3/3/06

  Still don’t know what i’m going to do about the crook. I keep imagining my phone ringing and someone saying "Drop this matter if you like having your head connected to you body". Or something….

   Yesterday we were watching the movie "Invasion of the Barbarians", which in Hebrew was more aptly called "Heart to Heart Conversations". There was this group of maybe 50-55 year olds, remembering the past at the beach house that belonged to one of them. At some point someone in the movie lit up a joint, and they started passing it around and laughing. And I looked at Nir and said "Beer-Sheva, 2026", and we both laughed our heads off because Beer Sheva is where we have friends who smoke and supply. We could just Imagine the same gang, in 20 years, as old and run over as the people on TV. I imagined all our friends 50 years old. Bald, pudgy, waiting patiently for retirememnt. With teenaged kids. It seemed so funny.

  And then it didn’t. I started trying to figure out if i’d gotten the date wrong. 2025 didn’t seem so far away. But we’d be 50. It’s true, since we’re 30 now. it really made me panick. suddenly. 20 more years until we start being old! And we’re not even adults yet! Not when we’re with the Beer Sheva crowd anyway. We haven’t done anything that adults do. No kids, no real careers, no huses of our own, no thinking like adults. We’re just beginning! And here we are, almost winding up towards the ending. 20 years aren’t enough time to cram all of that life into.

  Yesterday I had another weird incident at work. Not as weird as the last one, but still. I went to interview two men, who are partners in a certain venture. They work with each other, but not on a daily basis. Anyway, as I was sitting down, the younger guy said "does anyone want anything to drink? Any fruit? Dew? PR woman? Well, not you (= colleague) because you don’t really need it".

  I was shocked and apalled, and so was the colleague. He got that look peaople have in the minute after someone says something insulting, you know? Where you’re wondering if you actually heard right and if you should make a fuss? When you still have the chance to pretend it didn’t happen. And then he said "what do you mean". And the other guy says: "oh, you know, you’re a healthy guy". And i really believed he meant that the guy was the picture of health and therefore didn’t need fruit, but could rather go with chocolate, for instance. I really fealt that I HAD to believe that was what he meant, even if I didn’t really.

  And then when we were getting up to leave, the young guy says "You have to agree with me that not all of your interviewees are as good looking as this guy". And now I was sure he was joking about that guy’s weight. It was still inimaginable – like the part in Fight Club where Tyler splices pictures of big penises into kids movies and all of the kids cry? I coulnd’t imagine this normal-looking impressive-speaking very-high-up-the-heirarchy guy would actually dispense such crude, stupid jokes in the middle of a VERY FORMAL meeting.  I was weirder than if he’d worn a clown nose with his suit. And much sadder. This guy, the collegue (who’d actually saved lives in his previous career!) was about the age of my father and pretty much the same shape – pretty much the same shape anyone his age is. What did he ever do to anyone that made it right to humiliate him at an official meeting? Nothing, of course. And he wasn’t taking it nicely. I could tell he was hurt and bewildered just like I was. Adn then, as we’re walking out, younger guy leans over and whispers to me "look at me get at him" and then he says "Hey, she wants to put a picture of you in the paper!". To which i had something intelligent to say finally: "Yeah, I do want your picture and I will send our photographer to take it… unless you have a special one that you like and then you could just send it to us…" hoping I had saved him from another embarassing moment.

  The thing is, although the coplleague was the one who left the meeting feeling hurt, I feel nothing but respect for him. As opposed to the younger one, who – WTF was that???? I met him once before and though him a really ok person. No more. Not only does he seem cruel to me, but also stupid. Did he realkly think I would enjoy that act? Or that PR Woman would? She wanted to crawl into the floor just like me.

What an idiot…