I've been busy, but that's not the reason I haven't finished writing the latest installment of "How Lisa Came to Israel." The truth is that the writing is raking up a lot of emotions, and to be frank I'm having a bit of trouble dealing with them and sorting them out. I'd forgotten (willfully, I think) a lot, and reading over my old diaries has made me remember. Sometimes it ain't so easy, revisiting the past.

But I'm working on the next installment, and will certainly finish by Friday night. Meanwhile, here's the first paragraph. Call it a teaser.

During the winter of 2002, a friend of mine started to suffer from strange physical symptoms – shortness of breath, allergic reactions to foods she’d been eating all her life, vivid dreams that made her perspire profusely. Her physician referred her to a psychiatrist; the psychiatrist's diagnosis was anxiety, and he prescribed a mild anti-depressive. When my friend went to have the prescription filled, the pharmacist looked at the slip of paper she handed him and said, “Oh, another one. Lately I’ve been selling these pills like Acamol [an over the counter painkiller].”