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Watched The Gatekeepers recently, a documentary about Shin Bet, Israel's internal secret service. Admission: The only reason this caught my eye was because of my friend's web series from a few years ago, which was also named The Gatekeepers -- those short films are about doormen at exclusive clubs. Somehow the director of this Gatekeepers, Dror Moreh, convinced six former heads of Shin Bet to speak openly about their experiences. It was incredible how candid they were about their actions, and to hear their current political viewpoints. The message of the film is to end the occupation of the former Palestinian territories.

Embarrassingly, I couldn't tell you much about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, aside from some cursory misinformed tidbits. My friend who had a dustup with the Israeli community while serving as the festival director for the San Diego Women's Film Festival a few years ago, gave me some perspective through her experience, but I never took the time out to pay much more attention to it. (Aside from when Lilly tells me she hates Natalie Portman for her Zionist stance. Fact: Portman is my celebrity crush numero uno dating back many years. How should that factor into my allegiance to one side or the other?)

General details about the Six Day War, the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, the Oslo Accords, all of it was lost on me. I had no idea what the significance of the Dome of the Rock was. I thought the Temple Mount had to do with the Sermon on the Mount. Whoops. What I do know now is that dragging someone along to watch this movie -- on a late Monday night -- was probably the wrong move. Akin to when I convinced some unlucky friends that Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Magic Mike were going to be awesome. Sorry guys! At least Matthew McConaughey was fantastic right?

The documentary itself is pretty good though, if simply for the fact that these six people are interviewed at such length. Some of the visual effects techniques were kind of neat too, with sort of stop motion pan and scans combined with archival footage. Overall, this movie dovetailed well with my effort to learn more about the Middle East. Another way I've been trying to do that has been to take this Sporcle quiz for Middle Eastern countries every few days. Embarrassingly, my first attempt was a paltry six out of twenty one. I couldn't even get the bodies of water right. Baby steps, baby steps.

Recently I've been reading about a lot of articles about intelligence organizations and terrorism because of all the Zero Dark Thirty torture stuff. Plus that article about the Navy Seal who shot Osama and now his life is in collapse. And I'd have to recommend "The Hunt for 'Geronimo,'" an article about Obama's decision making process to okay the hit on Bin Laden.

• Dror Moreh: How I persuaded six intelligence chiefs to pour out their hearts
• Amy Goodman: The Israel-Palestine drama will play out at the Oscars
• A.O. Scott review of The Gatekeepers
• The Hunt For "Geronimo" (2012)
• The Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden... Is Screwed

Speaking of aggressive inquisitions, the other day I hopped online and George immediately pounced on me, asking where I'd been all week. At first, I did what anyone would do: deny deny deny. Then she said "I saw your dot on Find My Friends at the same place, don't even try that." Faced with hard surveillance data, I was forced to concede that I had been away from my apartment during usual operating hours.

You live by the iPhone, you die by the iPhone.

I reiterate that allowing someone to lojack you via Find My Friends is the greatest sign of trust between two people. The accuracy on that thing is crazy. I've pinpointed my friend down to the back of a bar in Tennessee while she was on a work trip. Clearly this app was made just for my enjoyment. I will cover the many uses of Find My Friends in Chapter 13 ("The Use of Spies") of my forthcoming relationship book. Please pre-order now.

Traditionally George and I trade personal information the way two warring nations do, by relying on outside sources and counter-intelligence. This is likely a remnant from our childhood, when I regularly broke into her Hello Kitty diary with my matching key. That probably created an environment of distrust, which has lasted to this day. (For the record, she is guilty of similar types of indiscretions. All's fair in secrets and more secrets.) Add in both of our insatiable thirsts for gossip, and we are each other's worst enemy.

We may have turned a corner the other day though, as George shot straight and asked me about something directly, bypassing our usual back channels. I tried to soft shoe my way around her probing questions but since 2013 is about trying to be more open, I thought I could give her a few tidbits. Here's a partial transcript, which also accurately captures the spirit of our typical AIM conversations.

At the end, when George's suspicions turned out to be correct, she crowed with victory and declared that this must be her secret twin power. Then she went idle, leaving me with nothing in exchange. This sharing moment felt very unilateral and unfulfilling. Georgette, you owe me.