Why College Is Almost Irrelevant

A Question of the Day episode I recently listened to featured a questioner who felt that he had wasted his life (in his early 20s) because he hadn’t gone to college. He wanted to feel less like a loser.

If you know me, you know that my primary claim to fame is that I dropped out of college TWICE. And NEVER GRADUATED.

When my kids tell this to people, it’s, “Mommy never went to college.”

Guy gets annoyed when they say this (and I can only imagine how my parents cry themselves to sleep every night), and says, “Mommy went to a LOT of college.” It’s true, I did go to a lot of college.

The short-ish version is this: I finished high school at the end of 11th grade and went to college at Brandeis University to major in Theatre Arts. My parents paid a LOT of money for me to go there, and by midway through my sophomore year, I had credits that counted me as a first semester junior, a 3.8 GPA, and a plan to study abroad in France for my junior year. The extra credits I had racked up would make it easy for me to either take a lighter load in France, graduate a semester early, or take a REALLY light load my senior year.

And then I decided to move to Israel and join the Israeli army.

So I dropped out of college.

After I completed my army service in Israel and got married, I went back to school. In Israel. In a Direct MA program in English at Bar Ilan University.

In Israel, college is 3 years. The Direct MA program was a 4-year program that granted a BA and an MA to students and saved a handful of courses and year or so of tuition. My two-plus years of credit from Brandeis translated into admission into year two and a half of this program.

I was in my final year of the program when I learned that I needed to take these dumb requirement courses that I did not want to take because they were in Hebrew and boring and dumb.

I was working full time at the time, and I HATED most of my classes. The undergrad courses I had to take were fairly ridiculous, in that my classmates would hand in handwritten term papers, and mine would be typed and footnoted, and we would all get within five points of each other. In the graduate courses, I had several teachers who realllllllllllly liked to hear themselves talk and wanted seminar papers full of their own ideas.

On the days I had school, I would cry as I approached campus. None of what I was learning was actually relevant for the job I was already getting paid to do. And so leaving was a pretty easy decision.

I guess that wasn’t really a short version, but there you go. Maybe if I had graduated, I would have learned how to tell a shorter story.

Anyway, have you looked at what college costs in the United States lately? HOLY CRAP. And for WHAT? For so many people, classroom learning doesn’t match up with what’s required in the real world.

Here’s the thing: I believe firmly in education and knowledge. These are good things. I read all the time, but I don’t rely solely on books when I want to learn new things. In the last few months, I’ve spent time learning how to draw, learning to play guitar, and learning  knife skills (like, for cooking, not for murdering people). I watch videos, listen to podcasts, and yes, read books about topics that interest me. I love acquiring new skills. But I don’t believe that a college education is right for most — or even many — people today.

At least twice a week, I dream that I’m back in high school, and I’ve somehow managed to completely bail on some class or other all year long. Two nights ago, I dreamed that I was frantically trying to memorize the answers to an English test on a novel I had never touched. I’m pretty sure that these dreams are driven by guilt at the money my parents paid for me to not graduate from college. (My other stress dream? We’ve gone somewhere on vacation, and it’s time to go back home, and I haven’t packed ANYTHING, and there is SO MUCH STUFF — like, actual dressers that I brought on the trip — and not enough suitcases. I don’t know. You figure it out. I don’t have a degree in anything.)

James Altucher said in this episode that he doesn't want to pay for his kids to go to college, because he doesn’t believe that college is worthwhile. Stephen Dubner understands the argument but isn’t ready to go there yet.

We’ve told our kids that we will pay for their higher education in Israel, where it is far less expensive than America. This is absolutely for selfish reasons: 1. They will be here, in Israel, where we can see them. 2. It will cost less. But I don’t think they’ll sacrifice anything by studying here. Okay, they’ll sacrifice the potential for attending drunken frat parties. Very few of those here. The whole college culture is different, because the vast majority of students don’t live in dorms. I’m okay with depriving my kids of that experience.

And I’m not saying they can’t HAVE that experience — I’m just saying I won’t pay for it. And if my kids don’t want to go to college or go and then drop out? I’m cool with that. As I tell my kids daily, “Marry rich.”

Imposing (Narrative) Structure on Chaos

I planned to write more about habits today, but then it got really nice in the middle of the day, and I went for a walk, and I found myself listening to Part I of the 3-part Freakonomics series on Bad Medicine like WHOA.

Medicine, and bad medicine (shake it up) are topics about which I have a LOT to say. So, habits and Question of the Day will have to wait until next week.

The focus of this episode was on the switch that’s really only happened in the last 25 years, from “eminence-based” medicine to evidence-based medicine. Stephen Dubner commented early in the episode that most of us want to think that our doctors are “If not infallible, then at least reliable” — but is that really true, he asked?

Boy, howdy do I have thoughts. Lots of them! So, let’s impose a little narrative structure on this post by way of a list. I give you…

Five Things I Have Learned About Doctors and Medicine By Living My Life

1. Doctors are people.

My dad is a doctor, and to this day I call him with basically all my medical questions, from “Why is my finger doing this weird clicky thing?” to “Please call me in a prescription for antibiotics I may or may not need” to “They think my son has cancer.” Other people were probably intimidated by my dad (every Israeli who has ever met him has told me, “You know, he could TOTALLY be the President of the United States”), but for me, he’s my dad. He’s really smart, but he’s my dad, and I kind of extended that to all doctors, everywhere. They’re people. They’re not deities, though they often behave as though they are.

2. Doctors are sometimes unwarrantedly arrogant.

I’m not sure that unwarrantedly is actually a word, but it explains exactly what I’m trying to say. Yep, you went to medical school and you know a lot of stuff. Cool. You don’t have to be a jerk and tell me things like, “Your baby may not ever learn to sit up” when he is not even one week old. (Spoiler: my kid sits, walks, runs, talks, and KICKS ASS). I am really, really lucky that my husband and I are educated consumers, because instead of hearing this doctor’s pronouncement as a fact, I took it as a challenge and took my baby home and got him (and me) lots of therapy. I am horrified when I think of what could have happened if we had taken the gloom and doom path this doctor wanted us to take. If we hadn’t pushed Adi. If we hadn’t believed that he would sit up.

3. A doctor who doesn’t want you to ask questions or get a second opinion is not a good doctor.

A doctor should definitely encourage you to ask questions and to fully understand the information you are getting. If you are being treated by a doctor who gets impatient when you ask him or her to explain medical terminology or concepts is a jerk, and you should find a new doctor.

A good doctor will never be afraid of a second opinion.

I have met a LOT of doctors. I have spoken to extremely experienced professionals who were way high up on the totem pole and who still took the time needed to explain things so that I could understand them. I have also talked to doctors who couldn’t understand that the most important person in the room was THE PATIENT, my son, and that they would treat him with respect or they would GET OUT.

When Adi was diagnosed with leukemia, we asked about getting second opinions, about going to Rav Firer, whatever, they told us we could absolutely do that. They also explained to us that the treatment protocol for Adi’s type of leukemia exactly the same at every hospital in Israel and across Europe, and that it was extremely similar to the treatment protocol in the United States. They were happy to sit with us and review the written treatment protocol. They never made us feel like we had to do the treatment in their hospital, although they were extremely clear that we needed to start treatment immediately. Every question we asked was answered patiently and fully. And that was true throughout Adi’s treatment. All two and a half years of it.

4. Doctors don’t know everything.

See above, and also, during our cancer journey, Guy said that the thing he was most surprised to learn was how very little doctors know about some things. Like, for example, what the side effects of steroids will be. “Well, he might be totally manic, or he might be depressed. He could have a voracious appetite, or he might not want to eat at all. And next time, it might be totally different.” Awesome. How about, “Should we give our son cranial radiation?” Well, some studies say, yes, definitely! But other studies say, ABSOLUTELY NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. There’s a reason they call it practicing medicine.

There was a really fun period of time where we had to stop treating the cancer because Adi’s intestines exploded and he needed emergency surgery and they gave him an ileostomy and he almost died and then he started recovering but not really so they kept not giving him chemo and we had a couple more emergency surges for bowel obstructions and the surgeons were all, “We need to reverse this ileostomy and let him heal and then go back to chemo” and the oncologists were like, “CHEMO IS SO COOL DUDE LET’S DO IT NOW,” and we were so, so helplessly lost, and Guy finally told our oncologist, “You guys need to get your stories straight, because you have destroyed all of our faith in the system by constantly telling us different things,” and there was a big, epic battle and oncology won. Turned out to be a good decision.

5. The best doctors are like the most learned rabbis.

Bear with me. If you are not of the orthodox jewish persuasion, you may not have ever had the experience of “asking a rav” a question. But it’s a thing. People do it. And when you ask a rabbi for permission to do something, the easy thing for the rabbi to do is say, “Nope, sorry, you can’t do that.” It’s super easy to say no. But the most learned rabbis know how to say, “Yes, if you do this, and you do it for this reason and this way, then yes.” And most of the time, people are happy to live with the reason and the explanation, because the answer is YES.

We found that many, many young, less experienced doctors, and even those who were simply not experienced in pediatric oncology, were very happy to say NO. No, you can’t take Adi to the mall for an hour. No, you can’t spend a weekend at home. No, we can’t disconnect him from the port for a bath. No, no, no.

Our oncologist was amazing. He always found a way to say yes. Oh, your son who just had emergency surgery and desperately needs to restart his chemo protocol wants to go to France for a week? Sure, we can do that. Oh, you want to move treatment to Saturday night so that you can be home for Shabbat? We’ll make it happen. Oh, you want to go home for four hours so your son can see his room and check that it’s still there? Go, have fun.

So. These are things I thought. Think. Yeah. And now you know.

I Can Get There From Anywhere

I really do recommend that you go back and listen to the archives of Question of the Day. It always makes me at least smile, and I usually laugh aloud at least once during the episode.

On the episode I (re-)listened to today (seriously, guys, transcripts would have been a great thing…), James and Stephen talked about life hacks, and whether they had any real value.

James talked about the whole concept of “life hacking” and how he found it frustrating that there are so many people who think that tiny tricks can do a lot to improve your life in a significant way. I agree. Sure, specific, small tricks can help with specific, small things in your life. I always hang my keys up next to the door when I walk in the house, so I always know where my keys are. I don’t really think of that as a life hack, but some people do.

I enjoy reading Lifehacker, and once in a while I learn something new, but I don’t think there are any real shortcuts to living a full and happy life.

The guys also talked about the difference between habits and meta-habits, and although I’m not sure that I agree with the terminology, I am definitely a fan of BJ Fogg and I read a LOT about habits.

In case you haven’t listened to the episode (seriously, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?), here’s the difference between habits and meta-habits, according to James:

Habits are the actions you want to establish, like flossing your teeth.
Meta-habits are the actions you take in order to establish the habit, as in, “Every night, after I brush my teeth, I will floss ONE tooth.”

The idea, popularized by BJ Fogg, is that once you establish a “tiny habit” — flossing ONE tooth, every night, you can then build on that tiny habit until you are ultimately flossing your teeth, washing your face, putting on moisturizer, and cleaning the bathroom before bed every night.

(My parents are reading this with furrowed brows, thinking, “Doesn’t everyone already do this?” NO. THEY DON’T. YOU ARE THE MOST ORGANIZED, DISCIPLINED PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. MOST PEOPLE DEFINITELY DO NOT DO THIS EVERY NIGHT.)

I love habits research. I’ve done BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits course, and this summer I took a great class with Maria Brilaki of Fitness Reloaded that was heavily grounded in the concept of building on tiny habits. On days when I feel overwhelmed and unable to get anything done, I find it incredibly useful to take a moment and think about the tiny habits I have or want to have.

After I open my computer in the morning, I will write three sentences of my work in progress. 

After I drink my second cup of coffee, I will unload the dishwasher. (A truly tiny habit would be to **open** the dishwasher, and that was how I started, but I’ve progressed.)

For the most part, I can do these things without thinking, which is the point. When you unload the dishwasher without noticing that you’ve unloaded the dishwasher, it’s a habit, and you will never, ever have to think about it again. This is awesome, unless you are my dad and you really enjoy unloading the dishwasher. (I’ve never known anyone else who gets such joy from unloading a dishwasher. Certainly none of my children find it remotely enjoyable.)

At various times in my life, I have been somewhat stressed. During one particularly horrible period of time, I actually, on THREE SEPARATE OCCASIONS, walked away from my car with the keys still in the ignition AND THE ENGINE RUNNING. You would have thought that the FIRST instance of this would have driven me to action, but you would be wrong. In my defense, my child was gravely ill and not expected to live. (He did. He is The Boy Who Lived.) The second time, also, did not prompt any actual action on my part. But the THIRD time it happened, I realized that I had a Problem, and I needed to find a way to Deal With It.

I created a tiny habit. After I get out of my car, I will lock the car. This may seem ridiculously obvious to most of you, but I regularly leave my car and my house unlocked. Partly because of where I live, and partly because I am an idiot.

Anyway, establishing the habit probably saved my life in some small way, because to lock the car, I had to have the keys in my hand, so I had to turn off the car. Which also meant putting the car in park. It was a rough, rough time in my life, and I did not handle it well.

So there you go. From a lighthearted discussion of my favorite podcast, all the way to childhood cancer.

It’s a gift.

Introvert or Introvert?

Several episodes of Question of the Day talked about talking to strangers. Now, if you’re a Stephen Dubner fan, you probably know that he has a new podcast called Tell Me Something I Don’t Know. If you’ve never listened, you should, but let me give you a little tip. You might NOT want to listen to this podcast while you walk around your neighborhood, because it is REALLY funny, and several things will happen:

1. You will laugh out loud like an idiot and scare small children. 
2. You will laugh a LOT and if you are clumsy like me, you will trip and fall. 

TMSIDK is better suited for listening while, say, cooking food for Shabbat.

Anyway, when you know that Stephen has this other podcast, it suddenly makes a lot of sense that one of the ways that he starts conversations with other people is by asking them to tell him something he doesn’t know about what it’s like to have their job or do whatever they do. For example:

“Tell me something I don’t know about what it’s like to parent a child with special needs.”

Oh, hey, I HAVE A WHOLE BLOG ABOUT IT.

Seriously, I do NOT understand how I was never invited to be on QoD. It makes NO SENSE.

At any rate, I really enjoy this strategy, and I have totally stolen it for my own. It is a great way to get people to open up AND to make them feel important.

James has slightly creepier ways for striking up conversations with strangers, like taking pictures of their tattoos. Although, I guess I’ve done something kind of similar in the past… we were once at… the zoo, maybe? And there was a guy with a shirt that I thought was really funny, so I asked if I could take his picture. I just tried looking for the picture, but I couldn’t find it. You’ll have to take my word for it: it was really funny.

Both Stephen and James claim to be introverts. James says that his whole podcast exists because he can’t just have normal conversations with people; rather he uses his podcast as an excuse to interview people in depth and ask all the questions he wants to ask. He says that he prepares for weeks for a single interview (it shows!) and that 99% of the time, these are people he would really like to be friends with… but instead of just calling them to hang out, he calls them and invites them onto his show… and then never calls them again after the interview.

James doesn’t believe that Stephen is an introvert, which is funny, because Stephen also doesn’t think that James comes across as an introvert. Of course, Stephen describes his perfect day as “not seeing ANYBODY at all,” which made me laugh out loud, because for a long time I thought that was EVERYBODY’S perfect day.

If anybody asked me, “Hey, Abbi, are you an introvert or an extrovert?” I would say, “I’m a misanthrope.” Seriously, I find it incredibly difficult to be around people. When my son had cancer — did I ever tell you about the time my kid had cancer? I think I probably mentioned it once or twice — the second hardest thing was being around people EVERY DAY, because I am used to being in my house all the time AWAY FROM PEOPLE.

(Tangent: I was once asked if I wanted to come teach the kindergarten class in the private school my children attended at the time. I was horrified. "You mean... with children?" I asked. "Uh, well, yeah, that's kind of the point," they said. "But I HATE children," I said. "Um... don't you have FIVE children?" "Yes, but MINE are different. MY children, I love. OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN? That sounds like HELL." They rescinded the offer.)

I am writing a book called I HATE EVERYONE. So, yeah. Misanthrope, introvert. Potato, potahto. Although this may explain why I have never been invited to collaborate on any podcast, ever.

Plate Emergencies and Pictures

So, on several episodes of Question of the Day, James Altucher talks about how he recently read Marie Kondo’s book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. If you haven’t heard about it, the book presents a Japanese theory of decluttering — getting rid of alllllllll the excess in your home — and then organizing what is left. There are people who swear by the Kon-Marie method, and people who think it’s a lot of hooey.

James happened to read the book while he and his wife were traveling and living out of suitcases. When they returned home, they basically got rid of the vast majority of their possessions — clothes, books, furniture, and so on — and now they live in a house with very little stuff.

I have several thoughts about this. I like the idea, in theory, but I think it’s a lot easier for people who live alone or with just a spouse. When you have kids, you can’t just get rid of everything. One, kids come with a lot of stuff in the bargain, and two, a lot of that stuff simply provides comfort. Do I believe that Shir and Amit could function with one-eighth of the stuffed animals they currently own? Certainly — but why should I deny them something that brings them a lot of comfort?

I go through boxes of stuff on a fairly regular basis, and I try to get rid of stuff almost daily. When Guy travels, I almost always take that opportunity to get rid of stuff that he insists we need. This includes things like incandescent light bulbs in specific sizes for lamps we no longer own; reams of paper bills for 20-year-old credit cards we no longer have; extension cords for the US, which we cannot use, manuals for appliances we no longer own, broken pieces of things that I cannot identify, and much more. If I ask Guy, “Do we need this?” He INVARIABLY says, “YES!!!” DON’T THROW THAT AWAY!” Like most people, we have a bag full of random cords to things, broken ethernet cables, non-working charging cables, non-working chargers, and so on.

Guy thinks we need it all.

Recently, we bought new Shabbat dishes to replace the set we got at Target back when we lived in Los Angeles, so at least 10 years ago. The silver rim had washed away, and we had broken quite a few pieces, so we no longer had service for 12. We had service for, like, 8 or 9, and we alone are 7. So we bought new dishes, and we bought service for 16.

When we came home with the new dishes, I said, “Let’s get rid of the old ones. Do you want to toss them, or donate them?” Guy was horrified. “You mean… we’re not going to keep them in case we need them?”

Tell me, Internet. Have you ever in your lives had a plate emergency? I didn’t think so.

We offered the dishes on our community WhatsApp, and within 45 seconds, someone wanted them. I made Guy box them up RIGHT THEN and take them to her house, because I know my husband. “Never throw away anything, ever!” is his motto. I wish I could tell you how many free computer bags we have on top of our closet.

In the same episode where they discussed Kon-Marie, Stephen and James also talked about color photography v. black and white photography, which turned into a discussion of digital v. film, and do we take too many pictures.

One of the reasons I went with a 64GB phone instead of just 16 GB was because I wanted to be able to take as many pictures as I wanted without having to stop and think, “Should I take this picture?” Yes, I may have more digital clutter, but I get real joy from taking and looking at pictures of my kids.

And almost every time I take pictures of my kids, I think about something Phyllis Sommer wrote. Now, I tried to find the specific link, but I couldn’t, because after a certain point, I had to stop looking. Because Phyllis Sommer is a mother who lost her brave son Sam to leukemia, and she is a person who still gets up every day and walks on this earth and breathes and moves and lives. So I can only spend a certain amount of time on her blog before I can’t breathe. Because it reminds me all the time how close we came to losing Adi.

At any rate, Phyllis wrote a lot about the pictures she takes of her kids, and how she encourages people to save all the pictures, even the bad ones, because sometimes they are all you have left. And I have a lot of that feeling in me, ever since Adi was sick. I remember thinking it a lot during his treatment, because I was terrified that we would lose him, and the pictures on my phone would be all I had left. I have videos that I still can’t delete, even when they are videos of Adi saying things like, “TURN OFF THE CAMERA. GO AWAY.” I have to save them.

I’m jealous of people who don’t have to think like that.

41 Reasons to Be Grateful

Tomorrow, I will be 41 years old. My daughter asked me last year when I’m planning to have my mid-life crisis, and I told her that I hope to avoid one entirely.

Here’s my list of 41 reasons that I’m grateful today. (I'll go back to writing about Question of the Day on Sunday. Also, don't get used to Friday posts. I can't imagine they'll be a regular occurrence.)

1. I married my husband. Have you ever read the story of how we met? It’s pretty good. He’s awesome. Maybe for his birthday I’ll write a list of all the reasons he’s awesome. Here’s something I wrote about him a long time ago.
2. Lior. Man, did I luck out with this kid. First of all, she is ridiculously responsible. Seriously. I could basically move out, and it might take people a while to realize it if Lior were running things. She’s amazing. Plus, she’s incredibly kind and caring, amazingly socially responsible, and totally a bleeding-heart liberal-in-training. (Not by me.) She cares so much about people. And Harry Potter. And Hamilton. Also, she’s beautiful.
3. Shir. Holy crap, this kid can find the bright side in ANY situation. We have a flat tire and we’re hours from civilization and about to be eaten by vultures? Hey, but look, that tree is perfect for climbing! You’ve never met anyone as happy as she is.
4. Adi. I can’t remember, have I ever mentioned Adi on this blog? I am grateful for the many things this child has taught me. And for every moment I get to be his mom.
5. Yoni. Wow. This boy has always just figured out how to make things work. He rolls with the punches and really never asks for more than we can give, which sometimes translates to not asking for what he actually needs. He just.. makes it work. We are very lucky to have him.
6. Amit. Man, oh man, I am grateful that we had Amit. Because otherwise all my kids would already be in double digits, and that would just be too hard. So we have Amit, and we will do our best to enjoy the few years we have left before he, too, becomes a tween and a teen.
7. My parents. And not only because they often pay for my Chinese food. For all the things they taught me and are still teaching me. For not dying of cancer. For being my on-call medical advisors. For being awesome.
8. My siblings. Because they knew me then and they know me now and they have a lot of shared history with me and they make me laugh.
9. Good friends. Like, the kind of friends who let you cry on their front lawn and still call you the next day. Or who bake you a cake and put a “20” candle in it when you turn 40. And the kind who sit with you in the waiting room when your kid has emergency surgery. And the kind who come take over for you at the hospital when you can’t spend one more second on the oncology ward and never mention that they left a wedding to be there. Yeah. Those friends.
10. Health. Yeah, this is on most gratitude lists, but that’s for good reason. And believe me, we don’t take health for granted.
11. Time. There is finally time. Or, there has always been time, but I have finally learned how to control it. I credit Laura Vanderkam. In fact, I would like to BE Laura Vanderkam when I grow up. Oh, really, Laura? You’re younger than I am? SHUT UP.
12. Amazing books. I read a LOT. Like, everything that’s published. Except anything by Jodi Picoult, because I hate her stuff. But, like, everything else. And a lot of it is CRAP. But some of it is really, really good, and I am so grateful for good books.
13. People like Gretchen Rubin and Laura Vanderkam (again) who write great books that help me make my life better all the time.
14. Apple notes. I live in Apple notes. That they sync between my phone and my laptop is just icing on the cake. I seriously don’t know why Word even exists anymore.
15. My house. I’m grateful that I have a house and that it is where it is and that it doesn’t leak (too much) and that it has heat in the winter and AC in the summer. In my ideal world, I would basically never leave my house.
16. My Kindle. I might not feel such passionate love for my Kindle if I still lived in America, home of awesome public libraries, but since I don’t, I rely on my Kindle. A subset of this one is that I am grateful for Overdrive books being available via the US public library system, and all the people who let me use their library cards to check out books on my Kindle.
17. Peanut butter. Really, I don’t think I need to explain this one. We’re all grateful for peanut butter.
18. Shabbat. I mean, yes, it would be amazing if, like, once a year we could just get a pass and have a week withOUT shabbat, but on the whole, it is awesome to have this time each week where no one in my house is on screens. Although I am still waiting for the heter (rabbinic permission) for my Kindle.
19. Science, and people who write about science-based nutrition and health. People like Maria Brilaki and Yoni Freedhoff and James Fell. You guys are awesome.
20. Wifi. We don’t even think about wifi anymore, except when it isn’t working, and then we’re like, “OH MY GOD THE WIFI ISN’T WORKING.” Let’s take a moment and appreciate the wifi. I still remember the olden days when I had to go to where the computer was located, plugged into the router, and use it while sitting at a desk like an animal, instead of on the couch, where God intended us to use our computers.
21. My Fitbit. It’s like someone looked right into my ridiculously competitive brain and said, HERE YOU GO!!!
22. My car. It is a grown-up car, NOT A MINIVAN, and it has lovely leather seats, and I rarely take the kids in it, so it’s pretty clean. I love it. The bluetooth works the way it’s supposed to and it plays my music when I turn the car on. This was one of my three criteria.
23. Not having pain in my hip. I had pain in my hip a couple of years ago, and it was terrible. I can’t even explain to you how much it hurt all the time. I got a cortisone shot and it was like magic for a couple of weeks, and then when the pain came back I got a course of high-dose NSAIDs, and now it’s three years later and I don’t have pain, and I think about that A LOT, because pain HURTS.
24. Hershey’s chocolate. I grew up in Pennsylvania, and Hershey’s will always be my favorite chocolate. Give me a bag of dark chocolate Hershey Kisses, and I will pretty much be your friend forever.
25. Coffee. Coffee is life. That is all.
26. Rainy days. Rain is great, especially because I work from home and don’t have to go out in it. I love to be inside my house and see the rain through the windows and hear it falling on the roof and hopefully not leaking into my house.
27. Sunny days when I can go for a walk around the neighborhood first thing in the morning, and then maybe again later on. Getting outside and breathing fresh air is amazing. Really.
28. The sound of leaves crunching under my feet. Because apparently I am still six years old.
29. Tweezers. So none of you ever see the little chin hairs…
30. Birth control. Yes, I would still like to build my family, because we believe we have more love to give, but there are many ways to add children to a family, and I would like to explore the ones that do not involve children shooting out of my hoo-ha.
31. The Walking Dead. Because everyone needs an escape, and that show is mine.
32. The background noise of my family. The news that Guy always has turned up too loud; the sound of Lior pacing back and forth and back and forth and back and forth downstairs all night long; the way Shir bursts out laughing at something on her phone; Adi talking to himself in his room as he plays; Yoni, narrating his video game play; Amit singing songs he makes up as he goes about his day.
33. My phone. No, really! I love that I have nine million pictures of my kids that I can look at whenever I want, and that I can always play my turn in Words With Friends and write something in Apple Notes, and access the Perets Family Calendar and send WhatsApps to my friends and family. And talk to people. Duh.
34. Friday mornings. Sometimes I go to the shuk, sometimes I just cook. But Friday mornings are always great.
35. The pictures of my grandparents in my office. Because they remind me where I came from. Every day.
36. Facetime. Because my kids and my parents can speak daily.
37. Eyeliner and mascara. I’ve recently discovered the existence of these magical tools. Yes, I am kind of an idiot about these things.
38. Restaurants. It’s awesome to go out and let all the people order exactly what they want.
39. Dessert. Always be grateful for dessert.
40. Birthdays, because they often involve presents, and I really like presents.
41. Comments. They make me feel loved.

I Am Totally Unqualified to Give This Advice, But Here it Is Anyway

The third and fourth episodes of Question of the Day were about advice that you could give people in 10 minutes that would have some sort of positive benefit. James Altucher’s advice including wearing a doctor’s lab coat whoever you go, because then people will think you are important and in a hurry. He’s not wrong. 

I think the best advice I could give anyone would be to be more like my husband and less like me. If you know both of us, you are probably nodding your head. In case you don’t know both of us, I’ll try to explain. 

I am the kind of person who gets mad and stays mad. I can still remember mean things people said to me in elementary school, and I am still mad about them. 

Guy cannot remember mean things our children said to him THIS MORNING. So, he definitely is not still mad about them. 

I am NOT saying that my advice is to have a crappy memory. No, rather, what I am saying is, learn to let stuff go. It definitely weighs you down when you lug around all that resentment, and Guy is definitely better off without it. So, try to be like that.

When I was growing up, among the things I learned from my parents was that charity should always be given generously. In fact, I remember hearing my father calling people for a UJA campaign and  explaining to them that unless they actually felt the effect of their donation — in that, because of the donation they did not do/buy something else, it didn’t count. Also very good advice, and I definitely think it makes your life better if you follow it.

The advice I would give my children (if my children were to actually need advice, which they do not, because they already know everything and do not need ANY HELP from anyone, ESPECIALLY NOT ME) is this: remember that as much as you believe the opposite to be true, your parents actually have your best interests at heart. Everything we say and do, we say and do because we want to spare you the mistakes we made. 

On the other hand, the advice I would give myself and any parent is this: Let your kids make their own mistakes. They are not you. You cannot save them from the world or from themselves. 

Probably most people will go for James’ advice over mine. 

All About the Words

So, if you’ve never listened to Question of the Day, it’s based on questions that James Altucher and Stephen Dubner mostly found on Quora, which is a site where people… wait for it… ask questions. And other people answer them. 

The boys really, really, REALLY love Quora. Like, A LOT. I’ve wound up on Quora a few times when Google led me there, but it never got me super excited. Now, though, thanks to Question of the Day, I might actually… create an account and USE Quora. 

Maybe.

Anyway, the second episode of Question of the Day was about words that the English language was missing. Some of the answers discussed were just funny things, like that English needs the word “whichith.”

Usage: Whichith president is Barack Obama? The 44th.”

It made me laugh, so I’m good with it. 

Of course, the conversation quickly turned to words that exist in other languages, but not in English. And it is here that I have something to contribute, as an excellent speaker of Hebrew. (SHUT UP GUY, LIOR, AND SHIR. MY HEBREW IS TOO EXCELLENT.)

As any self-respecting speaker of Hebrew and English knows, Hebrew has words that English lacks. And so we simply use those words, in Hebrew, while speaking English. Even when speaking English to people who do not speak Hebrew. Basically, the general feeling here is, Tough. Should have paid more attention in Hebrew School. Or been born Jewish. 

The two Hebrew words without which I personally cannot live are stam and davka. 

“Stam” is a great word. You can use it in a variety of ways. For example:

What are you doing right now?

Stam. (Nothing.)

Where were you?

We got arrested. STAM! (Just kidding!)

She’s stam (just) a girl I go to school with. (The implication here being, she’s no one special. We’re TOTALLY NOT DATING.)

You stam (for no reason) got mad at me. 

See? Very useful.

Davka is also used to mean many things. For example:

You davka (just to annoy me because you know I don’t like it) made the chicken in sweet sauce.

Don’t do davka! (Don’t steal your bother’s toy for no reason/do the thing everyone has asked you not to do/not eat the thing I told you to eat/eat the thing I told you not to eat/etc. etc.)

It was davka (contrary to what I expected) not bad.

Why davka (precisely/exactly) now? 

I use these words all the time, in Hebrew and in English, and without regard for the understanding of the listener. So, now you know. 

New Topic!

Recently, I started listening to the podcast Question of the Day, with Stephen Dubner and James Altucher. I realize that they’ve since stopped recording the podcast, but I’m pretty sure that’s not BECAUSE I just started listening. I could be wrong.

Anyway, I’ve been listening to the episodes — each one is somewhere between 10-20 minutes — while I go for walks in the morning to start my day. And I quickly realized that I had one major issue with the podcast: Stephen and James are not asking me for MY opinion on the topics they discuss. This made it very hard to listen to the podcast, because I was thinking about my own takes on their discussions, and NO ONE WAS HEARING MY BRILLIANT THOUGHTS.

Then I remembered that I have an old, neglected blog, and even if NOTHING IS AWFUL in my life right now, I could, you know, blog about my thoughts. And if those thoughts are reactions to the episodes I’m listening to, that would give them some sort of narrative form. Maybe. 

So, I don’t know if I’ll write about every single episode (they recorded 178, I think, and then put the podcast on indefinite hiatus), but I have a LOT of thoughts in my head. 

On the first episode of the show, the boys (that’s what I call them) considered the following question:

Why are so many people content to work at regular, 9-6 jobs?

This, my friends, is an excellent question, and as a person who only held such a job for, like, a total of maybe two years of my life, I am TOTALLY qualified to answer it. 

Because they are dumb.

Ha, ha! I am totally kidding. Here’s the thing: I HATE being tied to a job. I recently re-proved this to myself. There are many, many reasons that I am a freelancer, but the biggest one is that, for me, the promise of a steady paycheck is simply not enough to ward off the INSANE BOREDOM that comes from doing the same thing every day. Also, I really hate being around other people. (NOT YOU. OF COURSE NOT YOU. YOU ARE AWESOME AND I LOVE BEING AROUND YOU.)

I am married to the most amazing Guy in the world. (HIS NAME IS GUY, SO IT’S FUNNY.) The very idea of being entrepreneurial gives him the newbie jeebies. It took him a long time to admit this, perhaps even to himself, so he used to pretend that he was mildly interested in my various business ideas and what have you, but Guy CRAVES that structure that comes with having a regular job. He likes going into the office. He sometimes complains about office politics and he really hates working with idiots, but for the most part, he is SO HAPPY to go to work, do what they tell him, and get a paycheck. 

His entire approach to life is different from mine. If he’s getting paid, he honestly doesn’t care what they’re asking him to do. Answer phones? Sure. File papers? No problem. Sit in boring meetings? RIGHT ON. He says this, in so many words. “If they’re paying me, I don’t care what they want me to do. If they want me to paint the office and they’re going to pay me what they would pay me to be a software architect, then I’ll paint the office.”

So, apparently there are people like this. People who truly feel content doing this. I am not one of them, but Guy is. And we need people like Guy, because otherwise people like me would have no one to marry to support us. 

On Fear

I spend a lot of time being afraid.

I am afraid of being too happy. The last time I was really, really happy was two and a half years ago. Everything was good. Guy was starting to travel less, Lior was finally happy, the house was finally ready, I loved Adi's school so much. I was so happy. I told people I was happy. And then Adi got sick, and I remember doubling over in the emergency room because I could not breathe.

I am afraid sometimes that I brought this on. The evil eye. I let it in, because I told people I was so happy. I think I felt like this for a long time. I think I still feel like this sometimes, especially when I am alone in the house, or when everyone is sleeping late at night.

I am just plain afraid. We are nearing the end of treatment. In February, Adi is scheduled to finish maintenance. He'll keep taking antibiotics for another few months, but he'll be done with the oral chemo. And then we'll see what happens, and I am terrified. I catch myself holding my breath. I have to tell myself to breathe, to feel the air go in and out. To let go of the fear and just be.

I am afraid of failing my family. "How are your other kids," people ask, and I make a joke about the therapy and the psychological damage, and the people laugh, and I lie awake at night and think, Will they every forgive me? Will they ever be okay? Have I ruined them? 

I am afraid of the work that lies ahead. For two years, we had one goal: Keep Adi Alive. And now that he is, we have to go back to all the things we set aside for so long -- the reading, the writing, the math, the homework, The Plan for the Future.

Sometimes, the sun shines and I look out the window at my garden and the boys are sitting together playing, curled up around each other so that you can't tell where one ends and another begins, and the girls are not insulting each other and the kitchen does not look like a bomb hit it, and I think, This is so good, I am so happy, and then I think, But, and then I think Stop and I can remember the sound of water in my ears and the air rushing out of the room.

Sometimes I am afraid I will never breathe deeply again.

You need to just get over it.
You need to let it go.
You could get hit by a bus tomorrow.

I spend a lot of time being afraid.

Cancerversary 2

So. Here we are again, Erev Yom Kippur. But this time, I’m sitting on the couch watching Adi navigate through Houston using Google Street View (to find the garbage truck, natch) on the computer in our home. Definitely better than last year or the year before.

I suppose I'll start by asking forgiveness from all of you for anything I might have done to hurt you in the last year. I'm pretty sure I did something. Possibly something fairly benign, like not call you back or answer your email, possibly something worse. I apologize. I'm sorry. I might have meant to do it at the time, but I regretted it afterwards. I'm human. Sorry.

Next up, gratitude. I am so grateful for the health of all my children and my parents and my husband and myself and all the other people I know who are healthy. I am grateful for every day. I am grateful that today I had the luxury of being annoyed at my computer for not connecting to Wi-Fi until I restarted it. I am grateful that today I could mutter under my breath as [insert child] did [insert thing]. These are not things I take for granted, even if I sometimes forget for a moment that our time is fleeting. I almost always remember with the very next breath. Even now, as I raise my voice to the child who is shoving the sofa across the floor, I am grateful. Also, truth be told, a little irritated, because LEAVE THE SOFA ALONE. But grateful.

Sorrowful. For the friends we have lost. Some we lost to the terrible disease that is childhood cancer. Others we lost to horribly mundane car accidents. You are all in my heart. So much of the time. I think of you so often. I smile when I remember something funny you said or did. I laugh when I remember your smiles. I cry when I think of all that lost potential. I weep for your mothers and fathers, your sisters and brothers, your friends. I hurt when I think about how unfair it is that you are gone. 

Fear. So much of my time is spent fighting fear. Yesterday, I took Adi in for routine bloodwork and a visit to the neuro-oncologist. As you do. And in the time between the CBC and Chem Panel being taken and when we got back the results, I saw a million terrible scenarios in my head. I don't try to do this. In fact, I actively try NOT to do this. But, as my fellow cancer peeps know, cancer changes everything. Childhood cancer leaves scars everywhere. I can't tell you how many times I wake up in terror thinking that I forgot to give my kid his pills, or inspect his body for strange bruises, or freeze when he coughs. I can't tell you how my whole body reacts when I walk into our hospital, even for "routine" visits. I can't tell you how scary it can be sometimes to check Facebook, because I'm afraid of what I'll discover.

Amazement. I have seen miracles. I have seen children -- yes, children, more than one -- come back from the brink of death. Children whose parents had released them, had whispered to them, "You don't have to stay here for me. It's okay."  I have seen those children suddenly -- and it is sudden, never subtle -- suddenly awaken, with some renewed strength that medicine cannot explain. I have seen these children suddenly grow stronger, take tentative steps forward, and then suddenly race towards health. I have seen miracles. I don't know who decides -- or how -- why this child gets one and that one doesn't, but I have seen them, and I am amazed.

Grateful, again. For the friends who have helped us. For the people who have, with tiny kindnesses and grand gestures, made this journey easier. For the strangers who have prayed for my son and my family. For the people who have made me laugh on the darkest days. For the people who have not allowed me to wallow in my own grief -- and for those who have simply stood close by, ready to catch me if I fell.

Sad, still. For everything that we lost, as a family. For an innocence that is gone. For a peace that we may never find. For a balance that is forever askew. For my children, all my children, who are changed.

Grateful, again.

Heartbroken, again.

Grateful, always.

Epistle: To Abbi, 12 Years Ago

Dear Abbi,

First of all, you are SO YOUNG. I would tell you to revel in this, but actually, you were very aware of being young. You were the youngest in your little group for a long time, until you moved, and you constantly felt that you were younger and less competent than everyone around you. So even though at almost 40, I am jealous of your late twenties youth, I am not jealous of how you felt about it.

Second of all, right now, you are enormously pregnant, and you are perhaps somewhat anxious given the bed rest and the ENORMITY of yourself, and all that, but honey, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WORRY IS.

Here's the thing: right now, your life is a freaking garden of roses, and you don't even know it. You have two kids who are developing on schedule, and while they are sometimes weird, their weirdness is well within the range of acceptable. Also, their feet don't smell. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS.

In just over a month, your entire world will be rocked, and that's not a good thing. Everything you thought you knew will turn out to be wrong. You dreamed of drama in your life? Oh, honey. Oh, honey. You will get your drama. And you will learn, as does anyone who lives with drama that drama is seriously overrated. Boring is AWESOME.

In just over a month, you will have a baby! (Spoiler: it's a boy! Mazal tov!) (That's not really a spoiler, because you knew that ever since the ultrasound tech with the awesome accent and the actual PEACOCKS WALKING AROUND HER HOUSE told you, "You see ziss? Ziss is BALSS." And you will get a LOT of milage out of that story.)

Anyway, this baby, this boy... well. The thing I most want to tell you is, "It's going to be okay." But I can't quite tell you that, because of all the twists and turns this story takes along the way. But I CAN tell you this: "You will get through this." I know you won't think you can. I know that in the first days after that baby is born and hospitalized and intubated and extubated and tested and retested and not responding right and jaundiced and his big head and not breathing and turning blue and not eating and not waking -- I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that it would be so easy to just get into bed and not get out again. You are thinking that this is too hard, that this is not what you signed up for, that you take it back.

But I also know that you will get up every morning and get dressed and go to the hospital and sit with your baby as many hours as the NICU nurses will let you. I know that you will come home and try to smile at your daughters when you want to scream. I know that you will pump copious amounts of milk to take to the hospital. I know that you will keep putting one foot in front of the other, and I just want you to know that you will get through this.

I wish I could cover your ears when people come forward with ridiculously grim prognoses about that beautiful boy. I wish I could erase those words from your brain, that you could unhear them.

I wish I could show you the video of Adi riding a bike, pictures of Adi's smile, the sound of Adi laughing, because if you had those then, in those first weeks, everything would have been so much easier.

I wish I could have had your back in the grocery store that time when that idiot woman tried to make you feel like you had caused everything that happened to your son by having a home birth. I wish I could have punched her in the face for you. I'm pretty sure that's one of my lifelong regrets, not punching that woman in the face.

Looking back, with the lens of maturity and hindsight, I have to say that you kicked ass, but you had no idea you were doing it. You were so hard on yourself for so long, and I wish it had been easier for you.

Love,
Your older, wiser self

P.S. Buy AAPL and GOOG.

The Roller Coaster

Yesterday was one of those days where you go from extreme to extreme. Elation to depression, in a matter of seconds. That's fairly typical for a cancer parent.

Two days ago, it had been fairly clear that we'd be discharged either yesterday or today. So yesterday morning, I told the doctor who did rounds that Adi's brother was having a birthday party yesterday afternoon, so we really wanted him to be at home, and ultimately she agreed that instead of a day in hospital with no antibiotics (that is, just for observation), she'd let us go home. But she couldn't possibly remove his PICC-line, because, "What if he needs it?"

"You realize it's about to come out on its own, right?"

"If you want to go home today, I'm not removing the PICC-line."

I said fine. And then I went upstairs to oncology to tell our doctor and have him remove the line, because, DUH. Anyway, I was in a great mood when I got upstairs, and then I saw my friend who told me that she was waiting for bone marrow results for her son, and she'd been a wreck, especially after what happened to T, another child on the ward.

"How is T?" I asked, and she looked at me.

"You didn't know?"

"I mean, I know he relapsed, but I..."

"Saturday night," she said, and it was like a kick in the stomach. Again. Again. Again. Because T. was a kid who was ALIVE. Who was ALWAYS talking, always running around, always smiling, always laughing. Always kind, always going.

"I thought you knew," my friend said helplessly, and I couldn't make my mouth say all the words inside me, and I think I said something, but all I could think was, "I need my husband. I need Guy," because it hurt so much in that instant, and in the middle of being so happy and excited that Adi was going home, I just wanted to curl up on the floor and cry.

And the oncologist took out Adi's PICC-line, because DUH, and we went home, and Yoni had an amazing birthday party and Guy broke the Internet in our house and Adi was home and everything was great and I couldn't stop smiling at the party and when Mambo Number 5 came on, I danced(because DUH), much to the embarrassment of my children, and everything was wonderful, and then I remembered and it was like a kick in the stomach. Again.

And this is how it is. Because as happy as we are, there is always a tiny screaming terror in the back somewhere that we can ignore a lot of the time, maybe even most of the time, but it's there, and it's waiting, just waiting, to kick me in the stomach. Again.

Epistle: To Adi, On the Occasion of the Final Day of Active Treatment

Dear Adi,

Before. Note the belly. That's gone now.

Whoa. It's been a long 16 months. Only twice as long as the oncologists told us it would take!

Right after diagnosis, before the port was put in.

I mean, let's not get TOO excited. Sure, today you had your last dose of active treatment chemo, but it's not like the road ahead is going to be easy, or, you know, WITHOUT CHEMO. We've still got those six intrathecals to look forward to, after all. And there's the oral chemo you'll be taking for the next year or so, which, YAY, oral chemo!

Home after the first hospital stay. 

Everywhere Adi goes, Yuval goes. 

But, indeed, there is cause for celebration, because WE FINISHED ACTIVE TREATMENT. That's kind of a big deal, and the weirdest thing is that you're not even here today. You're off having a grand old time in Eilat, with your peeps, 119 kids with cancer and 100 counselors and a whole bunch of support staff making sure your every need is met.

What my kid does on vacation.

Not at all disturbing.

You've been out of school for 16 months. And yet, you've learned an enormous amount. You've learned to deal with situations that are beyond your control. You've learned that on days with abdominal ultrasounds or CTs or intrathecals or any of a host of other tests, you need to be fasting -- and you even understand why. You know the meds you take, in what form, and you know instantly if something has been changed. You know how to share a room with someone else, you know that sometimes we can't go to the playroom, that sometimes you need to throw up, and that soon you'll be better.

So tired. Just want sleep.

Eff this... stuff... is what I think you're trying to say here. 

Because what kid doesn't dream about being the garbage truck man???

You know that soon you'll have surgery to fix your stoma. (I am personally quite excited about that one, because you don't know how to do laundry, so that task falls to me. There's a lot of it.)
You know that soon you'll go back to school. After SIXTEEN MONTHS. This should be... interesting. I think you'll be happy to be back in your misgeret, back to your regularly scheduled program, as it were. We've got a lot of work ahead of us, but you've never been afraid of a little hard work. You may object to it, often loudly, but you've never been afraid of it.

I will walk with my pole BY MYSELF. 

The very fact of your existence at this moment is miraculous. Truly -- medical science can't explain how you survived multiple bouts of septic shock, two bowel perforations and two bowel obstructions, methotrexate toxicity, anaphylaxis brought on by PEG Asparginase, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something else. Amazing how you can lose count of your kid's near death experiences.

As long as there's cake, it's all good. 

Or Belgian waffles. That works, too. 

You are my hero. You and your smile -- you are amazing. I love you. So much.

I love all of these pictures too much to choose one.

Love,
Mommy