Isle of Joy

You have to know that 24 hours is less than 24, that a minute is faster here than elsewhere. You have to look out for dogshit, but also spit—even from girls—sometimes great swaths of it that may leave you dancing in tuberculophobic dismay.

You have to know the difference between taking things seriously and taking them personally. Still, you have to develop a few clipped words and phrases for when the crazies (who are not some televisory myth—they are here, just not in the numbers suspected by the residents of, say, Boise, or Wichita)—a few clipped words and phrases for when the crazies bump in to you hard and on purpose—go out of their ways so they can say "Hey! Are you watching where you're going? I mean, can you actually see where you're going?" They say this with an angry gladness as they wheel around, rocks in the stream of pedestrian traffic, so they can make people turn and stare at you while you fumble at the bridge of your nose for the glasses you know are no longer there, then narrow your eyes in some disdain and turn away wondering "What the fuck is your problem?"—because even in this kinder, gentler age, the Anglo-Saxon still applies.

You have to learn how not to get ripped off (I am still figuring out the nuances of this one). You have to learn how to be nice and funny and kind while not trusting someone even as far as you can throw them (which is generally, anyway, not far).

You have to remember that you can't buy wine or liquor on Sundays, but that you can buy hardware (just look for Hebrew signage).*

Most of all you have to love it—not just in spite of its problems, but a little bit because of them. And that's not such a bad lesson at all.

*The former is no longer true. Welcome to the 20th [sic] century!