My big sister takes good care of me.

She kept apologizing when we went dress shopping that none of the sample dresses fit (because they were sample sizes made for people who are not weird shaped like me) in defense of my ego. Then she took me into a salon to get my bangs trimmed so that I would not be so shaggy shaggy sheepdog and would be able to see. Then we got froyo and pedicures. And this morning she willingly got up at 8 AM on a sunday to make me eggs and coffee and send me back to the bus station.

Just saying that she is the best and you all should be jealous.

#historicalfiguresinunlikelyplaces

Last night I had a dream about Buzz Aldrin (the astronaut) talking to me about skydiving. Seeing as Opening Night for Like a Dog in Space went fantastically, I am going to take this as a sign that the universe is smiling at me. Which is a pretty cool feeling to have, all in all. I mean, I don't really know why my subconscious chose last night to pepper my dreams with retired spacemen, or why they were talking about extreme sports, but it left me feeling kind of warm and fuzzy, so it can't have been a bad dream.

Anyways, opening night was brilliant. A friend who I knew was coming showed up, and then I was surprised by another friend who I hadn't seen in about two years, and a fun time was had by all! All three shows this week are really, really strong, and the other two playwrights are really sweet and smart and talented. Like, I could not have asked for a better group of people to spend my last YPF with, and they give me a lot of hope that the festival's going to be A-OK in the future, because they're already giving me a run for my money and they're 2-3 years younger than me.

If you're in LA and reading this blog post in the weekend it was written, I strongly encourage you to come see the show, if not because Emma, Nicole and I are awesome then because the week's cast is amazing and fun to work with and has all kinds of cool credits under their collective belts and it's a 99 seat theater so there are No Bad Seats in the house, pretty much anywhere you sit you will be close enough to feel them spit (if that's what you're into). Or if you don't go this week, go another week, because it will still be just as cool, it just won't be us.

I got some "Soviet Flowers" and lots of hugs:

All of my other pictures are on other people's cameras. This is... just as inconvenient as it sounds, really.

My brother got in last night but he hasn't seen the play yet - that's what he gets to do tonight, or maybe sunday? I'm not sure what the plan is yet. He did steal my contact lenses this morning, but I promised not to tell that whole story so I guess I'll leave it at, "That happened and it was frustrating at the time but hilarious afterwards."

Also my brother says about the flowers, "In Soviet Russia, Flowers smell you!" which is actually kind of funny.

My face hurts from smiling and I only slept like five hours last night because I was really jumpy and excited and I am actually really, really okay with this because I get to go back and do it all again in less than 12 hours, which is awesome.

Also, people who leave during intermission and don't stay for the third play are losers. Because, I mean, I got A WHOLE EXTRA ADJECTIVE in the curtain speech ("fantastic, marvelous little play after intermission") and people still left during intermission and it's lame. Like, the ticket price has gone up since last year, you might as well stay and get your money's worth!

Also, shout-out to my lovely, brilliant, beautiful cousin Faye who is currently spending a month in the hospital after pelvic surgery and a waterski accident. :( I love you and hope you have a smooth recovery!!!!

Also, MINIATURE WATERMELONS ARE ADORABLE. WE ARE EATING ONE FOR BREAKFAST RIGHT NOW AND IT IS THE CUTEST THING EVER. (But not Too Cute To Eat.)

Also, I saw two grown women in full-body pajamas "planking" in the Hollywood and Highland Complex yesterday. Like, I was aware that this was a thing, but do people understand how silly they look? And also, why would you want to lie on those stairs? the whole thing seems vaguely unsanitary to me.

Also, that was a lot of Alsos.

Sensationally yours,

Leez.

I ♥ my mommy

Just to give you an idea of what kind of childhood I had, the biggest fight I've ever had with my mother was that she wasn't mean enough. This ended with me shouting something incomprehensible about "THIS WHOLE FAMILY IS FUCKED UP AND NO ONE SAYS ANYTHING ABOUT IT" and her shouting back, "WHAT, DO YOU WANT ME TO BE AN OGRE?!"

The only thing that this proves is that I was an incredibly melodramatic fifteen year old, and it should be recognized that I have most certainly changed since then.

Anyways, I was talking to a friend a few days ago, and we hit upon the subject that every one of us, if we're lucky, is born with the best mother for us. That means that you might describe something your mother does for you to someone else and they might be like, "Man, that is incredibly fucked up," but to you she's perfect. And I don't know if that's because we grow up to be adapted to our own parents idiosyncrasies, or just because fate is funny. You could argue nature-vs-nurture until the cows come home and it doesn't change the fact that my mother might be perfect for me in an entirely different way than your mother is perfect for you.

When I was in second grade, I had ridiculous second grade projects for which there was always this expectation that your mother was going to help you make your Endangered Species Mask, or your Historical Figure Costume, or your President Macaroni Sculpture, or whatever. My mother... did not help me. And on project day, I had a shitty lemur mask made of construction paper and everyone else had, like, I don't even know, Manatees made with grey paint and cardstock and socks? Pandas hand-crafted out of felt? And I got to class on project day with my sad little mask and was like, "WHAT THE BLEEP IS THIS BLEEP." Because it was so ridiculously clear that I'd done mine all by my second grade self and everyone else's moms had stayed up until 2 AM gluing macaroni to a cardboard giraffe.

And then at some point I realized I was smarter because my mom made me do my own work, and started looking down on everyone whose parents obviously did their projects for them. Thus creating my fifth grade superiority complex.

My mother has always encouraged me to do my own work, and to be proud of my work, and that is why she is the best mommy for me. :)

ALSO, CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR ENGAGEMENT, ELLEN AND HOUMAN.

(I bet you thought I was not going to call you out on my blog, right?)

Were you looking for me?

Don't think I can't see it when you start googling my blog with weirdly specific search terms, guys. I think that the most recent round of weirdness must have come from my family (You searched the URL of the blog plus a really specific phrase... what are you up to?), but it's still sort of weird...

If you guys are weirding out over whether or not there's personal information in this... well, this is a personal blog? If there's ever anything on here that concerns you, though, please feel free to, you know,

USE THE COMMENT BOX

instead of just lurking like the creepers I think you might be?

Correction to previous post:

After some fact checking with other relatives, the award my grandfather received was a bronze star. While I still think there was a story about the purple heart, my dad says he's never heard it before, though he did know my grandfather had been recognized with a service-related disability, which he thought was just pneumonia but which I'd been told was due to some substance he'd been exposed to/inhaled. (Dad also informed me that Bill later had to have a part of his right lung removed in the mid-1950s, which I hadn't known.)

Dad also had a bone to pick with my terming Haym Solomon a "Revolutionary," explaining that he'd funded the american revolution but was hardly a "revolutionary."

To which I respond, I liked my word better!

On a side note, I've been watching my page views and I've noticed they've been approximately twice my usual amount (63 yesterday, 74 so far today, compared to between ten and thirty all throughout last month.) I attribute this mostly to the link being tossed around by family members, but I've hardly got 70+ relatives! I've got my comments set to "Anyone," so don't be afraid to leave me some feedback or follow me. I love to hear from people!

-Leez

Veterans Day (Now with photographs.)

Pop-pop (Bill Goldstein) in uniform, 1942-ish.

So today is veterans day, and I'm sitting here giving a lot of thought to my two favorite WW2 veterans - Bill and Maury Goldstein. I've mentioned my uncle Maury before, in conjunction with a project to record his account of WW2 and my quest for the identity of his kamikaze pilot (no luck there, by the way), but I'm not sure how much I've ever said about my grandfather's service. I still need to sit down and edit the video I took of Maury - I am a horrible niece this way.

Maury, as I've previously mentioned, is the spryest 99-year-old I've ever met. I have a pretty solid account of his travels in WW2, during which he saw more of the world in the course of about five years than most people will see in their entire lives. Maury was born in 1911, so while my grandfather, his younger brother, joined the air force as an enlisted man right out of high school, he'd already finished college and law school. Knowing that he'd wind up serving in the military either way, Maury went to the navy and applied to their legal division. It was full... "But we can give you an armed guard instead," said the recruiter. Maury had no idea what this meant. He went with it.

Armed guard, as it turned out, meant being assigned as the "marine" part of "merchant-marine," manning the large, anti-submarine guns on supply ships crossing the atlantic. He spent one tour on the SS James Turner, during which they lost a coin toss and had to cross the most treacherous part of the Atlantic while their sister ship took the safer southern route. Guess which ship sank in the crossing? I'll give you a hint - my great uncle's still around to tell the story. ;)

Upon returning to the US, they were going to send him to Russia, but at the last second he was called in and offered a post on another ship - they had a new one called the SS Haym Solomon, and they wanted a Jewish captain for a ship named after a Jewish revolutionary. Maury, who wasn't too keen on Russia and had been eying his cold weather gear with quiet disdain, quickly said yes to another two tours of Africa.

What I hadn't known about my great uncle until as recently as this summer, though, was that he'd also served in the Pacific - it was only my grandfather who was discharged once the war ended in Europe. Maury was assigned as an officer on the USS Oconto and he even has a really fantastic "yearbook" with photographs of all the crew, and a map of their ports of call, and pictures from different places they visited. This was very helpful in figuring out some of the islands he was having difficulty remembering when I was interviewing him, but for the most part Uncle Maury was very clear on where they'd been and when.

His Pacific tour is where the story of the Kamikaze comes in. Between ships logs and his own recollection, we've narrowed it down to early April, 1944, off the coast of Biak, and that from there they took their prisoner first to Saipan, and then to Tinian. (The other thing about his story is that it reads like a WW2 version of Forrest Gump - full of lucky breaks, near misses, and unwitting encounters that become important in retrospect. Tinian was the launching point for the atomic bombs.)

Anyway, I'm much sketchier on the details of my grandfather Bill's service in WW2, just that he was extremely proud of it. Next time I see my grandmother I'll have to get her in front of the camera to tell me what she knows about it (my grandfather passed away in 2008). He was the youngest brother, born in 1923 (another brother, Allie, falls somewhere between Maury and Bill, and died in the early 2000s. I'm pretty sure someone told me he was a heavy smoker for most of his life. If not for this and my grandfather's bifurcated heart valve, I'm pretty confident that they'd all three still be around.)

Anyway, my grandfather enlisted into the air force, but he wasn't ever more than ground support. (He was color blind.) I know that he was stationed in North Africa for most of the war, moving around Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, etc, and was later part of the group that moved up through Italy while Eisenhower was taking over northern France. The details are sketchy, and while I know war stories from his time in Africa and Europe, I don't know the chronology and they wouldn't make proper sense out of order. (And besides, I'm saving most of them for a film treatment someday!)

At some point in here, he earned a purple heart for a lung injury. After the war, he had the military wipe the disability from his records because he didn't want to be seen as handicapped. My grandmother tells me that in later years, he regretted this decision.

My mother's father, born in 1910 and as such a year older than Maury at the time, attempted to join the military during world war II and was turned away: he was too tall, had flat feet, and as an engineer, was doing more important things for the war effort outside the military. (Years after the war, in 1956 or so when my mother was a small child, he would move his family from New York City to Orlando to work for a company producing parts for a very different kind of war... the Space Race. However I tend to romanticize this a lot more than Mom says it actually was... Less "Granddad was a rocket scientist!!!" and more "Granddad worked a desk job for a few years and then went and worked somewhere else." I still like to imagine my grandfather diagraming rocket parts in some fabulously 1960s office somewhere in central Florida.)

Earlier today I didn't have pictures, but I have a mother who reads my blog and sends me things. So here we go.

Bill and Maury together, February 2003. (Bill's 80th birthday party.)

Maury's 99th birthday party, August 2010.

(Yes, the fact that these are both at birthday parties speaks volumes about my family.)

Happy Veterans day! Go hug your favorite veteran!

So my brother is blogging now?

Sibling obligation means I have to link him: http://jumbosized.blogspot.com/ However, dear Max, you have done something with your settings so that I can't find the panel to follow you. :| Not so cool, ja?

Yours truly is back at school. I spent last straight days moving in/helping other people move in, and then have sort of done absolutely nothing for the last two. I'll probably be helping people move again later in the week, but for now I think I will actually try to get some work done at some point, maybe.

I hope so. I mean, doing work would be really cool. I still need to finish typing my Tigerlilly stuff (BAD ALIZA) and need to type up my ideas for full-lengths as well. The roomies all seem really chill. :) One of my suitemates is a major major theater buff (also an acting major) and I think I'll probably be seeing more shows this year than last because she knows how to do student rush and such and is going to teach me all the tricks. :D

I've talked to some friends and ideas for one act play festivals on campus have been tossed around. However it was also sort of late at night when these discussions were had so I don't know if things will come to pass or not. It would be kind of awesome.

My half of the dorm room:

We also have a common room and a kitchen, but they're not totally decorated yet.

Also my phone screwed the pooch. I have to announce that here because my friend D. says he absolutely loves that phrase and he never hears anyone use it. So let's say it loud and clear:

Aliza's iPhone screwed the pooch.

Like, seriously, that thing will not even turn on. Mom overnighted me her old one, and fedex says they delivered it, but the RA desk says they won't have all the package slips sorted until five or so. So I'll go check again later; they are holding my phone hostage, man!

Yours from the big apple,

Leez.

Runaways and Vagabonds 2

Apparently, according to my mother, she doesn't even remember the occasion listed in my last post - it doesn't hold a candle to the time when I was seven or eight and went on an adventure with the pool cleaner's kids from next door.

I remember this much about that:

• It was a Friday afternoon. I was in my friday clothes from Jewish day school.
• I was wearing these horrible too-big-for-me blue suede Sketchers

And that's about all I remember. I recall sneaking out the back gate and going down the vacant lot to the river. I remember sneaking around the back fence and across the open back part of the yard that faced the river to meet up with these kids. I remember we trooped across at least five or six yards before we got caught.

I do not remember the aftermath, which my mother describes as this:

"I chewed you out so hard! I told you were never allowed to leave the backyard again! But then that night when I was tucking you in you said it was the most fun you'd ever had in your life and I felt bad, that my daughter was so sheltered that the most fun she'd ever had was going five houses down and I wouldn't even let her leave the back yard, so after that I stopped trying to pen me in."

So apparently no one cares about me running away on my bike. (Mom says it doesn't even count as running away, because I didn't pack a bag and didn't get very far.)

Not as adventurous as she thinks she is,

Leez.

Vagabonds and runaways

When I was nine, I tried to run away from home on my bike.

I got as far as the neighboring subdivision, and then spent the next hour and a half riding around and hiding from my friends' moms who I was sure were looking for me and out to report me to my mom. I went home when it started getting dark and I got hungry, and hoped that they'd felt sorry that I'd been gone. No one really cared. I didn't even get in trouble.

Today I wondered why my mom was always so antsy about me crossing that intersection. It's a three-way stop on a T shaped corner on a two lane road.

War of Attrition

Loading dishwashers in my house is as follows:

• Someone runs the dishwasher and doesn't unload it, because they walk away while it does its thing.
• People pile dishes on the counter, either because the dishwasher is full, the dishwasher is running, or the dishwasher is clean.
• NO ONE LIKES TO PUT DISHES AWAY.
• The clean dishes sit there for a day and a half.
• It becomes a war of staying power: Who will buckle first and change loads?

My dad plays dirty. He eats the smelliest leftovers in the fridge and leaves the dishes on the counter when he goes to work, effectively forcing my hand. If I want a kitchen that doesn't smell like old fish and stale milk, I have to unload this dishwasher in order to get the dirties off the counter.

When I go to school I am going to wash stuff by hand when I am finished using it so I will not have to deal with this.

Looking for a lost kamikaze

My 99-year-old great-uncle has some fantastic war stories. One of my summer projects is to film him telling them, and then edit that film into some coherent account of his World War II adventures. While serving as a gun captain in the Pacific aboard the USS Oconto, my great uncle gave the order to shoot down a kamikaze bomber, and then lead the retrieval team to rescue the pilot. Seventy years later, he is still talking about how he wishes he'd learned this man's name and kept in touch with him! So part of my project is to try and figure out who this mysterious pilot was and what happened to him after the war.

What I know about this guy:

1. He was from Tokyo, but studied engineering for four years at Northwestern.

2. When the war started, he returned to Japan and enlisted in the air force.

3. Where he trained and was deployed as a kamikaze pilot.

4. He was gunned down and taken prisoner on the USS Oconto, off the coast of Biak in the Dutch East Indies, in mid-1944 (April or July).

5. The ship took him first to Saipan, where they were told they did not have room for another POW.

6. They then took him to Tinian, where they turned him over to the POW camp there.

I have every conceivable bit of information I would need to find this guy's name, except the national archives website is so hard to use and it is impossible to get through their phone system to talk to a real person. I've talked to the archives office at Northwestern, which didn't find anything (It's all sorted by names, and if you don't have a name you can't find a name.)

Any suggestions on what to try next?

STOP. WHINING.

A while ago, I typed up a really bitchy post complaining about certain persons in my general vicinity who need to grow a pair and stop complaining about things that, in the grand scheme of things lasting more than three weeks, are totally insignificant. And then I realized that was a dumb idea and I shouldn't post it. However, you really freak the shit out of me when you come into my room and scream about me about "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HOG THE INTERNET?!" and then go back into your room and crash into things screaming about how your life sucks and why do bad things always happen to you?

Please slow down and remember that you are a foot taller than me, of significantly more muscle mass, and that you could probably break my arm with your bare hands.

Yeah.

You're that scary.

No love right now,

Leez.

:(

Today was surreal.

Dad and I took the dog to the vet for an annual checkup. He's officially geriatric. (Eleven years?!) We got Barney when I was in first grade, and while I know he's not exactly a puppy anymore, I don't like thinking about the fact that he's officially old. He doesn't act old, but the chart at the vet's said he's the rough equivalent of a 65-year-old human. I politely disagree, but it doesn't change the fact that today I was sent into Target to buy antacid.

For my dog.

And as I tried to get out of there as quickly as possible, clutching my box of antacid (and nothing else), feeling like antacid is right up there with condoms, feminine hygiene products, and pregnancy tests as "things that are embarrassing to get caught buying," who did I run into but...

My first grade teacher, who happens to also be my neighbor.

Lamely, I confessed that I was buying antacid for my dog.

She told me her dog was constipated.

I told her I couldn't really talk because my dad and my dog were both waiting for me in the car.

It was awkward and kind of hilarious.

Also, even though my dog has bitten him before, the veterinarian likes him because the vet is Irish and my dog is a Wheaten Terrier [an Irish breed]? They put him in a muzzle now whenever we take him there. He doesn't like shots very much. :|

My poor geriatric dog.