.  

Meanwhile, the ex-PM and his cohort finish their meal, dab their mouths with linen, and rise to go.  But not before The Dignitary himself -- you guessed it -- pays for the entire meal out of his own pocket.

Was there ever a more à propros moment to cry foux pas? I think not.  And cry Elan did.  

The moral of the story is this: the French are generous to former leaders, no?  

And the other moral of the story is: I finally have a friend who is a famous chef.  Bucket-list score!   

Today I am making up for my pretend life riding the cultural forefront of Jerusalem by doing mundane academic crap.  But I also felt obligated to make up to myself for all the artsy-ness of yesterday and the latent shame I experience each time I encounter modern art and remain thoroughly unmoved by it, yet am judged when expressing said disaffectation to Artist and Lovers of Art.  I need to resuscitate my own artistic sensibilities in the wake of all that by drowning myself in something objectively full of goodness and light.  I slap a cd into the stereo and say, to no one in particular, and possibly into a pretend microphone, "Here's something everyone can feel moved by: Vince Guaraldi!" And then do a little Peanuts-character dance across my living room floor. 

My living room.  Ah, it is so good: after many months of suitcase-living I have settled into, and can frolic freely (and I won't lie, sometimes pant-lessly) within, a room of my very own.   

Guess that means it's also time to start writing that non-fiction...