i have a webpage. whoopdeedoo.

buenos noches amigos! so here i am in Nazca, Peru. finally got my facebook working after not being able to change the computer over to English (and therefore having to do some special code to get the ¨at¨sign. huh... and apparently there´s no end bracket either. silly spanish keyboards. i´ll just make do

lima was pretty good. big busy city mostly, a lot of which stank of urine and garbage water. blech. but there were some nice, odorless sights too. the coolest thing was the mist. in the mornings and the evenings there was a thick blanket of fog that rolled in off the ocean. so cool.

moving on. we booked our bus to lima which was to depart at 930am. we hopped in the taxi and said which bus station we needed. with about 10 minutes to spare we pulled up. to the WRONG STATION. sure, it was the right bus company, but not the station we needed. no one told us there were two! so we raced rapido rapido to the correct location where we ran in at 929. no bus to be seen. crap, did we miss it¿ we went to the ticket booth where the woman just shook her head and said ¨no boose, cancelado¨. next boose at 130pm. ugh! so we decided to wander away from the pee air at the bus station and go find a coffee. no problem, right¿ ha! we walked for an hour and a half before finding a coffee. and there was no milk. 20 minutes later we finally found milky coffee. unfortunately it tasted like battery acid and was undrinkable.

okee dokee, so 4.5 hours later than planned, we hit the highway. and here we are in nazca, where i took a nauseating plane ride in a 3-seater cesna to view the nazca lines. we´ve opted to take a day bus tomorrow instead of an overnighter, seeing as it says the night buses are sometimes suject to hijackings, violent robberies, or just plain old fatal accidents. it´s an extra $20 but that seems worth it not to end up smooshed at the bottom of a cliff.

so that´s it for now. oh yeah, shitty thing happened today. my camera broke. piece o junk. i was and am upset about that. but what can ya do¿ okay. more later. fingers crossed our bus doesn´t crash. adios muchachos.

i don't really have much to muse about, but i've got 25 minutes to kill before the online jeopardy test begins. yup, i'm an uber-nerd, working my birthday plans around taking a test for a quiz show. but it'll totally be worth it when i beat ken jennings' record as all time jeopardy champ and undeniable trivia guru.

so my birthday has been pretty good so far. both my mom and dad called and sang me happy birthday this morning, as per long standing tradition. i had a nice walk to work. i had a good day for calls. i was taken out for a couple of beers after work. and now i'm waiting anxiously for the jeopardy test. alex trebek is looking right at me as the clock counts down. 18:00 minutes to go, eek!

and of course i forgot my glasses at work. i NEVER forget my glasses, but it's inevitable i would on a day i want them. but now when i fail miserably i'll just blame it on poor eyesight.

alright, the waiting is driving me bonkers. i'm going to pace around for a bit. wish me luck...

so here we are: 2009. time sure is zipping by these days. have i really already had this blog for 4 years?? yikes.

new years was nice and quiet this year. i went for dinner with a whole bunch of good friends, went back and played some board games around the fire, and then my boyfriend and i went back to his place around 11pm, where we played cards and watched the ball drop in NY. it was very enjoyable.

this has been a full year. i think back a year, and it seems so long ago. the newness of my job, the people i was hanging around with, it's quite different now. and what highs and lows this year! the wedding and traveling around israel, michael's death... but i don't feel like reflecting too much at this moment. right now i'm very content with where i am, and i'm looking forward to the potential of this new year. things are going well for me. work is satisfying, i've got a great family and terrific friends, and now to put that extra twinkle in my eye, i've met someone who makes me ridiculously happy and who loves me. yep, life is grand. i think 2009 will be a good year.

as i mentioned, i found my old journals and have been enjoying flipping through them. i thought it'd post a few excerpts. these are from my first ever diary. spelling mistakes as originally written.

Thursday, January 7, 1988
Dear Diary,
In exactly two weeks it will be my birthday (on my piano lesson night) and i have to go to music. that really ticked me off, well see ya.
math was never my strong suit, it was actually 3 weeks til i turned 11

Friday, Feb 12, 1988
Dear Diary,
mom said she was no good at chess. lately everybody has beaten me and i need incouragement. the next thing i know she says "i guess i'll put you in check". she didn't even know she put me in checkmate! maby i shouldn't be mad, i thought for once i was going to win. the worst part is she went and was telling my dad evreything. she went and bragged! she asked me if i was writing about her. well i'm not going to tell her, i'm not! now i never want to play chess again.
wow, i've always been a poor sport. and stubborn: i never did play chess again

Jan 2, 1990
Dear Diary,
Well well. HAPPY NEW YEAR! 1990! 1990! 1990! i can't believe it. the end of a whole decade. last time it changed decades i was only turning 3. now i'm turning 13! just wait, here's something even harder to believe. next time i'll be turning 23!!! WOW!!! now that's what i call a big deal!
crazy, the days when i thought 23 was old...

Feb 17, 1990
Dear Diary,
I'm 13 now! Yeahh! Yahoo! Well, actually i don't know if i should say that. Life as a teen isn't supposed to be that hot. Oh well, it seems the same to me. so far at least.
oh, ghost of amanda past, you are so wise. those were some crappy years to come!

that's all for now folks. stay tuned for more peeks at amanda's formative years.

rummaging... i do this quite often in my spare time. my family has never been quick to throw things out, so we've got boxes of old mementos to sift through. certain things remain simply because they've been put away and forgotten, while the nostalgic and sentimental value of others is more evident. i've been enjoying some good rummaging today, and here are some of the little treasures and surprises i've come across.

- my old sports walkman and a pile of tapes (rock on, bryan adams)
- rainbowed "amanda" stickers from grade 1 (i'm going to put one on my computer at work)
- a can of coke from russia, best before 11/96 (completely evaporated)
- 4 cans of NZ beer, circa 1996 (those can't be good)
- name tags, order pads and packs of matches from the olive garden (along with completed comment cards saying what an excellent server i was! why didn't i hand those in??)
- jurassic park trading cards, magazines, stickers, calendars and other merchandise (oy, so embarrassing)
- mr sketch smelly markers (mmm, cinnamon)
- a stack of Mad magazines (what, me packrat?)

but i've found what i was looking for. the good stuff. all my old letters and postcards dating back over 15 years. remember that postcard you sent me from your grade 9 trip to seaworld? i still have it. the letters sent to me while i lived abroad? all safely filed away. but there's more. i have the letters i sent too. that's right, i'm a nerd and keep carbon copies or photocopies of all of my outgoing letters. anything i've ever written to you, whether mailed or hand-delivered, i have a copy of it. and then of course there are the journals, going back to 1988.

i'm going to go read for a bit now. i'm sure i'll have some goodies to share as i go through!

thank god for them! sure, first impressions make one hell of an impact, but that's just a glance at the surface. luckily we don't have to adhere to our initial judgments of someone. and that can work in their favour or against them.

i've been unimpressed upon first meeting some people. for whatever reasons i don't like them or maybe i just don't find them noteworthy. but then they can surprise me once i get to know them a bit better. sometimes the change of heart is sudden, sometimes it evolves over time. i've been good friends with a girl since high school, and yet when we first met i thought she was a snob. i don't think she liked me much either. thank goodness for second chances!

of course it can go the other way too. that first impression can blow me away. and when this is the case i find it harder for those re-evaluations to take hold. that early conception that they are fun, interesting, exciting, whatever... it can blind me to the unfavourable reality. perhaps i don't want to see the truth because the persona i originally imagined is so much more pleasing. but once again, first impressions aren't immutable. a single act can open my eyes, or maybe my vision clears over time. and what a relief!

it's not always easy to accept that i've been wrong about someone, but in the end i'm so grateful. abandonning my first impressions has allowed me to develop true friendships with wonderful people, and ditch the losers that are nothing more than a charming facade.

some people just don't care. the world is all about them and they will do whatever it takes to improve their lot, regardless of who is hurt along the way. there have been several incidents in the past week that have upset me, i will just mention the last. today i tried to appeal to a person's sense of humanity, asked them to have compassion, find it in their heart to do the right thing. but they remained unmoved. tears meant nothing, heartache and grief "not their problem". i don't remember the last time i've felt such coldness. usually i have a fairly positive outlook and i believe that people are inherently good. but suddenly, all i could see was a world rampant with greed and selfishness.

we did not leave the situation completely defeated, but his eventual concession was not a victory. he just got fed up and provided enough to get rid of us. is that the majority of the world? are people just callous and indifferent to one another? are respect and empathy for your fellow man only weaknesses? nice guys finish last, they say! at times i just want to say fine, fuck you all, i can be just as hard and self-serving!

...i feel somewhat better now. i had my favourite ice cream with my sister, talked to a few people back home, and thought about my wonderful family and friends. i am lucky to have people i can count on, people with good hearts, people that care. and occasionally i'll even meet a kind stranger that reaffirms my faith in humankind.

i will encounter plenty of assholes in this world, but i will not let them set the moral standard. maybe nice guys finish last, but i for one, am not willing to win at any cost.

it was a long and brave fight, and it came to a merciful end this morning. the call came at 3am, and we were there within minutes. we were all with him for his last hours, my mom, jennie and me, holding his hand, playing his favourite music, my mom reassuring him he didn't have to be afraid and she would always be with him. we cried. finally, death rolled into the room like an invisible fog and lovingly took michael in its quietening embrace.

my mom read a beautiful passage: "let us treasure the time we have, and resolve to use it well, counting each moment precious - a chance to apprehend some truth, to experience some beauty... to love and be loved, to achieve something of worth. help us to fulfill the promise that is in each of us, and so to conduct ourselves that, generations hence, it will be true to say of us :the world is better because, for a brief space, they lived in it"

michael and i had a bit of a rocky past, disagreeing, butting heads and arguing on many occasions. but we also had great conversations, and honest and straightforward opinions exchanged. he even ended up being a compassionate ear, understanding and comforting, in a time when i felt heartbroken and lost. we had a colourful history, but colour enriches our lives!

this has been a surreal experience returning to israel. the last time i was here, just a short while ago, was for jennie and shabi's wedding. it was all about love, celebration, joy, beginnings, and family. now we sit here with eyes puffy from tears, reflecting on the past, saying goodbye, and feeling the grief of loss.

but it isn't all different. it's still about family. and this visit is, without a shadow of a doubt, all about love.

today is fairly cloudy here in israel, unlike yesterday which was gorgeous and sunny. not that it matters what the weather is like, it's all irrelevant when seen through a window in a hospital room.

writing helps me through emotional times, so i'm sorry if anyone finds this inappropriate or upsetting. don't read it if that's how you feel.

it's been a while since i've been around anyone who was sick. ...."sick". no, that's not right. that's my way of softening the truth. it's been a while since i've been around anyone who was dying. and i don't think i've seen anyone like this.

he shakes a lot, drifting in and out of consciousness. he speaks very little, only a handful of words a day. when we arrived he definitely knew us, although there have been other times when i didn't see that flicker of recognition in his eyes. his hands are constantly moving, tugging at the sheets or miming some imagined activities. some of these gestures we can't identify, most of them we can. he'll be pointing, or kissing his tallit (or other jewish ritual)... or having a cigarette. that's the worst. dying of lung cancer, and his hands are still going through the motions of smoking.

we had some excitement just a moment ago. he sat up, eyes totally alert, and with our help, he stood up! his eyes lit up, he was with us, really with us. but he's tired out now. so he lays back, holding my mom's hand to stop him from shaking as she hums a soothing tune, and we return to our chairs and our books.

this is sad, and disturbing, and i don't know how my mom copes. i've only been here for two days and i feel this heaviness all around, crushing down on me, my heart pounding and my blood rushing. sometimes it's overwhelming and i want to escape outside. but i don't. this is no time to be selfish. this is no time to avoid that which is upsetting. this is when we must be strong. if he reaches out, we will be there to offer a hand.

sometimes people take me off their facebook friends list and i couldn't care less. people paring down their lists to a manageable number, casting off the casual acquaintances and others who fall into that "facebook friends, but not real friends" category. totally acceptable and understandable, i've deleted a few myself.

but today i noticed a certain someone was no longer on my friends list and it was like a kick to the stomach. i thought we were okay. i thought we could go back to just being friends. it meant a lot to me; i cared about him. i still do, he's a good man. and i think i hurt him. i never wanted that and he definitely didn't deserve it.

i wish i didn't have to lose him as a friend, but it seems i have no say in it. i didn't want him out of my life, but he's gone. i cried when i realized this. i feel terrible that i caused it. i tried to do the right thing, but i guess i'd left it too late.

i know you'll never read this, but i'm sorry. i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry. tu me manques.

such a strange and powerful thing. it's either there or it isn't. you can't explain it. you can't force it. and you definitely can't control it.

in high school, when our class wasn't paying attention or someone gave a bit of rebellious teenage attitude, our chemistry teacher would tell us "chemistry will punish you!". i always thought that was funny.

i think in general people understand the importance of having chemistry with someone. you can list off all the great things about a person, all the reasons why you should want them, but it does no good. something is missing, and infinite items in the pro column can't outweigh that one little fact on the con side.

i hate chemistry. i hate that i need it so much, i hate that i can't choose where it happens, and i hate that i've let it have so much control over me. i've accepted that it is something i am not able to do without, but i also know it can't be the only thing. other than that i have no idea what i'm doing.

chemistry will punish me alright. i have no doubt about it.