Rainy Shabbat morning nostalgic musings.
For a short while when I was young I thought everything had to be beautifully designed, cold, tidy. This was before I realized that my own personal untidiness was not something I was ever going to outgrow, and that I was destined to live my life amid uncontrollable clutter. No beautifully designed modern apartment for me. I'm far too lazy to be bothered to do what has to be done to have such a home. And if I ever find myself with one, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.

Now I'm an ugliness groupie. The little makolet (grocery store) on the corner (sadly there are not many of them left); trees along the sidewalks decorated with homemade notices for apartments to rent, lost dogs, cosmeticians (these days, municipal workers take them down minutes after they’ve been pinned up); a little river of rain water flowing into a drain at the edge of the road, blocked with leaves, plastic bags, the remains of a discarded red umbrella (as long as there’s rain, we’ll always have that).

Life - unplanned, un-designed, just comfortable ugly.

Israel has become more ‘designed’ in recent years than ever before. I find it hard to connect. It seems false.

Some of it is nice. This ‘retro’ trend is nice, even though it tends to be too precise. Hip Sixties/Seventies style restaurants with wooden window frames and aluminum chairs and tables never quite manage to capture the wonderful yuckiness of the real thing.

Do you know what I really miss? I miss real honest-to-God kitsch. I miss Shimi Tavori.

Update: Oh dear. Dad's trying to fix me. Look what he just sent me. I'm feeling panicky. Didn't I just say I liked clutter, or something like that? I joined though. I'm a pushover. Apparently I am now a FlyBaby. Here goes nothing.