Thursday night at Jah Pan was interesting, 'though not as much fun as I thought it would be. My friends and I arrived well after midnight, but despite the late hour there was a sense that the party just hadn't taken off. Who can say why some evenings succeed and others don't? The right ingredients were there - good music and interesting people (if you're wondering why I didn't mention booze, it's because Israelis don't really need alcohol to warm up; they're not big drinkers) - but somehow the combination didn't gel.

And besides that, for me the night resembled a mildly nightmarish version of "This is Your Life." It seemed as though half the men - the weird half - I'd dated since moving to Tel Aviv were there. Among them was one I'd nicknamed The Stalker, because he thought that "I'm not interested" meant "please call me several times per day on my mobile phone, using a blocked number so I won't know it's you, and oh yes do appear at my door after midnight to inquire as to why I haven't returned your messages." After awhile it got to be sort of farcical: I'd just turned away from the bar after exchanging greetings with one guy, who had his arm significantly draped over his new girlfriend, when I literally smacked into The Stalker and nearly spilled my Goldstar beer all over him. He stood completely still as he looked at me with an unsmiling "gotcha" expression and intoned, "ShaLOM, LIsa." Gak.

There were a few minor celebs there, including Yisrael Aharoni, a well-known and extremely strange-looking (click on the link to see what I mean) chef. Aharoni has hosted several cooking shows, lends his name to a number of cooking products and many years ago opened the first Chinese restaurant in Israel - Yin Yang. More recently, he has made the entertainment news for losing about half his body weight and for coming out of the closet after a lengthy marriage that produced a couple of children. He is now a fixture on the club scene, and is usually accompanied by an all-male entourage.

I stuck around for the live acts. There was a very talented Iraqi-Jewish oud player who was accompanied by a non-traditional band that included a saxophonist and a tuba player, followed by a belly dancer and then a mixed Arab-Jewish hip hop act. The hip hoppers were named Tomer (Jewish) and Sadj (Arab); the latter had a Palestinian flag painted on his wrist and a keffiyeh draped around his neck. They sang in Hebrew, with lines like "two countries for two nations," "today's kids deserve a better future," and "war is bad, peace is good." The mostly Jewish audience got pretty into the act: they danced, rhythmically pumped skyward two fingers extended in the "V" sign (for victory or peace, depending on your interpretation), and periodically expressed their appreciation with loud whoops and Middle Eastern-style ululations.

After Tomer and Sadj finished singing they jumped off the stage; Tomer fell into the waiting arms of his friends, who thumped him on the back and told him how great he'd been, but Sadj, after stepping on my foot and apologizing profusely, just disappeared. I turned to one of my friends, who was also a friend of Tomer's, and asked, "Where's Sadj?" She just shrugged indifferently. And I wondered again about the gap between ideals and reality; between tolerance and acceptance.

And then I just felt tired. The combined cigarette smoke of a hundred or so revelers had penetrated every fibre of my clothing and every strand of my hair; the hydroponic stuff that had been passed around had made me dizzy and slightly nauseated; it was late and I wanted to get up early for yoga class in the morning. So I called it a night.

Friday was much more fun, despite the at times heavy rain: as usual I went to yoga class and wandered around the Carmel Market in the morning, then hung out with friends at cafes in the afternoon. I decided to stay home on Friday night, catching up on some of my emails and making a big pot of chicken broth for Yemenite vegetable soup. I simmered the chicken broth for three hours, chopped all the vegetables and added them to the pot, smiling as I anticipated drinking hot, spicy soup while I watched Before Sunset on DVD (for the third time) and listened to the rain falling outside.

And then I discovered that I was out of cooking gas.