emerging from the rabbit hole

friday:

dust. dust in the air, invading through my nostrils and taking hold of my senses. i went for a walk to the cinema to organize tickets, but it's closed for renovations. i continued on to the theatre in dizengoff center, where after confronting an elderly gentleman* i was informed that alice in wonderland wasn't going to be showing.

* for trying to push past three of us who'd been waiting in line. the woman at the next counter was on the phone, and indicated as such - instead of rejoining the queue, he stood there tapping and grunting impatiently.
i asked him why, if she did become available, he deserved to be served before us.
"it's hard in this country"
"you're making it hard."
"i was here before you"
"no, you weren't." (and it's not like he could have missed me, in my yellow shirt and iridium green glasses)

annoyed, i went to blow my nose in the bathroom and then walked to the old, cool cinema north-side. the walk drove me mad - i'd love to blame the tourists, but the crowds were more local - too many people all getting in each others' ways.

two things really got my goat:

1. woman in kiosk. after i told her NIS 15.5 was too much for a coke and a chocolate, she shouted after me "you won't find it cheaper anywhere else!"
why lie? i told her i would, and i did... thirty metres further down.
remarkable.

2. i walked all the way to the north of tel aviv, getting more irritated and dustier by the step, only to remember that the old, cool cinema was replaced a year or two ago by a supermarket.

oops :/

i returned home, napped for a bit, then went to do some serious shopping in preparation for saturday night with SxS and ru55. i didn't have anything kosher for passover, and i came back with enough stuff to last me a good month or so.

i got back into reading leary on drugs on the bus to ra'anana, then met up with ru55, SxS and a friend of his in the park. we went to SxS's to throw darts and enjoy a traditional friday night dinner. i refused seconds owing to the suspicion that there would be good dessert, and i was right - magnificent pavlova ^_^

we threw a few more darts, then headed out to visit the cookie monster. we had a silly time in the park, then returned to call it an early night.

---
i would have passed out immediately, but SxS's friend has a habit of making remarkably wrong comments. my explanation of his mistakes took us down a path of psychoanalysis that brought me to a point where his cognitive dissonance was so strong that he simply ceased to make any sense. i pointed out what he was doing, told him he'd have to work it out himself and promptly fell asleep.

i discovered in the morning that he's a kid with a history of very bad calls, so i can only hope that i've managed to plant a seed that can help. i'm not holding my breath, though.

i must admit, it's the first time i've been told by a sober person with experience with lsd that i've made them feel like they're tripping. psychotropic awareness of the fallibility of our perception, the representative nature of our experiences and the fullness of our communication with the outside world is not mere hallucination - it's also an introduction of reality into the boundaries of one's personal, tiny universe.

---
saturday:

i slept - badly. the couch is comfortable enough, but i wasn't. i was all angles, tossing and turning.

i woke up to a shark tale, then project runway. i actually found the latter fairly interesting.

we dropped off the friend on our way to tel aviv, and began preparing for an evening of alice in wonderland. there was too much traffic perambulating through the square for frisbee, unfortunately. we arrived at the cinema as it was opening, and were not the only ones to lose tickets to the machine so we were sorted out without any hassle.

the movie was amazing. i was sucked in - i actually had to remove my knee from the back of someone's chair in the middle and it was a shock to be pulled out of it, even for a moment. i don't know how much the 3d interfered, i was only aware of tim burton's signature style and the struggle to figure out if there were more layers than met the eye.

walking out of the gat cinema feels like emerging from a rabbit hole. incredibly apt.

i was horrified at just how relaxed my eyes were when we hit the lights of ibn gvirol, and a bit later on i developed a headache that makes me wonder if the readjustment was that hard on them. we spent the evening listening to great music, talking a lot, watching dr horrible's sing-along blog and firefly, and eventually went to bed around 6am. i could barely open my eyes when they left two hours later, and i eventually got up around 11am.

that was when i realized that my plans to go to the doof festival [i didn't remember that i was at the very first one] weren't particularly well thought out...

the story of my travels will have to wait until after i get back from rollerblading.