Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2024-06-20
Hi. I'm Joseph Zitt. I moved from the US to Israel in 2017. This is my newsletter about more-or-less daily life in my city in the shadow of war. You can select these links to subscribe or unsubscribe. There are more links at the bottom. You can also read this email online here. Here we go...
A lot has been going on, at home and at work. Not much is really happening in the news, though -- the headlines keep churning with surface-level events, but little seems to change.
I'll be retiring in the middle of July. Until then, I'll be packaging up and converting what I've been doing for the person taking over. The company won't have a dedicated tech writer anymore, but everyone seems to agree that, with our software as mature as it is, one won't be needed.
In a further change that may or may not surprise everyone, in September I'll be moving into the House of a Hundred Grandmothers.
I think it's a logical move. My Social Security will cover just about all my expenses there. The monthly fee covers my meals in the communal dining hall, laundry, weekly apartment cleaning, a lot of my health care, and other such services. Those who have lived with me can attest that housekeeping and the like are not my strong suit. It will be good to overtly outsource them.
I'll have an apartment of my own. Most apartments in this country are bought and sold, like condos. I have bought mine at the House, with one difference from what happens with apartments elsewhere: when I die, it reverts to the House, rather than to any heirs whom I might have.
The previous resident, though, is still with us. Now that he's 101 years old, he finally needs a caregiver, and this apartment is too small for an additional person to live there. As it happens, a good friend of the family passed away a few weeks ago. He'll be getting her caregiver. They're moving into a larger apartment downstairs. It may be the one that was the friend's, but I'm not sure. So this apartment, where he has been, is opening up, and I'm moving in.
I'm having fun designing the apartment. It's 30 square meters, half the size of my current space. I'll need to get a smaller bed. I'll be setting up the enclosed porch as my studio, organized for work on video and music. The living room will effectively be for more passively watching video and listening to music, with my big chair and TV.
Most of the wall space will be taken up with bookshelves. I'll also set up one or two bookshelves as a divider between the living room and bedroom. I'm planning to get bookcases with glass doors, since there's so much dust in the air.
There's plenty of light. The windows look to the west. I understand that the sea used to be visible from there, but apartment towers near the university have changed that view.
There's quite a nice bathroom, and a small but usable kitchen, should I choose to cook things on my own. Each has a surprisingly large array of cabinets.
The weirdest part is knowing that I'm probably designing a space in which I'll live for the rest of my life. Actuarially speaking, and looking at my long-lived family, I'm figuring that that might be about 25 years. So I'll need to get stuff that will last.
I had to go through a sort of official application interview. The CEO of the house was there, along with, as I recall, the salesperson, the social worker, the medical head, and possibly the housemother.
Often, the interview is the person's first meeting with much of the staff, and can be rather formal. When I came in, the CEO said, straight off, "Hi, Joe. I hope you'll continue to help us with things such as the holiday blessings in the continual care area when you move in?" Yes, I intend to. "Then welcome!"
Part way through, they asked me how I decided to move in there. I told them that several of the caregivers who worked there are friends of mine, and that, seeing how I handled my apartment on my own, they strongly suggested that I move in. That amused the tribunal. I understand that they continued to have a good laugh after I left, over how the interview went.
I have dropped by there a few times since then to bring them various paperwork. Each time, others on the staff, caregivers, and residents have said hello as we were talking. It will be good to move into a place where folks already know me.
Some people I know are baffled as to why I would want to move in to a place like that. They tend to have children and other family that they can depend on, and to have nice apartments or houses where they can be the lords of their domains.
For me, having a personal space that's just large enough for me to focus on getting my work done (I already have a list of film, writing, and music projects planned), with so many services outsourced, and communal spaces for eating, getting together with people, and not being alone when I need not to be? It sounds just a bit like heaven.
Feel free to forward the newsletter to other people who might be interested. Here’s an archive of past newsletters. You can find me via email, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook, and, just out of inertia, X/Twitter. There's more about me and my books, music, and films at josephzitt.com.
The newsletter’s official mailing address is 304 S. Jones Blvd #3567, Las Vegas NV 89107. (I’m in Israel, but if physical mail comes to me at that Las Vegas address, it’ll get scanned and emailed. I don’t expect that to happen much. If you want to send me physical mail, ask me for a real address.)
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