Criticizing Israel

People will complain. "Say anything negative about Israel, and you're labeled antisemitic."

These people are right.

At the same time, they are also wrong.

It really depends on who is responding to their criticism.

If a right-wing Zionist is responding to the criticism, the critic will very likely be called antisemitic.

If a centrist or progressive Zionist is responding, it will depend on the criticism.  

And it will depend on the mood.

It will depend on the day.  

I'm hypersensitive about criticism of Israel; though I understand some criticism has merit.  

The other thing is. The same group/groups that accuse Jews of weaponizing antisemitism are probably the same groups who weaponize Islamaphobia.  

And vice-versa.

Maybe what we all need to do is learn to distinguish between deserved-criticism that hurts are feelings...because we're hypersensitive.  Vs. criticism that is dishonest, manipulative, involves double standards, etc.  

Offended by Products

If we are offended by products a store is selling, before we launch a loud boycott and pressure the store to stop selling the products; we should ask ourselves if the store sells products that we like that would offend others.  

I’m not going to be happy seeing watermelon-kids clothes saying Free Palestine.  If it’s a small business, I’ll just say it’s not a place I personally want to shop.  It certainly doesn’t need to be boycotted with the intent of pressuring the store to stop selling the product.  

If I’m fine with a small business selling pro-Israel products, I should be willing to accept a small store selling Pro-Palestinian products.  

If it’s a big store….

If it’s a big company selling free Palestine kids clothes, I would want to see them also selling Jewish and pro—Israel products.

If they don’t, I would be mad and offended.  

I’m not sure what I’d do with that anger besides trying not to shop there anymore.  

Well… if I had the time and energy, I’d reach out to the company to request they carry more Jewish products.  

All of this could apply to Christians offended by LGBTQ+ products.  

Or anti-Zionists offended by products made in Israel.  

Another Favorite Māori Word

I forgot one of my favorite Māori words.  

Mātakitaki.

It might be because it's one I have less confidence in.  Not that I have a ton of confidence in the words I listed yesterday.

I had to look up mātakitaki to make sure I knew how to spell it right.

And it turns out, I didn't.

I didn't realize there was a macron.

Now...hopefully I shall always remember that it does.

Mātakitaki as a verb means to watch.

Some simple sentences:

Kei te mātakitaki ia.  She watches/He watches.

I mātakitaki ngā ngeru.  The cats watched.

Ka mātakitaki ngā putiputi māwhereo.  The pink flowers will watch.

What will they watch?

I can't tell you in te reo Māori.  Because to clarify what nouns are doing with the verbs, you need to use either Ki or I...and I'm still confused about all that.

I'm a work in progress.

Please don't yell at me if I've made mistakes.  I'm very insecure.

But please do point out mistakes if in a kindly kaiako kind of way.  

I Watched a Bit of the National Book Awards

Every morning, I use random.org to pick a CSPAN video to watch.  (well, really mostly just listen to)

I don't force myself to watch the whole video.  I can watch as little or as much as I want.

Today I ended up with the National Book Awards ceremony.  

This is actually the second time I landed on this video.  

Because I had read about some antisemitism issues with the National Book Awards, the first time Random.org chose it for me, I could stomach listening to only a little bit.  

I moved the curser of the video somewhat randomly and ended up listening to the youth book awards.

A Syrian woman won and said many things in support of the Muslim experience; talked about Islamaphobia, and declared Free Palestine.

She and I are not on the same team in terms of the Middle East war.  I don't like what she said.  But I believe she has every right to say it.  I support people using their platforms to speak about the issues important to them.

What I wondered, though, is whether that same stage will ever be filled by a Jew and/or Israeli who has written a book about the suffering that occurred on October 7 or what Jewish students have endured on campuses and classrooms.  

Will books like that ever be even nominated?

Will they even be published...I mean by mainstream publishers?  Or will publishers, agents, editors, etc. fear the backlash too much?  Will they fear accusations of Islamaphobia?

On that note, if anyone does know of books being written or published about the Jewish/Israeli/Zionist lived experience regarding October 7 and the time following, please comment below.  I will (probably) add them to my to-read list.

My Favorite Māori Words

 A list of some of my favorite Māori words:

1. Waiporoporo-Purple

2. Pukapuka-Book

3. Tuhitui-Write

4. Waiata-Sing 

5. Putiputi-Flower

Blogging Changes

Besides writing tons of short posts instead of no posts or very long posts...I plan to make other changes.

A) I'm going to be writing some posts on my phone...which is part of the reason for B and C.

B) I think I'm going to stop using blue font for quotes. I've outgrown that. And I think it's going to be hard to do via my phone.

C) I'm going to do less linking.  Refer to A. Also: From what I've seen on Statcounter for the last 16 years, people rarely click on links. I think in most cases, if someone is interested in something, they can simply Google or go to the preferred app on their phone.  For example, if someone is interested in learning more about Liz Cheney's book, they can easily Google or search for it on Amazon, Goodreads, etc.  

There may be more or less linking depending on my mood, what the material is, if I'm on my phone or laptop, etc.  

I saw a Video Featuring Tom Cotton

This morning, the top post on my Instagram feed had a video of two Pro-Palestinian women having a confrontation with Tom Cotton.

The women were politely trying to convince him not to support a bill regarding nonprofit organizations. And he was less-eloquently telling them that their organizations are antisemitic. 

If I was a non-biased person judging the confrontation on performance alone, I would pick the pro-Palestinian women as the winners.

But I’m very much NOT unbiased. 

 I’m biased in multiple ways.  

I’m not on the so-called pro-Palestine side, because I believe they are pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, and supportive of terrorism.

Yet I also have prejudices against Tom Cotton.  I knew he was Republican and that left-wing people are supposed to hate him. But left-wing people have also been pushed to hate Israel.  So….

Since I’m reading Liz Cheney’s book, I currently have it strongly in my mind that A) Some Republicans are very courageous defenders of Democracy and other lovely things B) Some Republicans have sold their soul to Trump.

I Googled Tom Cotton and Jan 6 and quickly got the sense that he was on team sold-soul-to-Trump. He was not on my team. 

And neither was the Instagramer propping Tom Cotton up as a hero to Jews.  

I unfollowed the account and also looked at the gushing comments to see if I was following any of them.  

I was glad to see I was not.

And THIS is what it’s like to be a woke/progressive Jewish Zionist post October 7.

I tend to do a lot of following, unfollowing… re-following, re-unfollowing.

I am following too many people, though. I want to have a smaller number made up of people who are against both Islamic terrorists AND white-supremacist terrorists.  

I want to follow more people that view both October 7 2023 and January 6 2021 as very bad days rather than inspiring, wonderful, or justified.  

As a Jew….

 One of the shows I’m currently watching is St Elsewhere.

So far, my favorite thing about watching the show is seeing all the guest stars.

For example, the boy needing leg surgery looked familiar.  I looked him up on IMdb and saw he was Jeremy Licht.  I scrolled down to see what I know him from.  

It turns out he played the infamous, wishful Anthony in the Twilight Zone movie.

The episode I’m watching today features David Packer who played Daniel Bernstein in the V miniseries. 

I think if social media had been a thing back in the (1980’s) V universe, Daniel would have started all his posts defending the planned genocide against humans with: As an Earthling….

Different Kinds of allies to Jews

This is something I've thought about before, but after listening to a podcast with Jonah Platt and Van Jones, I was inspired to think about it to an extra degree.

It's that...

I do appreciate white, right-wing people who support Israel. But I can't give them a lot of admiration.  Being pro-Israel is very popular in their groups, so it shouldn't take a lot of courage for them to express pro-Israel sentiments.  An exception might be if they're in the artistic community.  But if that's the case, they're probably already used to going against the tide.  I'm guessing they've already built up some tough layers of skin.  

I appreciate people who standing with Israel.  But my admiration goes to the people who are part of communities where the more popular thing is hating Zionists;  

Van Jones scoffed at Jews who whine that Black people should stand for Jews, because Jews protested for George Floyd.  He talked about how it had been popular to stand with George Floyd. There was no threat of being ostracized.  In fact, it was the cool thing to do.  In contrast, Black people are taking a big social risk/sacrifice by standing up for Jews.

I think Van Jones made a very good point, and I hope it will stop some Jews from whining about that.  

But, I think it only applied to those of us Jews on the left.

Being for BLM wasn't popular on the right.  So if a right-wing Jew did speak up against the killing of George Floyd and/or other victims of police brutality, they would have likely faced a lot of backlash.

Thinking about this has made me feel a little bit more generous towards people who have not spoken up against antisemitism. For some people, depending on which communities they belong to, simply not speaking up AGAINST Israel and Zionism, is an act of courage.  

And yes.  I very, very, very grudgingly admire the people who are antisemitic if they belong to communities where that sentiment is seen as unacceptable. But, of course, I surely don’t appreciate their hate.  

Countries

My heart is split between countries.  Mostly four.

The United States

Israel

New Zealand

Australia.

So...today...for example.

I listened to some of Liz Cheney's very patriotic book about the January 6 horror.

I spent time in our family room where our fireplace mantle is (almost) entirely Australia-themed.  

For my birthday, Tim bought be a whole set of Bluey stuffed animals.  I put those up there and added other Aussie stuff we own—a touristy didgeridoo, Dorothy the Dinosaur, Henry the Octopus, Wags the Dog, a book about Australian Prime Ministers, and a Sydney Swans hat.  

(Okay, and we also have the boxes with our cats ashes, because I felt wrong moving them. But besides that, everything else is very Australian)

I listened to te reo Māori music in the morning and spent a lot of time working with a wonderful new Māori app.  I mean it's new to me. I'm not sure how old it is to the universe.  

As for Israel, I listened to podcasts about Israel and antisemitism while doing garden work and housework.

I know this would be a better post if I actually listed the app and the podcasts.  But it's all on my phone and my phone is charging while I write this post on my laptop.

Sorry.  

If anyone feels the need for more specific info, comment below, and I can be more specific.  I mean as long as you do it soon.  In a few months.  Or weeks.  I won't have any idea what app or podcasts I was referring to.  

Dear M (Part 2)

Dear M,

Do you hate Israel?

Do you believe Israel shouldn't exist?

Or are you just against the war?

You might just be against the war and believe Israel should exist.  But if this is true, you should have posted something about October 7.  You should have posted something about the murders, the rapes, the kidnappings.  

Because that's the kind of persona you presented to the world.  A humanitarian.  A woman with compassion for people of all colors.  For mothers. For children.

I saw you as the type of person who would watch the news stories of October 7 and sob. And go to vigils.  And go to marches.  And speak out.

And yes, I would have expected you to turn around a few weeks later to cry for a ceasefire and to cry for Palestinians.  

A feminist, humanitarian, without skin in the game would cry for all and fight for all.  But you are not that.  At least not to me.

To me, you are just an antisemitic wearing the mask of a humanitarian.  

Dear M

Dear M,

I often wish I hadn't unfollowed you on Instagram.

In my better-angels moments (which are rare when thinking of you) the reason for my regret would be in hopes that we could have a dialogue about Israel.  Maybe I would make you less antisemitic and less stupid and you would make me more intuned with the Palestinian struggle and less stupid.

More often, though, I just want to see your feed...to see how often you tokenize antisemitic Jews.

And I want to see if what I remember is true.  Or did I just make it up inside my head.

Did you really post about bread on October 7?  

Or maybe it was the first thing you posted post October 7.

Many Short Ones Maybe

I've decided to return to blogging.

But instead of writing super long posts, I'm going to try and write many, many, many small posts.

Maybe like thirty a day.

If you by chance have me on some kind of email feed, I highly suggest you cancel.

Shit.  Especially if you get loud notifications for your email.

Unless you're trying to look busy and popular.

But I don't think that trick is going to work on most people.  They'll know you're just getting spam.   

 

Dear Republican Zionists

 Dear Republican Zionists,

You might not believe in systemic racism, but are you willing to agree that there is SOME racism in the criminal justice system?  Can you agree that, at the very least, there are some bad apples...some racist cops and some racist judges?

Whether you believe there IS systemic racism in America's criminal justice system or whether you accept there are at least two racist police officers out there, I very much doubt you would align yourself with left-wing people who say ACAB (all cops are bad) or Defund the Police.

I am guessing you are very much against defunding the police.  

I am guessing that if you did agree there is a little or a lot of racism in the criminal justice system, meaningful reform is the way to go.  Rather than defunding or demonizing everyone in that career.  

Could you perhaps be willing to take that same mindset and apply it to DEI and other such diversity initiatives?  I think it would be much more helpful to the Jewish community, and other human communities, if we wake people up to the antisemitism that unfortunately dwells in DEI and work towards reform.  

Not Special Interests

Note: I wrote about this a bit in an old post via some edited-to-add stuff.  I doubt anyone has seen it.  But just in case someone has and then they read this. I don't want them to mistakingly believe they're having deja vu.

I have decided that not all of my so-called special interests are actually special interests.  I came to this realization after developing my first actual post-Australia special interest. .  

I have decided that the not-special interests are either

a) Stressful Interests

b) Hobbies

c) Passing interests

Israel is an example of a stressful interest for me.  I haven't been obsessively learning about Israel, because it brings me joy and comfort.  It's about seeking validation, ammunition for debates, understanding, etc.  

Other examples for me: Autism, Neurology/seizures, Narcissism, American elections/politics, Covid, and Ant-racism.   (Pretty much most of what I wrote about on this blog after I stopped writing about Australia.  I pretty much went from writing about a special interest to writing about stressful interests...kind of sad)  

Hobbies are things that I very much enjoy doing, but they're different from special interests, because I don't have an interest in obsessively learning about them.

Currently these for me are: Playing The Simpsons: Tapped Out, Feeding our backyard wildlife, and Taking care of our backyard plants.  I'm VERY flora and fauna lately.

Passing Interests are things that I'm interested in temporarily as they're happening in my life.  This usually pertains to travel and TV shows.  I might be passionate about a show as I'm/we're watching it.  But soon after I'm done with the season, the interest fades, and it doesn't come back until I/we watch the next season.  

This is the same with Disney World.  I am mildly/moderately interested between visits but become much more interested when actually planning the vacation and while we're there.

Often when he are there, I imagine I'm going to keep up the level of passion, and I make plans to continue checking out the line lengths and restaurant availability through out the year.  But I soon lose the motivation to do that.  

We have a Disney trip coming up in a few months.  To be honest, the travel anxiety is overshadowing the passing-interest feelings at this point.  But I did have fun making the reservation on the DVC website.

My last passing-interest was probably The Walking Dead, because we finally got around to watching season ten and eleven; then watched three of the spin offs (Daryl Dixon, The Ones Who Live, and Dead City)

So....whether you're autistic or not.  If you have special interests/obsessions/passions, does any of this resonate with you?   What have been your special interests, hobbies, stressful interests, and passing interests?

My New Special Interest

I have a new special interest.

I've come to realize this is the first special interest I've had post Australia; and all the other things in-between that I believed were special interests were actually NOT special interests (see next post)

I'm not sure how to name it actually.

Technically we could say it's New Zealand.  But I don't want to, because it's very much not like my Australia obsession.

It's very different.

With Australia, it felt spiritual (and I still very often believe it is/was).  And I was obsessed with all of it—the land, the map of it, the history, the government, the people, the animals, etc.  I wanted to live there.  And "want" seems like an insufficient word for how I was feeling.  

With New Zealand, it's mostly the music and the language...and the Taika Waititi/Jemaine Clement filmmaking ventures.

It's kind of jumped around.

It started with us watching Legion and Tim and I both thinking that Jemaine Clement looked familar.  We IMDb'd and I saw/realized he was the singer of one of my favorite songs ("Shiny"); had major involvement in What We Do in the Shadows, and was part of Flight of the Conchords.  

We decided we should next watch Flight of the Conchords.  It was something we had both vaguely heard about though the years and had an ongoing sort of interest in watching it....someday.  Or at least that's how I felt about it. 

I had a very normal level of liking for the show during the first season and maybe for most of the second.  Then at some moment, somehow, I went from liking to obsessively loving.

After watching Flight of the Conchords, I had us rewatching What We Do in the Shadows, because A) Didn't realize Jemaine Clement was one of the stars since I hadn't been too aware of his existence prior to watching Legion  B) I couldn't remember what actually happened in the movie.

Then I had us re-watching the episodes of the TV show that had cameos of Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement.

We next watched Our Flag Means Death.  Or maybe we watched that before What We Do in the Shadows?  I'm not entirely sure.

I loved  OFMD. I think it's the most romantic show I've seen in a long time.  I don't often have intense shipping-feelings these days. But with that, I did.  

Through doing decent IMDb research, I learned about the existence of Wellington Paranormal.  I find it odd that as people who watch and love What We Do in the Shadows, we hadn't realized the show existed.  Is this mostly about our ignorance? Not enough marketing?  Or just the over-abundance of content out there?

Anyway, we watched that too and very much enjoyed it.  

Meanwhile and after, I started diving into the music side of things. And with that, one thing kept leading to another thing and then another thing.

For example, through reading a bit about Brett McKenzie, I learned about the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra and started listening to their music on Spotify. Also I listened to the Flight of the Conchords charity song, "Feel Inside (And Stuff Like that)".   Both of these things led me to learning about Brooke Fraser.  

I listened to McKenzie's new not-funny album and loved that.  Plus, I was delightfully surprised to learn he wrote the Muppet songs.  I never had much of an interest in seeing The Muppets Most Wanted but now have been loving the music.

I especially love the demo songs and really want to know if Brett McKenzie is doing all the different voices on the song.  If anyone knows the answer to that, please share your knowledge with me.

I listened to Jemaine Clement sing on the Rio soundtrack and learned he played the Cockatoo.  I think MAYBE in the past I was a bit bigoted against him. Because during my very steep obsessed-with-Australia years, I vaguely remember feeling cheated that the Australian bird was played by someone not actually from Australia.  It's not that I was some kind of purist.  I watched many Aussie TV shows and movies with Kiwi actors.  But I think probably the one thing that made me feel motivated to watch Rio was the Australian character.

Also while going down the Jemaine Clement music rabbit hole,  I ended up listening to the albums from the children's TV show Kiri and Lou.

Shit. The songs from that are SO deep and relatable.  It's very cathartic but sometimes also painful.  

I learned that the writer of the songs from that is Don McGlashan.  I've listened to some of his other music.  

Okay...then on a separate branch.

Meanwhile....

I became quite obsessed with learning te reo Māori.

I think one of my signs that a special interest is going to be a major one is I have some sort of resistance to it.  This happened here.

A few months back I had bought a lifetime account to the Drops language App.  I was using it to learn French, Danish, and Hebrew.  My plan was to do little bits of French and Danish and a lot of Hebrew.

And then I had this sudden strong desire to learn te reo Māori.  I resisted, because I felt I was already learning enough languages. Plus, I think there was the whole special-interest resistance thing that I mentioned above.  (Also I had worries about cultural appropriation which I think was actually racist and ignorant of me...I might go into that in a future post)

I gave in a little and made a rule.  Along with the music people mentioned above, I had also added a few Māori songs to my Spotify playlist.  My rule was that if Spotify Shuffle chose to play a Māori song for me; then I could do a te reo Māori session on Drops.  

I soon dropped that rule and added te reo Māori to my list of daily languages.  And it soon went from: I will do one session a day to: I will try to do many many sessions a day; plus listen to lots of music; plus watch learning videos on YouTube, and download other te reo Māori apps.

I also ended up adding another language to my daily sessions.  Because at some point, Tim asked if Hawaiian was similar to te reo Māori.  I decided the best way to figure that out is to start learning Hawaiian as well.  

In awhile, I'm going to temporarily drop French or Danish and start learning Samoan too. Because I'd like to see the similarities and differences there as well.  

This post has taken much up much more space and time than I wanted.  But in the future, I might do a post listing the apps and YouTube channels I've been using.  It will mostly be about the channels, because although I have downloaded four or five apps, I'm only using one for now.  (I mean besides Drops).  

If you are a person who, like me, has no Māori background and isn't in or from New Zealand, but you're learning te reo Māori, I'd love to hear from you.  And if that doesn't apply to you, I'd still love to hear from you.  IF you're not a bot advertising something.  If you're a lonely bot just wanting to talk...I'm here for that.

I still have more to say, although this is getting long. Sorry.

I probably don't want to go to New Zealand.  Ironically, Tim brought up the idea a few weeks before we watched Flight of the Conchords.  He told me Jack had mentioned going. I probably said something like, I hope you guys have fun.  Meaning I shall stay happily back at home.

My OCD has gotten worse through the years.  That along with my fear of vomiting and general travel anxiety has made long-long-haul traveling a no for me.

I had told Tim and Jack that they're going to have to do the via-west-coast international traveling without me, including Oceania, East Asia, and South East Asia.

I feel Europe is the farthest I can manage.  And even with that, I made things difficult. I managed to get to Copenhagen but had us spending a night in Boston and stopping in Iceland.

If time was not an issue, I would have us spend time in California; time in Hawaii, and then fly to New Zealand.  But I would feel weird about not going to Australia.  I would feel like I'm committing a huge, huge awful betrayal of my past self.

I guess if time was very much not an issue, we could do this super long trip where we spend time in California, Hawaii, New Zealand, and Australia.  I'd also maybe add in various South Pacific Islands.  

For now, though, we're talking about using our DVC points to go to Hawaii.  

So though I can't point to a manu in Aotearoa, I can do so in Hawaii.

I also don't want the anxiety and pressure of trying out my teo reo Māori abilities on actual people.  During some of my Instagram Zionism adventures, I ended up talking to a Māori Zionist.  I was about to type Kia Ora to him and suddenly started to panic...worrying that I didn't know how to spell it right.  Even though I've seen it written out a zillion times.  

So I think I'm just going to go through life using the language to talk to apps and...mostly just to myself.

I talk to myself all the time. It's lovely doing it in a second language.  

The last thing I want to talk about is that I at first thought it was very funny that I ended up becoming obsessed with New Zealand. 

There has actually been worse bigotry than the Rio thing.  For example, there was a brief time that I had this intense but sadly short term friendship with a woman in Australia. Though I thought she was wonderful and imagined I loved her (in a platonic way), I was a bit disappointed that she was actually from New Zealand and not only that, loved her home country much more than Australia.  (It's not why our friendship faded away, though)

I also found it quite hilarious that I jumped from one Oceania country to another. Though if it had been a direct jump, it would have been much less funny.  It would have felt more like an extension rather than the universe playing a joke.  

It's probably much less funny to other people.

Anyway, now...it also brings me comfort and joy, because there are a lot of connections between Australia and New Zealand, including with music and TV/film.   

I've often very much missed being obsessed with Australia. And New Zealand is helping to reconnect me.  

Though besides the NZ path, I also frequently reconnect with Australia via Neighbours...which I watch religiously.  And I very much enjoy listening to the Weird Crap in Australia podcast.

Speaking of podcasts, I also listen to The Wellington Paranormal Podcast.  Which shit...gives more to ramble about.  

Going back to the traveling issue....

I did have a tiny bit of me opening up to the idea of traveling to New Zealand...maybe with the help of lots of therapy and meds.

But today I was listening to the WP podcast and Mike Minogue told a terrifying story of getting food poisoning in Shanghai and vomiting copiously on the airplane. Vomit on airplanes is one of my biggest fears in life. And it's the main reason I don't want to do long flights. I want to avoid using airplane bathrooms, because I'm afraid there's going to be vomit cooties in there.  

Okay if that wasn't bad enough...I'm reading Jannette McCurdy's beautiful, amazing, wonderful book.  And today I read the chapter with her doing bulimia on the airplane.  I think it was fourteen times?

I feel that all this today is the universe telling me my ass doesn't belong on an airplane heading to New Zealand.  

  

Various Thoughts about Israel

Here are some of the thoughts I've been having about the situation in Israel

and below that are some (mostly rhetorical) questions I have for people who are anti-Israel.

1. I have a hunch that there is a Venn Diagram overlap thing between the people who say calling someone a narcissist is ableism and the people who hate Zionists

I think the same people who hated my post about that will also hate this post.  

2. I very much do not want to get to the point where when anyone shows concern or compassion for people in Gaza that I automatically see them as antisemitic and shove them out of my social media life.  

SO...if I have the time and energy, I try to look back to see what if anything they posted about October 7.

3. I have come to realize it's not a good idea to name and shame or to publicize boycotts, because all you're doing then is leading the opposing folks to things they can love.  

I came to this realization due to a person in our lives who has become anti-Israel on Instagram.  

Along these lines....

When it comes to cancel culture, I'm all about canceling people on a personal level.  Such as unfollowing someone that has a viewpoint I dislike.

But I don't believe in campaigning for other people to cancel the same things I'm canceling. 

First of all, there's what I mentioned above.  I could end up inspiring someone to do the opposite of canceling.  Second, pushing other people to cancel someone leads to too much groupthink.  

On a micro-basis, it might be okay.  If I know someone is on the same page as me about an issue, I might mention something to them about someone.

4. I think I have been pushed to the center politically.  

That's fine.  But there's a part of me that worries by the end of 2024, I'm going to be wearing a MAGA hat.

I'm joking.  

Sort of.

I am actually scared.

I still hate Trump, though.

And Greg Abbott.

I still plan to vote for Biden.

Hopefully if I become MAGA, it shall be after next November. 

5. Sometimes when I planned to consume some sort of content from an artist...such as music, TV show, a book, etc I would Google to make sure they're not a Trump supporter.  NOW I'm having to make sure people aren't Trump supporters or antisemitic.  

The list of people I have to avoid is widening.

6. I had been comforted by the fact that one of the cool anti-Trump celebrities was also very pro-Israel.  And then they recently posted about how they might vote for Trump.

I unfollowed them.

7. There are still many wonderful progressive Zionists to make me feel not-alone.  I just worry our numbers are going to shrink.

8. I wonder how many progressive Jews are Zionists vs anti-Zionist.  

I've heard that anti-Zionist Jews make up a very small percentage of Jews.  But do they also make up a small percentage of progressive Jews?  

9. I hope that as some progressive Zionists slide towards the right, there will be some right-wing Zionists who slide towards the left.

I hope more Jews will come into the center.  

I think right now it's more comfortable to be a right-wing Zionist.  Even though they're hated, they're not hated by the people they imagined were on the same team as themselves.  

So I don't think right-wing Zionists are feeling as lost and needy as left-wing Zionists.  But I hope some of them are reaching out with kindness towards left-wing Zionists rather than with just resentment and messages of I-told-you-so!  And with this reaching out and the conversations that come about, I hope maybe they will be inspired to rethink some of their hard-right viewpoints.  

10. I think that as there is a Wokeness associated with Black people there is also a sort of Jewish-related Wokeness.  

A large aspect of Black-related Wokeness is understanding that the criminal justice system is fucked.  And what white people have seen as fair, benevolent, and heroic can be very harmful to Black people. 

Jewish Wokeness is seeing the unfairness and general antisemitic shittyness of the UN...and possibly other save-the-world organizations.

11. I think it's kind of hypocritical that the Zionist community complains about people tokenizing the anti-Zionist Jews while we sit there adoring and reposting content from Zionist Arabs and/or Zionist Muslims.  

I think there's a way to give and receive support from outliers without being exploitive or manipulative.  

I struggle with it, though. I do have this underlying feeling that antisemitic or on-the-fence people will be persuaded more if I post Zionist things from Arabs and/or Muslims.

12. Though October 7 has changed me, I don't think it changed me as much as I imagine.

When I think about my past thoughts and the stuff I've written on my blog, I remember that I've always had a sort of resistance to far-left, anti-Zionist, narcissistic-apologist, etc. mindsets.

What's changed, though...I guess....is that I'm leaning more into that part of myself.

13. BUT I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I want to be at and stay at the mindset where I understand that sometimes some people DO take  Wokeness too far.  Or their Wokeness has a huge, harmful blindspot.

I don't want to go so far, though, that I see all Wokeness as bad. 

14. Let's take book-banning as an example.

Could it be that there are some books that are NOT appropriate for the children or teen section of a library?  Might there be books that actually do have too much sexual content?  

I need to remember, though, that for most of these awful book-banning folks, too-much sex equals mentioning a person has two moms or having a transgender character.  

And with classroom instruction.  The somewhat-popular narrative that Israelis deserve to be raped, murdered, and kidnapped because they are white colonists who stole the sacred land belonging to the brown Palestinians makes me wonder if there IS some merit to the complaint that American school children are being taught that some groups of people are all evil and undeserving of any sympathy.  

But I don't want to end up joining the group that wants to ignore most of the oppression that has happened throughout history.     

15. I think there's a mental similarity between those who support Trump and those who support Hamas.

As Trump could go in the middle of Fifth Avenue; shoot someone; and still maintain most of his fan club....I think the same goes for Hamas.  

16. I'm trying to decide if I want to disable comments on this post.  I usually disable comments on any of my Israel posts on social media.  Because I don't want to deal with all the antisemitism.

But now I'm thinking of exploiting the antisemitism.

Because if by chance this post does attract the antisemites, maybe their comments will help my algorithm?

So please...if you desire.  Drop your watermelons and Palestinian flags below.

17. No. I don't support genocide.  But if you want to imagine I do and complain about that...be my guest.  

I probably won't respond. But I appreciate the attention.  Thanks!

18.  I feel Zionists need a fruit symbol too.

Maybe we already have one, and it just hasn't caught on yet?

19. Guidelines to anyone wanting to write comments that will not be perceived as antisemitic.

A) It's okay to complain about the Israeli government...especially if you remember that even a people's government can't be all painted with one brush.  

(not all Texas politicians are like Greg Abbott or Ted Cruz.  There are some that even oppose Abbott and Cruz)

B) It's not okay to state or infer that Israel shouldn't exist

C) If you think what happened on October 7 is okay, deserved, or exhilarating, you are very antisemitic.  There's no way you can convince me otherwise.

D) Having an anti-Zionist Jewish friend doesn't absolve you of antisemitism...(even if that friend is the one you see in the mirror). 

20. I will try hard to ignore all antisemitic comments, but I might also ignore comments that are too philo-semitic....especially ones that are very Bible-flavored.  And I will not appreciate and will probably ignore posts that are Islamophobic.  

21. Even though I'd love help with my algorithm, I'd much prefer people using their energy to Google themselves into a rabbit hole about Israel.

So before you drop a watermelon and type.words such as Apartheid, Open Prison, Genocide, Ethnic-Cleansing, Colonizer, etc....maybe instead go and read more about the history of Israel?  

Wikipedia isn't perfect, but it's a good place to start.

I also recommend The Times of Israel....especially in terms of what's happening currently.  

And now some questions for people who are anti-Israel.  They're mostly rhetorical but if you want to (maybe?) help with my algorithm, knock yourself out.  

1. During World War II, around half a million German civilians died from the bombing done by the United States and other members of the Allied Forces.  Do you consider this bombing an act of genocide?  If yes....if you were alive back then, what actions would have you have taken to pressure the United States to do a ceasefire?  Would you have also pressured Hitler to agree to a ceasefire?   Would you have asked Hitler to stop killing Jews and other "undesirables"?

2. If you are okay with Jews as long as they are anti-Zionist, how dedicated to anti-Zionism do your Jews have to be?

Are they allowed to be against Hamas?

Are they allowed to feel and express grief about October 7?  Are they allowed to think October 7 was wrong?

3. Are your people the original inhabitants of the country you are living in?  If so, were they the only original inhabitants or did other tribes/ethnic groups live there as well?

4. Are most people in your country from the same ethnic group or is there a strong mix?

5. In your country, are there differences in how people are treated based on their ethnic group?  Are some people disadvantaged because of unconscious bias or systemic issues in policy?

If there are people who face disadvantage in your country, are these people treated better or worse than Arab citizens of Israel or other citizens of Israel who are not Jewish and/or not white? 

6. If your people are not the original inhabitants of the country you reside, have you taken steps to help with decolonization? 

Have you gone beyond gestures like reciting the original inhabitants of the land you occupy each time you record one of your podcast episodes?

6. Have you made plans to move you and your family back to your ancestral homeland?

7.  Are you willing to offer yourself as a sacrifice to terrorists freedom fighters?  

Will you let you or your children be kidnapped and held hostage?  Maybe your grandpa?  

Will you allow yourself to be raped?  Murdered? 

8. After you have sacrificed some of your family members to brutality and death… and trekked back to your ancestral homeland, I expect you will want all us Jews to do the same… 

So… where would that be exactly?

If diasporas are no longer allowed in the world, where do the Jews go?   

Edited to add 4/17/2024- I would love for there to be a rap battle between Mosab Hassan Youself and Miriam Margolyes. 

Various Thoughts about Disney, Writing, and other Things

1. I learned that Morgana O'Reilly from Neighbours is going to be on the third season of White Lotus.  I'm excited about that.

2. It's freezing cold in Texas which stresses me out a lot.  But my stress was higher before the freeze than it is now during the freeze.

Earlier I was most scared about our pipes freezing and then exploding.  Now I'm kind of numb to that possibility and am stressing about the water I put out for the cat who visits daily/nightly.  The cat came early this morning and was met with a bowl of frozen water.

I've twice brought the bowl in, defrosted the water in the sink, and then put new water out.

It freezes so fast.  It's hard to keep up with it.

3. How do animals drink in the winter?  I should Google that.

4. I Googled and didn't easily find anything reassuring.

5. I've been watching Season 5 of All Saints lately.  It's a huge comfort show for me.  I think, for the most part, that's what Australia has become for me now.  A source of comfort television...and also probably comfort music.  

6. Some nights ago, I had a epiphany that could have been painful but was instead quite comforting.  

It's along the lines of I'm quite up there in age and very likely won't find any success as a writer.

It's very much not the first time I considered this. but it was the first time it made me feel more good than bad.

Why did it make me feel good?  

I'm not sure, but I think it's because I have felt all this inner pressure to keep working via various avenues to try to find success.  

Like I need to keep trying and trying even though I will probably fail.

There's peace in knowing it's okay to give up.

7. I wonder if writing this post negates what I wrote in #6.

8. What is the point of writing and posting?

9. I'm thinking though I'm not too bothered by the lack of writing success, I am bothered...haunted...by the idea of the world being oversaturated with content.  So many books being written, so many TV shows.

Fan fiction

Blogs

Podcasts

Message Boards

Social Media Posts

10. There is nothing inherently horrible about the world having too much content to read.  It just means, though, that a lot of writers will never be paid.  Or they won't be paid well.  And if that's not bad enough....there's really not enough people with enough time to give all writers the readers that they want.

I will be lucky if one reader has the time to read this post.

11. I have probably said this way too many times, but I'm going to say it again.  I really believe that content consuming is just as valuable to our society as content creating.  Probably even more so now that AI can create.

12. I've been getting a lot of enjoyment from planning a novel series.  I'm creating various unpublished blog posts to jot down various ideas, plans, etc.

I love doing this but don't at all love the idea of actually writing the novel.

But when I think of not-writing-the-novel, all the note taking seems pointless, and I feel compelled to quit the project all together.

So I have to keep pretending that I plan to write the novel.

13. What's the point of writing a novel if no one is going to read it...that even if the novel is brilliant, people still won't read it, simply because they don't have time, because there are a ton of other brilliant things out there to read.

14. I can barely even find hope in the idea of my future relatives reading my stuff.  They too will have too many things to read.

15. If I do write my novel, it will be impossible to promote, because it's going to lack structure, character arcs, high concept ideas, etc.

I think it's going to be like an ongoing soap opera about mundane life.

I mean it might have those things to some degree.  But it won't have enough of those things to easily describe in a compelling sentence or two.  

16. Although playing around with world building for a novel I might never write does bring me some joy, what brings me much more joy is enjoying fiction created by other people.  I plan to spend the rest of my life doing more of the things that bring me feelings of joy and comfort.

I read a Judy Blume book on the plane (Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself).  Reading the book gave me so many good feelings.  I want more of that.

17. I'm addicted to The Simpsons: Tapped Out  

Tim had been playing it...somewhat obsessively.

I decided to try playing it, mostly as a kind of gesture of interest and support.

I secretly thought it was boring and couldn't see the appeal.  

At first.

And then as I unlocked more characters and buildings, it became better and better.

I love it.

Now I'm often playing it, and Tim rarely does.  

I don't really care about the dialogue and storylines. I kind of zoom through it all.  I just like the accumulating, collecting, rearranging, etc.  

18. Jack has suggested we try Universal Studios again, since we're so much into thrill rides. I did some research and ended up learning that, like Disney, Universal has a bunch of different hotels.  It too is a whole big resort-thing.

What if it's just as good as Disney World.  Or even better?  

There are times I love being a DVC member, sometimes so much so that I want us to buy even more points.

Other times, I wish we weren't DVC members.  Right now I'm leaning towards that, because it would be easy than to try doing a Universal Studios vacation.  We could stay at a Universal Studios resort, go to the Universal Parks, have early entry to the Universal parks, etc.  

It's a pain to get from Disney to Universal Studios.  We're either going to have to pay for parking or take a Lyft.

19. I think, in the end, I will probably always prefer Disney.  With that in mind, I'm glad to be DVC members.  

20. In the past few years, we farewelled Jack's childhood/teenage home, the family lake house, and my parent's house. So many changes.  Disney World is a constant in our life.  The Beach Club really is like a second home to us.  

21. Last year, Tim and I had considered going to Disney World together without park days.  Then we changed it to going to Vero Beach, and I realized I felt really blah about the whole thing.  We ended up canceling the plan.

I'm still feeling blah about Vero Beach.  But I think I could actually enjoy a Disney vacation without going to the parks.  

It would probably be easier staying at a resort that's not a few steps away from Epcot.

On our non-park days and also on our non-park-hopping days, I felt a sort of longing and regret seeing Epcot right there, knowing we couldn't just walk in.  

22. The feelings of longing and regret is probably preferable to the feelings of exhaustion and obligation I have when we have annual passes or park days for every day of the trip.  

23. Just as I have longing and regret for the parks when we're not in them, I also have a sort of longing and/or FOMO about the resorts.  I tend to have this feeling that everyone else at the resort is fully there and fully taking advantage of all the amenities.  

Thinking about this....I don't have that sort of feeling about the parks and all the other people there.  So I think maybe we do spend enough time in the parks, and maybe I actually need more resort time.

I think I need to spend more time at the pool, not necessarily swimming or even bothering to put on a swim suit.  But maybe I need more time sitting near the pool, ordering from the pool bar, etc.

24. I might write more posts like this.  I get interrupted a lot from the cats and from Tim.  I've lost most of my ability to handle interruptions while writing.  And with posts like this, it's much more tolerable to lose my train of thought.  

It's easier to hop back on.  

25. It will be extremely hard for me to write a novel with all the interruptions.  

26. Maybe instead of writing a novel, I'll just jot down information about the novel in posts like this.

27. The main character in my maybe-novel is Kelly Feldman.  She's Jewish and autistic (but not diagnosed).  She has an older sister named Ruby.  Her father is a successful writer.  Their family owns and manages a movie theater that was gifted to them from Kelly's maternal grandparents.  

The grandparents own a whole movie theater business.

28. The maybe-novel takes place between 2004-2010 and is mostly about Kelly's obsession with the TV show Lost.  I don't know if that would be the main storyline or just a kind of background thing.  

29. My idea is to have different novels in different time periods focusing on different women in Kelly's family.

So while the first book would be about Kelly; the second book would be about one of Kelly's paternal aunts and would take place between 1978-1985.

30. I have various time periods marked off as possibilities for books

A) 1974-1981

B) 1982-1988

C) 1986-1991

D) 1990-1995

E) 1995-2001

F) 2004-2010

G) 2007-2013

H) 2014-2021

Each time period represents some kind of era in my own life.  Though I'm not sure what each era is anymore.

Let's see.....

B is my Poltergeist obsession era

G is the years where we took our three trips to Australia

E is the time from starting to date Tim and becoming a parent with Tim.  I think?

C might be the years that my special interest was Cystic Fibrosis. 

D is my college years.  Probably?

I have no idea what A is.  

31. The three things I love about the maybe-novel planning is 

A) making things up

B) having an extra purpose for research.  I love doing research and having an imagined reason for the research makes the research extra enjoyable.

C) I love having a reason to think about and dwell in pop culture nostalgia.  Though when I think about actually turning it into a project, it stresses me out.  

For example, I plan to send the Feldmans on Disney World trips.  I have them going on big family trips in 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001, 2006...and then Kelly's mom Elizabeth went with her family to Disneyland in 1968 and Disney World in 1972, 1977, and 1982.

While we were at Disney World, I thought about all this and started stressing about the research and remembering I will need to do in order to write about life at Disney World without the My Disney Experience app. 

D) Figuring out which rides, restaurants, and resorts were around and not around will be easy.  I think all that can easily be found on Wikipedia or other sites.  

32. One of my research things is reading a Livejournal Community for Lost fans.   

I had made a sort of rule for myself that I would start with the writing of the novel after I finished reading the community postings from 2004-2005.  Since I am reading in very small bites, this will take me several months.  

But I don't think I want to start writing the novel months from now.

If I write the novel, I think I want to write it years from now.

33. I had felt this need to start the novel soon, because I'm getting old, and what if I'm to die in my fifties and never finish this project?

But I think it will be perfectly fine if I never finish the project or if I don't even start writing at all.

34. It would be awesome if I spend all my fifties having a great time planning the novel and then spend my 60's writing the novels.

35. I am pretty sure I'm okay with not being a successful writer.  

36. I am trying to figure out if I still like the idea of being a successful writer.  

Would it be wonderful, okay, or kind of awful to have people read and like my writing?

Of course, it would be wonderful in some ways.  But it would also be incredibly stressful.

Would the good outweigh the bad?

37. We're watching Party Down,  Martin Starr's character, the failed novelist and blogger, is highly relatable to me.  

38. I used to love the idea of young people loving my writing.  Having children and tweens be big fans of my work.  Being adored by the young.

That has faded, though.  And now I like the idea of old people reading my stuff...especially old women.

I'd like to be popular in retirement homes.  

39.  Again, I'm questioning what I wrote in #6.  What is the point of writing and posting if I expect my writing to be ignored?

What if the point of writing and posting if I'm okay with my writing being ignored?

Am I okay with my writing being ignored?

40. Maybe I am okay with my writing being ignored, and I can still enjoy writing and posting while expecting my writing to be ignored.

If it comes to the point that I'm too much NOT okay with my writing being read....

If I become too anxious about the idea of people reading my writing, then that will be the time to stop writing and posting.

I do have waves of feeling that way.  But it's probably at a tolerable level right now.

41. It would be a waste of time, energy, and emotional health to write, post, and then worry about people reading my writing when people are not likely to read what I've written.  

42. It would also be bad to be a popular writer who has horrible anxiety about people reading their stuff.  But it would be less ridiculous.  

Less ridiculous but probably a zillion more times stressful.  

43. I was about to end this but now feel compelled to say something about Israel.  A few weeks ago, I was obsessed with the whole thing.  Now I'm less so.

It's too complicated for me to go into it on a thorough level (in this post)

On a personal level, I'm on that small isolated island of left-wing Zionists.  We're rejected by most people on the left.  I think probably 99% of non-Jewish left-wing people hate Zionists and believe Israel should not exist.

I think most right-wing Gentiles and right-wing Jews agree with Donald Trump and Elon Musk's view of us—that Israel is a fantastic place and progressive-Jews are a betrayal of both Israel and the United States.  

44. I am so incredibly thankful for the few people out there that are progressive and Zionist.  I'm thankful for the Jewish ones and thankful for the extremely rare non-Jewish ones.   

45. I knew that antisemitism on the left existed.  But I would have expected it to be at the level that if something like October 7 happened, people would put aside their negative feelings....

Kind of like if someone has a turbulent relationship with a family member but at the level that if the family member was rushed to the hospital, they'd soon be there at the family member's bedside.  

I would have expected most people to put their anti-Israel feelings on pause and show a bunch of compassion towards Israelis and Jews.  

I would not have expected the opposite to happen.  

46. I just realized that the rushing-to-the-bedside scenario is kind of what happened with most progressive Jews.  A lot of us had very ambivalent feelings towards Israel...especially during the Trump years.  

October 7 had us rushing to Israel's bedside (in a symbolic sense. Though I think some have done so more literally).  

47. Reading about history and seeing all the past wars, battles, geographic boundaries etc. gives me hope that there will come a day when Jews and Palestinians manage to share the land and have peace and prosperity. Well, at least with each other.  Then they'll probably be allies against some other groups out there.  

48. It's not just a they.

It's a we.

It's not to the same degree to all those who live there...or those who have sadly died there.

But I think everyone in the Jewish or Palestinian diaspora is also a part of the whole thing.  

49. Maybe in the 2050's, there will be a reboot of The White Lotus.  And the first season will take place on the beautiful, thriving beaches of Gaza.  The resort will be managed by a lesbian couple—a Palestinian and an Israeli.  There will be fights, betrayals, and murder.  But none of it will have any connection to the question of who does and does not belong on the piece of land.  

50. I enjoyed writing this post but it took a lot of time and energy...which I would rather spend on other things.  So....it might be the last post I write for awhile.  

  

Read my novel: The Dead are Online

Various Thoughts about our 2024 Trip to Disney World

1. It was very crowded, the most crowded we've experienced as our family of three.

2. Eventually what was once new and exciting becomes old and less exciting.  I enjoyed Rise of Resistance much less the 6th time I went on it than the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th time.

My reduction of enjoyment might not have been due only to becoming too habituated to the ride but also because I had gotten it into my head that I wanted to use the early morning low wait time to retry Rock-n-Roller Coaster. 

 Also, there was much less actor-enthusiasm from the cast members.  

3. After doing some research, I undid my vow to avoid Guardians of the Galaxy.

From what I read, the aspect that seems to cause the most motion sickness is the visual stimuli.  My plan was to go on the ride if we could do it with the virtual cue, and I'd close my eyes the whole time. I told Tim and Jack that I wouldn't pay extra to go on the ride, because it would be a waste of money to go on such a ride with my eyes closed the whole time.

Jack either didn't listen to what I had said, or he misunderstood me.  Or he was overexcited and pressed the wrong buttons.  He bought Individual Lightning Entries for all three of us. 

Thank Heavens.

Thank Jack.

I still closed my eyes the whole time.

The ride was one of the most fantastic experiences of my whole life.

I almost cried in the middle of it...not out of joy but out of sadness that it would soon end.

I later did actually cry.  Or maybe I didn't cry but just felt kind of depressed.  I can't remember exactly.

What was my problem?

It was the feeling that no other Disney ride could come even close.  So what was the point?

It was kind of similar to the feelings of trying to enjoy other books after reading Harry Potter. 

And yeah.  That's another reason why I was blah about Rise of Resistance.  It had been the best Disney ride...until Guardians of the Galaxy came about.

4. At one point, we had considered canceling our Hollywood Studios reservations for another day at Epcot. So we could go on Guardians of the Galaxy again.

Then we decided not to do that and ended up with the tentative plan of Jack using his Park Hopping ability to go to Hollywood Studios AND buy a Lightening Pass for Guardians.

Tim and I had made the choice not to get Park Hopping tickets this trip.

I guess there was that parental feeling of being satisfied enough to have our child have the wonderful experience even though we would not.  

Unfortunately that plan was thrown out the window, because Jack became ill by the end of our Epcot day and ended up going to neither Epcot nor Hollywood Studios the next day.

5. I regretted not going on Guardians of the Galaxy on my birthday trip in 2023.  In my ignorance, I had had absolutely no desire to do so. 

6. Tim and I sat together on Guardians of the Galaxy.  Jack sat in front of us with a very enthusiastic and friendly stranger.  She told us she had gone on the ride many times.  

When we were parting, she told us to have a magical day.  I realized she was probably an off-duty cast member.  It felt like a movie moment...you know when someone finds out the person they were talking to was actually God or an angel or someone with some kind of secret identity.  

7. I didn't join Tim and Jack on Tron.  I had planned to but changed my mind when seeing the ride vehicles.  I don't like lying prone or bending forward for too long.  It tends to make me feel unwell.  

8. I have stopped enjoying the slow/dark rides. Sadly.  

I am totally burned out.  

I go on them not for enjoyment but just out of a kind of pilgrimage/obligation kind of feeling.

What I've decided is that while I'm still healthy enough to go on thrill rides (and my travel companions are as well) I'm going to put most of my concentration on those.  

I'm thinking what I might do is not stop the slow rides all together, because that pilgrimage push is too strong to ignore all together (I still feel uneasy about skipping Spaceship Earth this trip).  Instead maybe I'll make a rule of one slow ride per park per trip.  

Not including Living with the Land for Epcot, because I HAVE to go on that ride every single trip, and I'd therefore end up never again going on Nemo, Spaceship Earth, The Mexico Ride, etc.

9. I'm not sure if Soarin should be considered a slow ride or thrill ride.

But I think I shall count it as a slow ride for my plan.

10. Russia was my favorite soda in Club Cool this year.

11. Back to Rock-n-Roller Coaster.  I had tried it many years ago and had felt an uncomfortable feeling in my chest during the launch.  

Since then, I've slightly considered trying it again.  After riding Guardians and being okay with that launch, my motivation to retry Rock-n-Roller Coaster was increased.

But while I had been alone for the rope drop the first three days, Tim joined me on the fourth, and I felt the need to let him decide which rides to go on first.  And by that...I mean the two or three rides we'd go on before the park got way too crowded and we'd stop with the rides, soak up the atmosphere, eat, take photos, and then make our exit.   

Tim picked Rise of the Resistance and Mickey Mouse.

Oh!  Also there was the fact that I had been to Hollywood Studios in 2023 and he hadn't gone since May 2022.  So I felt it was more fair to let him pick.

We did line up for Rock-n-Roller Coaster for our third ride...at that point when most waits have become quite long.

The wait time was posted for 90 minutes.  

I do like the experience of waiting in Disney lines but prefer lines that are 60 minutes or less.

Still. We decided to endure.

Unfortunately our efforts didn't pay off.

The ride closed down.  

There have been times, faced with that situation, where I have waited around for a ride to re-open.  

We didn't do that this time.  Instead we went to get lunch.

Since it was our last park day, I kind of regret that we didn't try harder to go on the ride.  

12. Rides I went on more than once this trip:  Expedition Everest and Living with the Land. With both, I went on alone during early entry and then again later with Tim and Jack.

13. I've become quite militant about being there for rope drop.  I now have this feeling that if I'm not there at least twenty minutes before early-entry; then there's actually no point in going to the parks at all.

I'm thinking these feelings are going to end up leading to some sort of recurring anxiety dream.  

14. We used Genie Plus for The Magic Kingdom.  I loved using it on my birthday trip.  It was much less great on this trip.  What I've learned is it doesn't help all that much when the park is very crowded.

Or it could have been that Jack had mentioned wanting to go on The Jungle Cruise. I used it for that which was had one of the longest wait-windows.  So by the time we were able to pick another selection, there wasn't much left. Because I didn't want to be at the park in the evening.  

I think Genie Plus is good if you plan to be at the park from morning to closing...or if it's not overly crowded and there are a couple of moderately popular rides you want to go on.  OR if there's a popular ride that you're highly motivated to ride.

Our motivation to ride The Jungle Cruise was due mostly to the fact that we hadn't gone on it on our last trip.  

And maybe the trip before?

15. If I was going to redo our Magic Kingdom Genie Plus experience, I would have used it to go on Big Thunder Mountain.

16. We ate at one table service restaurant all together: Tiffins.  I liked it, especially since they have a salad called The Land Salad that is made up of produce from The Land in Epcot.  I wish more restaurants had food that was labeled as being specifically from The Land.

Tim and Jack ate dinner at The Flying Fish together while I rested in the room. 

I don't much like going out at night. 

17. I had my beloved Lefse in Norway.  That might be a necessary every-trip tradition for me.

18. I have become much less excited about Disney snacks.  And since the loss of The Magical Express pushed us to rent a car, I had the idea of doing less over-priced Disney snacking and more fun room-snacking.

This is a change for me.  I'm usually wanting to limit the snacks we buy at the grocery store with the idea I want to use our calories (and tummy real-estate) for super special Disney food.  

We bought home a container of six delicious cupcakes that were...I think cheaper than one Disney cupcakes. 

We also bought bagels, crackers, cheese, apples, vegetarian nuggets, cookies, olives, etc.

19. One of my proudest food moments: I considered getting a Dole Whip before leaving the Magic Kingdom but realized I was just craving something fruity.  I decided to wait and have an apple when I returned to our Beach Club room.

And I truly think I enjoyed the apple more than I would have enjoyed the Dole Whip.

20. I actually didn't buy any food at The Magic Kingdom.  I ate some candy clusters I had brought from our room and also some olives.

We did make reservations to eat at the Jungle Cruise restaurant, but that got all messed up with the Tron Virtual Cue, and we had to cancel.

21. If I'm remembering correctly, the only park treat I bought and ate was the Lefse.

22. Outside the parks, though....

Tim and I got ice-cream twice; once at The Fountain at The Dolphin and another time at the Boardwalk ice-cream place.  

23. One of my favorite places at Disney World lately is The Swan and Dolphin.  I love how they look at night.

24. One of my favorite things to do at Disney World this trip (and my previous solo one) is walk around the Epcot Resort area while listening to an audio book.  

On the last trip, I listened to Never, Never by Serana Valentino.  

This trip I listened to King of Shadows by Susan Cooper.  

I also listened to an episode of the Harley Quinn and the Joker podcast.

It's hard to explain but I love the mix of audio books and podcasts with my own personal setting/experiences.

It's like both the place where I'm listening AND what I'm listening to becomes more special to me.

I was kind of blah about King of Shadows until I started listening to it while walking around the Epcot Resort area.  Then the book started feeling magical to me and the Epcot resort area became even more magical.

25. It turns out Jack has Covid.

And Tim is sick now as well...probably with Covid.

I'm wondering if I will join the club.

I hope not.  

26. Our song for Guardians of the Galaxy was "Everybody Wants to Rule the World".  Tim found a playlist of all the possible songs.  He played some of it for us as we drove back to the airport.  

I'm glad we got the song that we did and am thinking I might be dissatisfied if we get one of the other songs the next time we go on the ride.  

27. I might be sort of okay with "One Way or Another"

28. It's been four days since we went on The Guardians of the Galaxy ride.  

The feelings have kind of faded.  

I mean I've forgotten why I loved it so much.

I guess it's kind of like the way mothers forget the pain they felt while in labor.

It's like we remember in a cognitive sense but not emotionally/physically.  

It's almost like I'm confused and mystified by my intense feelings from four days ago.  Was it really THAT amazing or had I been overreacting?  

29. It's official.  Tim has Covid too.

I feel snotty.  It seems likely to be Covid but who knows....

 

Read my novel: The Dead are Online