#but October has famously been a shit month for my mental health

[lunarrosette]

When my mental health is going to shit u will always be there nark tag on ao3 and tumblr and u will save me

[girlactionfigure]

MEORAV YERUSHALMI

LEE KERN

A few weeks back I met a girl and we got on famously and it was about as fine a mental dance as it’s possible to have as we grew hooked on each others minds. But because life is life - and life is always complicated - things didn’t pan out for reasons that wouldn’t stand out in the history of why things don’t work out for people that meet. So I was feeling mopey and also burned out from the war. 

I’m by no means at the epicentre of suffering in this war but fighting for nine months - using my mind and emotions as my weapons - and having to be emotionally unguarded in order to be a good writer - takes its toll and I’ve been slowing down. It’s hard to shovel out the shit at the pace it goes in and there’s a huge backlog of sludge and slime. And who even has the time to deal with their shit when there’s a war on? I keep going because, even after nine months, there aren’t many people on the substitute bench. There’s only a handful of us doing this on instinct - without any support - and some have already dropped out. 

So I was feeling burned out and mopey. For my own health I’d already pivoted my advocacy away from the bleakest stuff as I couldn’t breathe that atmosphere all the time. But I’d been asked to fly to London to help raise money for the rehabilitation of Kibbutz Be’eri which was among the worst hit on October 7th. On the train platform going to the event I felt my head and heart clogging up with that familiar sodden feel and I pulled my hat low as the moist eyed bullshit started and images of dead babies popped in. And walking to the theatre I was so down over the girl and had images of a person’s flesh burned off their head and the baked case of their skull exposed and white. And the bonhomie of those at the theatre and the excited performers happy to see me and calling me a “legend” jarred with my private feelings of wanting to be alone and cry with my melancholy. And that ain’t good. When you got emotions denser than gravity that pull you to the floor it’s time to break free of that bullshit and get off your arse. Move your body and hopefully your brain and heart will catch up. So when I landed back in Israel I decided to go to Jerusalem the following day for no more than to get a meorav yerushalmi. That was it. That was my mission. To eat my favourite meal consisting of chicken hearts, liver and spleen. Admittedly there’s not a very crowded marketplace of dishes consisting of chicken hearts, liver and spleen - but inasmuch as there is - it’s meorav yerushalmi for me.

So I walked to Hagana station. Last time I did this walk I was dropping off a friend at night. The streets that night were menacing and full of piss. But now, in the daytime, the streets were quiet and the urine smells had gone. It seems urine is nocturnal? The odours prowl at night. In the day the sun blitzes them invisible. A crazy man with beer shouted at me in Hebrew. I didn’t understand but gave him a military salute and he saluted me back and smiled. I managed to get on my train with the ease of someone becoming a local, as opposed to the first time I used public transport. Today’s mission to get a meorav yerushalmi was the beginning of a broader decision to try and have two weeks “holiday” away from war stuff so I could recharge and shovel out big chunks of crap. I was tired of being hijacked by sadness and tired of feeling like shit when well meaning people told me I had helped them and made them laugh. The juxtaposition of what others apparently got from me and what I was feeling inside was tough. I needed to help myself. I needed to laugh. And man, I’m so desperate for a laugh. True, holy laughter where your soul is cleansed in the total abandonment of all self.

I arrived at Jerusalem-Yitzhak Navon Station and a frummer was playing piano by the escalator. It was appropriately melancholy and sentimental. I left the station and there was immediate bustle. People were selling grapes and berries and a guy in tefillin was playing rock music. I got a coffee and sat on Jaffa street. A man was playing saxophone. There is music everywhere here. Even in the silences.

I walked to a place I’ve been before and got my meorav yerushalmi. The purpose of the trip. It was really average. But I never expected it to be an epiphany. Life hasn’t signed any contract with our dreams. Magic isn’t summoned on command. It comes when it wants to come.

I happened to meet a police officer whose job is to monitor incitement in the Arab sector. Those who do engage in incitement - like antisemites across the world - have learned how to code their racism and murderous intent so that it camouflages itself as being on the right side of the law. It’s an ongoing challenge. I can’t remember how but she brought up the guy who had his head cut off and which terrorists tried to sell in Gaza. His head was eventually recovered and buried with his body. My holiday was so far going great. Seriously for a moment…this is an insane world we are living in. We are modern people surrounded by mediaeval barbarians. 

I then thought I’d pop into the Kotel that Jews have fought and suffered and striven to see for thousands of years - and which I can now casually stroll to in my shorts whilst sipping a coke.

I went through Jaffa Gate.

In the Jewish Quarter I saw a dead lizard on the floor whilst walking through the alleys towards the wall. It was belly up. Its stomach glittered with aquamarine beauty. Like dragon skin and sapphire-emeralds undersea. There were gloopy blue shades and peacock-coloured depths and shallows of light on its tiny, implausibly intricate body. Its belly was a disco ball of sky coloured mirrors and its tiny legs were open to the universe.

The sun was baking.

I got to the Kotel plaza. A man asked me to put on tefillin but I declined. I went to a spot on the wall and rested my head against it. But no feeling came. I was sterile and blank. I just stayed in that position. With my eyes shaded by stone. It was ok to be in darkness. Then music penetrated the emptiness and entered my ears. There was a bamitzvah close by. And when they sang a happy song I got emotional. Everything has been so far from happy for so long. Joy feels like a foreign land. It’s nice to hear a message from this distant country. It feels foreign, but happiness was a country where we once lived. It was our home. And that’s why I cried to hear. I’m so sad how far we are from home. Hearing my mother tongue, reminding me of the language of the old country, made me homesick. We can’t be refugees exiled from happiness forever. We have to remember the language. The map back home is inside us. The more we remind each other the more we remember.

The sun was baking.

I went and sat in the catacombs by the wall, writing these words as men davened around me. I don’t know how to live sometimes, but I know how to write. So I wrote. The dirge of voices mumbling in prayer becomes a hypnotic din. It’s quite relaxing. Maybe that’s what heaven sounds like. A womb like pulse of prayer you lose your self in. 

I popped out of the moment and gathered my stuff to go. When you know it’s time to leave you know it’s time to leave.

I walked back to the Jerusalem Light Railway. Checking my phone I saw a message inviting me to a gig tonight which I declined. Also a voicemail from a number I don’t know asking me if I’m in the market for a shidduch. I didn’t answer. I wasn’t looking for these things today. I got on the train at Jerusalem-Yitzhak Navon Station. A group of older women were noshing on something and speaking in Hebrew. I don’t know what they were saying but they started laughing and it made me laugh.

Then a Muslim lady got on and asked me in Hebrew if it was the train to Tel Aviv. I told her I didn’t know and that my Hebrew was shit and she laughed. Then she and I made eye contact and laughed privately with each other across the aisle as the train filled up with tired, harassed and angry people having a balagan with each other. One young girl absolutely horrified that people wouldn’t move further down the carriage. Then two young soldier girls came on and they were laughing hysterically with each other about something and that made me laugh. Me and the muslim girl laughed again when we made eye contact. It wasn’t the Golden Laugh that cures all. But every laugh is a jewel that heals something, I guess, and I found them because I went in search of meorav yerushalmi when feeling gloomy.

Feeling gloomy over girls and massacres! How many times have we heard that story??!! 

We’ve all been there!

And then we moved and My God the hills as the train pulled out. Once again those bloody hills.

Jerusalem don’t ever stop.

Some people call you crazy?

Then you are the perfect city for life - because life is crazy.

As the train glided past Ben Gurion I felt a bit better.

Today I visited the Temple where God is closest to earth. When I got back to Tel Aviv I bought some fabric conditioner so I could put a wash on when I got back home.

And that is a good day.

LEE KERN

JUL 5

[longeyelashedtragedy]

this has been the most wild fuckin year so let’s do a Year in Review shall we

in terms of internet and fandom life, that is. my real life has been atrociously boring but who cares about real life amirite folx

january probably the only calm month of the year.  i spent the first day of the month watching the brazilian inauguration in burgos, spain with one headphone in, while ordering for my family in a restaurant where nobody spoke english (my sister speaks decent spanish, but my whole family has like 8194814 food restrictions so it kind of went past her level of ability). translating between spanish and english with portuguese in one year was kind of awesome. i watched bodyguard and it was amazing!  what else...in january i briefly owned the issue of spanish GQ with Luka on the cover which i then forgot about until november. other than that...? nada.  the calm before the storm. (fav music)

february was so long ago that i keep forgetting how insane its 28 days were.  probably the wildest month of the year really. i got involved in an absolutely batshit and exclusive group chat with a famous person’s family member (which must remain confidential). it was all sunshine and rainbows for a week and a half and it then devolved into the most absolutely insane Lord of the Flies situation ever--it turned into 1 main chat and then 1 chat that was less puritanical than the main chat, and that chat spawned another chat that didn’t trust the previous chat, and then that chat had a massive argument and a like 6-person bitchy chat modded by a gay guy who does voodoo (shoutout to ALCIDES) spawned from that one.  i made it into every level of group chat and was asked by the tiny bitchy chat to spy on the other bitchy chat (i did not lol). i was a member of the tiny bitchy chat until i got a new phone and was logged out of whatsapp for like a month.  these words can’t even convey what this chat was like--oh and did i mention it was all conducted in only my 3rd-best language? it’s no wonder my weird ass survived middle school almost entirely unscathed.  as this was winding down, on the very last day of the month, I found out about Justin’s involvement in the SNC-Lavalin scandal and decided to go public about my years-long boner for him; Lavscam definitely changed the course of the rest year ~ Oh, also i began helping to repair a friendship that had had some Drama go down so that was p cool ~ (fav music)

march was a Time. The insanity of lavscam helped me finally finish the macdeau I started writing the previous December when a bunch of tungelr people called me disgusting for writing it.  i wrote my first straight-up serious explicit porn in years which has wound up being the third-longest thing i’ve ever published on ao3. Also, Hozier released Wasteland, Baby! which made a huge impact on me as well.  i spent like half of march staying up till 3:30 am writing said Long Fic, and i was firmly in the closet about stanning manu. also justin almost got a vote of no confidence or something and he got busted for eating a chocolate bar during a parliamentary all-nighter.  (fav music)

in april i wrote a ton of fanfic thanks to declining mental health(tm).  i think this is when i started my emmanuyell insta account and became really into making weird edits (which i still love doing just...don’t anymore.)  i started meeting some cool people thanks to macdeau.  what else happened in april? i feel like it wasn’t actually too eventful other than writing a lot of fanfic and being Annoyed about manu.  feel free to jog my memory lol.  oh i think i wrote “Okay so who from the French national team are we gonna ship Manu with” on twitter after seeing photos of manu + antoine griezmann at the World Cup but nothing came of that...at that time... (fav music)

may saw me having to deal with my shit mental health and up my meds but that seems to have had a good effect because i seem to not be too depressed to write in the winter/fall anymore! it was the 2nd anniversary of manu’s election and at the Christchurch Call in paris, macdeau took that amazing fairytale princess photo together that was completely unrivalled in Gay Shippy Feels moments until ivan went out of his way to kiss luka during the el clásico gameplay last wednesday. someone wrote ao3′s first griezmanu drabble and at the end manu gets down on his knees in front of antoine, takes off his shoes for him, and sucks his dick, and i achieved another state of being entirely.  my sister graduated from grad school and when we went down to DC for the weekend i went to eat at this restaurant manu famously ate at while there and ordered the same stuff he did and i have no idea how he consumed all that grease.  i learned about the song O Come, O Come, Emmanuel *snort*. i feel like other things happened in may too?  OH YES--i got the idea for my magnum opus, Trophy Boyfriend, and started to write it. the first scene i wrote was justin blowing manu in the hallway. then the same day i wrote the scene at the airport (which was the ending for a solid month and half till i realized it shouldn’t be), and the saddest scene in the fic--but we’ll stop to open presents.  oh! and i stumbled across the macronists discord chat which is such a delightful little community *weepy sniffles* (fav music)

june was Eventful.  a french neonazi on tumblr told me to go let manu fuck me in the ass because i was a fucking degenerate.  what a start!  then came the ceremony in which manu awarded everyone on the french national team the legion of honor medal and the way he and antoine looked at each other was truly...Wait it was the 3rd Gay Shippy Feels moment of the year.  as soon as the ceremony was over i wrote a fic about it and haven’t looked back.  between this + watching almost every 2018 World Cup game and the women’s world cup (during which I cried during argentina’s last game because of that miraculous penalty) i finally achieved my years-long goal of getting into Futbol(TM).  Antoine dropped his spotify playlist and my crush on him turned into Intense Love (TM) and also he introduced me to some legit awesome artists.  which led to (fav music)

july, in which i wrote “ça c’est ma dope” which is definitely the best thing i’ve written since i wrote “modernity towering in front of the sky” almost exactly 10 years before. got embroiled in Soccer Transfer Drama and learned its pain for the first time (unfortunately, since i wound up attaching my heart-wagon to barça’s Suddenly Least Favorite Player, the transfer drama pain has...never ended) became a full-fledged culé, O the joy O the honor.  i wanted to ship antoine with someone on the team, which in their current chemistry-less season is a real challenge, but after seeing a few photos i decided it would be fun to casually ship antoine + ivan rakitic (partially because, ever since i went from Enemies to Lovers with the croatia NT during the World Cup, he was one of the only players i knew anything about other than messi, suárez, and piqué lmao). while looking on ao3 to see what kind of headcanons people had about him--and the fic is definitely in general better than what’s out there about antoine, which is perplexing because antoine is much easier to write than ivan--i found That Amazing Rakidric Fic and thought “oh wait that ship makes a lot of sense” and started also shipping ivan and luka with the fire of a thousand suns.  oh and my air conditioner was broken for like 3 weeks. i worked on more fics, seriously outlining the path of Trophy Boyfriend, and my music taste was killer. (fav music)

in august i finished Trophy Boyfriend in my neighborhood Starbucks after writing the scene that was giving me the most trouble (the scene at the beginning where they’re organizing their book collection). the fic has made multiple people cry and people disagree on whether justin’s choice at the end was the right one and god i’m so proud of it.  Instantly went on to write ‘i might not mind,’ a lively lighthearted Friends to Lovers ivantoine~ romp which was definitely going to be a one-off and i was definitely not going to get an extra celeb crush out of it,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, (fav music)

in september ivantoine became A Thing in my mind and it’s a whole ongoing slow-burn character-arcy series that has taken a very different turn than i had expected. i’m not saying it’s like, the most deep writing of all time, but it’s gone to some interesting places emotionally. honestly, ships and boners aside, the concept of a person who made some really stupid homophobia 101 comments many years ago slowly realizing over and over again that they have gay feelings for a man who seems rather comfortable with gayness is a fascinating one and one that’s really cool to explore in writing.  Or at least, i think so.  in many ways ivan is my most unreliable narrator because of the many layers of Discomfort, Emotion and Repression at play in the fic while he’s interacting with this pretty cheery and uncomplicated seeming-dude who’s still perceptive enough to sort of know what’s going on (and that’s not even adding in the star player/falling from grace former rockstar dynamic!!!)  i know in the current climate it’s Not Allowed to write about someone who said a bad, but luckily i’m too old to give a Fuck. ivantoine is hard to write but it’s my bff’s favorite ship of mine and has a few other excited fans on ao3 which tbh is kind of an accomplishment considering i made it up out of thin air and it’s not something you’d ever think would be a thing. instantly also developed ‘getting called out about ivan by a child on the internet’ as a goal.  and...i achieved my dream of leading high holiday services!!! (fav music)

october had more high holiday services and i worked a lot on certain fics (including d*janfic which would be fun to finish). i came up with the idea of a Very Long Rakidric Fic based on the translation of a gorgeous croatian folk song i sang in college (Janko fell asleep under the poplar/My dear and beloved/My beautiful dark eyes/Look at me/Under the poplar's golden branch/My dear and beloved/My beautiful dark eyes/Look at me/I tore off the golden branch/My dear and beloved/My beautiful dark eyes/Look at me--in which the golden branch is a reference to a way to get into the underworld). decided to start quarter-assedly learning croatian for fun.  Fun...ha.  other than fangirling a lot and watching the croatian NT play, october was pretty uneventful? i think? Justin got reelected and mauricio didn’t ;( (fav music)

in november i finally achieved my dream of having a literal child on the internet call me out about being attracted to a homophobe.  (they were a madridista even!) accidentally started writing some more rakidric and now i’m seriously hooked.  also accidentally came out of the closet about the secret crush i’d been harboring on luka modric and then one fateful day in the ihop on 14th st i realized i’d had this crush already and repressed it from my memory. Don’t do that kids! now it’s Hurting Really Bad. Ivan dropped the most pathetic and candid interview like...ever and i hope “¿Cómo puede disfrutar uno? Jugando al fútbol. ¿Cómo se siente mi hija pequeña cuando le quitan un juguete? Triste. Yo me siento igual. Me han quitado la pelota, me siento triste” goes down in the history of most epic futbol quotes of all time.  (still haven’t actually been able to watch this because no one has uploaded it anywhere)  What else...............Am i forgetting anything? i celebrated my birthday with @tender-vittles in epic fashion after two years of Not doing that, and turned 32 going on 15.  enjoyed my first-ever “x reader” fic (zlatko dalic x reader LOL) and finished “drive your plow over the bones of the dead” which was real fucking good. i saw hozier live and it was a religious experience and i unexpectedly cried during nina cried power and then called myself “Luka B” when ordering at the classy taco bell across the street after getting a glimpse of alexxx ryan in the flesh. (fav music)

now it’s december and my seasonal depression is a little worse than it’s been the past few years but i’m managing.  still shipping and writing and i just got called out about ivan again last week.  i’m 2 for 2 here!  el clásico was boring but also it was gay and my heart my heart my heart ! Anything could happen in the last 10 days of this year and honestly...I’m pretty sure I’m ready.

Most importantly this year, despite it being not that great in a lot of ways, I developed a lot more self confidence, made many important realizations, and became a lot more peaceful (despite how this post makes me sound) and wiser and less bitter and pessimistic.  And i became outspoken enough about antisemitism on the left to lose friends over it...3 for 3.  i can’t say i’m displeased with these developments.

Hasta 2020! <3