More Tales of Crime and Treason on the High Seas

22

2011-02-10T13:25:00.001-08:00

at 12:00 am yesterday, i turned 22 years old.

it took me a minute to notice this, because i was reading bill zeller's suicide note.

if you haven't heard of zeller by now, a quick google will tell you all you need to know. i don't have the heart to go into too much detail. the note, which had been sent to me on facebook, was a long, heartbreaking diatribe about the impossibility and torture of life. the impossibility of trust. of closeness. of love. of hope. after childhood abuse, zeller had struggled to lead a normal life but concluded, at last, in this letter, that it was impossible. there is nothing at all in this world to look forward to, he writes, and apologizes for the pain he will cause his mother with this last, final choice.

the strangeness of reading this on my birthday is hard to explain. it was like looking in the dark side of a mirror. i was celebrating life. he was, in some ways, negating life, seeking comfort in death. we were opposites.

or were we? i have a dread of birthdays. they have historically been hard for me, and i try to downplay them or let them pass me quickly, before i have time to think about it. i drag my feet. i don't want to think about getting older, "running out of time" - losing the advantages of youth. i don't like - and i know i shouldn't do this, but of course i do - to compare myself to others my age and think, why am i so behind? i don't like to think of my family, always so far away on this day, or about the responsibility and accountability that are intrinsic to the assumption of adulthood.

and yet as i read this letter i started to think. what are birthdays? such fussy days. we mope about them sometimes or look forward with nervous anticipation, wondering what people will do for us or we will do for them. we hope someone will make us feel special, and try to show our friends how much they mean to us. but ultimately, it's not your friends or family who gives you the present that means most. the biggest birthday present is life: possessing life, and your life, no one else's.

i thought about zeller. i thought about my friend's mother, a tzadeikes who fought cancer for years for the right to do more mitzvot and kindness in the world, and see her children grow up. how she fought for every birthday, all the birthdays i laugh about and pretend i've "forgotten" (i am not convinced anyone really forgets their birthday) because they are so unwanted.

i stood in front of the mirrors in my apartment and thought about myself and my own body, which carries me through the world and wakes up every morning and does all the crazy things i ask it to do. a loaner body. like a really nice zip car that G-d lets me keep.

so i've been doing birthdays wrong, i decided. this day is not about me. it's a day for me to be grateful for the gift of my life, and other gifts that have made that one sweeter. this is the anniversary of my relationship with G-d - Him giving me the chance to make something of myself.

so this is for You, G-d. thank You.

thank You for giving me parents who have modeled since i was little what it means to be a good person and a good Jew. parents who have loved me and supported me through the worst and best things. who believe in me and always make me feel understood.

thank You for giving me 22 years with my grandparents and especially my great-grandfather, who so few people ever get to even meet, and whom i have had the privilege to speak to every week, asking his advice, hearing him laugh. please allow me to have him and all my grandparents for many, many years to come.

thank You for giving me a body that, bli ayin hara, is strong and healthy and allows me to do so much.

thank You for giving me friends who are there for me when i need them, who understand without judging, who bring so much richness and wonder to the experiences and life situations we go through together, who amaze me with kindness and thoughtfulness i wouldn't have imagined possible.

thank You for helping me find a job which is interesting, always puts me in places to learn new things, and has enough flexibility in the hours to allow me to take whatever classes i need and still work enough to pay living expenses.

thank You for helping me get into this writing program which forces me to write and write with as much focus and impact as i possibly can, and gives me the opportunity to study with remarkable writers one-on-one. please help me get the most out of this program, and create pieces with enough meaning and substance to be a comfort or joy to others.

thank You for letting me hear someone say, "you're beautiful," even if it was not meant to be.

thank You for creating this strange community in new york full of young people like me, just starting out and not belonging anywhere in particular, who i can see and laugh with every week in shul and hear about their life adventures. i know i complain about living here and some days you just want to be home, but i can't think of a better place to spend these years evolving and learning about the world.

thank You for helping me find and keep my apartment, where i can host so many people for Shabbos and still fall asleep on the couch at 6 30 on Wednesday if that's what i'm up to.

thank You for Shabbos.

Thank You for taking me to England this may to see a country i've dreamed about since i was 7, and to florida this winter so i could be with my family.

Thank You for creating this big wonderful world full of strange and fascinating people and things and giving me 22 years to wander around in it.

I hope that I get to live in Your world for many more years, learning more about it and You, and using that knowledge to create a beautiful story with my life. and i hope that at the end of everything, when i come back to You, You'll be proud of what i've used this time for, and feel that it was worth the investment.

wisdom from my littlest brother's chavrusa

2011-01-16T14:12:00.001-08:00

"if you're in doubt and feeling hopeless, stop doubting and work on scraping some hope together."

true story.

42

2011-01-08T18:28:00.000-08:00

Give this to Wisconsin: it’s cold and Spartan, but it gives you time to think.

I came home to think. This on my mother’s advice. “New York is just getting to you,” she said. “You need some alone time.”

It is my mother’s contention that I have avoided thinking for a long time by keeping myself very busy, and this is probably true. I like to be busy. I like to feel useful. Even little things, like organizing my closet or finishing an article, grant me a renewed sense of purpose and validation. ‘Look!’ I think to myself. ‘I know how to do things. I can do what needs to be done. What can I do next?’

That was certainly how I intended to deal with the long, drawn-out and extremely painful demise of my last long-term relationship (ugh, I hate that term). We had known for months that it couldn’t work, but were close friends before we dated. It’s never a good time to lose your best friend, you know? So we put it off. “We’ll talk about it later.” “We have time.” We swung back and forth, back and forth. I kept busy, which is a thing I do well.

But eventually it had to end, and all the busy work in the world couldn’t stop little whispers from slipping in through the cracks. When my mother suggested coming home, I thought, “Perfect! Home. I’ll be completely distracted.” And that became another way for me to package everything up and move it to the attic of my head, with big messy labels in marker that read, “Deal With Eventually.”

Boy, I couldn’t have been more wrong. I always forget how quiet it is here. Parents have work, siblings have school, and all the kids I went to school with live in other cities and continents now, with other people. There’s no one on the sidewalks here—everyone drives—and it’s bitingly cold, and there’s white snow everywhere (I say white to distinguish it from New York snow, which is yellow, as you are no doubt aware.) I don’t know if it was the quiet or the stillness (there’s only so much work you can do from home), or both, but I’ve definitely had time to think this week.

And it’s no wonder I put it off. Alone this week, I’ve been forced to confront some truly frightening ideas. I have become a person riddled with self-doubt, uncertainty, and fear. I don’t think there’s any one event that made me that way: looking back over this blog, I see a progression of thoughts and ideas, a period of time that’s led me to this point, now, where I fight myself constantly. And in this week of no distractions I think I’ve figured out what has been making me so miserable. At 22, I have somehow become possessed of the following beliefs:

1) the most important thing you can do in life is get married
2) my incapability of doing this represents me failing at life, or not deserving to succeed
3) as punishment, I’m going to live the rest of my life alone, which will become more and more painful as I get older

This is messed. Up. I know it’s messed up. Or at least, I would know, intellectually, if I stopped to think about it. But it’s amazing how you can go through your days and weeks quietly believing something you haven’t even defined clearly. And it can look ridiculous when you set it down on paper, but still be true.

Well, true without being right. This person I’ve become is not me. I fought not to think about this, but today in particular, on a quiet Shabbos afternoon, walking down the same streets I’ve walked every year through grade school and high school and even in college, I realized that I have been missing the point.

I think ultimately, what everyone struggles to have and to hold onto is meaning. We want to feel like we count, like our lives count. In Judaism, in theory, meaning is built into our lives through religion, through tefilla, through Torah study, and through family. Family, though it has its challenges, is an instant source of meaning: it gives you a framework and a context to live your own life, a way of defining yourself and your role in the community. This is easier when you’re younger. Who am I? I am so-and-so’s daughter, so-and-so’s sister. I am part of that family.

I think that in part, this is a reason why so many Orthodox people date and marry young, and it can be a source of anxiety and fear for those that don’t. Though marriage has other, equally enduring challenges, it affixes your place on the earth. You have your work cut out for you, sort of. You matter to someone, and what you do together will matter in sacred and familiar ways.

It is much harder to ascribe meaning to your life and actions when you are not closely tied to other people. This is not to say that it can’t be done or isn’t done every day by many people with stunning success—only that it’s harder. I started thinking about myself. What do I do that matters? Who am I? A freelance writer for a public relations bureau? An administrative assistant in a university department? Um. Good luck getting your life-achievement points there.

Then I realized that again, I was looking in the wrong places. I am not a job description, anymore than I’m just a daughter, just a sister, and in truth, any more than any of my married friends are just wives or husbands. I have been going about this whole process wrong. I’ve even been going about the self-reliancy and needing-other-people-to-make-you-happy thing wrong.

I found myself sitting on the rusty swing set in my backyard and asking myself this: What was I put in the world to do? What are the things that I can do? What do I want to do? If G-d took me back tomorrow, what would I have wanted to say that I did?

Here are the answers I came up with:

I want to write.

I want to write stories that will be mirrors for people. Things that will reflect their own lives back to them, with all of the complexity, all of the intricacy and detail, the trials and triumphs that are woven into a person’s life. I want people to be able to read things I’ve written and say, “Finally – a feeling I’ve always struggled with, and now I have words for it,” or, “I know so many people like that and have never understood them—and now, through this character, I do,” or really just, “Yes—I understand my life and my world a little more for having read this, and I see that I live in a beautiful, fascinating world.”

I want the stories I write to be love poems to G-d. I want to notice all the little things, the painstaking details that no one notices, that together compose the textured universe we all move around and live our lives in. I want to write stories that will serve as a mirror up to my Creator, too. I want them to say, “Look, G-d! I’m not going to live my entire life like one of your ants, scuttling around from sandhill to sandhill and never looking up. I see You everywhere, in every thing You’ve formed, and all Your creations are lovely. And I am grateful to be alive and to have lived in Your world, for a minute or an hour or however long You see fit for me to be here.”

That is my personal mission. It won’t be easy, but even I, with all my doubt and all my insecurities, believe that it is within me to achieve.

And as for those other things, about not being good at things and dying alone—I am sure they will continue to trouble me, because of my age and where I am in life. It’s just part of the game right now. But if at the end of every day, I can look back at those two paragraphs and say, “Am I doing this? Am I using my talents to create meaning and sacredness for other people? Am I honing my awareness of my Creator? Am I establishing a genuine relationship with Him? Am I remembering my purpose in life?”

I think that if I can do that, then I, too, will have my work cut out for me. I will have a place where I belong. And I will be, once again, too busy to think.

Or at least, too busy to think about things no one can control.

sandcastle manifesto revisited

2011-01-06T10:44:00.001-08:00

so six months later, it turns out that making yourself happy is really, REALLY hard. i wanted so much to believe that relying only on myself was an achievable goal. but i feel like i've been losing this fight for a really long time now. tips, anyone? how can you be happy by yourself?

the adventures of fudge in sarah lawrence land

2010-08-30T14:27:00.001-07:00

magical realism, according to wikipedia (that venerated source of all knowledge), is defined as "an aesthetic style or genre in literature in which magical elements are blended into a realistic atmosphere in order to access a deeper understanding of reality." should that fail to float your boat, it also offers matthew strecher's broader take: "what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something 'too strange to believe'."

well, these definitions are very nice. here's mine: "what happens when fudge goes to sarah lawrence."

up is down in so many ways there, it's hard for me to pick where to start. maybe i should begin by noting that this is not a bad, right-is-wrong kind of up-and-down...it's a through-the-looking-glass kind of thing. i really do feel like alice in wonderland. we started orientation this week, so i've been up there all day, every day, and it's like entering another world: a remote, secluded place, with green lawns that roll on forever, winding hilly roads that never seem to go anywhere, patches of woods (woods!) with animals (animals!) poking around through leaves, and pretty much every other thing i do not associate with new york. in my entire collegiate career, never ever have i accidentally walked to another county on my quest for a particular lecture room. in midtown manhattan, if you get really lost, you might end up on the other side of the block.

i think one of the helpful Older Grad Students put it best. "welcome to the shire!" he would shout, cheerfully, to each new student. that is how it feels. it also reminds me vaguely of a sort of ritzy summer camp me and my brothers used to go to in wisconsin. located in one of the posher suburbs, the school was for smart children whose parents would much rather have them learn human genetics over the summer break than skip rope. to get to it, our bus would meander over dirt roads and little streams, past enormous gated estates with driveway circles you could fit my whole house in and flower arrangements i bet needed full time staff. i remember as a kid how i used to press my face to the window as we drove past and imagine what kinds of people lived in those houses. dukes? (yeah, that's all i could come up with).

you get a similar sensation as you amble around slc, which you do a lot of, because they have 500 buildings spread generously across acres of campus, and each person you need to speak to is located in a different house (many of them are houses). as i wondered in amazement how undergrads pulled off these kind of between-class switches, i passed several beautiful, enchanted-looking mansions. more like palaces. i stopped and stared at one. it was very quiet at that part of the road: no cars, no people. just some birds and a little bit of a breeze, and elaborate hedgework.

i have heard some of the other grad students talk about where they live. some live in brownstones close to the campus. some live in new jersey. some live in greenwich village (how? isn't that the most expensive place on earth?) some even live on the upper west side.

but as far as i can tell, none of them go back to what i go back to at the end of the day. i take my train back to the bronx, where i switch to another bus that lets me off at the gwb, and trek home over sidewalks crammed full of everything from empty soda cans and used napkins to dog poop and puke. without noticing it, i've cultivated the habit of watching my feet while i walk, because if you don't look where you're steppin' you got only yourself to blame for what you step into. i make it home to my building, which is nice - i like my building - and to my apartment - like that too- but is the size, all in all, of one slc parking space. as i said, these are not bad things. but they are DIFFERENT things. it is disconcerting to travel between worlds, and to understand for the first time that not everyone really knows the world you live in exists. i have been so used to hanging out here in the heights with my friends, none of whom bat an eyelash at the neighborhood we ended up in; it is normal here, even for those of us who come from more rural areas.

and that's another thing that's a little surreal about slc: for the first time in my student life, my peer group is completely foreign to me. i never felt a sense of homogeny at stern - so many different viewpoints, minhagim, ambitions - but there was a sense of underlying unity. at the end of the day, we understood the basics about each other, almost by definition. i imagine most of the time we didn't even think about it. to each other, we were normal.

not so when you're the only orthodox jew in your program, and probably one of a handful on an entire campus. i know there are other jews - i hear jewish names in passing, and have even met a few- but i have seen no one else trudging up and down all these hills in ninety degree humidity wearing a crewneck shirt and a skirt. part of all these orientation activities are familiar to me, because this is my second year working at a college, and i have a feel for the thoughts and intentions that go into them. but part of me feels like i float around campus in an impermeable glass bubble, my soggy tuna sandwich in tow. the writing program features many formal/informal events, like poetry readings or magazine scout-outs, which are held in bars and have food ordered in. i feel stricken. (i can admit that here, right?) i am not the hipster with black rim glasses* and a pack of smokes in her back pocket and blue hair, and on a day full of other registration activities, i munch on packets of animal crackers instead of the spreads they've set out everywhere. this was par for the course in wisconsin, but i haven't done it in awhile, and i'm out of practice. it's funny how rusty you get. i am used to going to college, i am used to there being food everywhere, i am used to it being kosher. it's not even a question. am i fleishig or milthig: that's a question. but at slc, i am not the audience; not mainstream. i am so unthought of that final registrations (and alternate registrations) are due only on saturday; the deans' office is amenable to my request for another plan, but it's up to me to figure one out.

and it makes me think of how funny we all are, all us stern and yu students and alums, so involved in the scandals and trials of our own circles that we never notice how small we are to the rest of the world. our galaxies are like pinholes to them. the shidduch crisis? are you kidding?

i kind of like being reminded of this, for two reasons. first, after a year or two of working for yu, and four years of attending, it's easy to get sucked into the politics and minutia and the money and think depressing things. but when i contemplate going to a place like sarah lawrence for undergrad - and it would have been one of my dream schools, in twelfth grade- the need for a place like stern becomes unquestionable to me. there is simply no other place i can think of that has the ability to replicate a real college experience for orthodox students: no other place where it will be totally a hundred percent normal for you to keep kosher, where any guy who flirts with you is fair game**, where the coolest class in your department will never conflict with rosh hoshana and sukkot. i understand that this is less of an issue if you're living at home and commuting to cuny or even uwm. i get that. but for the rest of the world, for people like me, i couldn't have had those four years anywhere else. i probably would have loved attending a place like slc as an undergrad - but at such a young and critical stage of life, when self-identity is so malleable, i'm not sure who i would have become, and perhaps even more importantly, who i would have become it with.

the second reason runs the opposite extreme. i almost like being tractor-beamed out of the jewish washington heights scene and into sarah lawrence for its weirdly cooling effect. it really is sort of like being zapped to the moon and glancing back at the earth. things that seem all-consuming here - who are you dating? who are you having for shabbos? - feel distant and squinty over there. dating? maybe i just haven't picked this up yet, but i sense zero stress about dating from the other students in my program. it's just not something they're worried about. you do, you don't, it's a casual thing, without the significance and structure dating has in the orthodox world. with all the goods and bads that come with that mindset.

i realize from the last couple posts i've written one could be forgiven for thinking dating is all we think about up in da heights (or at least, all i think about, anyway). it's unfair of me to represent it that way, and i don't want to minimalize the things i love about here. hand in hand with the immediacy and stress of everyone knowing each other is that it feels like a family. you are forever running into people who make you smile, forever surrounded by fun people doing fun things, people you admire and can learn from, friends who are there for you after a bad day at work and will snort their way through "love story" with you even in the best of times. it's possible to feel like you actually belong here in a way that is sometimes difficult to achieve even in the places we grew up (which are different now, and haven't really been home in years). that's the great, colorful, warm part of the heights. at the end of the day, we are all, as my friend likes to say, "one big dysfunctional 'friends' episode."

and that's the part i'm not sure about, at slc. these students are mindblowing: they are insightful, cultured, incredibly stylish (ahh! somebody style me!). many of them have been doing things for years on a professional level that make my jaw drop. many of them are also kind, friendly, curious - everything that you need to start great friendships.

but will i be friends with these peers of mine? will i ever fit, with my packed lunches and long sleeves and brochas that i make silently which have people frowning at me with troubled looks on their faces? will i fit with them, glamorous and american in ways i've never truly identified as? do i need to, to learn from them or to succeed? and if i don't or i can't or choose not to - how will that evolve? how will i manage it?

i won't lie: a lot of that is probably just as much from awe as anything else. these people are accomplished and really, really smart. i feel a little bit like an impostor. thrilled that i have the opportunity to get better? you betcha. drooling over the course catalog? ditto. but man, i rarely sound as articulate as they do before their first coffee. and by rarely i mean 'with a scripted speech.'

so that's some of the cognitive dissonance i've been grappling with: itty bitty orthodox girl in a biiiiig world, cramped queen o' the stackable shelves vs The Only Thing We Have More Of Than Buildings is Lawns, i try to write when i can vs I Write Six Hours Every Day in a Log Cabin Overlooking a Stream While Eating Scones. either way, i am still very, very excited to see what comes next. maybe they'll let me live in the course catalog for a little while...like flat stanley...in word form...

*so i have black-rimmed glasses, but they don't work on me. explain.

**right? right?

Sandcastle Manifesto

2010-08-16T08:51:00.000-07:00

We all have our frustrations, especially in dating. Here is mine: I have the haunting sensation that I’m building sandcastles on the beach. I build and sculpt and craft, and in the back of my mind even as I build I mourn my work. My hands mold the sand, with care, thought, and when I permit myself, with affection; but I know with unrelieved certainty that it will all be washed away by the tide. I build now, but it will be as if my hands never touched the sand. I build, but I will shape only mud.

They say this about the Jews in Egypt, that one of the most debilitating tasks the Pharoah assigned to break them was to force Jews to build on quicksand (was it quicksand?). As soon as you laid down one round of bricks, they were swallowed into the earth. Effort wasted, in vain, without purpose: this is what broke the Jews. And there are moments when the futility of it stumps me, too. I get a funny taste at the back of my mouth. It is difficult to look at the flat, wet sand and dip your hands in again.

When a recent breakup loomed, inescapable, on my horizon, I found myself struggling with a feeling that is mostly foreign to me: anger. I was very angry. It was a formless anger, too, because I had no idea who I was angry at, or what about. I had not been hurt or wronged. It wasn't going to work out. Sometimes things don’t. There had been and would be nothing especially awful about it. Yet talking with my mother on webcam, agonizing about whether it was really necessary, whether there was anything I could do differently, listening as she repeated to me what I already knew, at some point I gave up and cried. Was it embarrassing? Sure. But listen, if you can’t cry in front of your mother…right?

My mother is tough. She’s tougher than me, for sure. And so I count on her to be tough for me sometimes. She is my drill sergeant: she makes me run when I’m too tired to walk, forces me to do the things I don’t want to do so I can learn that they are not too hard, not undoable, and next time, I won’t be afraid of them. She has no time for nonsense and even less for self-pity. And she has no doubts.
So I froze when, on the web cam, watching me cry, my mother suddenly stopped trying to reason with me and began to sob herself.

“What do you want me to tell you?” she said. “What do you want me to say? How am I supposed to know what will happen? I can promise you that everything will be okay, but I would be lying. I don’t know how things will turn out. What do you want me to do for you?”

I sat there, looking at her, too surprised to say anything. There are so many things that happen behind the scenes in your life. Your bosses, your friends, but I think especially your parents. You forget that there are things they don’t show you. It never occurred to me that it hurt my mother, tough as nails and always right, to see me unhappy, just as it never occurred to me that there were problems she could not fix, questions she did not have answers to.

I had always brought my problems to her. Each time I would end with: “So what do you think I should do?” And she would tell me. Sometimes she would say, “Figure it out,” but in my head I knew that just meant, “Figure it out for yourself—you’re 16/18/21!” not “Figure it out because I don’t know.” She always had the right card hidden up her sleeve, and she would produce it with a flourish once I’d deduced it for myself.

But this time she had no trump.

It dovetailed with something a friend of mine likes to say. “You can’t depend on other people to make you happy,” she says. “If you can’t make yourself happy, no one can do it for you.” Usually when she talks about this, she is talking about the danger—scarily everywhere and invisible in the Orthodox community—of perceiving marriage as a solution. “Nothing you’re miserable about now gets made better by complicating it with another person,” she says. “If you have issues before you get married, you will have issues after you get married.” Usually I agree with her about this. It makes sense to me that if you wait for a guy to solve your struggles for you, you will be waiting a long time. But I had never really listened to what she was saying before. You can’t depend on other people to make you happy—not guys, not friends, not even your mother.

It’s not that you can’t trust them, or that they wouldn’t do everything in their power to see you happy, or that they don’t help. Of course they care. Of course they help. But to make you, at the core of your being, a happy person? A fulfilled person? A person whose life has meaning?

Who builds meaningfully.

That’s the work of a lifetime. How could any other person do that for you?

“Your sister,” my mother said, “is upset that we didn’t buy her the toy she wanted in the store today. If I buy you that, will you be happy?”

I sat there, tissues knotted in my hand, and looked at her. I was not crying anymore. It suddenly seemed silly to me that I had cried. I felt bad that I had made my mother cry—-I had asked her to do something impossible, repeatedly, and it wasn’t fair. I was an adult, with an adult’s problems, now. It was not my mother’s job, not my mother’s role, to make me happy anymore, just as it was not my best friends’ and would not be my husband’s. This time, I realized, it was up to me. Up to me to wash my hands in the water, clear the debris and keep building-—not for nothing, not in vain, but because I choose to believe one day, something will stand. Because I want it to. Because I will work at it.

Because nothing is easy, and you have to work to make a life that is worth living. And if you accept that there is no alternative—as I do—then there is nothing else to be done, and no point in complaining about it.

Looking at my mother, thinking this, it dawned on me that I didn’t need her to know what to do. I knew what to do. It was hard, and some of it would be painful, but it was the only way. And I felt a weird sense of relief and responsibility, taking this burden off my mother’s shoulders and putting it back on my own, where it belonged. For the first time, I understand that I must try to face my fears and my frustrations entirely alone-—but by doing this, I am also empowering myself to find their answers.

I charge myself with the mission of my own happiness. I will remember and pursue the things I came here to do. I will cultivate the beauty I find, between people and in the complex and intricate world around me, and remember my connection to my Creator. These things will stay. I will not let bitterness and defeat define me.

I will not be a slave without G-d in Egypt.

father's day

2010-06-20T18:24:00.000-07:00

how was your father's day?

mine had a very weird trajectory. if you traced its shape, you'd get something like a parallelogram, connecting these 4 points:

1) a call to my great-grandfather
2) an encounter in a supermarket
3) a conversation over "run, lola, run*"
4) a call to my father

and, er

5) an article in the ny times magazine.

i'm not sure if i want to count 5 yet. in theory we still have our parallelogram.

it started like this: woke up in the morning, blinked my eyes open at the ceiling, happy but with the vague sense that something important was about to elude me.

father's day!

sat up in bed, dialed my great-grandfather. we usually speak once a week, but since i had been in england** for almost two weeks, it felt like forever. my grampa david is as bright and as keen as ever, although his jokes are still very flat. he wants to know if i had tea with the queen. he wants to know if i met any oxford men. i give him what i've got, about the castles and the plays. i tell him i love him very much and wish him a happy father's day, not really thinking too hard about either of these statements, because after all, i mean both and he knows it. i call home to wish my father a happy father's day, but he's on call and not around. oh well - try again later. feeling accomplished and proud of myself, i set out to the grocery store to restock my two-weeks' empty pantry.

en route, i am intercepted by someone with whom i have had a serious but difficult relationship. it did not end well and we haven't seen each other in a long time, and after the initial shock it becomes evident that our encounter is going to be every bit as painful, prolonged and frustrating as our relationship was. i emerge from the grocery store without many groceries, disoriented and adrift in a surge of self-pitying defeat. i will never be in a happy relationship. i never want to see a guy again. i will never be worth the things i aspire to. etc.

angry at myself for going down this road again, completely blanking on whatever i am supposed to be doing, and desperate for a distraction, i call a friend and end up crashing on her couch. we like trippy movies and are in the mood for some kick-butt, so we watch "run, lola, run." if i tried to briefly explain what this movie was about, both your head and mine would probably explode, so i'll just call it a german action movie/groundhog day mashup for now. the protagonist lives a certain crisis over and over until she learns how to achieve the outcome she wants. needless to say, this mesmerizes me, and i find myself wondering if it's a superpower or a curse, to be able - and compelled - to do a thing over until you do it right. one obstacle in the heroine's path is her father, who is a) cheating on her mother b) mean c) possibly not her real father d) unhelpful in her darkest hour.

"man," says my friend. "that is one scumbag dad."

"yeah," i say. "can't relate. my dad is awesome."

"mine too."

duh moment: "but i'm apparently an awful daughter, because i completely forgot to call him today."

"it's okay," my friend says. "you'll call him when you get home."

so i call my dad on the walk back from her apartment and tell him about run, lola, run, and the conversation above. confused, he says, "so her father is bad because he doesn't give her the money, but i'm a good father--"

"not what i meant," i interrupt hastily.

our conversation is brief (my dad is busy) but reassuring. my brother has made him a steak and my mom's made him apple pie, so he can't be having an altogether bad day. he makes at least two ewok jokes over the phone, so he can't have changed too much since i last spoke to him.

feeling oddly comforted and a little confused myself, i flip through my mail. the new york times magazine lands on my kitchen table, and i find myself unable to put it down until i have finished reading a terrible piece by an author whose father dwindled away of dementia, enabled by the wonders of modern medicine to outlive his personality and dignity. the author seems to blame medicine for allowing him to survive incidents that should have killed him, to live a humiliating existence that drained the life from his closest family members.

you can think what you want of this piece, although i think no one can judge. i sat for some time reading and rereading it, grappling with everything i had experienced and all the disconnected pieces of my day. like puzzle pieces, bits of thoughts flashed though my brain: my father is a doctor, who heals people and helps them live long lives which may prove frustrating. but my father is also a man, who gets older, G-d willing, like anyone else. my great-grandfather is very old, k'ayna hara, but still very much himself, very much alive. but he worries daily about the loss of his essence and the descent into mindlessness. my father and my great-grandfather are wonderful men, devoted to their families. but today i was reminded at least once of the rarity of such men, and i was afraid that i wouldn't merit to know others like them. i also became so engulfed in that doubt, however briefly, that i just forgot the men who have been pillars in my life, forgot to congratulate them or enjoy them.

i think again of my father, a doctor, a musician, eating steak out in our backyard with my brother; and i remember my father's father as i knew him, in his later years, an ailing man who was difficult to know, but who linked me to my own father.

i guess there is no clear upshot to any of these thoughts, or this post. (i also guess my parallelogram is really more of a house-shaped pentagon. figures.) but it seems remarkable to me that during just one day, without specifically looking for it, so many fractured angles of fatherhood have connected to me: what it means to be a good father or even just a good man, when you are young and single, when you have children in their twenties and a demanding career, when you have great-grandchildren and the fear of an experience no one can describe to you. i saw everyone - my father and grandfathers, guys my own age - on a timeline, arrested at certain points, but moving, slowly, when i least expected them to, changing places.

maybe that is something father's day - a day like that - does for us. it allows us to see and recognize the people who fill critical roles in our lives, and to notice also how they shift and change to fill other roles, to vacate the ones we found them in, sometimes.

i don't know. but now YOU know what my brain looks like on "run, lola, run".

*a severely trippy film. this post would probably make more sense if you watch the chase scenes first.

**can't write about it yet. too big. weird, right?

yes, i wrote a starbucks napkin about london

2010-06-09T00:44:00.000-07:00

storms blow over london, like
dreams across your sleep
flickers of doubt and plumes of shadow
sail and fade across the sheets.

we scurried wet across the walkway
over the thames and riverweeds
umbrellas boom like jungle flowers
but in our hoodies we just freeze, because

this climate, this climate, this climate
is strange to me
spots of light and dark and rainbows across the sea.
where we are from, it only comes down when it pours
where we are from, we learn to weather longer storms.

as colors close up, we fold up our hoods and watch the sky
before we even reach westminster abbey our shoes have dried
i like to think this is a secret i'll learn to keep
each storm will pass, a flash of sorrow in a sound sleep.

the flowers, the blind kid, the wedding

2010-05-25T18:10:00.001-07:00

three things i saw in the park last shabbos, in no particular order:

1) a couple and a child running down a hill. the mother was standing on top with a camera, the father was down below, and a little boy of about seven or eight careened crookedly down the path. but even though his eyes were open he was feeling around in front of him with his fingers, like he couldn't see. the mother made a motion over her head for the father to catch him, but she didn't say anything out loud. the father casually positioned himself in front of a rock wall so the kid ran into him and not the rocks. then he hugged him.

question i had: why not call out the warning? "peter, look out, he's going to hit the wall"? i think she didn't want to take away from the kid's fun.

2) a wedding by the water. not in itself remarkable since there are many weddings in the park. what made me look twice was the bride's dress: a bizarre and fascinating mash-up of cruella deville, the corpse bride, and the vampire diaries. it was a black-and-white tiered dress with at least three different kinds of layers in the skirt, poufy black organza and gauze and lace sticking up in all directions, and a zebra-striped corset with a matching top hat. The groom wore grey converse sneakers and a grey suit. I sat in the grass for a half hour while a kindly old woman in i think minister's robes explained their love to each other. "he loves that she watches dr. who with him. she loves that he can quote dostoevsky. they have composed russian poetry for each other, which we are now privileged to hear." i left then.

3) three little girls in shabbos dresses, almost identical, chasing each other in circles. "roses are red, violets are blue, tulips are sweet and so are you." "no no no! it goes roses are red, violets are blue, you are a LOSER and NO ONE likes YOU!!" they did variations on this for awhile. you are a loser and no one wants you, you are a loser and belong in a zoo, etc. they attracted a small crowd, including one smiling south american tourist who asked me if it was a jewish ritual.

bruise

2010-05-25T16:05:00.000-07:00

she had a bruise

-and later she would think he put it there
think, this is where he grabbed me and shook me until i agreed with him
this is where he gripped me and spun me into knots
this is where he hurt me
even though it wasn't so.

like a cancer on her arm

-and they came up to her all worried
even though it had been weeks now
over, over for forever
almost years since he had called and come
and waited by the bus.

yellow, ringed in purple

-and she yanked her sleeve across it
and was self-conscious, which was silly
since she'd only banged a wall
banged a wall
banged a wall
banged a wall while he was yelling
and weeping
and standing in her way.

a bruise

-and she'd think
he put it there
this is where he touched me
even though he never would.

home is where the heart is

2009-04-12T11:44:00.000-07:00

if you talk to college students or any adult children who have been out of the house for awhile, you'll hear the occasional, uneasy remark about the oddness of 'going home for a visit.' it's surreal, as one friend of mine pointed out: if you're 'visiting' home, then your real home must be elsewhere. i think this is true and untrue in different degrees, and you can argue either side.

i think what is true, though, is that going home, for people who don't do it often, can be the same as going back.

i come home and i find all my old things. my old clothes, my old notebooks, my old stories, my old photos. bits and pieces of yourself that you've shed like snakeskin. but they carry your imprint, and you look at them, and you relive entire years. you remember the years when this thing was a part of you, a real player in your life, and how you were different than what you are now.

it's a tricky place: easy to get nostalgic and romantic about and gloss over the unglamorous aspects. i don't know about you, but i had a lot of acne in high school. lots and lots. not my best years.

still, for the past few days i've felt this bizarre tugging. like all my old things are calling to me. and i didn't really understand what their pull was until i visited my great-grandfather today.

now, you may think, 'oh no. here it comes again. how can one 95-year-old man possibly command as much attention as this blog has given him?'

but my grandfather is an endlessly fascinating person. i think the fact that i have written so much about him is a testament to that.

when i went to see him today, he pulled out a tape for me.

for those of you just joining the program, my grandfather is a musician. he has been writing and recording songs for nearly three-quarters of a century. i won't pretend i like all of them, or that the recordings are the highest quality, but he is dedicated to his music, and has been all his life.

so the tape he pulled out for me was recorded in 1989, the year i was born.

the first thing you hear when you play it is my grandfather's voice - to me, it seems, no different - saying, 'hello, pereleh. this is your great-grandfather speaking. you are two weeks old. someday when you are old enough to understand, i hope your parents will give you this tape and you will listen to the songs. i am here with your great-grandmother, grandma dorothy.'

and then my grandmother says, in the thin, reedy voice i remember so well: 'hello, perel. this is your grandma dorothy. we love you very much.'

then my grandfather sings the song he wrote for me when i was born, twenty years ago.

i do not like to cry. i hate it almost as much as my mother. but i wept when i heard this tape. i wept even though my grandfather himself played it for me - clear evidence that, despite his expectations twenty years ago, he has miraculously lived to show me these songs himself, to talk about them with me as equals. he has, kiayneh hara, lived to see me as an adult, and he is as much himself as he ever was. the tape sounds like a time capsule, like something never meant to be opened during one's lifetime. but my grandfather is still with me. so why did i cry?

we both cried. me and him.

i think we cried when we heard my grandmother's voice.

this puzzles me for another reason.

i loved my grandmother very, very much. but i was not sorry when she died. she was very old and hadn't been herself for years. she was in pain. i was sort of glad when she passed away; i felt like she was free. and i think about her sometimes, but not often. as i said, she had been gone already for so many years.

but i guess there is something about hearing that voice addressed to me. so clear and unclouded, talking to me, not to some hazy shadow of me. saying the things i wanted her to say, with intent, like she meant them. and so exactly the way i remembered her voice that she could have been in the room with me. she could have been right there next to my grandfather, like a ghost.

she told me that she loved me when she was well. i was little but i remember it.

i think that is why we cried, me and my grandfather. it was because for those fifteen seconds that the tape was playing, my grandmother was alive and whole again. she was herself again. and we had her. she was there.

i was surprised by this sudden welling of grief. i never really miss her. why did i miss her then? can you miss someone and not know it?

my grandfather wanted to play the tape again, but i didn't want him to. it was too much for me. i did not want to hear her voice again. i am not sure what that says about me, or him.

but this is what i do think. i think the deep, marvelous appeal of memorabilia and pictures and home videos and tapes lies in their perfectly preserved alternate worlds. they are static, but they feel real. you can step into the past for a minute or fifteen minutes and live there, with the people you love who are gone now or even just older and different than you remember them being.

i think it is not home we visit. home is home. we visit the past; we visit because it's too easy -and too hard- to live there.

split-brained

2009-03-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

i am at an interesting intersection in perspective right now, in which i often feel like three different people before lunch.

today is my sick day. i am not really sick; but i haven't been sleeping lately. at night i am unable to stop my brain's rapid loop of nerves and anxieties. i watch 4:47 and 5:54 and 6:23 come and go. i throw the pillows off the bed, fetch them back, write an essay, put on a sweater, take it off, tack up a picture, rip it off my wall. even in these simple, physical actions, i can't make up my mind. what do i need? what do i want?

anyway, as you can imagine, a week without sleep feels like a head full of sand. so here i am. hi.

it seems like i am headed in opposite directions.

i worked on the arts festival recently for yu. like all political endeavors, it was not entirely satisfying. but a part of me thrived off the conversation and the purpose of it. i haven't had an opportunity to discuss my favorite music, my favorite books and films and words and punctuation marks, in some time, and occasionally i forget that side of me is there. i know anyone who read the last few posts would be confused by that claim, since it seems to be all i write about here, but i get to think about those kinds of things almost as rarely as i post (har.) i love hearing about what other people have listened to, what has inspired them, what they've seen that's made them think about things differently or understand things better. i love the wild, messy eccentricity of people who really care about their favorite forms of art, even though i am usually alienated and belittled by their pretension.

so that's a part of my dilemma. i sort of admire that name-dropping, poetry-spouting world, even though i'm not really a part of it. it excites me, and i think i produce better writing when i'm around it.

but there are drawbacks to that lifestyle. not all, but many of the people i know who actively pursue a life in art or photography or whatever seem less...reliable. they're creatures of the wind. they go when they feel a calling and don't sweat the small stuff.

but i am irrevocably responsible. i do not freewheel; it makes me nervous. i crave routine and habit and stability. i eat cereal and milk for breakfast every morning.

and this is part two of my dilemma.

i've dated many people. i guess four years in new york will do that to you. i find myself frustratingly between axioms: too religious and not religious enough at the same time. too religious to get together for drinks, not religious enough to swear off movies. too religious to sing in front of men, not religious enough to wear ankle-length skirts.

let's suppose that i meet someone who is "solid" - dependable and reliable, fun and nice. still to my right, but able to enjoy certain movies and books. another side of me emerges: the side that most of friends from high school and home know, more focused on religion and family and known quantities than hypothetical concepts. it is not, necessarily, a bad side. but does it belong to the same person who interviews women about kol isha and messes around with screenplays?

are the two mutually exclusive? can they coexist?

if i go in one direction, will i lose the other?

glazers do it better

2009-03-01T11:45:00.000-08:00

i've written a few posts about why i love my great-grandfather, none of which capture it quite as well as this phone exchange i had with him today:

FUDGE: so grampa, you know, i'm going on all these interviews now, because if i don't get a job after graduation i'll have to go back to wisconsin, and you know how my mom feels about that.

GRAMPA: she threatened to charge you rent?

FUDGE: exactly. so they told me i have to buy a matching suit jacket and skirt for this interview, but i went to this store to get a jacket, and the jacket alone costs a fortune! it was like a hundred and fifty dollars!

GRAMPA: yeah, yeah.

FUDGE: so then i called my mother, and i asked her if i should buy it, and she said, 'a hundred and fifty dollars for a suit jacket? what are you, crazy? haven't you got anything else to wear?'

GRAMPA: uh huh, uh huh.

FUDGE: so then i said, 'well, sure, i have this jumper that looks pretty professional, but mom, they told me to wear a matching suit and jacket!' and she said, 'as long as you look professional, you'll be alright.' but grampa, what if i wear the jumper and i don't get the job?

GRAMPA: then your mother will buy you the jacket.

song of songs

2009-01-31T17:46:00.000-08:00

i noticed a very interesting phenomenon at a shabbaton i attended recently, and i'd like to present it to you - without judgment or analysis, if i can.

it was a shtotsy shabbos. to reach the proper shtotsiness threshhold, they brought in an a cappella group. these were guys, students, like nearly everyone at the shabbaton. it was a pleasure, not only to hear them, but to observe them: i kept myself entertained trying to interpret the hand signals they would occasionally flash each other as they sang. they performed at davening and a few times during the meal. they beatboxed; they did scat; at the end of songs they would break into astonishing and surprisingly intricate riffs or arrangements. between them they had a pretty wide range of vocal tones and blended them with smooth efficiency.

in short, they were very good. but it was clear that they were students first, yeshiva guys. i didn't know them, but in their white shirts and black pants, they looked the part.

time for a small tangent.

so. kol isha.

it's an inyan with many nuances, many shades, many interpretations. with my poor grasp of the subject, it would be unfair for me to attempt to define it. for that i refer you to links like this and suggest further research.

i do not pose what follows as my personal view, but a description of what i perceive to be common practice, if you can even talk about such a thing, in yu.

in yu circles, it seems that women are encouraged to sing with men during bentching or davening, but in no other context. certainly i've never seen a band or a choir of women perform for a male audience in a university setting. perhaps in other arenas. but i know that most of my friends would consider these performances 'sketchy' at best. at any rate, i think we can agree that standard orthodox policy discourages it.

And by its nature, halachakically sound as it may be, that policy limits.

i am always fascinated by the talent that i encounter in my peers. at this point, it may be a little embarrassing that i am still surprised when a friend opens her mouth and unearthly music rings out, or i pick up her sketchbook and witness a vision. G-d implants all kinds of miracles in people, and i have had the pleasure to know some truly miraculous people, even in passing.

yet in orthodox judaism, the talent of women is no simple thing. with some talents - visual arts, even writing - gender is no bar. but i have always wondered about those of my friends whose throats house treasures. you know women like this too (although if you're male, perhaps you've never heard them): they're the ones who perform at women's benefits; in the back of your shul, quietly, beside you during kedusha; in their dining rooms as they're clearing the shabbos table. and instantly you think of a different world or maybe a different life where they would be on a stage somewhere drawing tears from the coldest eyes. my grandmother has an expression for voices like these. 'to make angels cry,' she says.

i feel privileged to listen as they sing. But in the back of my head i think of the cost. what must it be like to contain this music, to flex a muscle so strong, to cradle so much beauty - and keep the lid closed? don't tell me about women's concerts or women's tours or things like that. yes, i know. but it's not the same. it's not the same as landing your first role in a broadway musical, and it's not the same as singing to thousands at an outdoor festival or a national opera house or whatever else you can think of.

It’s not singing a duet with a baritone, either.

they tell you to do what you love. what if you love to sing - if singing is your life - but you're almost categorically prohibited from pursuing that as a career?

I dreamed once of being famous. wanted to be a nationally-acclaimed songwriter (doesn’t everyone at some point?). I had no particular skill for it, so i mourned that dream hardly at all. But the experience gave me a taste of what some – not all - vocally gifted orthodox women might feel. Denied, a little bit. Constricted.

Of course, restraint, for lack of a better word, is integral to Orthodox Judaism. There’s a lot of things we don’t do. We don’t eat cheeseburgers. We don’t work on shabbos.

But those, for most people who are born frum, anyway, are easy.

We don’t wear certain things, even if they look good. We don’t hang out certain places.

We don’t hold hands.

There are a lot of things we, as orthodox jews, do not do. And some are hard.

In that frame of reference, here is what I stumbled across this shabbos:

I was walking down a stairwell in the building where the shabbaton had eaten. There were some speeches, interesting but longish, and it was somewhere in the grayish midpart of the afternoon. I was tired and focused only on the unfair number of stairs remaining between me and the ground floor.

After just a few steps, an unmistakable swelling of sound filled the stairwell, and I paused, smiling to myself. Apparently the a cappella group had decided to practice in the stairwell, which, running a considerable distance as it did, boasted rich, atmospheric acoustics. I hardly noticed the flights as I walked, the lush layerings of voice floating up to me like magic. I listened closely for each harmony and each part, singling them out as i identified them with my pitiful knowledge of music: this one is holding down the bass end, that one is doing a round, the other one –

The other one was a trilling, gorgeous soprano.

I stopped on the steps, frowned, and listened closely. But there was no mistaking it: the soaring, almost angelic tone was distinctly feminine. And now I heard others. It dawned on me that the unearthly tapestry of sound rising all around me, swelling and subsiding like waves in the sea, was full-bodied. Every range was represented. Baritones, altos, sopranos. They were all singing the same zemer, but the harmonies had shifted, rearranging themselves to accommodate the new flexibility and reach of their voices. These were no ordinary voices: each was rich, elegant, powerful. Together there were maybe twelve.

It sounded like every part of the world, from the earth to the sky, was singing. It was glorious.

But it was also stupefying.

Could I really be hearing what I was hearing? In this place? With these people? The guys had been doing some Yehuda songs earlier. Not envelope pushers as I would imagine them.

I descended the staircase slowly. As I said, the songs came in waves. I detected a trend: the male voices would start, and then, after a time, the higher end would join in. I was utterly intrigued. I kept walking, enveloped in the music.

As I neared the ground level, I finally discovered the a capella group, knitted together in a tight half circle on a landing. I watched their faces, mystified. Where were the other voices coming from? Had I completely lost it? They parted to let me and my friend pass, still singing.

It was at the bottom of the next flight that I found the girls.

I stopped to consider their arrangement.

I don’t remember how many girls there were. Maybe five. Some I knew, some I did not, but all sounded indisputably beautiful. They were separated from the guys by one and a half flights of stairs: they couldn’t see each other at all. Yet the acoustics were intimate, and they could hear each other with perfect precision.

I stood by the door to the flight, watching, noting, wondering how this had evolved.

Had the girls heard the choir practicing in the stairwell and decided to hum along, softly at first, then with escalating volume as they lost themselves in the music? Had the boys asked for their accompaniment? It seemed impossible for either group to be unaware of the crucial and substantial role each voice was playing in the sound.

How did the a cappella group feel about it?

Were the women’s voices an unwelcome addition? Was the group concerned that they were violating an issur, but too afraid to offend the girls by moving to another practice space?

Was it, perhaps, not something which would have occurred to them, but which they didn’t mind? Were they enjoying the majesty of this sound?

What about the women?

What was their justification—or did they even see a need for one? Was this, at last, an opportunity to participate in a full choir? Was I mistaking them entirely—was this just the impetus anyone feels, when they hear a beautiful song, to sing along? Did they feel immodest? Did they care?

Standing there, I doubted anyone in the stairwell could remain unaffected, untouched by the delicate grace of the interlocking voices, building and dying away.

Was it right or wrong? I’ll leave that for you to think about. I'm still thinking myself.

But I will tell you this: the image and the music will stay with me a long while. In a way I cannot fully explain, that stairwell feels emblematic to me of what orthodox Judaism today can sometimes be. You would have found it nowhere else.

are you still my friend?

2009-01-24T16:44:00.001-08:00

so. january, huh? is it pathetic that the last time i wrote anything of substance we all thought hillary would be president? i'd say i haven't had time, but that's not strictly true. i feel pinched: there's so much i would like to write about, and if i ever wrote any of it, i'd have to develop an alias for real life. curse you, google!

these past few months have spun me around a few times, but for the first time in a long time, i feel like i have a direction. that this is partially due to a teen novel sensation is a little embarrassing, but hey. you take your knocks.

my ambivalence about the future has been starting to peek through the cracks in my life. through sheer providence, i started an internship at a major publishing company last week*. i've done the revolving-door-boy thing. i organized the clothes in my dresser by function. (do you ever feel like that? everything you can't control is incomprehensible, but at least your socks should know who's boss?)

nevertheless, i'm beginning to see the trajectory more clearly. post-college is not the vast blank i thought it would be. you move in steps, seeing only exactly what's in front of you: you can get an apartment in these three places, you can apply for a job here, here and here, these people you like will be living this far away, you need to make x amount of money...it's funny how things fill themselves in at the last minute. i'm a student, we're trained to study, but i think you really can't study for life. things either happen or they don't, and no amount of prep-work can ensure either outcome.

this sort of disappoints me, because i can prep like the dickens, so by the old point-system, i could've been home free. but two millenia of philosophers plus my mother can't be wrong.

and i think i'm finally okay with that. i have never been the queen of spontaneity, but taking things as they come has its appeal. a year ago i would never have expected to be where i am now. and while i love stern, love my friends, love what a home this place has - despite all my freshman qualms - come to be to me, i also acknowledge that some of the dreams i had before i came here have gotten buried beneath it.

forgive me, people, but you knew this was coming. let's talk twilight.

so i think my excuse for reading those books is almost respectable. i got stuck in an airport (flight delayed three hours) and knew from experience that david baliducci did nothing for me. some of my friends (you know who you are) had also gone to see the movie recently. 'hmm,' i thought. 'that's a hefty-looking tome there in hudson news. i have three hours to kill. it can't be worse than the one about the mona lisa cult.'

150 pages later i had drawn two conclusions:

1. everyone i know is a better writer than this woman

a. this woman is writing about vampiric high school crushes

b. the plot is a thinly-disguised device to stretch the book out and, in the sequels, resembles z-grade horror movies

2. this woman is a world-famous successful author

then, sitting there in the airport, staring at the long gray stretch of concrete where my plane should have been for a good four hours, i reached another conclusion:

3. if i really, really wanted to, and if i worked hard, i could write something better. so why haven't i?

it's all i ever really wanted to do. that's what it says in my middle-school yearbook. right next to my name. sandwiched in between "i want to be a mommy" and "i want to be a rebbetzin" there was my 20-year-projective: "i want to be an author."

i was one of those kids who was never good at anything. think back to your kindergarten years. fairly early on, you get the breakdown: there's the "artists", the kids who can color neatly inside the lines and whose flowers always look like flowers; there's the fast runners, the kids who are good at two-square and dodgeball and machanayim; there's the kids who are bossy and good at organizing the other kids; there's the kids who win the middos contests. i was none of those. i almost got held back for handwriting. i couldn't cut in a straight line and always put on too much glue. my flowers looked like monkeys and every project i made came out the same unappetizing brownish-black color, because i always tried to marker things over. i was an instant out in machanayim and talked too much for anyone to want to sit next to me. by second grade, i was thoroughly convinced that i would never find my calling.

in third grade, we had to publish our own books.

i still remember the first things i wrote. they weren't as out there as the pt's; nothing special. a girl getting hurt on the slide and having to go to the hospital, where her other friends helicoptered in to visit her (hmm. on second thought...). i wrote a whole series about a teddybear named 'honest' on the run from the toy factory along with his sidekick, who was some kind of penguin or pig, and which got needlessly violent at some point.

but what i remember most is the awe i felt, sitting down in front of a blank page or screen and knowing i could make anything i wanted happen on it. i didn't have to be good at machanayim in real life. i could write about someone who was. i didn't have to stay in milwaukee in real life. i didn't have to be seven. i didn't have to be jewish. i didn't have to be anything. i could disappear into a million protagonists in a million alien worlds and live lives entirely separate from my own. it was like reading but better - because i got to decide the ending.

i kept them from people unless they were for school. i couldn't imagine why anyone would share things like that. every adventure i wrote was a fantasy, someplace or someone else i wished i could be, and i was a little ashamed of it. nobody else in my class ever seemed to want to be anyone but themselves. they found 'what ifs' a little pointless. what if you were a prisoner during the french revolution? what if you were on atlantis? what if you were an actress? but you aren't. so...what does it matter?

for awhile that question stumped me.

i still get it from time to time, in different forms. why do you waste so much time writing made-up things? isn't writing stories kind of like being a professional liar? it makes sense to ask, i think. why do people give hours of their lives to somebody else's make-believe, anyway? we all do it at some point. people sit and watch television for hours. they pay twelve dollars to go to a movie about someone whose biography bears no resemblance to their own. what do we get out of that?

everyone answers that a little differently. i'm curious to know what you think. i was in middle-school, which i think is when you read the books that will be your favorites for the rest of your life, when i started solidifying my answer.

from books, from music, and from any kind of story, i gained two kinds of knowledge.

i'll call the first trivial. facts. you know what i mean. i learned where countries were located, how feudalism developed, what scotland yard was (hat tip, ms. marple). i learned words which were too big for me and which i mispronounced because i only encountered them in writing. i went around calling zimbabwe 'rhodesia' like an idiot because i hadn't gotten up to the twentieth century yet.

but i also learned experiential things. i learned about people.

i think everyone has moments like this, when you're reading a paragraph and suddenly the author has expressed precisely and clearly a feeling you've never been able to understand or define, and suddenly it makes sense. authors have a phenomenal power to explain the experience of being human. in life, you don't get the narrator telling you out of the corner of their mouth why your friend isn't happy that you did well on the test or why your mother seems preoccupied today. but stories peel back the layers. they let you see dimensions of people you'd never have access to otherwise. they point out the significance in details. suddenly you notice what a person's kitchen says about them, you scrutinize the way they wear their backpack, how they stand on the subway. everything becomes educational. everything becomes interesting.

when you're looking at the world with that lens, it's almost impossible to be bored and hard to be lonely. you learn to see people's vulnerabilities and strengths. i guess on the one hand it removes you a little bit: you become more of a watcher than a doer, more of an observer than a participant in the world around you. maybe that's the price you pay. but i don't think anyone can escape involvement in their own lives entirely anyway, do you?

regardless, that's what i think books are capable of. and that's why i think good books, good stories are essential. they have the ability to mean so many things. they can be friends, understanding things about you that you don't understand yourself; they can be mentors, imparting insights into the way people think and respond; they can be tour guides, leading you through exotic locales and times. good books change the people who read them.

that's what i've always wanted to create. a story with that kind of power, characters with that kind of complexity. people who feel real, that you can love, that you want to spend time with, that you can learn from. that's what i want to be when i grow up. if i can create something that will mean the world to even one person, it's enough. i can work a day job forever if i know that somewhere, someone is reading a story that i wrote, living in it, and happy because of it.

it might take five years, it might take ten. but i will do it someday. i think it's worth doing.

and that's why i'm done apologizing to boys for being me. yes, i watch movies. yes, i listen to secular music. i love secular music. i love secular books. i love everything. i think everything is interesting, and i plan to learn more about whatever i can. i am tired of trying to find unconditional corruption and vice in every facet of culture. not every book is a good book, not every song is a good song, but i refuse to write off entire genres of knowledge because of that. one day i will find a guy who understands this; until then, i've got a tall order to fill, and all the time in the world to figure out how.

so that's where i'm holding. will it make all the work, all the waiting, and all the knocks i'm about to get at this out-of-my-league internship worth it?

it's time to find out.

*more about this as soon as i figure out how to write about it covertly

One Day I Will Actually Write Another Post, and It Will Probably Be Long

2008-12-18T10:23:00.000-08:00

But until then, get your fix tonight on wyur.org at 8:00 Pm Eastern! It's the SEASON FINALE! We've got over 25 candidates so far and the newsfeeds are still reeling in, plus an update on the original Lawnmower-Eating-Man! Vote for YOUR candidate tonight!

because friends don't let friends pay their water bill with spider drawings

2008-12-04T12:36:00.000-08:00

tune in tonight at 8 - wyur.org!

no more prejudice against ugly fruit

2008-11-13T11:28:00.000-08:00

yes, human rights have advanced leaps and bounds over the past few centuries. look at us in america. we now have a black president. strides are being made to treat every man with dignity and respect! but ask yourself this: what about vegetables?

sure, life's great if you're ben-adam. but suppose you're a lopsided rutabaga? a crooked carrot? heaven help you, a class-2 banana?

(you all know who you are.)

until recently, handiwork like the above were shunned in britain. but today an article in the new york times announced the repealing of such prejudice. today, at last, it is legitimate and mentally safe to be a curvy cucumber in the U.K.

if you are aware of a recent news development weirder or dumber than this one, im radioyu or call 212-923-2471 tonight at 8 and let us know. you could get lucky and win the Man Eats Lawnmower Weekly National Championship of the Week.

and you know how fulfilling that can be.

the polar bear trophy

2008-11-06T12:29:00.000-08:00

have you had something stupid happen to you recently? did you read about one in the news?

perhaps you got bitten by a wild fox while you were jogging and then decided it would be best to jog to a hospital before removing the fox so it could be tested for rabies.

perhaps you attempted to drive through brooklyn.

either way, listen in to wyur.org at 8 pm est and let me know! you can im us at radioyu on aol or call in at 212-923-2471.

as an added plus, with your prayers, my shuttle might make it on time this week!

tonight at 8

2008-10-30T15:06:00.000-07:00

the premiere episode of Man Eats Lawnmower National Weekly Championship! Have you heard a dumb news story recently? Think it could holds its own in a fight? Tune in to wyur.org - call our studio number, 212-923-2471 - and pit it against our contestants for a chance to win the Mystery Trophy!

my dat wif prins wiliyim

2008-10-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

(click here for more traditional narration)

do it for your country

2008-10-12T15:02:00.000-07:00

you know you're excited.

don't call us, we'll call you

2008-10-06T18:05:00.000-07:00

i caught up with the pt tonight during her bedtime snack and thought i'd take advantage of the opportunity to ask her about her future.

me: the pt, what do you want to be when you grow up?

the pt (eating cookies): probably an orphanidge.

me: er...a what?

the pt: you know. an orphanidge.

me: you want to be an orphanage when you grow up?

the pt: yeah.

me: do you know what that is?

the pt: duh.

me: do you mean you want to run an orphanage?

the pt: oh. yeah, probably. give them clothes and stuff.

me: that's pretty kind of you. out of curiosity, why do you want to do that?

the pt: there's nothing else to do. oh wait! i remembered what i REALLY want to be.

me: oh, okay! what's that?

the pt: a MAILMAN!

me:

the pt eats another cookie.

me: a mailman?

the pt: it's the easiest job in the world!

me: how do you figure that? you have to go to all these houses and deliver the mail.

the pt (confidentially): and that's IT!

me: there's a lot of houses, you know. that's a lot of driving.

the pt (shrugging): so i'll walk.

me: so you'll--the pt, walking is even slower than driving.

the pt (shrugging again): then i'll bicycle!

me: er - okay, but won't you get kind of bored? all you'll ever do is put mail in mailboxes.

the pt: that's what makes it so easy! you just go over to the blue mailbox on the corner, take out all the mail, put it in the bag, and put it in people's slots!

me: i see.

(pause)

me: the pt, i need a job.

the pt: me too. but i know how to roller skate.

me: what now?

the pt: do you know how to roller skate?

me: um...i guess so, but i don't have any skates.

the pt: oh. well that's your problem. if you knew how to roller skate, you could be a mailman.

me (at a loss)

the pt: why don't you just go to college?

me: i already did that.

the pt: well, you could go to medical school.

me: i don't want to be a doctor.

the pt: oh. well, you could go to waiter school. hey, why don't i go to waiter school?

me: waiter school? what is that, where you learn how to be a waiter?

the pt: yeah! that's a great idea! i think i'll do that afterward.

me: after what? after you're a mailman?

the pt: no. after college.

while i'm on this posting spree

2008-10-04T22:16:00.000-07:00

to lighten up all the navel-gazing going on about here of late, here's a 'grandma rose' episode for you, guest-starring everyone's favorite great-great aunt from poland. that's right, ladies and gentlemen, give it up fooorrr.....bobba!

THE SCENE

A grandmother and college student, zooming down Jewel Avenue like the mafia. Time: 6:37 pm, Friday afternoon.

GRANDMOTHER: Oh my GAWD Perlie, I can't believe you are still managing to get on the wrong bus after FOUR YEARS, oh my gawd how I was worrying so that you would not make it, and here you are five minutes before Shabbos and you're a mess, how are you ever going to - HO HO HO!
COLLEGE STUDENT (startled): What the--?

GRANDMOTHER makes a sudden u-turn; COLLEGE STUDENT's face slams into laundry bag on her lap.

GRANDMOTHER (rolling down COLLEGE STUDENT'S window and leaning across her): WHAT HAVE WE GOT HERE!

She has double-parked her car in front of a little fastidious house. An elderly woman in a Hawaiian shirt and sweat pants is standing by the curb in front of the car. She looks miffed.

COLLEGE STUDENT: Oh hey, it's Bobba!

GRANDMA (shouting, as if elderly woman is hard-of-hearing): PAULIE! I SEE YOU HAVE COME OUT OF YOUR HOUSE!

BOBBA (shouting, as if GRANDMA is hard-of-hearing): SO?

GRANDMA: SURELY YOU ARE NOT GETTING IN THE CAR FIVE MINUTES BEFORE SHABBOS!

BOBBA: IF YOU MUST KNOW, I LEFT SOMETHING IN THE CAR. SO NOW I AM GOING BACK FOR IT.

GRANDMA: OH. I SEE.

BOBBA: YES.

(awkward pause)

COLLEGE STUDENT: Hi, Bobba!

BOBBA: ROSIE, WHO IS THIS YOU GOT IN THE CAR HERE, PERLIE?

GRANDMA: YES. SHE IS COMING TO ME FOR SHABBOS BUT EVEN AFTER FOUR YEARS SHE CANNOT GET ON THE RIGHT BUS. SHE IS JUST A BABY.

BOBBA: HMPH.

GRANDMA: SHE BROUGHT ME FLOWERS.

COLLEGE STUDENT: Because she's so pretty!

GRANDMA: OH MY GAWD, PAULIE! DID YOU HEAR THAT? SHE SAID I AM PRETTY!

BOBBA: SHE SAID YOU ARE PRETTY?

GRANDMA: YES! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

BOBBA: I CAN NOT SAY. I DO NOT HAVE MY GLASSES ON.

GRANDMA: OH. WELL THEN YOU COULD NOT SAY.

BOBBA: NO.

The cars behind GRANDMA'S car honk in a manner indicating that they would like her to pull up, or park, or get towed.

GRANDMA: Okay bye.

COLLEGE STUDENT: Bobba, can I come visit you on Shabbos?

BOBBA (sniffing the air): It will rain tomorrow.

GRANDMA: Then forget about it, kid. Rain is the pits.

COLLEGE STUDENT: But Bobba only lives a block away from you, Grandma.

BOBBA: It is bad luck to go outside when it is raining.

COLLEGE STUDENT: I'll walk fast.

GRANDMA: No no no, it is no good to go outside when it is raining.

BOBBA: No. No good.

COLLEGE STUDENT: What if it's not raining?

BOBBA: So then you can come. What do I care?

GRANDMA: But not if it is raining.

BOBBA: No! Rosie, don't let her leave the house if it is raining!

COLLEGE STUDENT: But-

GRANDMA: Very well. Goodbye, Paulie.

BOBBA: Good bye and good riddance.

GRANDMA's car pulls abruptly back into traffic and makes a hard right.

GRANDMA: She is a weird one, that Bobba.

a post

2008-10-04T20:44:00.001-07:00

post, says anonymous. alright, alright, alright. generally i like to keep these things quality - i only have a really good thought twice a year! - but we'll see if i can form some of my ramblings into something cohesive.

so....october, huh? geez.

it's senior year for me. the rest of you might recognize this year by its more popular name, 'the Year You Decide That Actually, the Past Three Years Weren't That Bad, and You Don't Really Want to Move Out of Your Dormroom.' stern does offer the interesting option of a fifth year, but in my case, this would be blatant stalling (which is a federal offense in my country.) i love school and could probably sit in classes, doodling in the margins and underlining keywords, forever, building elaborate storylines in my head and doing exactly nothing practical with myself again. but there are drawbacks to the Eternal School Plan (esp):

1) technically, i need experience, not further schooling, to get a good job in my field.
2) nothing practical = nothing paycheck.
3) this would eventually drive everyone i am related to mad.

so instead i am pursuing the Elusive First Job path (efj), which for a journalism major coming of age in the midst of a journalism crisis, looks like this:

-READER'S DIGEST WEB COPYEDIT INTERN: 'Remove excess page numbers and parantheses from multiple manuscripts. Translate Canadian and UK English into American English.' (ie, real english. clearly the use of the term 'translate' indicates that they are indeed foreign languages.)
-COPY INTERN FOR PC MAGAZINE: 'PC experience a must. Mac appreciated.'
-EDITORIAL INTERN FOR SPIN MAGAZINE: 'Interns at SPIN are responsible for transcribing interviews, researching stories, running errands, organizing mail, conducting interviews, and compiling music news for possible use in the magazine.'
-02138 EDITORIAL INTERN: 'Part-time or full-time editorial internships are available this spring at 02138, the new independent magazine for Harvard alumni. We seek confident, witty writers and hard-nosed researchers to join the creative team in our midtown Manhattan offices, starting in January.'

and on and on it goes.

notice something about these postings? that's right - they're unpaid. virtually all of them. i am coming to the slow realization that writing is at the most an intriguing field and at worst a reeeeaaallly low-paying one, so you had better get some job satisfaction to pad your earnings. i'm at a strange crossroads: everything seems possible and impossible at the same time. wow, i could do music interviews! i dreamed of doing music interviews in high school! yeah, but you don't hang around in bars and have only been to three concerts in your life. what music magazine is going to hire you? well- okay, but i could work for ziff davis! they're a block away from my dorm, they publish internationally-read computer magazines, and they even pay! yeah, but what do you have on your resume that a huge publisher like ziff davis wants to acquire? three years of writing center tutoring, a stint as an assistant at hadassah magazine, a summer interviewing zookeepers at your local zoo. there's no harpercollins or new york times on there. what are you going to do about it? how will you break through?

there's nothing to tie me to any one place. admittedly, i am not a light packer, but all i've got is a room's worth of stuff. so where should i go? will i go to seattle and become a radio editer? will i move to miami and duck hurricanes yearround? should i go to the hip singles community in silver spring that everyone talks about, and get a job at a political outlet in dc? should i move to london and work as a tour guide in a castle (impractical, but fun)? should i conquer my incomprehensible fears of ha'aretz and attend grad school for half the price in israel? what about la? atlanta? chicago? toronto?

what about new york? i could stay there. oh Father in Heaven, how easy it would be to stay there and not. ship. my stuff. across country. i could move to the heights like every other stern grad, battling cockroaches by night, working in the city by day, davening in the subway on those loooong morning commutes. i could make compot for the potluck shabbos meals everyone's got going on over there, room with people i went to class with but never knew, and attend the world's maximum-fire-hazard meat market for davening every shabbat. i could eat at the little restaurants in front of yu and wish i was still young enough to be in college. nix!

or i could move to the west side. but um...isn't the west side for people who plan to make money at some point in their lives? you know. people whose out-of-college jobs cover things like having your own bedroom. gee...i really want my own bedroom...and the upper west side is pretty....but it's a 'scene.' what does that mean? does it matter if it's out of your price range?

or i could live in queens. or brooklyn. or the lower east side? unknown. unknown. unknown. two-fare, one-hour-plus commute zones.

(whew. okay, pause for a second. show of hands. how many of you are glad you don't have to live in my head full-time?)

or i could live in milwaukee. in my parents' house. and work for...bridge-building magazine? or get my masters at uwm? and er...live in my parents' house? wait- i'm having a flashback from the future:

middle sister: i'm not on sock duty! SHE'S on sock duty!
youngest sister: how am i supposed to know whose socks are whose? we all have the same size feet!
mom: i don't care who's on sock duty, between the three of you, some one should have figured out that the argyle socks are your father's, and those are MY pantyhose!

ergh. maybe not.

anyway, while my parents love me, we have a strict no-kids-above-18-living-here-permanently rule. and i can't imagine what my bubbe would make of it.

bubbe: i thought you could use some crochet covers for your pencils for school. so i'm going to come over tomorrow for coffee and crochet them for you!

so as you can see, i have a lot of deciding to do. but instead i just feel sort of stuck. all my life i've had a gameplan. it's been like stops on the six train: first comes elementary school. then comes middle school. then comes high school. then comes college. in many households in my community, that last would have been seminary. but in the end - i've found this more and more - we all wind up in the same place:

now what?

the rules were so clear and irrefutable before. everybody knows you have to go to high school. what high school, with which haskhafa, these are details you can worry over and work out on your own, but you always have a general idea of what has to happen. in other careers, the road is very well-worn. going to be a doctor? well, then you have to get into medical school, land a residency, take the boards, join a practice...going to be a lawyer? have to get into law school, be a clerk, take the bar, work at a firm...going to be an accountant? have to get the internship, go to networking events, land the entry-level position...

going to be a...you? what do you do to become a 'you'? what do you do when there is no road, and even you aren't sure where you're going?

i don't know. and neither do many of the girls i grew up with. a lot of them live near me now, in one living arrangement or another, and i find myself having the same conversation with all my friends, high school or stern alike. we're all kind of just 'here', now. we've finished the kid chapters but don't really know how to start the adult parts. we all know you're supposed to get married and have families. but how? suddenly the other person in that equation weighs a lot more than they did when our hashkafa teachers referred to them. we all know you're supposed to get jobs - although we have differing ideas about what's suitable for jewish women - which you need to show up to at eight in the morning. but what? we can get jobs cutting out stenciled borders in kindergartens for mimimum wage - is there more than that? is a job something you do to make money for your family, or is it a way to harness your talents to make a difference in the world? you can't know what your purpose in the world is - but can you guess?

we all want our lives to work out okay. but we don't have a gameplan. there's no rules anymore. so how do we know we're doing the things we should?

some people would argue that all this 'not knowing' is actually freedom. the freedom to innovate, to go where the wind takes you, etc. i've given some thought to this argument, and i'm honestly not sure. i think i'm afraid that if i go with the current i'll get lost somewhere far, far away, and won't know my way back. but maybe that's part of being an adult, too.

i don't know.

by the way, anonymous - you said you'd bake me a cake.

1958

2008-08-16T19:24:00.000-07:00

you know how if you think about the same things over and over, after awhile, they all sound the same? you find yourself coming back to the same reasoning or emotion or anxiety or aspiration again and again? i had a moment like that this shabbos.

we had stopped by my bubbe's house in the late afternoon just to talk with her for awhile, since she doesn't get out as much as she used to. my mother and my bubbe entangled themselves in one of those technical conversations only mothers and bubbes can have about what this family member should go for in college and how many tuna fish sandwiches you should pack for this amount of people to get to this kind of roadside attraction and whether it was worth it to put shabbos clothes in a suitcase or ship them ad infinitum. i listened for a little while and eventually i found myself examining the pictures on my bubbe's walls.

these are not in general things i pay close attention to, since most of them have been hanging from their hooks longer than i've been alive, and i've already had much opportunity to study them in close detail during long sederim, thanksgiving meals, etc. i don't know why i decided to look at them again today. but something tucked into a corner of my grandparents' wedding picture caught my eye, and i leaned forward to pluck it from the frame.

it was a black and white picture, not much bigger than a postage stamp. there were three people in the picture: a middle-aged couple and a teenage boy. the teenager, posed between the adults, grinned at something off-camera; he could have been an American high school poster boy with his crew cut and dimples. His mother, on his right, draped one arm over his left shoulder and smiled down at him, her dark hair in a perfect bob, her elegant shoulders white against her sundress. And the boy's father had one elbow hooked playfully over his other shoulder and his mouth wide in mid-laugh. There was a strong curl dangling over his forehead, a faint mustache, and a glint of benign amusement in his crinkled eyes. The three of them looked to me like the handsomest family I had ever seen, and the photo was casual, as though they'd taken it in a drugstore booth. I turned it over, looking for a date.

The back of the photo just said "1958."

My grandfather had come into the room while I was studying it, and I realized that he was the boy in the picture. Those were his parents, my great-grandma and great-grandfather, the one I call and visit on Sundays. I looked at the picture again. 1958. fifty years ago. the picture itself was older than my great-grandfather had been when it was taken.

it has always amazed me how bodies change so much throughout our lives. we are never quite the same people, from day to day, from year to year. until now, i have been in the beginning stages of life, where you are always growing into something or growing out of it, becoming what you will be when you're an adult. but it has only gradually dawned on me that adults shift with the years too. in the 1958 picture, my great-grandfather is about 44, which is neither young nor old. but i was still shocked by how different he looks: his face so much firmer, his skin lighter, unwrinkled, his hair dark, crisp and curly (he's been going for these civil war sideburns lately), his arms strong and toned. only his eyes, with their mischievous twinkle, are exactly the same. if not for them, he could have been a different person entirely. the same is true of my great-grandmother, whose queenly profile caught me by surprise, or even my grandfather, who is older himself now and worlds apart from the abercrombie & fitch youth in that photograph. but the minds, the personalities are the same. my great-grandfather today has many of the same opinions and thoughts that he had 50 years ago. only the outside has changed.

i find that lately i have been thinking about time a lot, maybe even obsessing over it. until this point, the soothing cycle of school years and summer vacations was really all i'd ever known. this week i dug up an old story i'd written when i was twelve, a wannabe novel, and reading through it, i was fascinated by how much that twelve-year-old view of the world is preserved in its pages. without thinking, i have believed for years that i would never grow up for good (read: irreversibly). i seem to have invested in this 'do-over button' scheme, where if one life decision doesn't work out you can always try something else, and there is all the time in the world to spend with all the right people doing all the important things. didn't take your younger sister to the drugstore on her roller skates to buy her a chocolate? next week! didn't call your grandmother on her birthday? next year! didn't find a way to make your job meaningful? next job! it never occurred to me that you could run out of nexts or that the time you spend waiting for them isn't put back on the meter. my great-grandmother is gone now. i will never write the story she always tried to dictate to me about how her father's horse used to bang on the door when it was hungry or how she drove her parents around when she was fourteen.

and, if everything goes according to plan, i will graduate college this year. throughout my life, almost unconsciously, i find myself comparing where i am and who i am to what my parents, grandparents, friends were when they were my age and what they became later. am i on track? do i understand what they understood? what will i be like when i'm the age they are in that picture? what was it like to be me when that picture was taken? am i still the person i used to be, even though my face has changed its shape, my hair has gotten curlier, my resume's gotten longer, my driver's license is expiring...or am i becoming somebody else, in a picture that hasn't been taken yet?

it's so easy to lose yourself in the minutae--and believe that i am not minimizing their importance--of day-to-day life. in how many tuna sandwiches you need to pack, how you're going to ship your clothes, what kind of cell phone service to get. these are the small decisions our lives are made of--but you lose sight of the timeline. we are all at different points on our lines, but they begin and end. and before you know it, one bright autumn afternoon of fun with your son is fifty years behind you, in a universe by itself.

i am still at a point where i can remember what the "Start" sign looks like. the set of memories i usually reference are all about growing pains: professors i had trouble with, school bullies, birthday cakes, sibling rivalries, household chores, family trips. those are the experiences i've been drawing on to define myself for most of my life. but in these next few years there's a paradigm shift coming. i won't really be any kind of child anymore: not a kid or a teenager or a student. will i be what i wanted to be when i grew up? heaven only knows. but for me, that sheltered and nurturing segment of life will be more or less finished. there will be no do-overs. you can't go back to high school.

was high school that much fun? does anyone really want to do ads for their eighth grade yearbook again? discuss amongst yourselves. i don't have any answers. if anyone invented a time machine i'd be the first to get a mortgage for one, or even just a pause button; wouldn't it be great to be able to freeze life, do all the thinking and stewing you need for a given situation, and jump back in without missing any of the action? or better still, wouldn't it be great if you could be in more than one place at once? you could watch your brother throw together a chulent and push your friend's kid on a swing at the same time.

looking at that stamp-sized picture, taken decades before any of these people i love realized they would have grandchildren or great-grandchildren, only one thing is clear to me right now.

what i want most is for someone, sixty or seventy years down the road, to pick up a picture of me and think as i did: "that was my grandmother when she was young. she learned so much from the world around her during her lifetime and treated everyone with love and respect. i'm proud to be her grandchild."

how to deal with your sociopathic boss, according to the pt

2008-07-29T18:23:00.001-07:00

the pt: hey fudge. can't talk now. i'm busy writing a new casl slugwrth book.

fudge: the pt, may i come into your office?

the pt: you're not dead or a zombie or anything, are you?

fudge: maybe. would you let me in anyway?

the pt (doubtfully): okay.

fudge: the pt, i gotta ask you a question.

the pt: okay.

fudge: my boss is really mean. what do you think i should do?

the pt: what boss?

fudge: the one at work.

the pt: oh. i thought you meant the main boss.

fudge: you know how i go to work? and have a boss? she's mean. what should i do?

the pt: stay home, probably.

fudge: but then she'll say, 'fudge, you quitter, you, you have to come to work! i'm not finished yelling at you!' then what should i do?

the pt: stay home more.

fudge: i like your thinking, the pt. what would you do?

the pt: well, probably eat a snack. i'm getting kind of hungry.

fudge: focus, the pt. focus. i mean, what would you do if you had a mean boss?

the pt: where?

fudge: at work.

the pt: i don't go to a work. i'm a kid.

fudge: well, pretend!

the pt (doubtfully): okay.

fudge: okay, so you have a mean boss who's always yelling at you. what do you do, the pt?

the pt:

the pt: skip.

fudge: skip?

the pt: skip away. like this.

(the pt skips away)

fudge:

fudge: hey, the pt! come back! i'm not finished, the pt!

signs your boss may be sociopathic, part 1

2008-07-29T06:59:00.000-07:00

1. you may not speak unless asked a direct question.

2. you may not use the bathroom without explaining where you are going and how long you will be gone.

3. you may not change the free hours you work on days when she is not in the office, even if you will be working the same amount of hours, without her consent and three days' notice.

4. you may not email photographs of your sister, whom your boss asked you to bring in as a model for magazine photographs, to your parents, as they are not your property and your boss has no intention of giving them to you, despite the fact that it would cost her nothing.

5. you may certainly sign a contract stipulating that you will work less hours on friday, so long as you are prepared for your boss to expect you to work overtime on friday nights regardless.

6. you will be expected to produce an entire written report on photography because you foolishly wasted half an hour asking the photographer questions about his trade while picking up prints for your boss.

7. you will be expected to document every thing you do as you do it and will be punished for failing to keep up with documentation.

8. whatever you are doing, you are doing it wrong.

9. you are probably doing it wrong because you are not working hard enough, did not thoroughly peruse the back catalog of publications which exemplify good writing, or are simply stupid.

10. you are not allowed to make mistakes, which is unfortunate for you, since by definition, interns make quite a few mistakes.

11. you are required to gush at length about what a wonderful mentor your boss is and how much you are enjoying your internship to her supervisors if you have any desire to receive credit for your time.

12. your boss will read any evaluation of the internship that you write long before she writes her evaluation of you, so you must never, ever take issue with her treatment of you.

13. you are looking forward to having your wisdom teeth removed because you will get the afternoon off.

14. and your boss makes oral surgery sound like a day at the beach.

ofis rools

2008-07-14T17:14:00.000-07:00

file this under 'things i found behind the couch, on top of an overturned cardboard box next to a pink plastic folding chair':

Ofis ROOls

1. NO flifl
2. NO shawting
3. NO ZOMBYS
4. NO MUMYS
5. NO DED PEPL

when midwesternisms attack

2008-06-19T07:29:00.000-07:00

SCENE: FUDGE, MOM and THE PT at an aerobics studio. FUDGE and MOM have just finished exercising and are putting away their weights. THE PT is coloring on the mats. Offstage right is a water fountain with a pen jammed in its bar.

THE PT (pointing): somebody left their pen in that bubbler.

MOM (wiping face on towel): they did that on purpose, honey. it keeps the bubbler running.

THE PT (flabbergasted):

FUDGE: you know. so the water gets cold.

THE PT dashes to the water fountain and studies its side with an intense scrutiny.

FUDGE and MOM exchange glances.

MOM: what are you doing, the pt?

THE PT: looking for how he gets in.

MOM: how who gets in?

THE PT (impatiently): the bubtler.

FUDGE and MOM exchange another look. MOM abruptly doubles over, helpless.

FUDGE: no no, the pt. a bubbler is a thing that water comes out of that you can drink from. a butler is a servant for rich people. there is no butler in the bubbler.

THE PT (outraged): then how does the water stay cold?

there's a snake in my boot

2008-06-12T18:46:00.000-07:00

well, i hope you will excuse me for the infrequent blogging, but as i'm sure you know by now, i've been a little busy lately, what with the lake shortages and bat-feeding and all.

never in all my years as a wisconsinite have i seen weather like this. i don't know if it's a function of global warming, as my father and his mother debated while she stayed with us for shavuous (during a recent episode of the twilight zone), or if this is simply the kind of thing that happens every once in ten thousand years, like pinkeye or the ice age, but whichever way you look at it, we here in the midwest are beginning to rave.

there is no tv channel you can watch that isn't boxed in by scrolling, flashing text. there is no radio channel you can listen to without minute updates on water levels. there is no street you can drive on without holes in it and no place you can drive to without galoshes, an adult-sized poncho and a good luck charm. there is no basement without carpet mold. every store you walk into has a checkout display of sump-pumps and cements and wet vacs. every newspaper or magazine article is about how to deal with flood damage, how to prepare for floods in unusual places, 'tornado chic', etc.

for instance, the last time i had time to check the sports section of my local newspaper, they ran some article about what to do if a tornado hits when you're in the woods. 'seek shelter,' the editorial advised. 'if you can't find a clearing, do not lie down horizontally, but rather curl yourelf into a ball. make yourself the smallest targest possible to avoid being hit by lightening.'

i read this over my coffee and scoffed. ridiculous! what kind of person randomly finds themselves so entrenched in the woods on a stormy day that they can't even find a clearing? and why do you have to make yourself the smallest target when you're surrounded by trees? i, a city dweller who could pass for a city expert in these parts, took another sip of my coffee and closed the paper with a disdainful curl of my lip. 'country bumpkins,' was something along the line of my thoughts. 'having the time and availability to get themselves stuck in the woods on a weekday.'

this is what is called 'tempting fate.'

but i remained oblivious to my foolishness and the general paranoia invading wisconsin (where you can now pass people on the street wearing bike helmets to protect themselves from falling fish) and continued to show up at work every day. for those of you just joining the broadcast, i am currently working a summer job for the zoological society, which is, inevitably, located at the zoo. this means that showing up to work involves, among other things, passing giraffes, orangutans, poisonous monkeys, etc.

technically, i am supposed to write the text for newsletters, signs, blurbs, and suchlike. but because most of this text requires some kind of contact with the animal or its zookeeper, i have frequently found myself stomping around the zoo grounds for hours on end, ducking under rocks in penguin exhibits, observing blood-stirring to be fed to vampire bats, avoiding aptly-named 'poo pits' - you name it, i've stepped on it. or under it. i have also ingested more mosquitoes and horseflies than the entire spider population of Wauwatosa, but that's for another time.

anyway, today i set out to work, blithe as a clam, despite the various "Danger! Danger!" weather alerts bombarding me via every possible communicative method excluding smoke signals. we had a flash flood alarm, a tornado alarm, severe weather, high winds, what have you. next, i thought, they will be warning us to watch out for 'extreme sky'. i composed my hitlist of places and things to do, as is my custom, and began my usual trek around the zoo. one of my tasks (sorry, i've been sworn to secrecy) involved a real shlep out to the far end of the grounds. i didn't hear the first thunderbolt until i was three quarters of the way there.

it was loud. really loud. and the sky was bright scarlet, even though it was only an hour after lunch. my first thought was, 'huh. bet that hit something.'

my second thought was, 'surely that can't be hail falling from the sky?'

i stopped and looked over my shoulder. i found, to my dumb amazement, that i was on a narrow, little-traveled path around the outskirts of the zoo. there were tall pine trees and thick underbrush all around me, and a bridge a little ways in the distance. the path continued for awhile and then disappeared around a bend. lightening flashed. the pine trees whipped wildly in the wind, and another loud crash sounded.

'you've gotta be kidding me,' i thought, glancing in each direction as though a 7-11 might materialize. but as the lightening flickered again, i was forced to admit that i was, effectively, stuck in the woods during a severe thunderstorm. i was also forced to admit that i probably should have paid slightly more attention to the editorial in the newspaper.

'****,' i thought.

as the wind kicked up, i held my notebook over my head in a pathetic attempt to keep dry and debated what to do next. was i supposed to lie down? on the middle of the path? in the peacock dung? should i seek a clearing? should i curl myself into a ball? should i stay away from the trees or hide under the trees? oh, john malan! i'll be a good girl next time! i promise!

there was another bolt of thunder, and the sky turned from scarlet to purple. i came to a decision with surprising alacrity after that: i ran for it.

that's all for tonight, folks. if you need me, i'll be right here.

hiding under my desk.

Panik! Aaaaa!

2008-06-12T17:05:00.000-07:00

FUDGE (throwing rain poncho over head and slamming back door): Well, I made it home from work alive! Boy, that was ridiculous. The flash flooding, and the -

THE PT (popping out from behind the pantry door): Did you have a tornado drill?

FUDGE: BWAGH!

THE PT: I had a tornado drill. You should have one too.

FUDGE: How did you get behind the pantry door like that?

THE PT: Being safe is so fun.

FUDGE: What are you talking about? What tornado drill? We never had 'tornado drills' when I was young.

THE PT (blinking in obvious mortification)

FUDGE (grumpily): Well whatever. What was this 'tornado drill' like? What did you do, duck under your desks?

THE PT: No!

FUDGE: Well, thank goodness for that.

THE PT: We ducked under the COMPUTER LAB desks!

FUDGE: Why? Couldn't you duck under your own desk?

THE PT: Uhh....I think you're forgetting the evacuating part. It wouldn't really be evacuating if we just stayed in our very own first-grade ROOM.

FUDGE: True. Well. Okay. What did you do in the computer lab?

THE PT: Told a story and practiced being safe!

FUDGE: What was the story about?

THE PT: I don't know. I was panicking.

FUDGE: The PT, did you run around in a circle screaming, 'Panic! AAHHHHH!', the way you do during thunderstorms at home, for forty-five minutes?

THE PT: Uh, not really, no.

FUDGE: Then how were you panicking?

THE PT: Well, my afternoon morah let me skip the line.

FUDGE: Why was that?

THE PT: Because I was terrified of the tornado.

FUDGE (suspiciously): Not because you were running around screaming, 'Panic! AHHHHHH!' ?

THE PT: I wasn't screaming that!

FUDGE: Weren't screaming that?

THE PT: No!

FUDGE: What WERE you screaming?

THE PT: 'Ahhhhh, tornadoes are the only thing in the whole world that I'm afraid of that are actually real!'

FUDGE:

THE PT (sheepish)

FUDGE: That's...rather lengthy.

THE PT (mumbling): Well we never have monster drills.

-------------------------

FUDGE is an editorial intern and staff writer for the County Zoo and is currently wet-vaccing her basement carpeting. THE PT is a well-known novelist and paranoiac. Her upcoming memoir, "My Turnaido Jril" , will be available for purchase on June 18th.

how to tell if you're a nutjob

2008-05-28T07:22:00.000-07:00

by fudge

1. will you only pick up your toys with a robot arm?

2. do you take a hula hoop to school with you every day, even though they already have hula hoops at school?

3. do you try to smuggle a lunchbox full of water to shul with you under your coat on shabbos?

4. do you hum the theme song to your favorite cartoon show and break into superhero poses on a regular basis unrelated to the context around you?

5. do you have a favorite insect?

6. do you consider an event, such as teethbrushing, not to have occurred until it has been documented and notarized by a parental figure on a markerboard?

7. do you have a one-legged skip?

8. do you consider the rules for grocery-cart riding posted in the supermarket to be enforceable by death?

9. when you are riding in the back seat of a car, do you sometimes throw your arms up, whoop and catapult to the side without warning, as though you are on a roller coaster?

10. do you routinely ask, sometimes up to four times during a single meal, if the bowl, fork, cup, place mat, napkin, etc., in front of you is your own?

11. do you do this even when no one else is at the table?

12. do you gripe for hours because nobody woke you up before seven?

13. do you scramble to hide whenever someone enters the house and then yell "Surprise!", even
though, since you do this on a repeated basis, there is little chance of either you or the enteree being surprised?

14. have you spawned an entire spin-off genre of literature quoted by complete strangers inevitably more than ten years your senior?

this is america, charlie brown

2008-05-13T07:23:00.000-07:00

sticky-note i received on a returned paper from a professor today:

'hi perel,

please find attached your term project. i hope you don't mind that i labeled it 'peril project.' i just couldn't help myself.

yours,

professor x'

the living room

2008-04-29T20:28:00.000-07:00

well, it's the day after the day after pesach, and perhaps you could conclude that if ever there was going to be a have-out between me and transportation at large in all of the world, yesterday would have been it. certainly i believed this, yesterday. i stormed into stern sometime late, late last night, having been bumped to no less than three flights and having boarded two airplanes, then being shuffled onto the sketchiest bus in new york and getting stranded and having to take a taxi in the RAIN and -

i was a little wound up, as they say.

also, i think that classes can never seem more pointless than when there is only one week of them and that week directly follows pesach. you move heaven and earth to get to a classroom only to find that the professor is unfortunately still dwelling, bright and crisp, on the dregs of a topic you probably couldn't even remember when it was fresh three weeks ago. you kind of want to burst into the room with your arms out to a rousing round of applause, but instead, you are met with more weary and bedraggled faces of other students who have been unapplauded for their amazing escape from the airport, and who unlike you have already fallen into the shadows of Final Exam Blahs.

there are many ways of combating the FEBs. theoretically. stern suggests ice cream; my point is, you need more than a half a scoop of cherry vanilla to conquer the whole three-papers-in-two-hours thing. however, i am not one to talk, as my strategy is to scrupulously avoid finals into they crash, avalanche-like, over my head, at which point i revert to expresso.

today i was living up to my ethos as usual by diligently focusing all my attention on a trivial and minute task which had no timely relevance whatsoever, chiefly: ironing.

i was never much of an ironer. back in the day, my mother would force me to iron. subscribing to boot-camp-parenting as she did, she would sometimes force me to iron clothes that weren't even mine. i spent the rest of my teenage years and the first half of college attempting to avoid ironing at all costs, and i must say that i excelled at it.

but then this year i started working in an office, and slowly, the shame began to creep up on me, like the grey on the guy from the 'just for men gel' commercial's head. wearing the same one presentable outfit to work everyday. it being wrinkled and frumpy all the time. being regarded as a sixteen-year-old with cause. so i gathered my reserves of courage and ventured into the manhattan shopping world and emerged victorious with three blouses, a black skirt with a belt, and a tabletop iron, with which to keep the black skirt and the blouses from crumbling into dust in my closet.

now let me tell you something about tabletop irons: they are perfect for ironing handkerchiefs. not so good for anything involving more than one panel.

when i first got the iron i would try to negotiate the board around my room. the board stands all of three inches off the surface of wherever you put it. i would hold it on top of my dresser and climb on a chair to iron that way. i would put it on top of my steamer trunk and kneel on the floor. at one point, in exasperation, i forewent the board and held the blouse up with my hand. i felt like mr. mom. i felt like a fool.

so, in desperation, and feeling slightly illegal, i resorted to ironing in the back lounge, where - you might have heard this - they have tables.

it was embarassing. i had never seen anyone else iron in broad daylight (or poor wattage, whichever.) i am not a great ironer and it takes me forever to reduce the shirts from 'entirely wrinkled' to 'slightly less wrinkled', which is where my standard currently sits. everybody would be able to see me. perhaps i would look even more like a fool. but when i fitted the board on the table i determined that it was infintely better than kneeling on the floor to iron, and so my ironing ritual began. and so i took half my wardrobe downstairs tonight to smoothe out so i could immerse myself in the nonwriting of various things.

but i am glad i did, because i think that when i iron here, it allows me to touch a layer of life here at stern that i can't always recognize for what it is.

tonight, like every other time i've ironed, there is another girl i know sitting at one of the tables. not someone i'm particularly friendly with; just someone i know. she's writing a music paper. she smiles when i stagger in with my board and iron - they all smile, as though i am a quaint relic of some other era. but i don't mind anymore.

as i prop up my board and spread out my blouses, she moves a little closer. she plays a song for me, asks me what i think of it. another girl we know comes in and drops dramatically onto a couch. they smile and greet each other, greet me, start talking about an event i didn't go to. i move the shirt and press down the iron. another girl seats herself at the piano and pumps out a ragtime jazz, and the girl writing the music paper grins dreamily, asking me again what i think of it.

i drift in and out of the conversation, working methodically, my hands busy. i listen. i listen to one acquaintance talk about her upcoming trip to india. i listen as another girl reads me, shakily, the paper she has written, commenting, questioning, turning my shirt. i listen to the music winding out of laptops, from the piano, from a friend as she sings. i listen to the diligent scritching of the girl who lives across the hall from me as she winnows her woodwork (say that five times fast). sometimes they glance up at me and draw me in, and i'm glad to be drawn; sometimes there's no need to talk. the five of us, six of us, seven of us are just down there in the lobby, where the guys and the dates can't go, focused on our separate tasks, but together in one unique, lovely moment of calm. we belong. not friends, but a community - a little town where anything can happen and any topic is relevant and no one needs to be what they aren't or anything more than what is.

i had been aware of this feeling in some of my earlier ironing days - just this thought that flitted through my head like sunshine: "this is so nice, to be here now - i am so happy right now - but i'm ironing - how can that be?" - but i hadn't concretized it until tonight, when one of the girls i was listening stopped talking, abruptly, and laughed.

"it's like this is your living room, perel," she said. "isn't it like a living room?"

i paused for a moment and looked at her. i looked at the other girl by the piano, and the one curled up in the armchair with a notebook and flat pretzels.

i thought about chol hamoed, when i had done just the same in my house. my brothers playing videogames and me in the armchair, watching them. not because i wanted to see the games. just being with them. being around them. absorbing them and what their lives, of which i ultimately know so little because i am away, are about. and i realized how truthfully this strange existence in the lobby was not so different; here we were, more or less strangers, not so much interacting as steeping in each other's presence. not like strangers do here, unacknowleged and unnoticed, but with warmth and comfort.

there are many kinds of stern experiences floating out there. blogs, stereotypes, whatever. i want this experience to be one of them. i want it to be remembered.

conversations with my great, food-critic grandfather

2008-04-06T21:08:00.001-07:00

grandpa: the other day we had barbecued meat for supper. you tell me something, is that healthy? what kind of fool sets fire to something and then eats it?

me (reasonably): well grandpa david, you know people've been doing that for thousands of years now.

grandpa: oh really?

me: yep. thousands.

grandpa: you ever noticed something about all those people, perel?

me: er...what, grandpa?

grandpa: they're all dead now, ain't they?

the scary thing is, i have a feeling the pt would have employed identical logic.

nuthing lik a dat

2008-03-30T07:53:00.000-07:00

in the spirit of my sister's influential bestseller, "nuthing lik a famule" ('grat book!' - the new york times), erachet and i composed a timely update on the classic text during a recent bus ride back from an engagement party, and contrary to all expectations, we struck gold. we feel it is our civic duty to disseminate the kind of genius we stumbled upon to you, the dating public at large. below are some of the highlights:

NUTHING LIK A DAT

by

FUJ

and

ERASHA

("grat buk!"- the apel)

In the morning, my shadchan sets me up.

My sister dozint lik to. Not vere.

I forget to apli all of my makup.

My mom gets mad.

......

AAAAA! War my purs is?

(You mean, 'Where is my purse?')

Undir yor bed! That iz war it iz!

.........

(What's that in the background?)

(That's the date cage.)

(You have a cage for dates?)

(Yeah! The dates like to be up there!)

.........

"Ar yu gona sta on yor dat? Do yu wont to eet choklit wen you get hom?"

"No, I think Im gon to sta on the dat."

"Okay Im leeving withawt yu! Phwew!"

........

"Ugh....whi do i cep geting bad dats..."

(Probably because your last name is Frankins. - We couldn't improve on this line.)

"Mabee yor dats ar good:

F for Jest Frends,

R for Restranin Order."

The End! Duh duh duh!

!
*Feel free to write your own pt-style dating lines in the comments! Whoever wins gets...er...the Flat Stanley her first-grade class is mailing to me!

** Be sure to revisit "Home for the Holidays", which now features Mr. Richards' portrait!

Survey of Literature Class, Post-Midterm

2008-03-25T10:26:00.000-07:00

PROFESSOR, sitting atop desk, flipping through graded midterms, tonelessly:

Some people did better on some parts than others...this test was specifically designed to make sure you'd done the readings, of course...so you can imagine what grade I gave the student who said that Mary Rowlandson, who as you all know bought her way out of captivity, was actually rescued from the Indians by marauding bands of English colonials...

FUDGE, glancing at end of test booklet, impressed, to self:

A-.

home for the holidays

2008-03-22T22:52:00.000-07:00

you know, many people attempted to talk me out of my decision to go home for purim this year, arguing the basic premise that:

a) everyone who is anyone is in new york
b) the purim fun is funner in new york
c) in wisconsin there is snow

but, even with respect to the healthy two feet we received almost in tangent with megillah reading, i am glad that i braved the milwaukee skies, if only to afford me the ability to keep up with the pt's endless stream of straight-to-paperback novels:

me (flipping through bundle of papers entitled 'end the long jirney began') : "here is richard."

the pt: yeah, that book is about richard and the dragons.

me: i see. hmm. but...why does it call him "mr. richard" on this page?

the pt: because he got married! hello?

me: uh...what's that on his cheeks?

the pt: pink.

me: is he blushing, the pt?

the pt: well, he did just get married. and that's pretty inbarrassing.

the phone weevil

2008-03-04T10:17:00.000-08:00

phone: ring ring...ring ring...ring ring...

mom: oh, hi.

fudge: hi, mom. listen, i need to ask you this question about my tax form--

the pt: UM, HELLO? IS ANYBODY ON THIS PHONE?

fudge: hi the pt.

the pt: HELLO? HELLO?

mom: yes! we're on this phone! go hang up!

the pt: I'M KIND OF IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING.

fudge: what? listen, the pt, i need to talk to mommy about something, okay? i'll talk to you later.

the pt: CAN I PUT YOU ON SPEAKERPHONE?

mom: the pt, just hang up.

the pt: OKAY I'M PUTTING YOU ON SPEAKERPHONE.

mom: the pt, i said no!

fudge: whatever. listen, mom, about this form you sent me --

the pt (from a great distance) : that's better.

fudge: listen, in the third column--

the pt: fudge, can you hear my marker scribbling on my paper? oh no...it's a new one and it's all dried up...!

mom (distracted): it's all dried up? i just bought those three days ago!

fudge: mom!

the pt: we had rice for supper. ew.

mom: well you didn't eat your chicken!

the pt: um, hello? that's probably because it was yellow?

fudge: whatever. listen, i' m trying to talk to mommy, okay?

the pt: my guy has little arms. doo doo doo doo...

mom: the pt, hang up.

fudge: okay, so this form--

the pt: i feel like putting on my pink socks.

mom: no, we're not putting on any more socks tonight.

the pt: whhhhhhhhhhhhhhy?

mom: because we have enough laundry to do as it is!

fudge: um -

the pt: well what about the purple ones?

mom: no more socks!

the pt: oh man!

fudge: hello?

the pt: scribble scribble scribble. do you hear my marker breathing?

mom: don't you have some homework to do or something?

fudge: mom, can i just ask you a quick question?

the pt: weeeeeeeeeel i was supposed to do my kriah but um...well, when we were putting things in our backpack, chaya came over to talk to me, and--

mom: the pt! this is like the third time this week you didn't do your kriah!

fudge: helllo?

the pt: well my marker has little arms!

mom: the pt, go check your backpack.

fudge: testing, 1, 2, 3. testing, 1, 2, 3.

the pt: doo doo doo...i just feel like eating a cookie....cookies are so good...

mom: no, we're not eating any more cookies tonight.

the pt: oh, but wwwwwwwwwwhhhhhhhhhhyyyyy?

::call waiting from 'Bubbe' ::

fudge: AUUGH!!!! I JUST WANT TO ASK ONE QUESTION!

(five second pause)

the pt: um, fudge? that was really werid.

the importance of history

2008-02-28T15:46:00.000-08:00

some days i feel like i must be one of the most confused jews to have ever walked the earth, or at the very least, to have paced the vaunted corridors of stern college for women. to sit with me and follow me through my afternoon classes you'd be convinced that i planned the whole thing deliberately, so completely and assuredly does each course contradict the other.

this post has been burgeoning in my bloodstream for awhile, but today i have been moved past the point of reconciliation.

i suspect you'd have to understand the variables independent of each other to feel the weight with which they clash, so if you'll permit me i'll give you the lay of the land first. let's start with my early evening class. taught by a youngish yeshivish rebbe who sometimes manages to stroke his beard and punch his thumb in the air simultaneously, the course chiefly consists of learning specific Torah works by twentieth-century Rabbinic leaders (gdolai ha-dor, in lingo) and then attempting to comprehend (be mechaven? or mechaber? am i right?) their reasoning. it's a decent-sized class of perhaps the most homogenous group of students i have ever seen in an scw course: black-skirted, black-stockinged, black-slippered. sometimes a girl besides myself will wear jeans there, but rarely. there is the standard-issue preppie sweater phenomenon. the teacher himself has an excellent grasp of the english language that he almost never exhibits, preferring to utilize the yiddish terms for everything under the sun that can have one, ranging from the common 'oilem' for world, 'amkus' for depth, 'chashek' for object and so on. he is frequently guilty of the 'translating a term by using the term' rule which i should probably admit tortures me as an english major.

then there is my night course, led for six students by a gaunt and slightly wobbly holocaust survivor with brimming eyes and an enigmatic smile, who communicates to us exclusively in english despite having been born and raised in germany. he employs pretty much the tanach and stories from The Old World, which is mostly synonomous with his childhood and early teaching days. the class here is mixed to the point where each of us six students more or less hail from different continents: there is an israeli, a south american, a french girl, me, etc. the dress code is equally unbalanced. no one wears black except as tribute to minimalism. the teacher slaps the desk with a grave and completely unconscious frequency, to the extent that i can occasionally measure the gravity of his message by how many times he has hit the desk in the last sentence. he gives us a break for dinner, insisting that "hungry talmidot are no kind of talmidot for me"; he will not allow anyone to sit more than a foot away from him; and it is generally a class conducted, on the part of the students, in complete silence, because the man likes to answer his own questions and is kind of hard of hearing anyway.

on the first day of the latter's class, he entered slowly, leaning on his cane, and confronted us all as we rose from our seats.

he shook his head, chiding softly: "for me you don't stand up. it's not good for my ego, to have you all standing up. soon i'm gonna get what, a bloated head, that's what."

he then proceeded to tell us a story about HIS rebbe who never let anyone stand up for him, and when we attempted to do a quick-shuffle rise from our seats the next week, covert-wise, he told us the story again, since we obviously had not heard him correctly the first time.

in the meanwhile, in my young, yeshivish rebbe's class, we were debating the issue of rabanut. or rather not debating, but distilling from the piece he had chosen for us. our introductions to these pieces are short, usually a hitlist of basic facts. as the instructor says:

'this is not a history class. we learn the torah, the actual information. the details of their personal lives is not shayich to us.'

this particular piece was giving me a hard time. it made a number of claims, one of which being that of course you must stand up for a rebbe.

when i related to this teacher the dictum of my night rebbe, he frowned and said, "he has no right to do that. you aren't rising for him. you're rising for his torah. he can't tell you not to respect the torah. the request itself is ego."

i regarded him in dismay. he shrugged and continued the piece.

the piece, over the course of a few weeks, began to grind at my nerves. "you cannot have a personal relationship with your rebbe," it said. to illustrate this principle, the teacher gave us the example of a rebbe and a talmud; the talmud, undergoing a difficult life experience, was studying something with his rebbe when, moved by the talmud's suffering, the rebbe touched his arm in sympathy. the talmud immediately left the beit medrash and found himself a new rebbe, because he realized that the relationship between him and his rebbe was no longer one of pure torah learning but rather a personal relationship which belittles the torah.

clearly this story was meant to be inspiring; and it was inspiring for the girls in my class, who commented excitedly on other stories they had heard which were very similar to the story the teacher had just told, at which the teacher nodded his concurrence, and everyone agreed.

i sat there in disbelief, remembering my night rebbe's parting rejoinder to us students: "I want to be your rebbe for everything, I want to be your rebbe for always, and don't ever be afraid to come to me about anything!"

and besides for that, i thought as i scrolled the remainder of the article, the point contradicted something deep inside of me - some deeply held belief that until now had anchored me, at least in a sense, to the extremely orthodox world in which i was raised. i grew up in a family and a community that prized itself on its complex and complete appreciation of each individual, in a household where my mother spoke with pride about how well the rabbi knew her, how well the rabbi knew her parents, how well she knew the rabbi's children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and how important - how vital for my development as a person - it was for the rabbi to know me.

and i was terrified, too. unlike my mother, i was not one of a handful of children who grew up in my community at the same time; i would say dozens. the rabbi knows who i am and a great deal about my family history, but i am far too removed, by awe and by embarrassment, to go to him frequently of my own initiative to discuss life's challenges, the way my mother does. despite this, on some level my tenous connection to the rabbi has always been a comfort to me. the fact that he knows my parents and my grandparents and therefore by default has some knowledge of me makes me feel as though i have a place and a home in some pocket of the jewish people, something to go back to, in ways the cold automaton described by my early afternoon class could never move me.

but then i would attend the night rebbe's class, us six girls in a dark classroom, picking with as much enthusiasm as we could muster at stern's thursday night dinner while the rebbe gleamed at us from the tops of his bridged fingers. "what your generation is missing," he pronounced one night, "is a little history. you do not know the people who came before you, and there are no such people in existence today. for this you lack. you do not know the story of your own people." he turned to all of us individually, peering down at us with that slight smile. "you have learned books," he continued. "you have learned words. but you don't know the stories! you know nothing of judaism. can it be that you have been so neglected?"

he shrugged. "well, this is the way of it now. but i think - yes, i think for the first part of this semester, better that you should hear the stories and the ideas of the giants who lived in your grandparents' and great-grandparents' days. that way you'll know what it is to be jewish. once you understand that, everything else falls into place."

so the pattern emerged. every afternoon, every night i had class, i swung from one emotional surge to the next. my early afternoon class became ever more unlikeable. everything we learned felt wrong, counter-intuitive, senseless, prejudicial. that laughter and joy are forbidden except on purim? that a rabbi should only teach torah to those who explicitly fish it out of him? that we should take no pleasure in anything from this world, since we're in exile, and the only things we should find pleasurable are otherworldly spiritual matters? i slumped forward in my desk and grappled with an overwhelming sense of frustration. i wanted to leave. i wanted to switch out - but i couldn't, it was too late. i wanted to shout: "but how can you live that way? why would you live that way? what kind of life is that?"

which, to be honest, is not an unfamiliar sensation for me. though the teacher must find this hard to believe by now, i have the most jewish connection to this particular class in the world: guilt. having attended a high school that was only slightly removed from this kind of hashkafic didacticism, i remember clearly rebelling, loathing and steaming through a good two-thirds of my years there - but i also believed that my high school experience shaped much of my core beliefs and helped me to combat some of my baser desires by making them appear that much more abhorrent, a stimulus i rarely receive these days at stern, where everyone walks their own unquestioned path. when i signed up for this afternoon course i thought of it as a balance to the wildly liberationist impulses i come in more frequent contact with here. so i have no one to blame but myself.

side note - there is really nothing for making you want to obliterate a Styrophone cup quite like the knowledge that you have done something to yourself. as proof, please see the cups i have mangled consistently for eight weeks.

but anyway. by the time i leave my afternoon class i am a human crockpot, barely able to keep a polite smile on my face. there's too much of me that is angry and turned off. this is judaism? i think. this can't be. this can't be my religion. this can't be my people. but it is. and i watch as the students earnestly interpret and contort and believe. they do. they accept the proposition that one should lead a life devoid of real happiness and laughter. it's a given.

to counteract this i sometimes write, during this class, everything religion means to me. i guess if nothing else it's served to help me more clearly define my own idea of what judaism is by allowing me to see clearly the edges where it isn't. i write about my shabbos table at home, my friends, my shul. sometimes i do other homework. but it isn't enough, and it isn't the point. i am plagued by fear. these are, after all, legitimate, published rabbis my teacher brings to class, not flunkies that i can discredit. are they right? is it true? do i have to believe this? am i a heretic if i don't?

if that's the case, will i care?

i have just ten minutes between this and my night rebbe's class. usually i am just done seething over the latest conclusion we black-skirters have reached. and invariably, my night rebbe will hang up his cane and his hat, sit himself down, and immediately contradict what i have just learned:

"ivdu Hashem b'simcha," he will say softly. "we are instructed to serve G-d with joy. meaning what? meaning that G-d never intended us to die for judaism. this is not the ideal. rather, G-d intended us to live, to the fullest extent, as jews."

if anyone in the room reads body language, mine must be near 72-point font. in my afternoon class i am slumped back, hands in my pockets, eyes downcast. in this night course i lean all the way forward, keyed in, watching the teacher's face, wanting, although i would never vocalize this in class (we rarely vocalize anything in that class), for the teacher to tell me that everything i have just learned in the last hour is not true, not real judaism, and that real judaism wants me to be a happy and kind person who can strive for comic relief and meaningful relationships and not look down upon every single gentile that i meet. by the time i walk into the night rebbe's classroom i am desperate. i will believe anything he tells me. anything is more believable, more logical, than the kind of world which has just been erected for me.

"emunah," he will say. "what is emunah?"

and we will stare expectantly at him.

"you don't know," he'll say triumphantly. "it's like i thought. they teach you girls nothing these days."

and the night rebbe will proceed on a long and very aish-hatorah-esque, if i do say so myself, explanation of how emunah comes from the word emes, which is truth, something everyone believes but which is independent of their belief; but emunah, he says, is different, because though we believe it, not everyone does, but we have to believe it as though it were something that is no less true for being believed by a select number of people. like christopher columbus going to sleep at night in catholic spain, he tells us.

"yiras hashem," says my night rebbe. "what is yiras hashem?"

"fear?" a student ventures.

"HAH!" he says, smiling again. "fear! do you really think that the beginning and ending, the very foundation of judaism, day in and day out for centuries and centuries, is fear? what kind of religion is that?"

actually, i think, feverishly scanning my notes from the previous class, that is exactly what i think. that is exactly what many people think, if these sforim and these teachers are anything to go by.

then he leans forward, peering at us intently.

"do you believe," he says slowly, "that avraham our forefather, when G-d asked him to sacrifice his son, his son that he waited for 100 years, whom he cherished, do you think avraham told G-d, 'yes, i will do it, with joy'?"

we look at each other. we look at him. we are bewildered. his face and his voice indicate, as teachers who are apt to give themselves away often will, that we should say 'no.' but it wasn't true. everyone knows that avraham said yes. that was the celebration of the akaida.

'NO!' he whispers fiercely. 'no, no, no. no normal father would willingly take his son's life, not for anything or anyone. and if he would, he is certainly no paragon of the human race, no role model, nothing to be emulated. no. this is not the lesson of the akaida. this is not what it means to be yiras shamayim.'

we look at each other again. is he confused? is he kidding?

'but then how do you explain it?' a girl finally asks. 'he clearly was going to go through with it. G-d praises him for listening.'

'no,' the rabbi says. 'if you look, G-d praises him not for agreeing, but for 'not withholding.' '

he takes a breath.

'girls, avraham could not say no to G-d. he had yiras shamayim: he understood the fact of G-d's existence, the importance of G-d's existence, and as such he knew within his heart that he had to follow the will of the Creator. but he could not say 'yes, i will do this with joy.' that was not in his heart. he did what he had to do, because he knew he had to do it. that is yiras shamayim.'

then he tells us something else.

he says this:

'there is something to be learned from all of this. yiras shamayim, emunah, achdus. unity. you can not live as jews unless you understand what these things are in such a way as you can incorporate them into your lives, not impossible, incomprehensible things of which you can only fall short. and you cannot let these factions and intricacies divide you.'

his voice grows quiet. he stares through us for awhile.

'you know,' he says finally, 'what we were just learning now, it reminded me of something. you remember, yes? we asked why avraham had to lie to hammurabi about his beautiful wife sara. hammurabi, as we know and as he says, had a law against adultery! so clearly avraham was in no danger! why did he have to lie to hammurabi and say that sara was only his sister?

'this is what this reminded me of.

'it was the fall of 1938. i was a lucky boy - had my own private, personal rebbe to instruct me. a wonderful man he was, the likes of which you see rarely these days - but that's for another time. seven children he had, and a wife. and he would come to my house to learn with me.

'one day - i'll never forget this - he was learning with me in my living room, when suddenly the phone rings and it's for him. he starts to shake; he nods a few times and says, 'right away.' 'rebbe,' says i, 'what's the matter?' it seemed his house was on fire. give him a few minutes, he says, and he will call the fire department, and all will be well. it's a little fire, that's all. nothing to worry about. so good. he calls the fire department. they talk for a few minutes. he gives them the address.

'then he goes white as a sheet. he hangs up without a word.

' 'rebbe,' says i, 'are you alright, rebbe?'

'he replied to me, 'it seems that my house is the residence of a jew. and just this morning the fire department has passed a new law, that jews are not protected by the fire department.

' 'they will not put out the fire.' '

my night rebbe takes another deep breath, and coughs a little. his eyes are red.

'they all perished. every one of them, and all worthier than i.'

then he says: 'the point is this, girls. two things. avraham knew that laws which are made by men can be changed by men, and this is something that you should never ever forget. only laws that are made by G-d are everlasting.

'and the second thing is that we jews are left to fend for ourselves. this being the case, we cannot leave each other alone. we cannot be cut off from each other. we cannot dismiss each other. we cannot judge each other. we are a people, every one of us into a whole, and we have no one in the wide world but each other. no, not everyone is a nazi, but neither are we ever a hundred percent safe. and yes, i realize there are halakhic disputes, valid halakhic disputes...'

he shakes his head, rallies:

'and you should undertand them. educate yourselves about them. it's important to know these kinds of things. but you must not, must not let them stand between you. we are a great people. we come from great people, each of us. you must not forget these people or what their lives meant - what it is to live as jews.'

rising slowly, shakily, he eases himself into his coat. his hat. his cane. he turns to us one last time.

'good shabbos, girls. as always.'

and he leaves.

dear professor of friday outdoors architecture appreciation course

2008-02-22T06:42:00.000-08:00

not going to make it

sign #2348 that you are in college

2008-02-17T15:24:00.000-08:00

your hallway radiator is a third-tier auction post.

ah, stern...you will be fun to miss...

it's my party, i can cry if i want to

2008-02-09T15:52:00.000-08:00

(This post brought to you by the yu/stern canadian club, with much thanks from yours truly)

i'll bet you think you've been a fool before.

never fear, as i have now out-fooled you, whoever and wherever you may be.

i would like to preface this with some context, so bear with me a moment as i indulge in some extremely unattractive and immature self-pity: today was my birthday. and i think i can finally say that i had an adult birthday in that nobody knew it. mind you, i had planned it this way: i had too much work to do to do anything celebratory, and even had i wanted to celebrate it, i really had no one to celebrate it with. so i thought i would just have a nice, quiet, normal day. i was glad it fell on shabbos and not during the week, because then hadassah might have thrown me a party (as they are sometimes wont to do, although really, i'm kidding myself) and that would have been embarrassing. no, my plan for today was to just have it be like any other day.

and it worked.

and let me tell you, it sucked.

it rained today, for most of today, because it being february, that's about my luck. i spent most of the afternoon sitting in various people's apartments, talking about nothing, and i guess that was sort of nice. it was the canadian shabbaton, and i have never seen a quieter one. they all knew each other very well, clearly, and it was fun to watch them know each other very well, to see how they all knew each other's great-aunts. it is the only shabbaton i have been at in recent memory during which, for one meal, no one at my table really talked at all. we whiled away the afternoon and we said havdalah and i came back up to my room to confront the different assignments i have to complete. i sat down on my bed, turned on my computer, opened up my word processor, and stared at the page.

and stared.

my mother called to wish me a happy birthday. i felt nauseous. "happy 19!" she said.

"thanks, mom," i said.

"okay! bye now!" she said.

"okay, bye mom," i said.

i hung up the phone and promptly cried myself off the bed.

every inch of me rebelled. "it's not FAIR!" whined a voice in my head. "why am i alone and doing homework on my birthday? why is nothing special happening? why do i feel so crappy? why is it raining? how did i manage to get this old without achieving anything meaningful? what's the matter with me?"

i think i am the general crier in my family.

now, i know this is a ridiculous sentiment for many reasons. i am not alone. i know many good people, such as you. thank G-d, i come from one of the awesomest families in the world. i am not living in a third world country. etc. there are many, many things worse than having a pathetic birthday. but i subscribe to the humble philosophy that it takes something that you know in your deepest of deep hearts is not even worth really being upset over to make yourself truly miserable, because even you know your misery isn't justified.

so i wallowed in self-pity for awhile. and then a voice - a cursed voice - at the back of my head reminded me, "the canadian club has popcorn indiana downstairs right about now."

now popcorn indiana, for those of you who don't know, is popcorn drizzled in chocolate, white chocolate, peanutbutter, what have you. it is very good stuff. for those of you who also don't know, it is difficult, when you have been crying in mascara, to look like anything other than what you are, chiefly, a bloodshot-eyed vampire searching hungrily for people's souls to suck from their bodies.

but i was in my direst mood, and even though i was not particularly hungry, damned if i was going to let chocolate popcorn pass me by like the rest of my youth. so i threw on a jean skirt and a blogger sweatshirt, scrubbed up my face best i could, and marched, shoulders first, down to the back lounge where the popcorn (and the six members of the canadian club) were lounging, half-heartedly debating whether to watch 'once' or 'wedding crashers.'

of course, being the only non-canadian there, i attracted some attention.

'hi,' said one girl.

immediately followed by:

'oh no! what happened to you?'

well, so much for sneaking in and sneaking out again.

'oh, nothing,' i said. 'bad contacts.' and i smiled in a convincing way.

she looked at me suspiciously, and the devil in me suddenly threw caution to the treadmill.

'listen, it's my birthday, and it's been kind of rotten,' i said to her. 'haven't you ever had that happen before?'

'IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY?' she gasped.

then they all turned to look at me.

'well, now i feel like i'm at chuck-e-cheese's,' i attempted weakly.

'well, if it's your birthday, this can be your party too,' said the head of the canadian club, while various other members of the canadian club exchanged incredulous glances.

and so that is what i did. i sat with the canadian club for half of a mostly decent vince vaugh movie, listening to them all make snide remarks to each other and occasionally inserting my own even though i did not know them and they knew each other very well. eventually i gave it up as a waste of time, because there were many papers i was supposed to be writing, and in my worldwide self-pity i had cleaned out a veritable tankard of popcorn indiana. thus i released the canadian club from my grip and am now here, not writing up a profile for the magazine i promised i would, because darn it all, i just don't want to.

i am sure the canadian club will be walking around with question marks over their heads for weeks.

as for me, if this birthday is any indication, i am in for a long, long year.

'and they all look just the same....'

2008-01-15T15:06:00.000-08:00

as many of you know, my father and his flaming red midlife crisis vehicle (a beautiful machine) were involved in an accident on wisconsin's icy roads awhile back. thank G-d, my father's just fine, but his car has required some serious shop time - the repercussions of which, among other things, have led to his recent reclaiming of the early-90's geo we kids usually drive.

now though i love the geo, i do not begrudge its loss. i am glad my dad's alright and i realize how he misses his hot car. i am glad that the accident's chief impact on my life is that i now have to ask bubbe and grampa, my mom's folks, for a lift wherever i need to go.

bubbe and grampa are only too happy to drive me around, no doubt because my bubbe needs some way to dispose of all the food accumulating in her minivan. "i'll drive you to the kosher meat klub," my bubbe says, referring to the butcher-etc store about five blocks away. "we can eat bananas on the way!"

my grandfather is a more optional component, but when our destinations align with his, he sees no harm in coming along for the ride. this way he can point out milwaukee's many landmarks to me at length, for instance the former site of his boyhood dentist's building, or the various houses he has sold throughout the seventies and eighties. perhaps you are surprised by these choices, since most of them will not appear in any tour guide you'll ever find of milwaukee (if they even make any); i assure you they do not surprise me. i'm willing to wager that i could recite the entire tour back to you verbatim. this does not in any way affect my grandfather's delivery of it.

actually, though, my grandparents did manage to pull one over on me during a drive to target yesterday.

the drive started off typically enough, with my grandfather pointing out the window and highlighting various geographical and autobiographical features of the landscape while my bubbe drummed on the steering wheel with one hand and rummaged around in the glove compartment with the other.

"and if you'll look out your window to the right, you'll notice that the houses in this neighborhood are significantly smaller than the houses in your parents' neighborhood," my grandfather said.

"perel, i still have these bags of crackers in the pic n' save bag next to you on the seat," my bubbe interjected.

"in fact," my grandfather mused, "they almost look like little boxes."

he took a deep breath, and i braced myself for the long, detailed explanation of north milwaukee architecture i knew was inevitable.

but instead, my grandfather looked at my bubbe, and my bubbe looked at my grandfather, and my bubbe began to sing, in her helium-lined voice,

little boxes, on the hillside,
little boxes made of ticky-tack,
little boxes, little boxes,
and they all look just the same...

now, lest you think there is anything unusual about my bubbe singing, this is not what surprised me. she sings all the time. what left me speechless was that she appeared to know all of the words to this song, and what's more, she seemed to be singing them in some kind of order. my shock turned to complete immobility when my grandfather smiled dreamily at my bubbe and, with the precision of a musical, joined in.

there's a green one, and red one,
and a blue one and a yellow one
and they're all made out of ticky-tack
and they all look just the same.

if this was not startling enough, the two of them continued to sing, in perfect pitch, on the exact same verse, for some three minutes as we barelled heedlessly along the highway past various cars attempting to figure out what lane my bubbe would swerve into next. i had that strange, fuzzy feeling you get when you're in a dream. you know, it has that weird self-contained dream logic. my grandparents unhurriedly made it to the last verse, as my bubbe wrestled a pack of m&m's from between their seats, her voice high and thin, my grandfather's zestful and hearty:

there's a green one, and a pink one
and a blue one and a yellow one
and they're all made
out of ticky-tack
and they all look
just the sameeeee.

there was an eery silence in the car after they'd finished. for about a tenth of a second.

"that was a very popular song for some years," my grandfather reminisced fondly, "particularly in 1964."

then, true to form, he glanced over his shoulder at me.

"you probably don't remember it," he noted.

orange alert

2008-01-07T20:12:00.001-08:00

*TO READERS ANXIOUS FOR THE RESOLUTION OF THE CELL PHONE PSYCHODRAMA: we interrupt this broadcast to bring you breaking and fractionally more cataclysmic news on the fudge vs. mass transportation front. please be advised that your regularly scheduled program, alias "the infiltration of the bus company", may be delayed or moved to another channel. we appreciate your patience and understanding, and would like to offer you a voucher flight to kansas city with connecting service in detroit.*

FOR THOSE OF YOU JUST JOINING US -

awhile back (three whole posts ago, if i count correctly) i mentioned something about my entrenchment in a longstanding vendetta with public transportation, specifically the queens-manhattan express bus company. in the spirit of such well-respected military officials as donald rumsfeld, i also made the confident assertion that i was winning. so let's just get this out of the way now: i've been humbled. humbled! i surrender, mta! no more! have mercy!

perhaps you are thinking, in your cubicle or school desk, "oh fudge, give it a rest. public transportation's unreliable, they do not target you specifically. people lose their cell phones. flights get delayed. it happens."

yeah. you just go on thinking that. and listen, when the airlines and ground buses gang up on YOU, i'll be there. in la guardia. tsking.

watching the baggage carousels, probably.

you'd think after the phone-in-college-point fiasco i would have learned my lesson, i might have realized that any trip surpassing three city blocks in length requires a day's worth of prayer and every kind of documentation available for me. but did i devote even two hours of special attention to my pending flight home for winter break? did i scour the weather forecasts for days, davening against all the israelis that it wouldn't rain? did i have my suitcase packed and ready at the door, waiting to spring into action the minute something went wrong? with suspicious amounts of cash and several valuable forms of identification in my coat pocket?

silly me. i did no such thing. i was too busy beating eschatological and liturgical essays into my head for my final. 'cause, you know. that's important. college. grades. that kind of thing.

did you all get that? THAT is the opening the transportation companies are looking for. THAT was my weakness. my attention wandered! for days at a time (three, i think) i devoted little or no thought to mass transportation. days of scheming and mishaps undetected by the likes of me and you, pitifully focused on the non-travel aspects of our lives. fools! grades may get us into grad school, but they won't get us into any airport in the midwest! for that you must be prepared.

and once again i was not such.

this is not to say that i hadn't thought about my upcoming flight at all. on the contrary, officer. i had been using the flight, carrot-like, to propel myself through the last of my exams. 'six more hours and it will all be over with. four mour hours and i'll be on the plane.' my plan was shamefully haphazard: i would take my mighty dead sea scrolls final, run home, pack my things (wedding outfit to wear to numerous winter weddings, check; cell phone charger, check; video game sheepishly borrowed from 11-year-old sister, check), and depart on supershuttle two hours later. all in time to get home to sleep in my own quiet, stuffed-animal strewn bed. (not my animals, but that's for another post). there is nothing that will keep you going like the thought of a real bed. i honestly feel like explorers stranded in the upper freezes of everest would keep climbing if someone told them their childhood bed was ten feet up.

and i felt like i had climbed everest as i turned in that exam. it was the kind of test that will pose a question to you not unlike this: "analyze the ethical, legalistic and familial aspects of 2nd Temple Judaism, citing passages from each text we have discussed during this semester and being sure to relate each sub-category back to the larger lentil of Jewish identity." i even remember the last word in my (third) booklet, because i stared at it for some minutes, gloating in the knowledge that it would be the last. "ha ha," i thought wildly to my exam. "you aren't wringing any more semi-colons out of me, sucker!" when i finally worked up the willpower to hand the papers into my professor, she gave me a hard, searching look. "you look done," she pronounced. "yes," i agreed. "this is my 'done' face." and i gave her a smile on which hannibal lecter in 'silence of the lambs' has not a patch.

now, lest you think that i completely deserved my fate, i had checked the status of my flight online moments before the exam, and it said 'on time,' so i assumed that i still had another two hours ago. so, cursedly, i dillydallyed in the caf, toying with the idea of buying actual food to take to the airport with me, only to discover when i had finally selected a nice, cheap bagel that of course the cafeteria was closed. slightly disheartened but none the worse for wear i made my way back to the dorms, mentally rapping in pathetic white-girl style (a habit i occasionally fall prey to): "who's gonna sleep at home tonight? uh huh/ uh huh. who's gonna see their little sisters tonight? uh huh uh huh uh huh."

you have to admit. it has a beat.

so in this gliding bubbly spirit i casually let myself into my room, woke up my irritable computer, reached into my dresser drawer for some satisfying...um...tea bags, when i happened to notice my flight status had changed. for instance, where the little blue box had read only moments before 'on time', it now read 'cancelled.'

i frowned and refreshed the screen.

it still said cancelled.

i called the airline. no doubt this was exactly what they expected me to do, because i received a busy signal. no computerized menu, no 'hold for representative.' just, you know, a busy signal.

so then i called my father, glancing at the clock, which read, surreally, 3:05. i found myself still thinking, "two hours to go," even though i knew that the plane was no longer leaving. my father said, "get in a taxi and go to the airport." "but i have a super shuttle reservation," i pointed out. "go now," said my father. "i'm not packed," i added helpfully. "GO NOW," said my father.

go, dogs. go.

my packing is never anything to write home about (neither is my laundry folding; i have actually been barred from helping floormates during laundry rushes), but at that moment it sunk to a new low as i patented the "dump dirty hamper in suitcase and grab credit card" style of packing. it's time for our daily double! three guesses - which suitcase did i yank out unthinkingly:

1) the large duffel bag

2) the small rollable

3) the one with the broken wheel

that's right, it was option #3! faithful readers may remember option 3 from its starring role in another travel-related incident just last week! myself i cannot say that i recalled until i was a block away from school, en route to my bank, to remove large sums of money in a i'm-getting-married-in-vegas-without-parental-permission kind of way. forgetting it was sunday, i wasted precious minutes wrangling with the door, then more precious minutes wrangling with the security card-swipe, which mystically requires you to hold your card in the swiper as you push the door open, despite the card and the door handle being located on diametric opposites of the doorway. this turned out to be a two-person process. but no matter. i collapsed into a cab and sped all the way to la guardia, dispensing last week's paycheck like so much spare change. fifteen minutes later (that's how long it takes when you're doing 80 in the wrong lane) i was carrying my handicapped suitcase up to the ticketing at the airport, one haircomb dangling dangerously around my neck.

this is where the fear of G-d truly began to hit me.

the line for my airline usually consists of three people. five on monday morning flights. milwaukee in january is not a particularly attractive tourist option, and there's a fair amount of natives who could give it a pass too. this is fine. i like making small talk with the gate agents. truly i do.

that day the line from my airline stretched backwards to engulf not only the kansas and minneapolis-bound flights but all of canada and the northwest. it was a long swarm of people, winding down and around the lanes, some - and this was what really alarmed me - already rolling out sleeping bags. (on a side note - from where? do people really travel with sleeping bags in case their flight gets cancelled? is that a superpower?) i observed the line for several minutes, paralyzed by dread, and noted several things:

1. for at least ten minutes, the three gate agents were dealing with the same three people, and they seemed to be making no headway.

2. the line was really, really long.

3. the gate agents were idiots.

4. there were many less people waiting in the kansas line.

5. the kansas line was pretty close to the gate agents.

6. i was probably about to panic.

so, abandoning my honor as a human being, i snuck discreetly into the kansas line and lingered at the front, my eyes on the agent, waiting for my opportunity to strike. and it did. the minute the passenger closest to me walked away from the desk, i pounced on the agent, ticket in hand, suitcase on her scale. if she realized i had just skipped the approximate 75 people in the other line she gave no sign of it. she said politely, "can i help you?"

"my flight's been cancelled," i said firmly. "i need to be moved to an earlier flight or, failing that, put on a plane to chicago."

she looked at me, looked at her nails (long spangly things with stars) and sighed, "shaquille!"

the gate agent next to her turned around, blinking. she made a vague, heavy gesture at me with one hand.

"you take her," she said.

shaquille, on his guard, took me.

"i'm sorry ma'am, we can't do nothing because of the weather there. there some terrible fog out in milwaukee ma'am we can't do nothing about it. all the planes are cancelled."

"so put me on a plane to chicago," i said, in my calm, controlled voice.

he shook his head. "can't do that neither ma'am ain't no planes that fly to chicago."

"there have to be planes that fly to chicago. it's chicago."

he shook his head. "nope. midway....?" he shook his head again. "nope."

"at all?" i asked.

"nope."

he looked at me. i looked at him.

"what are you going to do for me?" i said, the firmness in my voice wobbling.

the gate agent shrugged, looked pained, and said, "you sure you can't go to detroit or something?"

i began to shake, and i knew from the horror dawning on his face that i was getting that wild, desperate gleam in my eye. "milwaukee," i said. "chicago. today. now."

"i can get you on a plane to dallas," he said.

i stood there and cried like a little girl.

"it's the weather, ma'am!" he attempted to reason with me. "what do you want from me? i can't do anything about the weather. it damn foggy there, ma'am! if the pilot flies like that you could die!"

"plane," i repeated, by way of edification. "ticket. cabfare. chicago. illinois. anywhere in wisconsin. come on!"

"ain't nobody flying to the midwest today," he said firmly.

"reschedule?" i quavered hopefully.

"NO."

"what are you going to do with me? what am i going to do? where am i going to go? this is my VACATION!" i pointed out, perhaps unfairly. i realized i had nothing to blow my nose on and was forced to resort to old quickie-mart receipts. oh, how i was humbled that afternoon.

"get on some kind of flight for tomorrow," my mother said by cellphone.

"what about tomorrow?" i said. "will they fly tomorrow?"

now he just looked affronted. "miss, what am i, the weather bureau?"

"put me on a plane for tomorrow," i insisted.

"i don't even know if the aiport's gonna be open!"

"sir." i hesitated, then went for it: "i can cry for awhile, sir."

perhaps you underestimate the severity of such a threat, but no rational human being, subjected to my hysterics, ever wants to endure them again, so he printed me a ticket and said, "you can come back at two pm monday and see what happens. bye."

i dragged my one-wheeled luggage away from the desk, leaving long scratch marks over la guardia's admittedly pre-scratched floor, not even caring about the death glares being sent my way from the hundreds of other passengers who had dutifully waited their turn. i dragged my suitcase out the doors and back to where the cab had dropped me off, blinking in the warm non-midwest sun, wondering dazedly where i should ask the cab to take me.

a cab pulled up to the curb, and the driver leaned his head out the window. "you are waiting for a cab, are you?" he said.

i nodded.

"you are not on the right side of the concourse for that," he snorted. "you must go up to the arriving flights. you cannot stay here."

then he soared away. and i just stood there and watched him go.

then i found myself a nice patch of wall, one without too many urine stains on it, propped my maimed luggage carefully up against it, folded my skirt under me, and proceeded to cry for another half hour or so. i just cried. "you moron!" part of my brain screamed. "do something!" but i could not think of anything to do. i could go back to the dorm for another forty-five bucks, admit defeat, and pay another twenty-five to come back tomorrow. or i could sit on the floor and cry some more, which at the moment was much more attractive.

"or," suggested my mother, via cell phone, "you could call your grandmother and ask her to pick you up. she's close to the airport."

call my grandmother?

CALL MY GRANDMOTHER?

"but i had a travel crisis with her last week," i croaked.

"big deal," my mother said.

"she'll be really stressed out," i reiterated.

"she'll get over it," my mother countered.

"she'll think i'm a hopeless case," i said.

"you are," said my mother. "that's why i'm calling her. now." and she hung up on me.

calling my grandmother. that crazy mother of mine. where does she get it from?

i showed up at my grandmother's doorstep some hours later, only slightly the worse for wear. perhaps you might think a first-time-on-the-job, straight-off-the-boat taxi driver would avoid a tear-stained girl dragging a pathetic and malnourished piece of luggage. but my driver was cheerful enough, for all that he had to pull over to the side of grand central parkway and pull out a map to locate queens.

strangely, when my grandmother opened the door, she did not seem stressed out at all. she made one comment - "you look like you've been tortured" - and then allowed me to sleep on her couch while she proceeded to alert the polish press to my latest mishap. "pauli? pauli, are you there? guess who just staggered through my door, you will not BELIEVE it. it's that [polish] pereleh again, mark's daughter. she was just last week at my house and now she is here again. always this happens to her, i cannot BELIEVE this happens to her. one minute, pauli. perlie? perlie, are you sleeping? do you want a sweet potato?"

as i groggily began to re-emerge from my cried-out swoon, she clicked the phone off and sat down next to me on the couch. "poor soul," she said, touching my face. "blood is thicker than water. that is why you are not sleeping at the airport."

i do not remember the rest of the night. we watched the pbs version of jane eyre together. every so often i went out on the porch to check my internet messages. i spent the latter half of the night trying to fish the infected fragments of my contact lenses out of my eyeballs. you haven't had a good time till you've attempted to flush your eyes out with contact solution from the early nineties backwards over your grandmother's bathroom sink, without raising undue alarm.

at some point i fell into a fitful sleep punctuated by the occasional nightmarish "but i don't want to go to kansas city! don't send me to kansas city! i don't want to go! turn the plane around!"

the day dawned bright and early monday morning. it dawned slightly earlier than usual as my grandmother said to me, seriously, as i stumbled out of my father's bedroom in the morning, "we are leaving at nine o'clock, kid. would you like a sweet potato? or some beans?"

i did not want to tell her that my supposed flight was at two, thankful as i was for any ride at all. i threw a sweatshirt on over my pajamas and trekked out onto the porch with my laptop to check the status of my so-called flight. everything was delayed. i wanted to cry some more, but the cost in new contacts was just too prohibitive, so i ate my beans-and-potato breakfast and rolled my suitcase into my grandmother's car. or rather dragged. "perlie," she said to me, "your suitcase has just one wheel."

"this is true," i agreed.

she strapped herself in behind the wheel, took a deep breath, looked at me, and said, "i want you to know that i have already taken one anti-panic pill, so the chances are very good that we will make it to la guardia."

i should have said something like, "of course we will, grandma," but instead i turned to her, blank-faced, and said, "do you have any left?"

with myself on navigation and my grandmother chugging along at a surprisingly pedestrian pace, we reached the airport hale and whole, whereupon my grandmother zoomed off to one of her clandestine appointment. i confronted the line - which seemed not to have shifted at all since last night - and employed the tactic which had worked so well some fifteen hours ago: i skipped.

"can i help you?" said the gelled-up israeli behind the desk.

"i'm on the two," i explained, dry-eyed.

"you are seven hours early," he noted.

"i wanna go standby," i said.

"no problem," he said, and swung my bag onto the conveyor belt.

i stood and stared at him.

"no problem?" i repeated.

he shrugged. "no."

i glanced to my right, where the other gate agent was gently explaining to a distraught woman how the 11 30 was severely overbooked, and perhaps she would like to go to kansas instead.

"you sure about that?" i said.

he looked at me again, puzzled, and shrugged. "she will give you your seat at the gate. bye."

dazed, i led myself up to the gate area, visible from outer-space by the milwaukee-sized area of passengers clotting around the flight information desk. "holy crap," i thought despondently. "who am i kidding? i'm never going to get on this plane." i took out the peanut butter-and-orange-marmalade sandwich my grandmother had made me the night before and began mentally rationing it: the crust at 11 am, the inner circle at 12, the middle at 1, etc. i made many bargains with G-d, all of which i immediately dismissed as shameful the minute they began to form in my brain.

the plane from milwaukee, to milwaukee came. so did the plane from minneapolis to kansas to milwaukee. the gate agent encouraged people loudly to get on the kansas flight instead. i stumbled over to the kansas area, without much of a plan, and was surprised to find the same israeli who had checked me in initially behind the desk.

"what are you doing here?" he asked irritably. "i told you to go to the 11 30. she will give you a seat assignment."

i glanced back at the other desk, surrounded on all sides by people, with the gate agent continuing her entreaties for them to take the kansas option. i looked back at him bewilderedly. he winked at me, as though all those people were supposed to be encouraging.

"any minute now," he said.

"isn't that flight overbooked?" i mumbled, skeptic.

he shrugged. "no," he said.

suspiciously, i wandered back to the other desk and inserted myself into the clump.

they boarded for days. i felt like i was watching the replay of my life in slow-motion as they filed through the door, the children and the old people and the business men who should have been back yesterday. the israeli gate agent came up beside me.

"why are you not on the plane?" he said, starting to sound mad.

"i thought she would call the names of the standby...?" i said hopelessly.

he made a dismissive wave with one hand. "just go," he said.

feeling illegal, and praying the plane would leave before i was discovered, i went.

it was a beautiful, beautiful flight. ho ho, i thought. it's over now. it's finally over.

i'm sorry, are you all worn out? i apologize. let's have a little oasis spot here, in the form of my youngest sister's latest book, "nope nope nope." the manuscript runs as follows:

"do you wont to ges!?"
"a bunch of grilus? no!"
"a graff? no no no!"
"a -aleun? no no no!!!"
"a -alugatr? ya? nowa! just gesing."
"a rabit! kyoot but no"
"a giayint elufint! NOWA!"
"I do not wont to GES!"
"so ar you going to tel me - ill tok abawt it latr!!!"
ding dong. "a wish cas! ok?"
"mabe i'll go with ol of them?
shall i?"

not unlike text messaging, is it?

but back to our regularly scheduled chaos. i arrived in the airport to discover my grandfather already poised at the baggage carousel, ready to pounce on any bag that emerged, regardless of distinguishing characteristics. or perhaps regardless is not the right word - maybe great attentiveness is better. this made for all sorts of spectator fun:

GRAMPA: ho ho, perel! this is your lucky day! there's a red bag!

PEREL: that's a pretty small bag, grampa. it looks like a toiletries kit.

GRAMPA: is it yours?

PEREL: no grampa, i only have one big red bag with a broken wheel.

GRAMPA: oh i see. (ten seconds later) ho ho, perel! maybe that's your bag!

PEREL: no grampa, that bag's purple.

GRAMPA: but it does have a broken wheel!

PEREL: still.

GRAMPA: well maybe that bag, which has just come out of the belt, is your bag!

PEREL: grampa, that's a travel suit bag.

GRAMPA: but it certainly is red!

while i cannot overvalue the comedic value of this exchange, even other passengers began to tire of it after forty-five minutes or so. also, by that time the baggage coming into the carousel had begun to be from boston, which definitely took some of the zest out of our game. it was at this point that i casually glanced at the ticket stub that winking israeli had thrust into my hand before i boarded the plane.

it was made out to one janet ruske, kansas-city bound.

"perel! i found your luggage!" cried my grandfather, hoisting up a large blue duffel bag clearly marked, "perel skier, mke, standby."

i thought again of that gate agent. the mysterious, kansas-gate-operating gate agent.

and standing there in that airport in milwaukee, a day and a half late, with the clothes on my back and another woman's bag, i was sure of just one thing:

the queens-manhattan bus company was at the bottom of this.

part 3: enter raggedymom

2008-01-04T05:04:00.000-08:00

raggedymom tells her tale.

trouble at the mill: the saga continues

2008-01-02T19:04:00.001-08:00

no doubt you mouseketeers find shabbos short these days. by the time you finish the evening meal it's time to go to bed. by the time you finish lunch it's time to make havdala. those meager 25 hours when you can relax and unwind and push the week's affairs from your mind are slipping through your fingers, right?

well, never fear, everyone, because i've found a way to make shabbos last FOREVER. my method? simple. take one lost cellphone, one lost set of keys, and one polish grandmother. simmer in otherwise empty house. sprinkle liberally with head-cold.

when you are done, your shabbos should look something like this:

GRANDMA: pereleh. pereleh, wake up. you are sleeping.

YOU (lifting head groggily): huh?

GRANDMA: you didn't eat your sweet potato.

YOU: oh, it's okay, grandma...i'm pretty full from the brisket...

GRANDMA: i can barely eat myself, i am so (insert yiddish) about this business of yours with the phone. i am so upset, i think i am more upset than you.

YOU (straining to make sense of this): that's true.

GRANDMA: well you might as well forget about it, kid, cause let me tell you something, you are never going to see that phone again. oh veis mere, how are you going to get into your apartment. how will anyone know where you are. that's it, i'm looking in the phone book.

YOU: what?

GRANDMA: i am looking in the phone book to see about the phone.

YOU (starting to feel your eyes roll back in your head): grandma, what are you doing?

GRANDMA (from the back bedroom): eat your sweet potato!

two hours later.

GRANDMA: perlie, wake up!

YOU: huh? grandma? you're still awake? did we forget to bench?

GRANDMA: what do you mean, i'm still awake? it is just now seven o'clock! you are losing your mind like your father. we benched already an hour ago and you are falling asleep in middle of your book.

YOU: oh. (glancing down) look at that. it's a pretty good book, too.

GRANDMA: perlie, listen to me, i am looking in the phone book.

YOU (dismally): still?

GRANDMA (offended): what do you mean, 'still'? it is a very long book!

YOU (half-heartedly): oh, grandma, you don't need to look in the phonebook now, let's not worry about it, we can't do anything till after shabbos anyway...go back to reading your stalin biography...i didn't come here to stress you out...

GRANDMA: how can i concentrate on my reading when here you are almost homeless? i was trying to read but i am too upset. i cannot BELIEVE this has happened to you.

YOU: yeah...yeah, it was a bummer...

GRANDMA: but listen, in the phonebook i found the name of a rental phone company.

YOU: oh, thanks, grandma.

GRANDMA: so now this is what we will do. the rental phone company is in queens. perhaps they are open on sunday, i don't know. but i will take you to the phone company on sunday and you will rent a phone.

YOU: that sounds lovely, grandma. thanks for offering.

GRANDMA: i just don't know how you will sleep tonight. i was telling bobba about it--

YOU (in disbelief): when could you have told bobba about this? we got home five minutes before candlelighting?

GRANDMA ('duh'): do i not have a telephone?

YOU: right. okay. what did bobba say?

GRANDMA: bobba says you are losing your mind. but she says all college students are like this a little coo-coo in the head. faylah says you will grow out of it.

YOU: you had time to call FAYLAH too?

GRANDMA: of course faylah knows. why shouldn't faylah know?

YOU (face in your hands): right, well, i think i'm going to go to sleep now, grandma.

GRANDMA: be careful you don't put off the light in the bathroom! and i hope you can sleep now and are not worried like i will be!

--

over the course of that long, airless night, you will come to appreciate the irony of these words. you will realize that in a sick, sad way it is almost funny that you could not keep your eyes open for most of friday, but now that your chance for sleep has finally come, you are stuck breathing through your mouth and staring at the faint yellow flowers on your grandmother's ceiling, longingly tracing the infrared display of your lost phone in your imagination. you will have several fleeting dreams about your phone: one in which the phone magically emerges from your purse, not unlike the burning bush on the mountain; one in which you realize that your phone will never ever come back to you and, with the heightened emotions typical of dreams, weep senselessly; and one in which your grandmother has discovered the phone but bewilderingly has also removed it from your custody, leaving it with bobba for safekeeping, and bobba, a disembodied head of fluffy hair at her kitchen window, is not accepting visitors.

when you rise from your bed of pain in the morning it will be surprisingly late - elevenish or so. you will stumble blearily out of your father's old bedroom, trying to be quiet in case you can somehow sneak past your grandmother before she sees what you look like when you roll out of bed, but to no avail.

"perlie!" your grandmother will call, closing her stalin biography over one hand with a massive thwack. "you slept like a BABY! i cannot think what to do about your PHONE! i am so STRESSED OUT!"

whereupon you will go back into the bedroom and bang your head against the wall for several minutes, until your grandmother shouts from the kitchen: "i made you another sweet potato!"

since i have some mercy in me, however, i will spare you the rest of shabbos. (i encourage you to try this at home whenever you feel the weekend's just a-flying by, however). and it wasn't all that bad; as the day stretched on we were able to have brief periods of conversation wherein my phone was merely a spectral figure glooming in the background, and the main focus of the discussion was, for example, stalin. or stalin's crazy daughter. or various other crazy members of my family, of which i am surely one, although my grandmother attempted to comfort me at one point by noting that at least i am not a vegetarian.

by the time havdalah rolled around i could not be more ready. 'yes!' i thought. 'bring it on, mta! i just survived 25 hours of grandma worry and i'm feeling fine!' my grandmother set down the candle and furtively disappeared back into the bedroom with the phonebook, but i paid no mind. i had a plan.

see, i had figured out how to wage this war. facebook's the only way to go. how else can you barrage the minds of over 100 people with your embarrassing predicaments? who knows if someone might actually be crazy enough to sacrifice their new year's eve sleep-in to chauffer you around queens? hope springs eternal, and so does insanity.

as i gingerly held my computer out the kitchen window in an attempt to snatch a 'very low' wireless signal from the house across the street, my grandmother burst through the doorway with a veritable 'shiz-ZAM!', batman-comic-book style. she had her cellphone pressed to her ear. 'PERLIE!' she cried. 'you're not going to believe it! listen! listen to my message which i never listen to!'

she thrust the phone into the crook of my shoulder, which was okay, because she has it on speakerphone pretty much all the time, and i heard this G-d given message descend from heaven:

"uh...hello, ms...skier....uh....i am the mta bus driver, and a passenger gave this to me...so...i'ma turn it into the lost and found now...just so's you know."

"they HAVE it!" my grandmother declaimed triumphantly. "now you just have to get it! that this would happen in new york i never thought. you are a lucky kid, perlie!"

i felt pretty lucky. i was about to open my mouth when suddenly i saw something dawn in her eyes, and she looked at me uncertainly, the smile fading.

we were having the rare experience of both thinking the same thing at the same time, which was this: my grandmother was in a perfect position to drive me.

part of the problem with family is knowing where boundaries lie. as my mother once said, in a wise if slightly confused metaphor, 'people have triggers. don't step on them and you'll be fine.' my grandmother knew i would expect her to drive me, in the same way she sometimes realizes i expect other things of her which she finds unappealing, and in that moment i honestly saw dread in her eyes. for my part, i knew that she did not want to drive me. i did not necessarily understand why, but i realized that even to ask the question would suddenly, terribly, be an imposition: she would feel cornered, forced to make some lame excuse which she and i would both realize was lame, and she would know that i knew, yet she would be unable to explain to me the real reason and thus would be forced to continue justifying herself to me for the rest of the weekend.

i did the only reasonable thing i could think of at the spur of the moment: i launched headlong into a detailed explanation of facebook.

"see grandma, i'm sending out a message to all of my friends" --and, you know, people who met me once three years ago, but whatever-- "telling them what happened and asking them if they'll drive me, see, isn't that a great idea? and they can see here in this little bar that i lost my phone and now they'll know not to call me? look, here's our family pictures from israel!"

"that is a wonderful idea," my grandmother said firmly. "that is a great idea. let me know what the messages say." she took in the extent of my arms-out-the-window. "and make sure you close the shades when you're done."

after she had retreated to her bedroom for "America's Most Wanted," i sat alone in the kitchen and took a breath. for the first time, the mta had all the cards on its side, even my grandma. a mapquest revealed that no buses or subways ran near the depot, and when i asked the hotline if i could just ride a bus to the depot the operator snorted once and hung up on me. i severely doubted my grandmother was going to let me carouse off in her only car blithely down the van wyck. i felt another drop of rain on my wrist (resting painfully on the ledge) and wondered if my computer would electrocute me. i pulled it regretfully back inside.

i was, i concluded, stuck.

and then my grandmother marched back into the kitchen, wielding a phone which, she explained excitedly, was for me. she did not catch the name of the caller, nor did i expect her to.

raggedymom is not, after all, your normative nom de plume.

TO BE CONTINUED...

(let the blogover crossover begin!)

fudge vs. the queens manhattan bus: fudge strikes back

2007-12-31T09:49:00.000-08:00

well, brigadiers, it's like this.

as ye loyal are no doubt aware, the queens-manhattan bus company and i have duked it out, trilogy-style, for years. we neither of us come alone to the battlefield. the mta hedges its bets with increased subway fares. i throw my grandmother into the mix. there are moved stops, skipped stops, summons stops and my personal favorite, the bus-not-appearing-in-this-blogpost. last year i dealt them a crippling blow by using my 'wisconsin driver's license' distraction to sveltly dodge their random ticket distribution, and i also scored major points by allowing my grandmother to operate in her all-out traffic-blocking capacity. suffice it to say that though it was war, i was winning.

"but fudge," you say, "surely you did not grow so cocky, in your victory, that you failed to prepare for the inevitable dropping of the other shoe?"

alas, virginia. we humans are brainless beings. the truth was that i became smug in my daily subway ridings. "ho ho," i thought to myself, "i am an experienced and world-weary traveler! i am in subways day and night! i am familiar with nearly all the routes on the island! i am invincible to the mta's underhand dealings now!"

but of course this was foolishness. i had fatally underestimated the queens manhattan bus company. the bus company does not go quietly into the night; it lurks, in the undergrowth of industrial queens, waiting for you to reveal your weakness - and then it strikes.

i wish i could say that this is what happened to me this past weekend. it would lend me some dignity, and the bus company too, and i am sure we are both sorely in need of some.

what actually happened was far stupider. those of you with no patience for moronity are advised to turn back while you can.

being sick and exhausted (there's no other way to travel), i was thrilled when my grandmother extended her biannual shabbos invitation to me earlier this week. "you don't have other plans?" she inquired. "no! no!" i exclaimed, blithely wiping down my calander with the back of my sleeve. "this week's perfect! really!"

it was perfect. the week afterwards was finals, and if i emerged once from my hole of a room it would no doubt stun the small rodents who scurry through our walls at night. but that week there was nothing going on at stern and it was not close enough to finals that i seriously expected to study. i was pumped. i took out several fifteen-pound books from the library, shoved all my dirty laundry into a three-wheeled suitcase, and headed out for the bus stop on friday, sneezing, drooping, but no less exhilirated.

it did not occur to me that it was gonna be one of those holiday-traffic kinds of weekends, during which the bus company pulls out all the stops, in its (or so i thought at the time) sad and futile struggles to reclaim its position as chief boogeyman in my life. forget not showing up at your stop. your 'reliable' bus does not intend to show up at A, NY stop. or at least, not within the next 24 hours. to be fair, this is not entirely your bus's fault. your bus is busy, having many people to pick up way down in electchester or wherever it is, and being also blocked by the ceaseless stream of merry touristy types who cannot cross broadway and thirty-fourth in one traffic light, poor nebuchs.

so it is really no one's fault, until your bus DOES miraculously appear, only to glide by you, suitcase in hand, as it decides you are not worth stopping for; or until it does stop, only, depending on the driver, to decide why you personally may not get on the bus, for instance your bag is too big, or you look rich enough to take a cab, or perhaps you are garbed in an offensive color.

but one of my many combat strategies which i have developed in my ongoing struggle with the bus company is the understanding that, despite my grandmother's firm belief to the contrary, there are actually SEVERAL buses that head up to her neck of the woods, and when my bus has not yet come at 2:45 on a friday when shabbos starts like 4ish, i secretly hop on one of these. if i get out with time to spare, i covertly trek back to the other stop when i get into queens, so she can discover me in the right place. i had never before had opportunity to deal with the 'if not' scenario before.

according to my grandmother, this is where all the trouble began.

having navigated my suitcase down to the wide aisle of seats in the middle of the bus, which, amazingly, had only ten people on it despite the 'next bus please' caption scrolling across its side, i glanced out the window and realized that we were going to be stuck at about forty-sixth and sixth until my youngest sister's high school graduation. thanks to recent yoga training (and other things you do not want floating around haphazardly in the vague chaos of your brain), i also 'checked in with my body' and found that:

a) i could not breathe through my nose
b) i was tired
therefore
c) the chances of me making it back to grandma's stop with my suitcase were not good.

so i slipped my phone (dangling from a loop on my keychain) out of its little pocket and called my grandmother to explain the situation.

"WHAT?" she cried.

"it's okay, grandma. it just stops on the other side of you, that's all."

"but where are you going to get out?"

"pretty close to you."

"but not at the same stop?"

"no."

"ask him if he will stop at that stop."

"he doesn't go that route, grandma. it's okay. it's just as close, really it is."

"well see if he will stop closer to me."

"i'll try, grandma."

"tell him he'd better!"

"okay, grandma."

"this is nerve-wracking, what's gonna be with you. okay. bye."

it was not so nerve-wracking. i had been this way before and could follow the stops reasonably well. sheepishly, i negotiated with the bus driver, and in the holiday spirit he agreed to leave me off at a non-stop closer to my grandma, leading to much admiring sighing from the nine white-haired ladies and one peppery-haired husband traveling with me. several of them remarked on the kind heartedness of the bus driver.

in retrospect, this should have been a warning sign.

when we arrived at my stop, i shook myself awake and lunged down the aisle with my suitcase balanced between one hand and a foot and a sad sack of flowers beneath my elbow, trying not to harm any of the frail elderly in the seats around me. the bus driver asked gently (gently!), "are you gonna be alright from here, sweetheart? you sure you got all your things?"

"uh huh," i nodded enthusiastically, beaming him a no doubt frightening smile. "yup! i'm good! happy new year's!"

"to you too, miss," he said, and he closed the doors behind me.

standing in front of the shopping center that was my grandmother's preferred post, i reached into my pocket to call her and anounce my arrival, dreaming already of an early, early bedtime.

my fingers scraped the bottom of the pocket.

that's weird, i thought. i don't think i put them back in my purse.

i scrounged around in my purse, digging through receipts and packs of gum fruitlessly, for about fifteen seconds. my purse is not that big. it doesn't take long.

then i glanced up, down the street, where the me-free bus was sitting innocently by the stoplight, about to turn green.

holy crap, i thought suddenly, it's on the seat in the middle.

i glanced at my suitcase. it was missing a wheel.

i glanced at the bus.

had it been a movie, this would have been the scene where the rain began to pour down, and i threw back my head and shoulders and roared at the sky, "NOOOOOOOOOO!"

but it was not a movie, and instead what i said to the sky was something like, "aw, come ON, G-d," as i bumped pathetically after the bus with my 300 pounds of dirty laundry in tow: across streets and over shopping center parking lots. i should have known better. by the time my knees gave out the bus had long since sailed merrily into the horizon, off to wherever it is buses go after the last stop, which is what i had arrived at. bent over and gasping for breath, i glanced at my watch. there were about twenty-five minutes left to shabbos. i was nowhere near the place my grandmother had told me to get off. i had no phone. and as i straightened out to assess my situation, i felt a raindrop on my forehead.

this prompted me to say something far less printable. but, to give myself credit, it took another ten minutes for me to actually cry.

i crossed the street in the irrational hope that the bus would come back, and i sized up my fellow sketchy-queens-neighborhood sidewalkers to see who would be the most likely to lend a random college student their phone. most fell into the spiked-collar wearing camp or the not-going-to-have-a-phone camp. in my head i saw my phone singing away on the bus seat, somewhere in yonkers. there were twenty minutes left. i just stood there, silently daring the sky to rain more.

eventually a happy-go-lucky woman, who it would later seem to me never really stopped jogging, took pity on me. "aw, don't cry!" she said brightly. "people lose things on buses all the time! i lose everything on the bus! you just go down to the depot and pick it up during business hours! want some tea? want to wait in the library? i'll stand here with your suitcase. i'm not a kidnapper," she added, in a between-you-and-me kind of voice. "i'm just a new yorker with a heart."

"they have those?" i said skeptically.

she shrugged. she was not a woman for sarcasm. "everything's possible in america!" she said.

and you know she was not half wrong. she let me use her cell phone to explain the situation to my grandmother, who was suitably distraught. my grandmother zoomed up the street in her usual miami-vice style and packaged me into the car, pontificating all the while.

"OH MY GAWD, it's almost SHABBOS, what is this that HAPPENS to you perlie, you poor BABY, always with the bus this HAPPENS to you, did i not TELL you you should ONLY TAKE THE BUS I TELL YOU TO TAKE, what is going to BE with you, this is TERRIBLE..."

"grandma, calm down," i attempted weakly.

"how are we going to SLEEP tonight?" she insisted, looking at me as we neared a stoplight. "i don't know how i will sleep! you are young so you will sleep. but how will you sleep knowing that is such a mess? what's gonna be with you perlie?"

GAH! i thought.

"at least i'm here," i suggested.

"that's true," my grandma agreed. "but i wish you were here in one piece."

"i pretty much am."

my grandma gave me a look. "no phone. no keys. how will you live?"

"i'm sure i can get it back."

"you can't get it back," she scoffed. "the bus company does not work like this."

we sat in the car, in the driveway. we looked at each other. i looked down the avenue. the significance of what had happened dawned on me.

alright, i thought. i'll play your game, you rogue.

"grandma," i said firmly, "i WILL get it back. i. WILL."

TO BE CONTINUED....

(note: tune in for our next episode, featuring special blogging guests and a detailed infiltration of the enemy- from within...)

should've seen it coming

2007-12-10T15:36:00.000-08:00

PHONE (ON VIBRATE): buzz buzz. buzz buzz. buzz buzz. (two minute pause) buzz buzz. buzz buzz. buzz buzz. (pause) buzz buzz. buzz buzz. buzz b--

COWORKER: perel. your phone's vibrating.

PHONE: buzz buzz. buzz buzz.

ME: i know, i know...who calls six times in a row...okay, i'm getting it...

COWORKER: good.

PHONE: buzz buzz.

ME: hello?

BUBBE: perel!

ME (lowering voice): hi, bubbe.

BUBBE: what are you having for supper today, perel?

ME: i'm at work, bubbe. i'm not eating supper. i'll call you b--

BUBBE: what are you going to eat for supper?

ME: soup, bubbe.

BUBBE: oh how nice. listen, perel, grampa's friend nathaniel wants to know if mendy's is good.

ME (confused): what?

BUBBE: you know, if they have a good hamburger.

ME: um...i don't think they serve hamburgers.

BUBBE: what's the point of being a restaurant if you don't have a good hamburger?

ME: they might, i don't know. listen, bubbe--

BUBBE: i told grampa i wouldn't go to a restaurant unless they had a good hamburger.

ME: sounds like a plan.

BUBBE: so that's no good, if they don't have good hamburgers.

COWORKER: *snort*

ME: listen, bubbe, i'll call you back later

BUBBE: so you're saying they don't have a good hamburger?

ME: i don't KNOW! it requires further investigation! i'll talk to you soon, ok?

BUBBE: okay, i love you.

ME: okay bye!

(hanging up phone)

COWORKER: so your grandmother actually has a louder phone voice than my grandmother.

ME: well--

PHONE: buzz buzz. buzz buzz.

ME: what the--hello?

BUBBE: hi, perel!

ME: bubbe! i told you i would--

BUBBE: yeah, listen, what kind of soup are you making?

give it to me straight, people

2007-11-25T10:17:00.000-08:00

does this scream 'howard hughes' to you?

man of steel

2007-11-11T19:53:00.000-08:00

since my great-grandmother passed away, i've taken to calling my great-grandfather on sunday afternoons.

it's not easy to find a time that fits into both our schedules. disbelieve me if you like, but my grandfather doesn't exactly sit around. he reads his paper, he compares music, he goes visiting, attends events, davens at shul, goes to his meals, watches the game. the way we figured it there's about a half-hour between three-thirty and four on a sunday that he's available. perhaps this will sound like a familiar story to you, what with my father's mother (known in vernacular as the mother of my father) having so many 'affairs' herself. but it isn't the same kind of busy at all. i'm not sure i can explain even to myself why this is so.

it sounds strange to me now, but i always saw my great-grandfather as this kind of indestructable force. when i was little, my great-grandparents babysat for us all the time. my grandfather drove us to school, he folded our laundry, he took me on the slide - there was nothing he couldn't do. my grandma would sit on the couch and have tea-parties with us or sing to us, but it was my grandfather who would hoist us over his shoulder and put us on the top of the slide, or reach up and carry us down when we occasionally panicked. the two of them were just a part of my house. when he was angry he could bellow like anything, but i don't remember him being angry at us so often. i just know that when he was even i wised up, and i was something of a snot in my early grade school years.

it never, ever occurred to me to worry about my grandpa. nothing made him cry. nothing ever frightened him. there were no stairs he couldn't climb. i think even then he would talk about when he was gone, in the annoying and abstract tone adults take when they want to communicate to you vague life lessons for 'when you're older.' like, 'when i'm gone, you'll wish you'd paid more attention to this tape i made of my organ playing', or if that failed to get your attention, 'listen! years from now that tape will be worth money!'

i say it's strange now because then i didn't realize not everyone got to have great-grandparents. people made the term sound really old, but i never found anything particularly old about either of them. for crying out loud, the man lifted more laundry baskets than i did. my grandma was a little different; she used to fret about things. i don't think she let me go down the stairs by myself till i was eight. but my grandfather? i remember telling my counselors in summer camp that if they didn't play the game i wanted to play i'd run down the block and recruit my great-grandfather to beat them up. and then being mystified by their doubled-over laughter.

there was a time when i was 12 or 13, a brief, brief window of time, when i was old enough to communicate with them as people rather than guardians and they were not yet so old as to have lost any of the capabilities they had when i was young. these are the days that i will probably always have in my mind when i think of my great-grandparents. i used to go over to visit them on shabbos afternoons, usually by myself, climb up to their apartment over my regular grandparents. my grandma would be sitting on that awful green couch, looking through coupons with a magnifying glass. my grandfather would be reading the paper in his stiff armchair. and i would sit in the space between them, on the couch next to my grandma. and i'd just probe one tiny bit - "grandpa, did you read the article about the-" and he'd go off on a complete and informed tirade about something, while my grandmother tried to steer the conversation back to something she actually cared about. they'd get out picture books and she'd clip my bangs with bobby pins like the hairdresser she'd been and my grandfather would recite jokes straight out of bob hope's 1960's-era autobiography with the communist yellow binding.

or i'd come on a weekday or something like thanksgiving and find him in the back bedroom with his organ - his "fun machine" - playing a tune which quite frankly sounded ghastly to me. i would sit there myself many times when i got bored downstairs, frustrated with the keys; i could never get any sound out of the bottom half, where he could make flutes and violins and hawaiin guitars (even though they all sort of sounded the same with your eyes closed.)

i think i was in tenth grade when my great-grandparents moved into the nursing home. it happened overnight. he had a stroke that left him with some speech problems, which i don't hear much in his talk anymore, and a bad leg he still can't walk much on, a bad arm; my grandmother, never an easy-going woman, could not be left to herself, and her arthritis was pretty bad. their move to the home stunned me at first, and then, when i saw for myself over repeated visits that being in a facility hadn't really changed who they were, my alarm lessened. okay, so he couldn't walk so good. still, you'd have had to be an idiot to pick a fight with my grandfather. nobody was going no place.

i don't know if you want to consider it luck that i was already away in college when my grandmother began slipping away. every time i came back she would be slightly more confused, slightly more sleepy, slightly more deaf. out of all us kids, she retained her recognition of me and the boys the longest because i think we'd been part of her world for longer, and she could touch my curly hair and know me at once, and then she'd talk to me. but that was a different kind of talking. i watched my grandmother become a little girl again, come down to the simplest and brightest emotions - "you're so beautiful!" "i'm so happy!" - and then fade away. for years i didn't speak to my grandfather very much because whenever i visited, i spoke to my grandmother. i remember thinking vaguely that my grandfather was alright and he'd understand, but she needed to see me and hold my hand.

and then, you know, there's new york, and school, and work, and the things you worry ceaselessly about when you lose perspective of things. months went by when i didn't speak to either of them. i made it home the day before my grandmother died, but i didn't see her. my father still says that that's probably a good thing.

but anyway, as i said, her funeral woke something up inside of me. my grandfather cried. after 67 years of marriage, of course he cried, but somehow i didn't want him to. i didn't want him to cry. i didn't want him to not be able to get up the steps to my grandparents' house, the steps i watched him go up a million times with no problem when i was a kid.

and that realization has only grown when i talk to him on the phone on sundays. it has taken 18 years, but slowly, i am realizing that nobody is made of steel. and it terrifies me.

thank G-d, my grandfather's alright now. usually when i'm speaking to him and he says, 'what? i can't hear you,' it's because my cell phone, whose battery is not nearly as long as my grandfather's, has given up the ghost after thirty-six whole minutes off the charger. but even though i know this, it always leaves me with a sudden spark of panic. for the first time, i see my great-grandfather as something fragile and tenuous, though he gives me only the faintest signs of weakness.

we have more in common than you'd think. we both live in facilities of some kind. we compare the food and have a kind of loser's competition over who eats worse (i'm winning). we talk about my classes and my friends and his friends and his classes that he took in high school or that my mother took or even my grandfather. everything kind of runs together. i have found lately that i can't get off the phone with him, even when i know i should, that i must be wearing him out.

i just want him to stay the way he is, who he is, forever, and always be just a phone call away. but that's the thing about being a great-granddaughter and not just a regular one - you tend to come in a little late in the action. and it's normal for people to leave you a little bit at a time in their old age; we usually think of it as one of the happiest endings a person could have. but i feel like it's not fair. a little part of my brain is sitting in that theater going, 'hey, listen! i'm going to be here awhile, i got a lot ahead of me! stick around!'

in the meanwhile, when i get off the phone with him lately, i'm like this. i am happy to have the grandfather i've always had, this man who is a cornerstone of my family, who has seen two or three or depending on how you count them five world wars, who was there before all of us yet still shoots the breeze with me over my teenage angst for however long i want.

if comic books could come true, i would have one of those freeze-guns or crystal tanks all the evil supervillains always seem to have, where they can preserve the people they love for all time. but i guess life was never meant to be that way.

the funny thing is that he still thinks i'm calling for his sake.

congratulations on your future engagement

2007-11-04T17:44:00.000-08:00

(cautionary note: as they say on noggin, that famed preschooler network, 'this is me, this is me; this is me and my energy.' this post reveals more about me than perhaps is wise, and i debated whether to leave it up. in the end i decided to keep it because i think even an emotion that is unworthy or unbecoming of us is still legitimate. still, reader discretion is advised.)

a girl from high school called me up today, while i was studying for a jewish history midterm on my bed.

i saw the number and did a double take - we hadn't spoken more than a word or two in passing in almost three years. not that we fell out or anything; she was the kind of girl i used to stay up all night talking to on shabbatons, that i would write long, long six-part letters in sticky notes to during class. she was one of the few girls i used to give my poetry to in high school (miraculously, she survived). in many ways, she had been my guide.

"perel!" she clicked when i answered the phone. "tell me everything about life. tell me about school. tell me about work. i'm soooooo bad for not calling you..."

this took me by surprise. it's my experience that a person calling you for the first time in three years generally has a good reason. and truthfully, i didn't begrudge her either the absence or the call. it was as much my fault as hers that i hadn't made an effort to keep up with her, and it hadn't even bothered me as much as i might have thought it would; hers was a friendship which shaped my high school years, but seemed sort of anchorless without the common ground of high school and shared experience to hold us together. and i knew how awkward it can be to need something from someone you haven't spoken to in awhile. still, i warmed to the sound of her voice, falling into our old conversational patterns like i hadn't yet left for stern.

eventually, as i ultimately knew it was bound to, our talk moved toward our engaged classmates. she was buzzy with excitement. "can you believe it?" she breathed over the phone. "one girl's wedding this week, and just last week another girl got engaged! doesn't it blow your mind?"

i had to confess that it did not blow my mind. like most beis yaakov (or wannabe beis yaakov) girls, we had had a running bet in my class who was going to get married first. the two currently engaged had been in my top two; therefore i considered myself to 2 and nothing. i asked her how she felt about it.

"happy and excited," she replied promptly. "excited out of my mind. how about you?"

i hesitated. and then, i think, i proceeded to make a series of mistakes.

we had been talking for a little while by this point, and i was so glad to be speaking to her again. she is a very sweet and forgiving person, and in high school she always managed to draw my confusion and objections out of me through long, delicate probing. i hadn't been a person to speak my mind, but to skulk off quietly on the edge of the field at recess, i think because even i didn't always understand what was bothering me. and she would take me by the hand and patiently lead me back to the circle where the other girls were sitting, cross-legged, picking dandelions and grass and talking.

so, forgetting the three years that separated us, i said, "i feel like it's happening too quickly."

there was a frown in her voice. "happening too quickly? what do you mean, happening too quickly?"

i said in a rush: "well i know that they're very capable girls and their parents checked the guys out and i'm sure they'll be happy and fine and everything, but you know, i just feel like there's so many layers to these girls and they're getting engaged to people after two weeks, how can they know..." i couldn't finish, unsure of where i was going. "don't you feel like it's a little sudden?" i asked lamely.

"no," she said, her voice surprisingly firm. "i don't think it's sudden at all. that's the way they do it. it's very chok-chok."

"yeah..."

"i mean, it makes more sense to do it this way. in the old days that's how they did it. the parents check them out very thoroughly and make sure it's going to line up, but it isn't like it's emotional or anything, that it has to take months. you find out if it's going to work and there isn't all this time wasting. if you're worried that he doesn't know the girl - it will be a pleasant surprise for that lucky chusun, that's all." she sounded stricken. "it's logical, perel. don't you remember how that girl used to turn around to us in class and always say how much easier it was in the old days? it isn't about emotion."

i could have kicked myself. i knew this already. the lectures came back to me over her voice; long afternoons of married teachers intoning: 'what ruins american marriages today? disneyland. everyone thinks they're going to have a marriage like disneyland, like hollywood in the movies. marriage is not about disneyland. that's why when you make shidduchim...'

and suddenly it hit me: the girl on the phone was completely right. my classmates didn't need to date forever, because they were not waiting to 'fall in love' with someone. ('fall in love', i remembered one of my teachers enunciating contemptously. 'does that sound like the way G-d would want you to plan your future? where's the intelligence in that?') these girls getting married didn't need to love their husbands at the onset. so four weeks or six weeks, what did it matter? it wasn't so much about the individual for them as what he represented and what he had the potential to be.

blinking, disconcerted, i resettled the phone on my shoulder and stared at my reflection in the mirror on the back of my bathroom door: sweatshirt, pajama skirt, notes spread out over the floor, desk and bed. "yeah," i said vaguely. "i guess you're right."

there was a hint of dissatisfaction now in the girl's voice as she spoke, a little bit of distance, as though she too was unsettled by my non-ecstastic reaction, but she went on bravely anyway. "on a related note, i was talking to one of the other girls and we think that it would be a great idea for the whole class to do something nice for each bride. you know, like to have a gift from the whole class for everyone. like a little tehillim or something. don't you think that would be sweet?"

i shrugged. "yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

"right. i was checking up the prices on eichlers...it comes to about twenty-four dollars a person. you don't think that's too much, do you?"

feeling cheap, i said, "it depends. if that's the only thing i'm getting them, then no, i don't think so. if i was going to bring them another gift it might be a little high."

"no no no. i don't mean twenty-four dollars every time. i mean twenty-four dollars TOTAL. the way i figure it is like this. there's twelve of us, right? and each tehillim costs thirty-six dollars. but if we buy all twelve of them at the same time, we get a discount, and each tehillim will only be twenty-four dollars. then it would come to two dollars per girl, or twenty-four for everyone."

i have never been good at math, and part of me started thinking at this point, 'ok, so roughly the price it would cost if each girl went and bought her own tehillim.' but slowly i zeroed in on what i really wasn't getting. "so...you want to buy twelve sets of tehillim now?"

"yes. preferably this week."

"so...we'll have them before people get engaged," i said, trying to keep up.

"exactly." she sounded relieved. "because you know how impossible it would be to try and keep track of it for every single girl once you have kids and a house to run. it would just be impossible, perel. and you know what would happen, would be the girls who got married last would have nothing done for them, and we just didn't think that was very nice."

i sat on my bed, staring at my reflection.

why is it that everything keeps feeling like middle school? aren't experiences supposed to widen and deepen as you get older? yet somehow even vast, life-forming things like marriages sound and feel the same as surprise birthday parties or class ditch days to me. sitting on the pine needles while the other girls danced around our measly bonfire on lag b'omer, watching them, transfixed, wanting to be part of their dance, knowing i would only embarrass myself. the girl on the phone came over to me and tugged me up that day.

"come on, perel," she said, a mischevious glint in her eye. "we can't dance unless it's the whole class."

"i don't know how to dance," i said, smiling apologetically.

she waved a hand dimissively. "well then we'll have to teach you, won't we?"

and for the rest of the night she stood with me, gluing my eyes to a line, illustrating with such patience and kindness how to move your feet over and across and from side to side. for hours the two of us away from the dancing, her moving so gracefully, my attempts to imitate her completely fruitless. "i can't do it," i said at the end. "i guess my body just doesn't move that way."

"it does," she insisted. "one day you'll get it. you'll see."

i look the same now as i did then. i don't know if it's because i haven't changed much, or if it's because it simply hasn't been that long. four years, five years. her voice sounds the same; it has that same warm lightness.

and it's like her to think of those outside the circle. why does it have to sound so much like the last girls picked for machanayim? there you could find me, standing awkwardly alone between the two huddles of girls, gawky and tall in my slumpy turtleneck and pleated skirt. did you befriend me out of pity? a part of me wonders, but i feel ashamed. it is kindness to think of others. it doesn't have to be pity.

her conspirational whisper, next to me in the grass: "we're all going to donate two dollars for this girl's surprise birthday party. you know, the summer birthdays. it's not fair, they never get parties, so they're never going to be expecting it. we'll spell it out in her english binder." an elbow in the ribs. "don't you think that's a good idea?"

yes. yeah, that'll be fun. that's a great idea.

twelve sets of tehillim, waiting in the basement! waiting for the day! isn't that a good idea? waiting for--

no.

no, it isn't.

"i don't think so," i said. "i don't think it's a good idea."

distracted. "what do you mean, it isn't a good idea? what's the matter with it?"

"why don't we do it as the occasion arises. i like getting everyone a tehillim, i think that's nice, but you know. there's no need to buy twelve of them now. why don't we buy for the two girls who are already engaged, and as other girls get engaged, we'll buy some for them."

"but do you think that we should all have to pay twelve dollars a person more now, and have to collect the money again every time?" she asked patiently. "that's not an easy thing to do. people are going to have kids..."

"we'll worry about the kids when we get there. but you don't know how long it's going to be. maybe i'm a little superstitious, i don't know what it is. i just don't like the idea of having them pre-bought, sitting there, waiting for something which...which might be a long time in coming for some girls..."

i realized at this point that i should not say the rest of what i was thinking. but i had already said enough. for the first time, the voice on the other end of the phone was completely silent.

when she spoke again, it was subdued, almost chilly. "perel," she said, "you are my friend, and you know i respect your opinion and i'm always interested to know what you think. but i don't understand...i don't understand why you are so negative about this. aren't you happy that they're getting married? it's something to be happy about, not worried. it seems silly to wait to buy every set of tehillim separately when it's going to cost more. i don't understand why you're...saying the things you're saying. what are you so afraid of? we're all going to get married sooner or later, right?"

we said our goodbyes, made arrangements for the money, and hung up our phones. business concluded. my studying lay across my lap, waiting sadly for me to attend to it. but i was still staring at the mirror on the door, the smooth feel of my phone between my fingers.

i could almost see her if i squinted, reaching down to me in the firelight, pulling me up, the smile on her face. explain it to me. teach me the song they're all singing. no, i can't strum to that. i don't know the tune.

we're all going to get married sooner or later, right?

i couldn't bring myself to say it, even though the words were so loud in my head:

but what if we don't?

a little thing i like to call 'continuity'

2007-11-01T18:18:00.000-07:00

*BEEP*

You have Two. New. Messages. First Message Sent Today, Thursday, November. First. At. Eight. Twenty-Three. PM:

"Pereleh, this is your Grandma Rose speaking. I just wanted to call you to remind you that you are coming to me tomorrow for Shabbos. So don't forget to come to my house, and make sure you should get on the right bus. And meantime also make sure you should ask the busdriver he isn't changing the schedule when they change the time because they are stupid that way.

Ok bye."

Next Message Sent Today, Thursday, November. First. At. Eight. Twenty-Five. PM:

"Pereleh, listen, it's your Grandma Rose again. Also you shouldn't forget that I am babysitting for your father's sister tomorrow from eleven to twelve o'clock in the morning. So if you want to come in the morning, forget about it. I know you don't usually come in the morning, so now you have a good reason not to.

Ok, barring anything else that comes up, I'll see you tomorrow. Bye."

can i be excused from class?

2007-10-24T20:17:00.000-07:00

this city is making me tired.

today i had one of those days that i think you can only have in midtown manhattan. not that individual components of them couldn't occur elsewhere, but to experience them all within the same few hours is a testament to new york's special brand of insanity - one that runs deep and broad.

for example, you've got your subway paranoiacs.

everyone's got their subway story, and i imagine more than one, but today was the first time i experience the hostile variety. usually the crazy people i meet in the subway, while admittedly deranged, are either strangely benificent - 'all our problems are because of the rich. there were no rich people in the time of the isrealites; that's why the israelites were the people of G-d' - or promoting some cause, their own, rwanda's, the devil's, whatever.

but today, as i was on the train from work to school at about 4:45, completely wiped, crammed into the car with 47 other people getting out of work like so much playdoh in a jar, a man leaning against the door across from me took one look at me and pronounced loudly: "WELL, aren't YOU nosy?"

it took me awhile to figure out he was talking to me, because ironically enough, i had not really been paying attention. like most people on the subway, i was trying to figure out how i was going to get where i needed to be on time. and i was also sort of exhausted and starting to daze. i guess i must have been staring at the package this man was holding in his arms, with the name 'JEDI PRINTING COMPANY' emblazoned boldly across the front, in what he interpreted as an offensive manner; i don't think i realized at the time that i was looking at it.

so the man specified. "Yeah, that's right, YOU. i'm talking to YOU, nosy girl. glasses girl. YOU."

at this point other people began to stare at me, shifting to glance over their shoulders or, depending on how they were packed, beneath other people's armpits. the man did not look crazy. he was an african american in a relatively clean and well-pressed suit, some dark sneakers. and he spent the rest of our five minute ride enumerating my sins.

"you think you're smart, don't you? you think you're better than other people. who do you think you are?"

i never said anything in response, but man, it was a looooong ride.

fortunately, my class that night guest-starred a firefighter who had worked at the scene of 9-11. we were supposed to interview him about his story. he didn't need much help; he is a natural storyteller, the kind of spell-binding recreationist who makes you jump in fear when he describes an explosion or the thick black debris coating his eyelids. yet this was not enough for my teacher.

'tell them grisly things,' my teacher said. 'tell them about the bodies. tell them how you found the bodies.'

and he dutifully told us, in gratifying detail. perhaps i do not have what it takes to be a professional writer. he teared up. we were supposed to be asking him questions, and my professor kept pushing me, 'fudge, what aspect of this would you like to focus on? what do you think his narrative should include?' as though the fireman's story was just another example in a textbook to be dissected and analyzed.

but a long day culminating in several very well-told anecdotes about finding a woman's hand with a diamond ring on a curb or yanking a man out of a hole in the wall by his small intestines did not, in my case, make for clear-thinking. the longer he talked, the lower i sank into my desk. halfway through, i became very cold and put on my coat; when he had been speaking and mercilessly interrupted and cross-examined by my classmates for no less than forty minutes, i was something like a puddle on the floor. 'you're probably already thinking about what kind of profile you can write about this,' my professor said, 'and this is your only chance to ask this firefighter about the details, so ask him something!' but i did not want to ask him anything. my brain refused to process the material he had presented to me. it just sat there in my head, grey and useless, whimpering a little. i wanted to take a week's vacation. i wanted to go sailing on a nice white boat in a bright blue harbor on a beautiful summer day. i did not want to write any story about being a firefighter picking up body parts, and apparently, i did not really want to think about one, either.

i experienced a similar feeling of dread earlier this week after stumbling early out of ripley's believe it or not, a museum here which features, among other things, a life-size wax figure of a 1400 lb. man and a woman who, due to a birth defect, had a sort of bill instead of a mouth. the plaque in front of the woman read 'Ugliest Woman in the World'? the people around me were laughing, and their laughter and the expression in that woman's eyes gave me one of the worst bouts of nauseau i've had since i was eight. i felt like i never wanted to do or see anything ever again.

i was feeling a little bit like this too as i walked home tonight, bits of the firefighter's story (and even the man in the subway's rhetoric) floating around and sticking in my skull like things that wouldn't go down right. i didn't want to live in a city where so many people experienced such excruciating sadness. i didn't want to think about the sadness this firefighter woke up in the morning to confront every day, as part of his job. i didn't like a world where people were mean and cruel and dead. the feeling i was left with was a vague, not-feeling-well-at-school kind of sentiment. 'i want to go home,' i thought.

but for me, for now, home just happens to be in one of manhattan's posher neighborhoods, and as everyone knows, you can't walk two blocks on halloween weekend without accidentally ruining an elaborate and expensive costume party. squirrel-haired and completely wiped, i propelled myself vaguely over a red carpet, several men in Victorian suits and top hats and gold-knobbed canes, and a few women wearing glittery ice-skating dresses with feathered tiaras and precipice heels. i plowed through them like so many bags of garbage along the curb before thinking, hey! that was actually sort of cool! and glancing back over my shoulder once or twice at their bright blur of color on the dark, drizzly new york street.

which, at last, brings me to my reason for writing this post: tonight, i had my first encounter with an actual falling-down drunk man.

i don't know why this surprised me as much as it did, but i guess that while i've seen people drunk, they've either been people you would expect to be drunk (ie, on purim, in shul) or they haven't been as drunk as all that. this guy was a model. he was long, thin, and tall. he was wearing what i conservatively estimated to be a six-thousand-dollar suit, and he had the long, glowing golden hair of someone who cares for it fastidiously.

he was also rolling along the gate of my dorm like a shipwreck at sea.

at first i couldn't tell he was drunk and thought that possibly he was ill, or dead. he stood with his back to the gate and his head up toward the sky, unmoving. i almost plowed into him too, but then smartly jumped back; i figured he must have escaped from the costume party down the block. he lunged forward along the gate, one arm grabbing wildly, but he didn't quite make it and swung face-first into it instead, sliding down onto his knees. he stayed there in a mess of angular limbs on the loor for awhile, then, just as suddenly, lurched up again and propelled himself toward the street, only to fall face-flat on the sidewalk.

i winced as his priceless, immaculate suit hit the mud.

whereupon he proceeded to crawl past my security guard. inch by inch. it was kind of a half-hearted crawl. he just sort of laid there after awhile. girls stepped around him and over him, some minding, some, i guess, not. the security guard took notice of him, apparently decided he was not a threat, and left him there.

and so did i, although i thought about him in the elevator, and i wondered whether he belonged to the glamorous, happy side of new york, or the underbelly.

put ze candle beck

2007-10-18T22:19:00.000-07:00

it always amazes me how my postings change when i'm at home versus when i'm at school. when i'm home i post about things like fallen cakes, with pictures, almost daily. i sound completely self-contained. you can almost hear the security in my gruesome canterbury-tales-rip-off prose. i don't think that's the kind of thing i could write here.

what i write here in new york is confused and it rambles. it hesitates. i always feel like i'm on the verge of something i just can't put my finger on. and i think in earlier years i did write about the joyful frivolities of college life more often, and i still have a few of them; but now it seems that whatever words cross my screen at college are heavier in tone.

i've thought about this, and i think i have ('has', if you will) the solution:

there are two of me.

there is the monday-wednesday version and the tuesday-thursday version (the weekend variety is always a surprise). but i don't call them that; i call them The Black Skirt and The Jean Skirt.

Black Skirt me wears makeup and jewelry and pays forty dollars in metro card bills. Black Skirt me sits in banks for hours trying to negotiate with smug executives to whom she represents less threat than a flea. Black Skirt me calls authors' publicists, struggling to keep her voice even while her hands shake under the desk; she huddles over her keyboard at work desperately pretending not to overhear intimate details of her coworkers' lives and fretting over how much banter is not enough and how much is too much. Black Skirt me is awkward, uncultured, naive, and painfully, painfully aware of all of it. she weighs every word she says with crippling hesitation and finds nothing safe to voice. this makes her boss sound old, this makes her sound too eager, like she's trying to show someone up. Black Skirt me is, in a nut shell, exhausting. every minute lasts an hour, and every hour is a mental warzone where it must be a cakewalk for everyone who already knows the rules.

then there is Jean Skirt me. Jean Skirt me could not be less concerned about anything. she wanders into class and wanders out, eating her meals in the hallways and staircases between. she is not afraid to say anything class and does not mind doing all the talking when no one else raises their voice, and when other students worry about homework projects and the severity of tests, she laughs and laughs. Jean Skirt me will laugh at nearly anything and bumbles about in such a way that her floormates think she has a disorder, but not an emotional one. nothing seems serious or crucial to her. everything can be dealt with. everything can be taken care of.

i can feel the transformation as soon as i put on the other skirt. i can feel myself changing. i guess that's how everyone is, or maybe it's just the way they are when they first start out in a real work environment, but i honestly believe that if people from work met the person i am at school, they wouldn't recognize me. and vice versa. which is why the disparity of my own posts catch me off guard sometimes. it makes me wonder which one i really am.

but anyway, along that vein, i have discovered something important: there is no good way to force yourself to have fun.

it must have been Black Skirt me who spent the summer fretting that all this work and class and one-person dorm room would leave me no time to Socialize. socialize. because that's the kind of thing i do. define the term 'socialize' in a sentence, i dare you.

anyway i had only a hazy idea in my head at the time, and to be honest, i think a lot of it stems from a popular syndrome at stern and yu - it's called the 'OMG I'm In My Junior/Senior Year And Show No Signs Of Being Engaged' syndrome (OMG for short). you will of course tell me that i am foolish because i am deceptively young, and i'll opt for that, but it's a catchy disease. students here who i have always admired for their brash spirit and level-headedness seem to have succumbed overnight; suddenly they're crashing all the unspokenly-freshmen-only events, hoping to meet someone. it would be grim if there weren't a few guys who resorted to this as well. who's to say? maybe it works sometimes. as one of my floormates put it, 'i have no problem with desperation. how else are you supposed to meet people?'

i really have no idea, and i was definitely caught off-guard when a kindly member of my shul sidled up to me at simchas Torah and asked me what my list was ('well, i could use some more mouthwash, and i really need eggs...'). i was left speechless, and those who know me will realize that this is no mean feat. my reaction to this (horror) convinced me that i am not ready to Go To A Shadchan or whatever it is everyone else who knows what they're doing does. but nonetheless i made up my mind to do my part, and apparently, at the time, this struck me as signing up for the very awkward mixers that i studiously avoided in my freshman and sophomore year.

you know the kinds of events i mean. they sound like they should be meaningful or at least fun, like a great place to find a wide variety of people, like great conversation starters, and if nothing else, a night off for you. participate in a treasure hunt around the midtown campus! saturday night trip to ripley's believe-it-or-not! volunteer in six different places and get free dinner and show at the knitting factory!

i say these are freshmen-only because in my experience the juniors and seniors rarely have time to go to these things. it's the freshmen who are still excited and intrigued by new york, by the yu scene, even. consequently it's the freshmen who are most inspired and entertaining. but it is undoubtably awkward. you go to meet new people and then, when you get there, immediately search the crowd for someone you know, even remotely, to attach yourself to, so you won't look like an idiot with nothing better to do than stand by the desert table alone sneaking cookies. i've never been to a bar but i can only imagine how much worse they must be. when you do catch sight of the occasional older student, you know why they're there, and a momentary feeling of doom passes over you. you see yourself coming to events like this for years to come, absurdly pretending you are there for the place and not the people and then eventually realizing you don't really like the people either. bleh.

i think after a certain point this year i began to realize that i truly did not have time for these kinds of events nor was i getting half as much out of them as i needed to put in. ultimately, running around new york for two hours and seeing all the landmarks could have been a beautiful thing, but the superimposed structure of the event - treasure hunting - brought me right back to eighth grade on my trip to washington, where all my teammates were so focused on finding strangers in red-white-and-blue scarves that they couldn't be bothered to look at the capital. and i end up lagging behind, looking at these things myself, waiting for the activity to end.

but so far i've been going anyway. it's almost an addiction. who knows, you think. maybe this time i'll go and everything will magically work out, and if i don't go i'll be alone forever. (although seeing what more and more of these guys are like, i wonder if that is such a bad thing.) and you race and you cram to make it fit into your tight schedule because you are convinced it is important somehow. like i said - it's a Black Skirt thing. all this uncertainty about the future.

well, tonight was one of those nights. the truth was that i already had a commitment - my radio show - and i felt particularly skeptical of the night's planned event; i couldn't imagine it attracting a good crowd. a crowd, just not a good one. but my friend wheedled and whined. 'c'mon honey, you can do your show later, you can do your show next week, your show's always the same old thing and which would you rather, sit and talk to yourself all the way uptown or run around and have fun with a bunch of people here? i don't want to go alone...c'mon...'

i couldn't cancel my show, i'm too well-trained, but i shrugged and figured i could do both. she was probably right. i would be all by myself that late on a thursday night, and it might be kind of lonely, and times square did sound like fun even if the sketchiness factor, for such we name it at stern, veered high. so i threw my playlist-toting jukebox in my purse and i went with her.

and lemme tell ya, from the first minute to the last of the whole wretched exercise, it was AWFUL. the school brought in professionals who clearly had no clue what audience they were speaking to, as evidenced by their suggestion that we play 'huggy bears' to pick team mates. also these people were even more convinced than i was that the sole purpose of the event was to Meet Your Match; we could win a prize, they informed us, which would no doubt be a romantic getaway for two at some upscale restaruant. i saw several girls who perhaps thought they were in for the thrill of the scavenger hunt alone change colors, and some of the guys looked longingly over their shoulders for their long-since-gone bus.

the game itself had fair-to-good challenges ('get everyone underwater', 'take a picture with the worst-dressed person you can find') which had the potential to be hysterical in new york. but my team was composed mainly of obscene, embarrassing guys who harassed ordinary citizens and made lewd suggestions to us, other smart-alecks who spent the entire trip whining bitterly about the lack of leadership in our group, and a few frustrated girls who had actually made room on their schedules for this. aside from the obscenity, it reminded me quite vividly of all those silly yet crucial spats my elementary school class used to argue about. i enjoyed the nostalgia and dutifully drifted towards the back to enjoy my own tour of times square. but it wasn't what i had imagined it to be.

eventually i lost everyone altogether, bought myself some pumpkin pie ice cream from a tast-i-delight (egads) and settled comfortably on a park bench, and it didn't feel half bad to be alone.

the shuttle was late. it is always late on nights when i do my show and while it was harrying it was also strangely reassuring. i ran the entire way to the station to end up three minutes late. recently i have been doing some organizing and bureaucratic things for the station which have been at times frustrating, hard to keep up with, and that vibe of glumness and work partly contributed to my decision to go to the event and jeapordize my show. but when i barreled through the door and jumbled my jukebox only to plug it into the wrong cable, with the shift manager (no, not weed, not like the old days, nor mayerhoff, but still someone i knew for awhile) chiding me and snorting through my routine ('at this point we will eulogize my dead playstation by burning it in metaphorical effigy'), and my dad imming in ('i'm going to bed, your mike's not on') and everyone cracking up while the songs were playing....it was like i had never left. back again. home.

it was a lot of fun. and i don't think it occurred to me for a moment that there was anything significant or profound at stake.

i guess that's a Jean Skirt thing.

but you know, i kind of like being Jean Skirt me. and i think now i'm pretty confident that i can still get my fun without having to e-mail my request for it to a school-sponsored event.

the cake the baby threw up on

2007-09-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

o foul cake! hideous abomination! creature of deceit and destruction!

how could you do this to me? you were the apple of my eye, the dream of my heart! you were my one, pathetic attempt to deviate from a standard dunkin heins mix cake!

you were supposed to impress people!

o how bitterly my heart dost churn, knowing my former naivete for the foolishness it truly was. how darest i have thought that i, the Cake Burninator, could possibly design a creative cooking project that wouldst appear remotely appetizing?

it seemed a small enough risk. you were formed merely by combining a fudge cake and a vanilla cake recipe in the same bunt pan. chocolate on bottom, vanilla on top. i guarded you jealously whilst you baked in the oven, checking every two minutes to make sure you didst not boil up like the wrath of G-d and smoke on the oven floor (witness hershey's chocolate cake c, aka 'elana's birthday cake, z"l.)

once you had been forged in that murderous oven, i watched you cool, lovingly, on the kitchen counter, admiring your ingenous bands of vanilla and fudge which, admittedly, i had no idea were going to turn out that way, but could still claim credit for. how tasteful you looked! how martha-stewart-esque! how proud my mother would be of my innate cooking sensitivities!

but then - o wicked day - alas, for in my conceit i didst decide that my G-d granted success was a sign that i could then be trusted to create my own frosting. o ruinous idea! o stupid brother, who refused to be satisfied with the parve big jar o' choco-frosting we bought at the grocery store! no, he had to have vanilla frosting! listen bubkes, just because it's your birthday doesn't mean you get the right to encourage your mad sister with reckless baking suggestions.

but heedst my inner warning i did not, nor didst i wait for the return of my mother from the grocery store - thus be the fate of all the laughably inept who rally their courage in vain. flipping through the Huge Purple Book of Every Kind of Kosher Food Recipe Book, i didst discern the perfect white-frosting recipe for my brother's birthday cake. and - o woe! o senseless tragedy! - we had all the ingredients. then not knowing what was to befall to me didst i gather the confectionary sugar and soy milk and create the most hideous layer-cake frosting that has ever been glimpsed by the eyes of man.

for lo! - it was grainy and papier-mache colored and clung not to the sides of the cake, but slid off into a murky mushed-newspaper-tinged puddle at the bottom of the plate. and it didst obscure the beautiful grand-canyon innate striping of my marvelous creation, concealing it in glumps and glops of what the uninformed eye of my eldest brother observed to be 'baby vomit,' whilst i myself did think it looked more like spider barf.

o awesome day! o cataclysmic cake! what have i done to deserve this?

my sister is older than she used to be, yet remarkably, still insane

2007-09-21T09:39:00.000-07:00

me (swinging open the door): guess what everybody? i'm BACK!

the pt, not getting up: plainly.

me: plainly?

the pt (sternly): you didn't perch on the street, did you?

me (at a loss for words)

the pt: you know. when you got off of the airplane? did you perch?

me: uh...not as such...

the pt: because you know there's a sign right out on the sidewalk that says you're not allowed to perch on the street.

me: a sign?

the pt (impatiently): you know, the sign with a big 'P' on it and a circle and a red line?

me: you mean the no PARKING sign?

the pt: no! if i meant the no parking sign, i would have SAID no parking! i mean the no PERCHING sign! the sign for airplanes! so they don't PERCH on people who are walking!

me: well, i see that as usual, i am not going to have any idea what you're talking about this yom tov.

the pt: well your airplane had to perch somewhere, or you wouldn't be here!

me: calm down, the pt.

the pt: oh...i hope nobody got hurt...

it's a good thing i have a newspaper subscription

2007-09-17T04:00:00.000-07:00

i don't know about you, but in my building, they only deliver your papers to the front door. so every morning, when i wake up at 6:30 a.m. (shoot me now), i shuffle downstairs in my pajama skirt with a box of cereal under my arm to retrieve it.

i squint down at the table where the stack of wall street journals are kept, but this is really more of a token act than anything else, because i know my paper isn't there. in fact, i know exactly where my paper is: it is outside, being read by the doorman.

the first few times this happened, i did not know what to make of it. when i realized he was doing it everyday and clearly had no intention to stop just because i saw him doing it, i considered the facts and drew two important conclusions:

a) he returned all of the sections each morning folded and intact.

b) it is never a bad thing to be on a security guard's good side.

so i made a deal with him, which is that he gets the sports section out of hand every morning, and i get the rest at 6:30 when i wake up, and eeeeeeeeeverybody's happy.

this morning, however, when he handed me the paper, i found that no matter how hard i squinted and how many sections i flipped, i could not find the sports section to hand him. which annoyed me, because i usually proceed to stuff whatever i haven't read in my school bag/purse, and the sports section i do not read makes it that much thicker. still, i couldn't stand there all day, so at last i relented.

"i'm sorry," i said regretfully. "i know there's a sports section in here somewhere, but for the life of me i can't find it."

the doorman grinned sheepishly.

"you won't find it," he said. "the kitchen rabbi's reading it."

are you easily distracted?

2007-09-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

well, i had my first real 9-5:30 workday today.

i don't know how it worked out like this, since in a strictly technical sense, i started two weeks ago. between national holidays and my weekly schedule, i just never managed to get the full day in until about a half hour ago.

so i have a question for all of you 9-5ers out there. (or longer- you know who you are). it goes something like this:

HOW DO YOU DO IT?

how do you sit up straight and not slouch? how do you stifle your yawns? what do you do when your butt falls asleep? how do you keep your eyelids from sliding shut?

do you get paranoid about blood clots in your legs?

i felt like i was back on an international flight, with the fortunate exception of decent bathrooms (although...the doors are made from the same kind of screen as they have in the women's balcony at shul, so while no one can see in, you can see out, which i must confess is a strange sensation.)

don't get me wrong, i am absolutely thrilled to have this job, and i try my darndest not to blow it. i feel like my supervisor gives me a lot of tasks which she knows will teach me valuable skills for my career field, for the express purpose of getting me acquainted with them, and i am grateful for that. it definitely beats barnes and noble (although i still kind of miss the cat herder.) and there is that little kick of adrenaline you get from working during the day in midtown manhattan - the jumbled-up mass of limbs and briefcases that is an 8:30 subway train, the pedestrian parking lot of 5th avenue at 6:00 (people literally inching their way home), all the accountants and suit-wearing personnel perched on the central park benches during their lunch break like pidgeons. if there is any place to have an entry-level job as a college student, it's right here. sometimes you have a creeping urge to throw yourself down on your knees and press your forehead to the gum-glued sidewalk. 'we are not worthy! we are not worthy!'

then again, sometimes it takes a significant amount of willpower not to hunt for the solitaire application on your hopeless, hopeless mac interface.

another year at hogwarts

2007-08-27T06:59:00.000-07:00

i know it's strange, but every year, as i slump beleaguered in the cab on the way back to manhattan, i feel a little bit like harry potter.

you see many of the same people you've seen the last three years, a little older, perhaps slightly more independent, but on the whole still engaging in the same activities they were when you first met them. oh, how my heart swelled with nostalgia as i watched the girl who used to come into my room and demand a human escort as she went around her errands bicker with her mother over whether or not the mother was obligated to carry all of her things for her, effectively blocking traffic so that i couldn't get out of the taxi. it used to make me dig my nails into the seat. now it has all the trappings of tradition. yep, i'm back!

and then there's the staples of first-time-on-campus orientation that recur throughout the college experience in a way i can only imagine acid flashbacks must resemble. (massive wheelie-carts you could hide multiple bodies in, check; t-shirts with upbeat slogans such as 'yu is your passport to the future!', check; bubbly bunches of shrieking girls who are going to get free food, check.) harry potter watches hagrid romp around with the first-years; i watch excited and startlingly well-rested-looking students flock merrily to school-sponsored broadway shows and amusement parks. there is a certain satisfaction in finally feeling old.

of course, that satisfaction chiefly comes from being, at long last, in the upperclass dorms. actually, the dorm i'm currently in is a converted pscyh ward, but that is what they call poetic justice for you. there are many doors you can open and walk through but not return through, and the corridors are all built in crazy, tilting mazes to prevent the psyciatric patients from escaping.

they certainly have nothing to worry about from me.

i was suspicious from the moment they announced at the gate in milwaukee that not only was the plane on time but - get this - it was early. perhaps once, in my first youth, i have witnessed a plane that departed and landed relatively near its scheduled times, but early? i just sat there in the minneapolis gate (tricks you learn when flying international - sit where no one else is sitting), gaping at the midwest display. i was even more shocked when they proceeded to board us at the time on the ticket, and my palms started sweating when, exactly two hours after we took off, the pilot announced that we were landing. this should not be, i thought to myself. aren't we going to circle for a little? or run into bad weather and have to turn around? is this some kind of trick?

we landed at sunset, and the plane scooped what i deemed to be dangerously close to many of the towers in manhattan. but in many ways our descent rivaled the guided tours of the city. we were so close to shea stadium i could see which team was batting (although i couldn't identify them. i will never understand baseball.) i saw the fountains in central park and people wining and dining by the riverwalk in the financial district. i saw the empire states building and i could almost swear i saw the stern girls double-parking by the first-year dorms from that altitude. all of it in a searing orange-scarlet light.

i didn't really want to look at it first. i was so nervous, and i have so many memories, good and bad, from my years in manhattan. i've been through the whole gamut of emotions here in ways i never truly experienced in milwaukee, and i am equal parts excited and afraid of what this year holds in store for me. what will happen to me? what will i do? how will i change?

what will i lose?

see, harry potter would understand.

but the man sitting next to me saw me burrowing into my airport penguin-popular-classic, determinedly ignoring the view, and scoffed softly, "you don't get to see new york like this every day."

so i bookmarked my page and succumbed, and i'm glad i did. he was right; it was dazzling. it doesn't have the natural beauty and warmth of israel's landscape, but there is a cool man-made glitter to new york that is a kind of polar opposite. it is pretty, in a large and impersonal way.

but yesterday was the day of wonders, for not only did my plane land on time, but i got all of my luggage and a cab within three-quarters of an hour. i was floored. and to be honest, i was psyched. if you've read this blog before or know me in any capacity, you probably remember that i like my space, sometimes to the point of defending it with a broom. one of the hardest challenges of the past few years for me has been dorming - trying to conform my schedule and privacy needs to those of four or five sweet but vivacious and occasionally maniacal roommates. they are good people, for the most part, and i'm glad i got to know them; they convinced me to do and try things no other force on earth could have moved me to. but when i turned the key to my room in the new dorm, my hands were shaking.

my own room.

i don't even have that at home!

i can turn off the light and go to sleep whenever i want.

i can lock the doors and no one i don't like can come in.

i can decorate it however i want. i can put my stuff wherever i want. i can turn the air conditioner up or down as i want to.

i can be alone and think!

an ex-roommate of mine who is in my cluster now (a group of singles connected by a bathroom) laughed as i fumbled with the keys, lounging in her doorway in pajamas and slippers. "it's like a jail cell," she said. "don't get so excited. it's the tiniest room you ever saw."

but i didn't see anything small about it. there was a desk, a bed, my own dresser (i don't even have my own dresser at home!), my own closet, a door straight into a bathroom which only the three of us have to share, and there was a window that was partially exposed to actual light from the street! in my old room, our windows faced a sort of alley where all the buildings on the block dumped their garbage. so what if the floor isn't wide enough for you to lie down on end to end? who cares? i was walking on air.

but unless i wanted to sleep on air, i had to pick up my bedding and suitcases from where i'd hidden it uptown. so i closed the door and allowed myself a small dance where no one could see, and, hands still quaking, i locked the door behind me and raced to catch the quickest shuttle so i could get my stuff.

this was my first mistake.

i returned later that night, balancing my things precariously on both shoulders, under my arms and tucked under my chin, and proceeded to search my purse for the key to my room. when i found it, i was amazed to discover that not only didn't it open the room, it didn't even fit in the lock.

i frowned. weird.

i dumped all my stuff on the floor and looked again, wondering how i had managed to lock the door with a key that i couldn't even jam into the lock. i tried for a good half hour before someone wisely pointed out to me, 'you've got your mailbox key there. where's your room key?'

my stomach dropped out. 'what's a room key look like?' i asked pathetically.

she held hers up. it was about three times the size.

i had locked the door, which means i had definitely posessed the key at some point during the past two hours. and it also meant that, two hours on campus, i had also lost it.

three cheers for me.

i got security to open the room for me and wearily began to retrace my steps, calling myself all kinds of unpleasant names. so caught up with my own idea of freedom, how did i somehow manage to lose sight of the key? chances are some hobo picked it up on the street, or that it fell into a train grate and bonked some unsuspecting scenester on the head. while i derived a certain amount of satisfaction from that, it hardly justified the miserable fine i would have to pay to obtain a copy. at this point i would like to call to the stand the first harry potter movie, in which hermoine granger enunciates: "what. an. IDIOT."

by a little past midnight i had managed to trace my way back to the first year dorms, where the shuttles pick up, and i was scrounging around under the awning, thinking about rebbi meir bal ha-neis. now, perhaps you, like me, never had the good fortune to learn his story. i still don't know the details, but after visiting his kever in israel, i knew that his name is mentioned in prayers to help find missing things - he must have a special merit for that. so it was rebbi meir bal ha-neis that i was thinking of, even though i didn't know the prayer, as i muddled around on the dirty sidewalk, squinting at glinting things.

the inter-campus shuttle driver saw me, and said, "don't tell me you're going back up."

"nope," i said definitively. "i've lost my key. i ain't going nowhere." then it hit me: "you drove me up before?"

"i drive you up all the time, young lady."

"true enough," i admitted. "thanks. do you think i could look on your bus? you think maybe it might be there?"

"you could look," he frowned, "but there's no lights in the bus. even if it was there, you ain't never gonna find it." then his face brightened. "but i'm used to looking for things in that dark. you stay here, i remember where you were sitting."

when he returned, he was grinning, holding up an ungainly chunk of metal which i have no idea how anyone could not have noticed falling from their purse.

"you lose something, lady?" he said.

i grabbed the key and thanked him as if he had saved my life, which, in an odd way, was what it felt like. actually, i kept thinking, rebbi meir came through for me! these people really know what they're talking about! while the shuttle driver demured and made grand philosophical speeches about the necessity of helping your fellow man and how everyone in the yu shuttle system is family, even the passengers. then he took me back to my dorm even though he wasn't a local and by rights i should have had to wait a half an hour. i was, once again, walking on air. this is the day of miracles! i decided, dragging myself back up to my dorm room. my plane landed on time, i like my room, AND potential tragedy has been averted. i could sing.

but i shouldn't, because it was really, really late, and everybody in the dorm was being - oh, wonderous day - quiet. and i could sleep! yes i could. i could go to sleep right now and do all my unpacking in the morning. i turned the bathroom door handle so i could brush my teeth and take out my contacts.

it didn't turn.

puzzled, i knocked, fiddled with the lock, and tried turning it again. maybe i hadn't had it quite right.

nope. nothing.

i was locked out of the bathroom.

normally i would have been ticked off by this; that night, it seemed only natural. something had to go wrong for real. i sat down on my bed and thought about my options.

the other girls were definitely asleep. i could call them and asked them to open the door, but it would be rude. so the only thing left to do was troop around the building in my pajamas, toothbrush in one hand, contact case in the other, looking for a public bathroom that wasn't locked. it was as i was walking around like this that i realized i hadn't eaten anything since lunch. whoops. that ship had sailed. i passed someone in the hall and asked them if they knew which caf was open tomorrow.

she looked at me as if i was batty and said, 'none of them are open for the next two days. they're not expecting non-ftocs to turn up until wednesday, and the f-tocs get catered meals on all their events.'

'oh,' i blinked. 'are the convenience stores going to be open, do you think?'

she shook her head. 'i run those. they aren't.'

i continued down the hallway, grinning in spite of myself. yup. starvation and bathroom-hunts; another year at stern.

(ps: tune in later for part two, where i impersonate a freshman at all the catered meals to sneak bagels and bottles of milk into my purse.)

the pt gets a work ethic

2007-08-24T07:03:00.001-07:00

the pt (brightly, munching a cookie): well, i sure am a helper today!

me: that's right, you certainly are.

the pt: i made the cookies and i peeled the carrots. i guess i'm just doing all the work in the house.

me (washing dishes): you said it.

the pt (reflectively): i have an idea. how about we don't give cookies to anyone except people who finished their jobs. like iguana can only have a cookie if she finishes the laundry, and rafiki can only have a cookie if he makes the cholent, and mommy can only have a cookie if she...

(she frowns)

me: what's the matter, pt?

the pt: mommy doesn't really have a job.

me: um...

the pt: she's always just doing stuff for us because we never do anything.

me (to myself): leapin' leopards, batman!

(out loud): do you think that's fair?

the pt thinks about it, then concludes brightly: well, at least i do a lot of work!

me: that's right!

the pt: when i'm not busy.

me: ...?

the pt: with the playstation.

me: ah.

the pt: playing alien demos.

me: i see.

the pt: cause you know, abba gets a new demo cd every week, so there's always more i have to play. but i don't think you'd like them. the aliens are really ugly.

me: right.

the pt: actually, i was gonna go play that right now. (looks at the cookies) but i have to finish the carrots first.

you may return from the edge of your seats

2007-08-19T11:13:00.001-07:00

i've just had a breakthrough. these three weeks have left me too exhausted to be brilliant, but in a nutshell, here is my discovery:

it was impressive to see the herodian walls of ma'aret machpela. it was daunting to see the kotel, the machon mikdash, the tunnels. your eyes wept with gratitude for the sight of the long sand beaches and warm oceans at ashdod.

but what i loved most about being in israel, what i loved most that was in israel, was the family here i never knew i had.

the benefits are chintzy

2007-08-16T11:46:00.000-07:00

i know i should be writing about my experiences in israel, but it's all vague notions floating around in my exhausted brain. until then, please enjoy this clip, which i have found to be alarmingly reminiscent of my many job applications.

gone to israel

2007-07-28T21:05:00.000-07:00

why am i so scared?

i don't understand myself. i don't understand at all. britain, japan, hawaii, france...sometimes it seems like i would rather be going almost anywhere than israel.

and it's always been this way. ever since i was in elementary school, which is about when the first of my peers made the trip. the prospect of israel did not excite me, did not make me swoon with love - it formed a knot of dread in my stomach that even then i could explain to no one.

i thought about it in high school, before stern accepted me. that was the thing to do, right? everyone went to israel for seminary. seminary was where you became truly grounded in aidelkeit and judaism, where you sprouted roots to the holy land, what gave you strength to live your life, proudly, as a jew on G-d's path. but i did not want to go. not even a little. i was paralyzed by images of the prim, powedered seminary graduates who made life miserable for me in school, by news videos full of carnage and blood, by the sweltering heat, the language...and, i think most of all, the fear of the unknown. as much as i hear people speak about it and look through their photo albums and study their tongue and listen to their radio, israel remains an unknown quantity to me. i'm convinced that i could make it on my own if i had to in the u.s. or canada, or even england. but israel inspires in me nothing less than panic.

everyone tells me i'll love it there, and for years i have been trying to convince myself. i think of jerusalem, close my eyes, try to see king david sitting on cobblestone streets, composing tehillim to Hashem. but my notion of jewish history is so vague and blurred - and my grasp on the heroes of the tanach even more ephemeral. they were always so much beyond me, on such a high pedestal - we weren't even supposed to formulate an image of them in our heads - and i failed to connect to them as a child. they were faceless angels, immortal in their purity...not people who really lived and breathed like me. as much as i tried to conceive of it, i never succeeded. moshe rabainu, avraham avinu, rachel imanu...my mother grew up with a very different style of teaching, to the point where she felt as though she knew them all. my father's mother sees such a human side to everyone in tanach that she weeps every time she takes down the chumash. but to me they were an abstract math theory i knew how to apply yet never understood. the beliefs in my head never made it to my heart.

strangely, my view of G-d is nothing like this, perhaps because we were encouraged so much by so many different teachers and rebbetzins to think of G-d in very personal terms. one speech that has stayed with me everywhere spoke of G-d as a father coming home to us, and us being little children standing in the window straining to see. we were told to tell G-d everything, even the littlest things that troubled us, nothing was too petty to ask Him for help with...and the rabbi of my community in particular is known for his uncanny ability to speak of G-d in terms that have meaning to anyone, that even someone as uncertain as I can internalize. so while i have my own struggles in that arena, G-d is, incredibly, easier for me to deal with than the country that has been the birthplace of my people and the sanctuary of my Creator.

weird.

i dearly hope that this trip, like a shove into the deep end, will banish my fear and clarify my emotions. i don't want to be afraid of israel, i don't want to feel like an impostor in a world full of jews. i guess i want tanach to be real to me, i want to believe that moshe and avraham and david were people too. so far, king david is the one i grab onto wholeheartedly - because he wrote tehillim, and tehillim sounds so much like my own prayers and feelings. they say king david understood every kind of pain there was in the world and wrote a psalm that dealt with each. if he understood what it is i'm feeling, then he must have been human, too, in addition to being brilliant and righteous.

i just wish everything in judaism could be so tangible to me.

the chef's secret

2007-07-27T09:02:00.000-07:00

the pt (pulling up a stool): whatcha making?

me: blueberry muffins.

the pt: i think you mean blueberry cupcakes. you do know you're using cupcake holders, right?

me: er...right.

the pt: well, it's a good thing i made secret cupcakes too!

me: ...secret....cupcakes...?

the pt: yeah, sure. you don't need to bake mine.

me (growing alarmed): i don't see any cupcakes.

the pt: of course not. they're secret.

me: what's in them?

the pt: i'll show you!

(hops off stool, returns carrying four foil cupcake holders with mashed up oreos in them)

the pt: here! have a secret cupcake!

me: those are your secret cupcakes?

the pt: yup!

me: but those aren't cupcakes. those are just smashed up oreos.

the pt (exasperated): no they're not! they're smashed up oreos in cupcake holders! that's what makes them cupcakes!

me: i guess i can see the logic in that.

the pt: sometimes i run out of cookie cream. then i have to put yogurt on top.

me: ah.

the pt: get it? that's the secret part of the recipe.

me: great. er... how many of those have you got?

the pt: i don't know. eight, probably.

me: the pt, who's going to eat eight cupcake holders full of stale broken oreos and liberally handled yogurt?

the pt (matter-of-factly): you.

which would you rather....

2007-07-17T21:55:00.000-07:00

one late night in wisconsin....

SCENE: a disarrayed living room. an 11-year-old girl, IGUANA, is nestled in an arm chair, playing video games. her older sister, FUDGE, reads a Norton Anthology on the couch. next to her, a teenager, RAFIKI, sits with one leg over the armrest, eating an oreo pudding. in the neighboring arm chair sprawls another teenager, MOE, snoring.

RAFIKI: Iguana, get off already. You've been on forever.

MOE (eyes closed): Haven't you been on for like 20 hours?

RAFIKI: I haven't been on since this morning.

FUDGE (eagerly abandoning the Norton): Are you going to play that game that's set in Peru? Can I watch?

RAFIKI: Not if she keeps playing.

IGUANA: Fine, fine! I'll get off as soon as my cheese is ready!

RAFIKI: Yeah, fine. (pause) What?

IGUANA: As soon as my cheese is done.

RAFIKI: Your cheese?

IGUANA: Yeah. You just have to gather some fresh milk and fire peppers, and you get spicy cheese. I just threw mine in the crock pot a second ago.

(Off-stage, a child's voice): I DON'T HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM!

RAFIKI: What?

(He hops off the couch and vanishes immediately)

MOE, blinking: Fudge? Did you just hear the PT?

FUDGE: I hope not. It's past midnight.

(Child's voice sounds again)

MOE: I think I hear her.

FUDGE: Can you go investigate?

PLAYSTATION: Bing.

IGUANA: Yay! My cheese is done!

MOE: I thought Rafiki went to investigate.

FUDGE: You know, he did, but then he went the other way. I haven't seen him since.

MOE (grumble grumble)

IGUANA: Now I have spicy cheese!

FUDGE: Whatever.

(A moment of silence. IGUANA continues her game. FUDGE turns back to her anthology. Eventually, MOE returns, looking suitably irritated.)

FUDGE: Well? What news?

MOE (shaking his head): She's fast asleep. I don't know how anybody could sleep in the position she's in, but she's asleep.

FUDGE: Huh. Weird.

RAFIKI (returning breathlessly): Where is it?

(All turn to look at him)

MOE: There you are!

FUDGE: Didn't you get up so you could find out what was going on with the PT?

RAFIKI: Something's going on with the PT?

FUDGE: Well, you jumped up so fast, I thought you heard her sleep-talking...

MOE: Yeah, we were waiting for you to save the day, but it didn't happen.

RAFIKI: Huh? No, I got up because she just put cheese in the crock pot! The same one we use to make chulent!

IGUANA: No I didn't.

RAFIKI: You just said you put cheese in the crock pot! Where is it?

IGUANA: In the game, moron! You think I have fire peppers in real life?

(A moment of clarifying silence)

RAFIKI (suspiciously): So you didn't put cheese in the crock pot?

FUDGE: No. Her game has alchemy in it. (dawning) You've been in the kitchen all this time looking for a crock pot with cheese in it?

RAFIKI: The crock pot is fleishig! Cheese is milthig! Something had to be done!

IGUANA: See? The cheese is done! Now I can feed it to my characters, and they'll breathe fire!

RAFIKI (cautiously): It's done?

IGUANA: Yes.

RAFIKI: Ok, Iguana. My. Turn.

have you seen this teddy bear?

2007-06-27T08:30:00.000-07:00

good citizens of toledo, take note: mr. twiddles is on the lam.

when my youngest sister was born, one of my mother's co-workers gave her a teddy bear preciously named 'mr. twiddles.' he was your pretty standard, no-frills teddy bear. i believe he was extra soft. other than that, however, he was not notable in anyway except that we left him in a hotel on the way up to new york four years ago and have not heard from him since. and you would think, the pt having been two at the time, that would have been the end of that.

not so. for all the years that have passed and all the toys she has amassed behind the couch, the pt has always been troubled by the disappearance of mr. twiddles. when she was old enough to get it, we explained to her that he was most likely in toledo. when she was old enough to find that answer dissatisfactory, we added that he had found a job at a law firm there and had a girlfriend in the area.

apparently, however, even that is no longer cutting the mustard, because the other day as i was doing my homework at the dining room table, the pt walked up to me and said, without preamble:

"mr. twiddles is missing."

as previously mentioned, this is not news. mr. twiddles has not been seen since 2003.

"oh?" i said, squinting at "paradise lost."

"yes," she frowned. and then she pulled a drawing out from behind her back. "so it's a good thing i made this sign for us to hang on the tree."

the sign, which actually depicted mr. twiddles pretty faithfully, bore the inscription 'where is mr. twiddle' in red crayon on the top. no further information was supplied. it looked sort of like a ransom notice, or a threat. not the kind of thing you want glaring at innocent pedestrians from trees or power poles.

"i don't think it's such a good idea to hang that up outside," i said.

"why?" the pt shrugged. "people can only see it if it's outside. otherwise they won't know mr. twiddles is missing."

"the pt," i explained, for the millionth time in her life, "we KNOW where mr. twiddles is."

she sighed. "in toledo."

"yes. see, even YOU know where mr. twiddles is."

the pt looked at me as though i were stupid and said, "so?"

"so when people see signs like that, they think they're supposed to help you find something that's missing. like a dog or something. no one will know mr. twiddles is just a toy. and even if they wanted to help you, they can't. people in milwaukee can't find things that are in toledo."

she gave an ever more exasperated sigh. "look, what if i just write that he's a toy and he's in toledo on the sign. that way they'll know that he's a toy and he's in toledo.'

"er....ok," i said, "but then....what do you need the sign for?"

"so people will know he's missing!" she whined.

later, i found the above picture taped to the inside of our screen door. as you will note, the words 'toy' and 'toledo' have been helpfully added below twiddles' mug shot.

happy the pt day

2007-06-16T22:23:00.001-07:00

what with my parents' anniversary, my friend's wedding, and now father's day all falling out in the same week, i have been thinking about my father a lot lately.

(since i'm currently home for the summer and usually within spitting distance, he may find this disconcerting. but anyway.)

i started out thinking about what to get him. that wasn't a lucrative vein of thought. i was going to get him the other firefly book (i bought my mom volume 2 by mistake), but then he went and bought it earlier, which required me to come up with a whole new idea. on average, it takes me about two years to come up with a good gift concept, and about a week for the plan to fall through, forcing me to resort to a hasty and painfully lame plan b, such as the time when i gave my best friend a slice of cold pizza for her seventeenth birthday on a napkin that said 'HAPPY BDY' in green marker.

so even though i had very little faith in my ability to actually put together something nice for my dad, i found myself looking at the pictures around my house and thinking about him. in the pictures, like my mom, he looks pretty much the same. my mom had a few different sheitel patterns, my dad's suit alternated between grey and black. the newer pictures, of course, look waaaay better, because they are in high resolution. even though as the oldest, i got major camera time, my youngest sister definitely has the better footage. and recognizing that made me wonder: how different is the father she has from the one i had at her age? is my dad the same guy he used to be? my mom always said that he would be nine on his next birthday, but video games and sci-fi shows aside, i don't know if that's so true anymore. i never realized before how young my parents were when i was born. it's no wonder they've changed so much - they must have still been maturing.

my little sister, for example, doesn't know about the cars.

these cars are both life-sized and plastic. she will never see the huge, rust-eaten green car my father used to drive us around in. i think it was my great-great aunt lizzy's. there's still an oil stain on the garage floor from that. all i remember was how terrifyingly vast the back seat was.

so that car was pretty scary. my mom also tells us, although i don't remember, that my father used to have a car held together solely by duct tape, and once the door blew off when they were on the freeway.

what i do remember are the boxes and boxes of little toy cars that my dad used to have. the boxes were made of blue vinyl and had exciting racing pictures on the front, and inside, in neat little ice-cube kind of trays, were these sparkling little cars. cement trucks! buicks! police cars! more trucks! they were murder to get back into the trays. but what makes me laugh now is that i'm fairly sure we were only allowed to play with some of them, because there were certain ones my dad didn't want us to lose. i think we used them mostly on friday nights and shabbos.

my dad also had a cardboard model of the bridge from the original 'star trek', complete with moving action figures, hidden in his dungeon in the basement. i remember sneaking down there one sunday morning when he wasn't home - i must have been six or seven - and finding it on one of his shelves, next to the cds. i believe my exact thought was something like, 'eureka!' or 'he has a REALLY COOL SPACESHIP down here! how come i've never seen this before?' followed by an immediate, sneaking suspicion that i was Not Supposed to see this stuff. (he had little models of the enterprise, too.) so i didn't play with the action figures: i just stared at it for a very long time, and then rushed off to report my big find to kovi.

there was always something down there. we weren't supposed to be there at all when we were little; all of my dad's music equipment was in the dungeon, and i realize now that he must have been doing a lot of recording then. but we kids were pretty clever. we found ways to get in. and even though the shelves are too high and far back for me to see even now, we would clambor on to the top of the table (you know, with the mixing board on it) and wedge ourselves into the shelves. we found a dismantled train set (still there), with minute little houses and painted trees, which we had no end of fun observing. we found badly written star wars novels. when i was older and bored on shabbos afternoons, i would go down there and read all the lyric booklets out of the cd cases from albums by the police and led zeppelin, and try to imagine what the songs sounded like in my head.

that was the side of my dad that we had to guess at. but when we weren't busy spying on him, we were watching him more actively. back in the day before playstation or multiple computers - actually, back in the day when computer games consisted mostly of mud-toned blinking pixels - there was nothing me or my brothers got more excited about than sitting on the edge of my parents' bed and watching my dad play things like 'duke nukem' and 'tomb raider.' (actually, my mom too - she had a point-and-click murder mystery, 'lara bow.') looking back on it, these were not always the most riveting of games; for example, i cannot imagine now watching a vague blob jump off the edge of a cliff over and over, but in the tomb raider game you spent a lot of time doing that. nevertheless, we couldn't wait for it. it was an interactive experience. we made comments, my dad made comments, we all screamed when his character got rolled over by a boulder or fell off a cliff (noticing a theme?). and we learned valuable life lessons. one of my brothers concluded from the game that 'you gotta look before you leap,' or some garbled version of that.

and then we would go to my dad's gigs and watch him when he was on stage. as a kid, i hated being dragged along to those concerts- we always got there hours early, and it only takes so long to explore all the cobweb-covered nooks of an auditorium. we would get so bored we'd want to leave before the concert started. but then, when the band did start to play, i was brimming with pride. my dad was IN THE BAND! i wasn't just any other kid turning out to hear the music - my dad was on stage! how many other kids had dads like that?

where i grew up - not many.

other kids had dads who were rabbis and teachers, mashgiachs and kollel learners. a few, like mine, had other professions. but their house wasn't like my house. their fathers didn't have clay models of the enterprise or play the bass line along to police songs.

and the truth is, i think it's been a very long time since my dad has taken down those models, or the cars in their blue vinyl cases. the cardboard bridge set we kids destroyed a long time ago. sulu now enjoys tea in the pt's barbie doll's jean skirt.

but it amuses me that for all that my dad has gotten older, more careworn, and more serious over the years, many of the things he used to do with us when we were little are things he still does, in a modified way, with the younger kids. the pt watches him play his games and offers him the kind of helpful advice we used to offer, like, 'maybe you should just fly' or 'can't you teleport to a place with a save point?' iguana races to the basement to watch movies with him while he exercises. and all of us kids - i mean all of us - can quote monty python by heart.

it amuses me how different my father is than the stereotypical 'dad' most people conjure up. my father could not tell you which teams are going to play in the superbowl or the world series; he probably could not correctly identify what kind of sport any of those teams play.

but my father gives us something that is increasingly rare and difficult to part with in this millenium: he gives us time. he gave us time when i was little, and he gives just as much time to my younger siblings as he did then, even as he and my mother become busier and busier. i doubt anything of any humeric (sp?) value has ever happened to any of us kids that we didn't immediately tell my dad to see if we could get a laugh out of him - whether we were in the living room with him or 900 miles away on the phone. and he usually laughs.

and i think that's why we all like him so much.

needless to say, we bought him a kitchen appliance for father's day.

she's onto me

2007-06-12T16:10:00.000-07:00

the pt: write some stuff down for me.

fudge: oh no...not again...

the pt (slamming a bunch of stapled drawings over my keyboard): write about the birthday party. just write what i say.

fudge: i see i have little choice.

the pt: it's about a girl who was 18 instead of 31. hey...you're 18!

fudge (surprised): you got it. does this mean you no longer think i'm seventy?

the pt: 18...is that a teen?

fudge: sounds like it, no?

the pt (shrewdly): are YOU a teen?

fudge (thinking about it): yeah, i guess so.

the pt: you're one of those TEENS?

fudge: what have you got against teens?

the pt: oh. my. gosh.

(takes markers and notebook)

the pt: maybe shua will write the words for me.

even if He hadn't split the sea...

2007-06-06T20:31:00.000-07:00

the pt: i feel like ice cream.

fudge: i'll bet you do. you only ate half of your supper.

the pt (clasping her hands together like those little praying angel figurines they sell in the mall): pleeeeeeaaaaassse?

fudge: eh.

the pt: oh, please please pleeeeeeeeaaaaaasssseee?

fudge: oh, fine. but don't eat it in the living room.

the pt: ok!

fudge: alright, here you go. don't say i never gave you anything.

the pt (dismayed): but it's so short!

fudge: kid, it's a scoop and a half. i know you. you never finish anything.

the pt: but it's just so little!

fudge: you finish that, you can have more.

the pt: oh, but -

fudge: hey. you get what you get and you don't get upset.

the pt (thinking): yeah...that is what the morah says...

(finally, with a sigh): oh well. dai dai daiyenu.

alarming development

2007-06-04T12:52:00.001-07:00

i think my chocolate-cow-hunting malady has spread to other parts of my brain. i have been trying to make my way through an 800-page book for most of the morning. i say 'try' because the editor of said book has woven illustrations, seemingly at whim, throughout the book, and i have become so obsessed with finding them that i can't concentrate on what i'm reading:

book: 'ah ha,' said gaius maurius to felix constantinus, 'that is where you are wrong, for surely the invasion of gaul will be most beneficial to...'

fudge's brain: right, felix. he's the guy who had the bushy eyebrows on page 48.

book: whereupon felix constantinus drew his dirk, saluting the great roman lord who had bequeathed to him that most dire of legions, which had slain the...

fudge's brain: but i haven't seen a picture of gaius maurius yet, and i already flipped through the next three chapters looking for it.

book: 'hark!' cried gaius maurius, flinging up his shield, 'treachery in the villa!'

fudge's brain: hmm...maybe if i started from the back and just didn't look at the words...then i'm sure to find all the illustrations...

book: 'what ho, good felix...your master lies dead upon the stairwell, a victim of that most cruel and unlawful adversary...'

homework assignment: explain in your own words why felix and ruticellus felt justified in their murder of gaius maurius.

fudge's brain: wait, they killed him?

(flips back, looking for the words 'he died')

fudge's brain (impressed): whoa! ruticellus is lookin' good!

danger will robinson

2007-05-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

brace yourselves. my family recently obtained, through means we need not address, a roomba, and my mother is already referring to it by gender-specific pronouns.

do you know what a roomba is? those of you who are familiar with the syrius cybernetics corporation no doubt have a clue. like the high-functioning and mildly depressed android of lore, the roomba (which is shaped kind of like a sting-ray) is supposed to be a cute, perky little machine that performs menial chores you don't want to do with a skip in its step and a song its 8-bit processor. from what i understand, the roomba's specific function is to vaccuum and polish your floors.

and the idea is that you just put it on the floor and it wanders around your house, cheerfully scanning for dirt (it has a little blue light that flashes when it's onto something), tidying up, until its batteries wear out and it has to go charge itself, at which point it shimmies merrily back to its charger. it does not purr 'a pleasure to be of service' or anything, but it does sing a little chipper song, kind of like your old nintendo did when it booted up. (when the batteries die, it plays another song, which i think is one of mozart's sadder symphonies.)

of course, this means that unlike your everyday vaccuum cleaner, the roomba is a semi-autonomous force to be reckoned with. it certainly seems to have a stranglehold on my family. let's go to the videotape:

yonina (standing on two stacked chairs behind the closed dining room door and peering through the door's little window): INCOMING!

mom: gah! perel, it's coming right at you! get out of the way!

me (dodging hastily in the other direction): IT'S FOLLOWING ME!

yonina: OH NO! IT'S A MONSTER!

mom: perel! quick! go find some d cells so we can set up the 'no-pass' thingies!

me (trying to mislead the roomba by climbing onto the counter): no-pass?! how's that going to help me?

yonina: is it safe to come down yet?

mom: i think it's still trying to get at perel...run yonina! run quick! go get the d cells!

me (shouting): abba, we need d-cells! the roomba's out of control!

mom: oh no! it's coming at me! aiiee!

yonina: errrrrr i think i'm just going to stay right here on the dining room table.

(i run down the stairs and bring up some d-cells. my father follows me up)

me: here mom! hurry! before it finds the pantry!

abba (looking at all of us briefly): you're all morons.

yonina: is it safe to come down yet?

(the roomba sings a song)

mom: perel, get out of the way! it's docking!

shua: it's like its own little starship.

mom (brightly): hey look! she cleaned up the pringles!

me: she?

mom (defensive): uh...yes. she.

the roomba: your plastic pal that's fun to beeee wiiiith!

we have lift-off

2007-05-06T14:27:00.000-07:00

as most of you know, i am not the warmest of stern students. by this i mean that i have extinguished many 3 am pillowfights and 2 am dance-a-thons; that i secretly rejoice when the roommates are away for shabbos (even the ones i like!); that when people come running at me with open arms (believe it or not, it sometimes happens), my first instinct is to panic. unless they are immediate family. not that i ever have to worry about that.

basically, though, i am the wicked witch of the west. flying monkeys sold separately. my idea of a really good time is finding creative ways to destroy other people's deserts.

nevertheless, when i was ambushed by a group of girls that i liked late last night, i did not duck.

i was dragging my suitcase through the front doors, after a prolonged and guilty negotiation with my aunt. 'you never stay over till sunday,' she argued. 'what's so important that you have to rush back to school all the time?' the truth is that i never stay anywhere saturday night; it's a good worknight for me, because i know none of my roomates will be around, and i can't exercise at other people's houses either, so by saturday night i start getting antsy. that's the truth- but it strikes me as rude, so when people face me with the sunday question, i bluff. 'oh, you know, there's so many books - it's easier to just leave them and go back saturday night.' 'i would, but we have this computer course where you can only do the homework at the lab, and i need to get some work done tonight.' sometimes they have rebuttals and it starts to get ugly. but so far, i've always managed to finagle an out, and i end up on that same bus or subway week after week, cursing my inflexibility, relieved that i dodged another one.

last night i was already scheming and planning as i rolled through the door. '10:30 - perfect,' i thought. 'i can air out my wet laundry, pack up some of my things, make an outline for the china final, do aerobics, and if i'm really good i'll still get to read a little bit before i go to sleep. wonderful. i just have to stay on the--'

'FUDGE!' somebody shouted, and before i knew it, i was surrounded. eager faces, shining eyes, shabbos clothes. they were girls that i didn't know very well; i'd met them this semester in a few scattered classes, hung out with them once or twice more as a happy accident than anything else. i liked them; a few of them worked with me in the writing center, which meant they liked to think about stories and characters and other grisly literary stuff like i do - but i also knew that they were equally earnest about judaism and israel - traits of which i have become wary.

honestly, i think i am a little suspicious of anyone who's outwardly passionate about things these days. it's funny. i recognize that the ideal is for all of us to be enchanted with our religion and to be moved by feelings of pure love for each other and for G-d and for our land, and so on - but I find that when I encounter people who are that energetic in real life, it unsettles me. i grew up in a household of praticalities, not ideology, and my religious experiences come in teaspoons of baking powder and sticks of fleishmanns' margerine. i dance on yom ha'atzmaut and rosh chodesh chagigas, but i do it because i feel like i'm supposed to. rarely am i so moved by joy and excitement for the chag that i just have to dance.

but that is exactly what had posessed these girls.

'it's lag b'omer!' one of them cried. 'we can't just sit and study! how boring is that? we're all going to go to the park, and leah's bringing her violin, and you can bring your guitar, and we'll make it FEEL like lag b'omer!'

i looked from face to face uneasily. i am also haunted by a dumbfounding inability to remember jewish tunes on the guitar. i end up strumming A minor the whole time and hoping no one notices.

'you know you want to come,' one girl pleaded. 'what are you going to do, sit in your room all by yourself memorizing things?'

yes, a part of me answered, with surprising clarity. actually, that is exactly what i was going to do.

'erm....' i said. 'erm....'

'we need your musical energy!' she added.

honey, if you knew what my musical energy sounded like, you would be sprinting hastily in the other direction.

she took my hand and said, 'just come. it's going to be a lot of fun and i know you'll have a good time.'

i started to say 'erm' again, which is my standard stalling mechanism, when instead i said, 'ok, i'm getting my guitar - i'll be down in two seconds!'

she definitely looked surprised, but she could not possibly have been more surprised than i was, going up the elevator. 'you just said yes,' part of me pointed out. 'you committed to going to a kumzitz thirty-six hours before your biggest final. and you deliberately left yourself no time to change your mind.'

'oh, shut up,' the other part of me snapped. 'you're only going to be in school five more days. you're always worried that your antisocial tendencies are alienating everybody you could be friends with. don't just whine. do something about it!'

so i dropped my suitcase, unwedged my guitar from its precarious perch between my bed and every cardboard box i have ever utilized, and followed them down madison avenue.

they were skipping as they walked. sometimes a few of them would start singing randomly - usually israeli songs that i'd never heard before, or to be more accurate, isreali shlock that i'd never heard before, like a jewicized version of 50 cent's 'in da club.' somebody was always walking next to me, even though my guitar case weighs about thirty-five pounds and impeded my speed considerably; somebody was always talking with me, even though i frankly still don't remember all their names. one girl hugged me for no reason at all. and i did not flinch. the conversation, the singing, the random dancing - it was a little weird for me, but i could tell that it wasn't forced at all for the girls around me. they were just doing their thing.

eventually we came to a park. the girls were dismayed because the grass was all fenced in, with a very big sign that read, 'DO NOT SIT HERE.' but eventually we found a circle of concrete around a fountain that was reasonably pretty and not too uncomfortable. the violin player, who is phenomonal (read: lightyears better than me), proceeded to play, skipping and twirling around like the rabbi of my shul in milwaukee does on simchas torah. and i did what i usually do in these circumstances: chiefly, i strummed A minor a lot and shrugged everytime the violinist caught my eye.

but you know what? it wasn't like every other kumzitz i've flailed through. the violinist knew some of the songs they wanted, but for the most part, she was making it up as they sang, and at some point i started figuring out where she was going before she got there. i couldn't skip and twirl like she could, but it was enough just to watch her face as she veered off in all kinds of new directions, and it was enough to watch the other girls, shouting and jumping and chasing the circle around looking for their missing shoes. they were all laughing and all overtired. one girl started doing interpretive dancing. eventually the sound attracted some hip indie couples, dressed in black button-down oxfords, skinny jeans and skinny ties, who sat on a park bench not far from us and smirked ironically at the violinist's every bend and bow. 'sweet,' i could hear them thinking. 'just like the travel agent said!'

they couldn't see what i saw, which was the violinist raising her eyebrows at them and laughing.

it went on for awhile, but it didn't feel so long. i was surprised when one girl said, 'man, i'm getting tired; one more song and we'll go?' after about an hour, and the others bobbed their heads, respecting her comfort. we played one more song- one that i knew well enough to sing to! - and the violinist and i put our instruments away.

but then, as the other girls rose, the violinist turned to me, a twinkle in her eye, and said, 'but fudge, you and i haven't done any dancing!'

she's right, i realized. we haven't.

and the other girls gathered around into a circle again and they all started singing, and the violinist grabbed my hands and we started to dance. and i was glad.

because i really wanted to.

look, fwghdwqs

2007-05-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

i am as big a science-fiction fan as anyone else. to be more specific, i am at the healthiest point on the charts. on the one hand are the people like my father, who own little cardboard replicas of the original enterprise bridge; on the other hand are the people who watch 'pussycat dolls: making the band' in back to back episodes. you know which you are. me, i am right in the middle. i like to browse through the library's sci-fi shelves, but i still don't know what the little furry moppets that infiltrated the enterprise are called, and i am not overly concerned about it, either.

no. i'll tell you what i'm concerned about. this morning, as i was flipping through paperbacks, i spotted several alarmingly titled-- seriously titled!-- sci-fi books. for example:

THE WOAD TO WUIN

why even bother publishing? has setting your money on fire gone out of fashion? i was both repusled and fascinated by the tastelessness of this title, so, looking both ways first, i snatched it up to read its back description. here it is, in all its inexcusability:

"This sequel to the wildly successful Sir Apropos of Nothing starts off with a bawdy send-up of Lord of the Rings, but quickly segues into its own territory with the appearance of a mysterious Visionary at Apropos's bar, Bugger Hall. The man tells our antihero, 'You will become a shadow of your former self while escaping to the Tragic Waste on the Road to Ruin,' (or is that 'Woad to Wuin'?), just as Sharee, Apropos's weaver companion from the first volume, bursts in and begs for his help in escaping Lord Beliquose. The very loud lord wants a powerful gem, the Eye of the Beholder, which the virtually powerless Sharee possesses and which Apropos promptly steals....The wisecracking wordplay that fans have come to expect skips smoothly off the page, lifting this satirical fantasy into a class all its own...goofy entertainment with gritty philosophical musing.
-- Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

that's what you think, publishers weekly. i give it an f - -.

and lest you think this is a local incident, the next book i passed was:

Metallic Love

what is WRONG with you authors today? the cardboard-figurine crowd is gaining on you!

the moment you've all been waiting for

2007-04-29T22:18:00.000-07:00

the previously referenced apocalyptic restaurant spread:

they said it couldn't be done...

2007-04-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

fudge's brain, after 11 consecutive hours in the computer lab: well, today kind of sucked.

fudge's conscience: cut that out! today was great! and tomorrow will be great! look at that gradient! that's a beautiful gradient you got underneath that zombie waiter!

fudge's brain: maybe this 'apocalyptic restaurant' spread for my final computer design project wasn't such a great idea.

fudge's conscience: ooooooooh no you don't. we already did this twice today. it looks FINE. he even said so. that gradient is the bomb. say, shouldn't you eat something for supper?

fudge's brain: i already had several food groups today.

fudge's conscience: right.

fudge's brain: really.

fudge's conscience: you can't just not eat anything, it's not healthy. the caf closes in ten minutes. get up.

fudge's brain: fine. this gradient sucks anyway.

(in the caf)

fudge's conscience: look at all the healthy things there are for you to eat! there's the salad bar...with iceburg lettuce...and...kidney beans...and...hmm...some kind of cranberry...something...

fudge's brain: eww.

fudge's conscience: umm--look over there! they have the prepackaged salads! with--red onions--and--

fudge's brain: cucumber and vinegar. and zucchini. ewwww.

fudge's conscience: you're being ridiculous. vegetables have minerals in them!

fudge's brain: but i don't want to eat them!

fudge's conscience: you have to eat them or you'll develop some kind of mineral deficiency and no one will ever know because you're a college student and you never visit a doctor!

fudge's brain: you're making that up.

fudge's conscience: you want to go back to the computer lab?

fudge's brain: no.

fudge's conscience: then buy one of the stupid salads and get it over with already.

cafeteria lady: honey, we're about to close, so if you wanna buy something, you betta hurry.

fudge's conscience: oohhh boy, now you're in trouble! just grap one of the wraps. you like the wraps, and they have SOME healthful ingredients in them.

fudge's brain: like zucchini.

fudge's conscience: YOU LIKE ZUCCHINI!

fudge's brain: only in chicken soup.

fudge's conscience: how old are you, seven? get the tuna wrap!

fudge's brain: i have tuna salad everyday! i'm bored of tuna salad!

fudge's conscience: i give up! what do you WANT to eat?

fudge's brain: i kind of want one of those reeses cup milkshakes from baskin robbins they had in that commercial in the gym with the little girl who failed english class.

fudge's conscience: that's not food, and anyway, that costs money. what would you eat if you were at home on a wednesday night?

fudge's brain: um....hot dogs?

fudge's conscience: ew.

fudge's brain: see?

cafeteria lady: sweetie, i ain't kidding. we're gonna pull down the gate.

fudge's conscience: that's it. back to the gradient for you.

fudge's brain: what about the macaroni?

fudge's conscience: their macaroni always makes you sick and you know it. besides, you eat too much pasta.

fudge's brain: they have some...garlic knots...

fudge's conscience: you don't like those either.

fudge's brain: you're right. none of this looks very good. it just looks really greasy.

fudge's conscience: greasy food is not good for you.

fudge's brain: did we swear off the danishes?

fudge's conscience: yup.

fudge's brain: that's ok. there aren't any.

fudge's conscience: i can't believe this. you've been standing here for twenty minutes at least, and they have all this food, much of which is extremely healthful, and you STILL can't think of anything to eat for supper!

fudge's brain: what do you want from me? i've been staring at google images that match the description 'hell food' since ten am, and i didn't get to sleep last night, and i probably won't sleep tonight either, and the gradient is really puke-tinted, and...

fudge's conscience: you're whining.

fudge's brain: they have ice cream.

fudge's conscience: only pint containers! good grief woman, get a hold of yourself!

fudge's brain: hmm...cow tracks. the kind they get at home. with the little chocolate cows in them.

fudge's conscience: that's 1200 calories, you fool! have you taken leave of your senses? get away from that freezer!

fudge's brain: the little cows with caramel in them.

fudge's conscience: ice cream makes you sick!

fudge's brain: who said anything about the ice cream?

fudge's conscience: oh no.

fudge's brain: leaping willikers...no one will ever know...no one can stop me!

fudge's consience: you can't do that. you KNOW you can't do that. everyone is always telling you not to.

fudge's brain: that's right, they did...all those years of being repressed...

fudge's conscience: real adults don't do it.

fudge's brain: don't eat the top of the brownies...don't eat the pie crust...don't eat the tip of the pizza...don't eat the cream between the oreos...

fudge's conscience: real people take one piece and eat the whole thing.

fudge's brain: don't pick the little chocolate cows out of the ice cream...yes, i remember it well...i know what they say...but now i am at college...i am free...i am free to pick the little chocolate cows out of the ice cream! I CAN PICK OUT AS MANY LITTLE CHOCOLATE COWS AS I WANT!

fudge's conscience: you're mad.

fudge's brain (with increasing excitement): i know what i'll do! i'll put all the ice cream on a plate! and then i'll mash it up until it's completely horizontal! and THEN i'll put it in the microwave! and THEN, out of the melted goo of syrupy dairy product, i will FISH OUT the little chocolate cows with one of those tiny little plastic teaspoons the caf somehow thinks you can eat things with! and i will put all the saved cows in a little see-through cup! and THEN--

fudge's conscience: aaaaaaaaaaaah! aaaaaaaaaaaah!

cafeteria lady: sweetie, are you feeling ok?

fudge's brain: THEN i will take my book review, and my saved cows, and i will sit on my bed, and i will cut the cows into TINY PIECES--

fudge: hmm? oh yeah, i'm fine. i think i'm going to take this ice cream.

fudge's conscience: nooooooooooooo!

fudge's brain: and THEN, after i've cut all the cows into tiny pieces, i will pour the melted ice cream BACK into the container, label it 'hefker' and put it in the freezer in the student lounge, where it will be gone by tomorrow!

cafeteria lady: you gonna eat that whole pint yourself?

fudge's brain: the whole process is sure to take at least two hours, and i can read the book review the entire time! it's BRILLIANT!

fudge: i have a plan.

fudge's conscience: i think we need therapy.

fudge's brain: i think i have spent entirely too much time airbrushing zombie waiters.

mom away from mom

2007-04-24T08:12:00.000-07:00

so i was reading the new york times book review at breakfast today (bright and early at 7 a.m. - you gotta love 7 a.m. construction projects), and one review in particular puzzled me. it sounded familiar, even though i'd never even heard of the book it was talking about before - a story, as I understand the article, about a man fighting a conceptual shark with a theoretical shark hunting boat. i read and reread the review, eventually tracing my fascination to these few paragraphs:

" 'A violent something' lurches out of the TV and attacks his sofa, leaving him 'bobbing and floating and trying to tread water in the idea of the floor, in fluid liquid concept, in its endless cold rolling waves of association and history.' I hate it when that happens."

and:

"His only defense is to set up a "nondivergent conceptual loop" - to wit, an arrangement of Dictaphones relaying a constant ambient noise between them. In short, to survive, he must turn himself into a walking Brian Eno concert."

and finally:

"I couldn't stop wondering how much help a theoretical boat was going to be. Then I remembered they were only fighting a conceptual shark to begin with, at which point I went off to make myself a cup of tea."

and that's when i realized why it was giving me deja vu. the byline on this review is tom shone - but if i didn't know better, i could have sworn it was written by my mother.

maybe al gore will shovel

2007-04-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

yonina, pointing to a google earth image of the antartica: "hey, i see milwaukee!"

sign #2347 that you are in college

2007-03-25T18:34:00.000-07:00

your security guard is your friendly neighborhood spiderman.

qed.

when life hands you tickets

2007-03-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

today was specially marked on my calendar.

there were little stars around the edge of the box, and in pencil overlined with pen, it read: THE EVAN AND JARON CONCERT IS TODAY. then, in smaller, bluer letters: please go. you bought a ticket.

it was such a pitiful little note it almost made me feel bad for myself.

but let's back up, lest i leave you with the impression that i am a major fan of evan and jaron. my main connection to evan and jaron is that back in the day when they had a song on the radio - which for the life of me i can't remember, except i think it had a line about a window in it somewhere - there was a family myth passed down by my grandmother that my aunt had once dated one of them. "they were famous and handsome and did your aunt care? no! she is crazy, your aunt." something of that nature. also, i think my dad used to talk about being in their van...but perhaps that was a different band.

no, the reason i wanted to go was because i realized somewhere along the line tt the semester is drawing to a close, and i have not done a single extracurricular thing since winter break. my week is pretty straightforward. i go to work. i go to school. i stay in the computer lab till sunrise writing features and tweaking computer design projects. and, when life is good and american idol is having an off night, i do aerobics.

when i really want to go nuts, i contemplate crocheting.

so the other day i received a mass e-mail about how yu is arranging an evan and jaron concert to raise money for something, and i determinedly set aside the money to buy myself a ticket, foolishly thinking that once i had bought the ticket, i would make the time for it. this way, i told myself, i will have a night just to be a teenager and hang out with my friends and let them know i still appreciate them even if i never do more than nod enthusiastically at them from across the street. i will take part in a social scene and make new friends and blah blah blah. i mean, it worked at my freshman orientation, right?

last year i was all over the place, i thought to myself, trying to remember my password to the computer lab. i had the radio show, and i went to speeches, and i went out to movies and pizza with people, and we would all go on lengthy and random explorations of the city - although they usually ended up by a park or a river, because those things are cool and free. free was definitely a requirement, even last year, but somehow i ended up having many interesting adventures. whereas now, when one of my classes cancels and i find myself with a two hour gap, i go back to my room and sleep it all away.

it bothered me that i did this. and i thought the concert would be easy. i love music, and i haven't been to a live performance in a long time. as a compromise, i told myself i could take the crochet.

but the concert started fifteen minutes ago, and i am not there.

it was very warm today in new york - sixty-five degrees. i worked for most of the day, went to two classes that blurred together, and started to walk home from school. just that walk in between the buildings made me realize that i hadn't been outside in the daylight on a weekday for weeks either. even as that thought ocurred to me, in the back of my head, a little voice was ordering the night ahead into half-hour segments, scheduling when i would write which paper and when i would exercise and what time my roommates would come back and...

and i walked right past my dorm, and kept walking.

at first i walked very quickly, because there were people all around me closing me in, and it was warm enough not to wear a heavy coat, so without all that bulk i felt as light as a rocket - like i could walk faster than a car. but as block after block went by, my pace slowed. people waiting at traffic lights with me grew clearer, their features sharper. i saw a rock band with their guitars on their back and faded red t-shirts arguing about subway fares. i saw a man pushing triplets with pink-pill fuzzy hats in a stroller. i saw an exhausted businessman trudging up the sloped side of first avenue, carrying his suit jacket over one shoulder and his briefcase over the other, with startling dark blue eyes.

and then i wondered, you know, if they were colored contacts.

i started looking up at the buildings around me, and at the sky, which was actually still light, though it clogged up by oily-looking clouds. the skyscrapers are all drastically different. the un is made from blue-green glass, it's algae colored; the trump building is all black, straight and sleek as an attena. crowds of diplomats scattered along the weird cobble-stoned pavement like flocks of crows, but then when i looked for them, i saw that there weren't any crows. just pidgeons. lots and lots of over aggressive pidgeons.

i found myself by the river, watching what the people in queens were doing on the other shore; screaming at taxis, a barge full of - i could almost swear - pampers, gliding along with the current. by then it was already dusk, and there were all these lights like little sequins glinting out from across the river and over the bridge. all different colors: red, purple, blue, green. white, in the high-rises. whenever i look at that river i start thinking about george washington, even though i'm pretty sure he didn't conquer jersey that way. the famous painting of him in the boat - that's the potomac, right? it was so hard to step around all the dog poop and trash on the cement of the riverwalk, i began to seriously wonder if i, too, could set off to conquer jersey. for some reason i felt like it must be cleaner there.

but as i was standing there, looking out at the river, what was probably queens, and all the little lights and bridges and skyscrapers stretching over the horizon, i realized that i was never going to make it back for the evan and jaron concert. i looked down into the river and i saw my reflection: my cheeks and nose were a violent red, my hair had frizzed so much from walking in the damp that it looked like i had spiderwebs clinging to my head, and my chapped lips were pale and bleeding a little. my skirt had gotten twisted and wrinkled while i was walking, and my shirt looked very weary. i thought about the kinds of girls who were going to the concert, what they would look like. i thought about what i would look like next to them. it's no wonder i always look wrong in pictures.

and then this sentence popped into my head:

i'd rather be alone.

what i really wanted, looking down at that beautiful river and the beautiful, rainy sunset above it, was for everybody else in the world to be gone so i could enjoy it in peace. i didn't want to worry what i looked like, though i knew that even by new york's widened standards, i was approaching the 'old crone' zone with dangerous alacrity. i didn't want to think about my homework or my projects or even my friends. maybe i just wanted to be invisible. it didn't bother me, the other people leaning over the railing and talking loudly on their cell phones, because somehow, out there, with all that sky over my head, it didn't seem like anything a person said could be that loud. but i didn't want anyone to see me. i wanted to watch everyone and everything without it watching back.

a friend told me once that i must be made of water because i always drag her out to fountains and rivers. water's always by itself; it's always at a distance. i started to wonder if she was right. then all of a sudden there was a single bolt of thunder and it started to pour.

that, i thought grimly, clinches it.

at first i fell back on default, scampering along as quickly as i could, cursing myself for not bringing a coat, for choosing to walk in the one section of new york where there is no cover, for trusting our ambivalent weather for even an hour. gradually, however, i realized it was not that bad. yeah, it was raining. so what? it was still warm. i found an exit to the street and started wandering the avenues, looking for a subway, but not looking that hard. i'd gone a long way, and i hadn't seen this section of the city in a long time. there were new stores. new hipsters bumming out in front of the barnes and nobles. new fountains, even. later, as i was waiting for my train to come, i heard the two guys in front of me joking - tanned so brown they looked orange, decked out in chic t-shirts and sweatshirts and jeans - and i realized, to my alarm, that a) they were speaking in hebrew and b) i understood them.

they cracked each other up about how lame new york was, they worried that they'd never figure out where to transfer, they commiserated about their condescending american hosts. i stood right behind them and, silently, i answered them, surprised by the words forming sentences in my head. 'we're going to end up in brooklyn,' one of them noted ruefully. 'what does he mean, take the c to the l?' i wanted to tell them in hebrew, but i was too embarassed. so i waited for the train, listening and smiling to myself.

a couple minutes before some irish guy in a newsboy cap propped his guitar case open by a subway bench, took out a capo, and started singing some kind of country-blues. he was young, maybe younger than me, but the tunnels made his voice carry and he was playing open chords (i think that's what they're called) that sounded almost perfectly in the echoey space- good acoustics, my mom would approve. and he wasn't afraid of us. he had a decent voice and a simple, catchy song. by the time the train had come people were gathering around him, clapping off beat and nodding cautiously. even i had taken off my headphones.

so you see, i got my concert after all.

Tell-Tale Sign #94 That You Are In College

2007-03-21T14:02:00.000-07:00

a note in orange crayon on your bathroom mirror actually reads:

ATTENTION FAIR CITIZENS OF 15 B:

PLEASE BE ADVISED

roomate a and roomate b, having taken out the bathroom garbage every week since the beginning of the semester, are currently on strike and thus will not be available to take out the bathroom garbage this friday. as roomate c's hand is broken, the mission therefore falls to roommates d and e. contribute, for king and country!

sincerely, your roommates (read: not maids)

evidently

2007-03-16T11:32:00.001-07:00

i have not lived up to my word. perhaps this is because i am exhausted already. there are still almost two weeks left. does that seem fair to you?
nevertheless, guilt-stricken and snowbound, i will share one more tidbit with you. prepare to be dazzled.
You Know You Are In College when you take your frustrations out on breakfast cereal. allow me to demonstrate.
(holding box of cookie crisp in one hand) stupid housing department! why can't they give me a single? (violent crunch) grrrr, how much longer can the room across the hall blare that stupid crunk music? (more crunching, faster) when will someone else decide to take out the garbage? (bite tongue) how can i lose weight if i keep eating cereal for revenge? (furious crunch) stupid school cafeteria...closing at noon....
(puts cereal box down, glares out window)
stupid snow!
(commence sign number five that You Are In College, aka Trying To Correctly Interpret Instructions on Toilet Cleaning Agent)

evidently

2007-03-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

tell-tale sign #3 that you are in college

2007-03-12T19:34:00.000-07:00

you sort your laundry not by lights or darks, nor even by durability, but by State of Emergency. for instance:
"well, the towel hasn't been washed for six weeks...but then again, the sheets haven't been washed for eight weeks...and then there's the shirt that got washed two weeks ago that has bloodstains..."
------> daily bonus (!!!) you take pictures such as the one below for your mother:

tell-tale sign #2 that you are in college

2007-03-11T16:50:00.000-07:00

you hang your clock from the sprinkler head.

Ye Olde Student Almanac: Tell-Tale Signs That You Are In College

2007-03-10T16:08:00.000-08:00

in honor of there only being two and a half more weeks until perel gets to go home, the author of this blog will endeavor to commemorate each of the remaining days with a passage from Ye Olde Student Almanac (2007 edition; available for a limited time only in the off-campus student life building, through the underground tunnel and up 14 flights of stairs, behind the israeli tourist bureau office. contact this rarely-checked voicemail box for more information.)

without further ado, more tales of crime and treason on the high seas presents:

Tell-Tale Signs That You Are In College

Sign #1.

You sit down to a dinner of Rice Chex and duck sauce, and your first thought is: again?

i love my grandmother, purim edition

2007-03-03T22:39:00.001-08:00

(enter car, stage right. car weaves casually across several lanes of traffic, then proceeds to zoom towards a bus shelter. the two occupants, an older woman in a light dress and a girl with a gargantuan backpack, several plastic bags filled with american cheese, and a bizarre sweater, are having an argument.)

girl: so you think this is the bus stop?

grandmother: how should i know. they move that bus stop everytime i come here. the new one's supposed to be on the corner, but i'm not going to that one. i'm not stupid.

girl: (sighs)

grandmother: what kind of bus company moves the stop every week?

girl: well, luckily we are forty-five minutes early.

grandmother: listen, let me tell you something, you never know with these bus drivers. sometimes they come twenty minutes early and sometimes they're a half hour late! i don't believe in taking chances.

girl: you drove into oncoming traffic ten minutes ago!

grandmother: oh, baloney. he saw me coming.

girl: well, since we're not going anywhere for awhile, why don't i give you your sweater back.

grandmother: i don't need that one. it's hot out.

girl: i don't need it either.

grandmother: yes you do! you didn't bring a coat!

girl: it was sixty degrees!

grandmother: i don't care, you need to bring a coat when you go places! now you keep that sweater, you'll need it for the walk back from the bus stop.

girl: i'm not cold!

grandmother: oh, just wear the sweater.

(fifteen minutes go by. man wearing a streimel, gartel, etc appears on the corner of the block and starts to walk very quickly for the other end. he is clearly in a hurry.)

grandmother: perel, roll down your window and ask that chassidishuh guy if this is where the bus stops.

girl: um....you think he'll talk to me?

grandmother: of course he'll talk to you! roll down your window!

girl: i don't think they--

grandmother: you want me to ask him?

girl (hastily): no.

grandmother: so stop fussing.

girl (rolling down window): excuse me, sir, is this where the bus to manhattan stops?

chassidishuh guy: manhattan?

girl: yeah.

cg: why you should want to go to manhattan? it's purim.

girl: well--

grandmother (leaning over girl) : listen, she's not asking you why she should go to manhattan, she's just asking you where it stops, ok?

cg: nobody is going to manhattan.

grandmother: well she is.

cg: i don' t know if there's a bus.

grandmother: there is, we heard it on the voice recording.

cg: i don't know why.

grandmother: this isn't an argument. does the bus stop here, yes or no?

the chassidishuh guy shrugs.

grandmother: ok, freilichin purim.

exit chassidishuh guy.

grandmother: he was trying to argue with me! did you hear that?

girl: well...yes...

grandmother (unexpectedly): who would have guessed i'd have a pathmark card on my key chain!

girl: huh?

grandmother: i'll bet you nobody would have guessed that one. oh, i see a bus coming. perel, get out and stand by the corner so he can see you. i'll move ahead into his parking space so i can block him.

girl: they don't like it when you do that.

grandmother: get out of the car, you'll miss him! listen, i know what i'm doing.

girl: i guess it's inevitable.

(girl gets out and drags luggage to end of the block. the bus pulls up directly behind the car, bypassing her entirely, and proceeds to honk loudly. grandmother rolls down the window.
the bus opens the doors, but motions that the girl should stay outside.)

driver: i'm not letting her on the bus until you move!

grandmother: well i'm not moving until you let her on the bus.

driver: you can't do that!

grandmother: oh, let her get on already. she's standing two inches from the door. i'm pulling out right now. perel, ask him if he's going to manhattan. make sure you ask him!

girl: ok, bubbe cissy. have a safe flight back to milwaukee.

bubbe cissy: and don't forget to put all that american cheese in the refrigerator! and take the money out of your shoe!

as they say: vinahafachu. happy purim everybody!

erm

2007-02-26T22:19:00.000-08:00

sigh...co-opted by the onion...

viewer discretion is advised