(note names have been changed to protect the innocent)
'Toli: Bertrand! Tefillas haderech! chop chop!
Bertrand: Uh, uh… I can’t say a bracha while I have to go to the bathroom!
Car: laughter
Bertrand: what? It’s really ussur!
Bertrand: Don’t adjust it (referring to the seat)
Fenula: I have to! My legs are too long… They fall asleep!
(commenting on 'Toli's driving)
Josie: is it avodah zora for me to kiss the ground when we get home?
Fenula (further comments on Toli's driving): H' must really love you
Cold=Josie's love life
Tom Cruise=Addictive and Risky
Bertrand: Is there gas?
Fenula: Oh, I got a lotta gas...
Bertrand: I meant the car!
I’m sorry and sad that you’d think I’d go
Turn into a frummie
And leave the show
I’m not half that cruel
And love twice that much
So just tone down the dramatics
I know what I’d give up
I’ll admit I’m jealous
If you’ll cede me this
That behind every smile
Every late night kiss
Lies the doubt of potential
And “what might I have missed?”
But love is a blind master
And tends to dismiss
All the quibbles of the “singles”
As if they didn’t exist
I know this is the most banal statement ever
But technology is so miraculous
I’m driving at 82 mph
Burning a CD, transferring files over a wireless network
Listening to digitally perfect reproductions of music
And the entire world is within my reach through my cell phone,
To a man that lived just a short 50 years ago this is all unimaginably amazing
(note names have been changed to protect the innocent)
Bertrand to the left of me
Josie in the back
Here I am
Stuck in the car with the "Gevaldik's"
(note names have been changed to protect the innocent)
I’m going up to visit Fergus
Although I’m not really saying goodbye
I wouldn’t be opposed to leaving
Forever
But I promised my mother I wouldn’t
So I’ll be back
When I talk about yiddishkeit
I’m mostly negative
It’s easier to talk about what I hate
Than all the things that I love
The ability to be happy
With what we have
Is what separates the merely religious
From the truly faithful
The thing that makes me
love talking to her
is only the story of my bitterness and disappointment
and none of my idealism and joy
it makes me sad that I only tell half the tale
and that I’m scared to tell her the rest
Thoughts at the Israeli embassy.
I feel an obligation to prove myself,
have JEW writ in large letters across my chest.
in the months leading up to actually being Jewish,
I tried to "out-Jew" the world (religiously).
But now that I am
I wonder when I'll just feel it.
Ruth said your people are my people first
when's my turn
The Ghanaian embassy is next door
I felt the same way there
generations screaming that I've abandoned
my place, my stool
who are my people again?
I haven't been writing
because it's been shabbos
all month
I actaully got confused
on tuesday
and thinking it was shabbos
left my car parked at a meter
two tickets later
it was Chol HaMoed
I wasn't friends with anyone
until recently
anyone being the community
that I live in
(not J or B)
But just as I am to leave
I have met people
who are (in no specific order)
funny
beautiful
exotic
strange
nice
standoffish
outspoken
brilliant
and wonderful
but it's time to go
Someone called me suave and aloof
but then I messed that up by
Singing “leaving on a jet plane”
Because I was a little drunk
And wanting to get some attention
so I woke up this morning
groggy from sickness and ill-timed sleep
built some tabernacles
bought a fruit and three branches for $80
and thought to myself
Why didn't this seem crazy to me?
not that it does now...
Succos is the strangest of all the holidays,
sure purim is insane
but Succos takes the "goyim must think we're meshugana" prize
So I take this personality test
and at first I'm like
dude they've got it all wrong
then I think harder
and now I'm not sure anymore
it does seem startlingly correct
but I might be convincing myself
of its accuracy
so then I found another Max Luscher test
and took it
nearly the same results:
Your Existing Situation
Relatively inactive and in a static condition, while conflict of one sort or another prevents peace of mind. Unable to achieve relationships of the desired degree of mutual affection and understanding.
Your Stress Sources
Wishes to be independent, unhampered, and free from any limitation or restriction, other than those which he imposes of himself or by his own choice and decision.
Your Restrained Characteristics
Wants to broaden his fields of activity and insists that his hopes and ideas are realistic. Distressed by the fear that he may be prevented from doing what he wants; needs both peaceful conditions and quiet reassurance to restore his confidence.
Egocentric and therefore quick to take offense. Sensitive and sentimental, but conceals this from all except those very close to him.
Your Desired Objective
Keeps himself under strict control so as not to break down under his difficulties. Needs a safer and easier situation in which he can feel more secure and have a chance to recover.
Your Actual Problem
Seeks security and a position in which he will no longer be troubled by demands being made on him.
I've resolved to stop taking personality tests
"Believe in me
Help me believe in something
I want to be someone who believes"
-Adam Duritz
I just found out I remembered the lyric wrong, but I like my way better
This just makes me smile... but I'm not much of a fan of the singer; wonder what she's saying, *ahem*jen*ahem*...
Translation:
don't be scared
let's feel together
let's throw away all excess things.
yesterday, i sang while a little embarrassed. my fist in the air.
i smiled bitterly while repeating words i couldn't say
to my rose-colored cheeks, bring you lips close to
that's a new spring
wild birds fly away when seen
someday let's go home
riding on the wind, everytime they are fanned
flowers on the tracks are waving
if told 'i love you' in an upside down fashion, i cry
the new 'us' (insert first unknown phrase here)...
puffed out chests, we have barely enough courage
come here w/o hiding
we're able to enjoy good food by just holding on to our dreams
and we can become adults
holding each other, kissing each other
let's think dearly of this unchanging scenery
everytime we're feeling bittersweet, let's get blown by the wind and
dance
in the rain
don't say 'goodbye'
i wonder if we'll ever meet again someday, somewhere
that's a new spring
wild birds fly away when seen
someday let's go home
riding on the wind, everytime they are fanned
flowers on the tracks are waving
wind blown from the south
...(insert second unknown phrase)...
holding each other, kissing each other
let's think dearly of this unchanging scenery
everytime we're feeling bittersweet, let's get blown by the wind and
dance
in the rain
don't say 'goodbye'
i wonder if we'll ever meet again someday, somewhere
i wonder if we'll ever meet again someday, somewhere
i wonder if we'll ever meet again someday, somewhere
i wonder if we'll ever meet again someday, somewhere
man that's sappy
So I haven't been cooking lately
or more accurately
it's been a while since I cooked for someone...
mostly because I'm starting to pack stuff up
get ready for the craziness
but it's partially because I am a resident of "nubbinsville"
Nubbinsville is a place
where there is no money
no assets
no cash flow
a place where
that little bit of rice
you cooked last week
turns into a full meal
The place where I used to
begin to break into the stash of Top Ramen
which I heavily suspect
is made up of the leftovers at Japanese glue factories
K'tiva V'chasima Tova
Gut Shabbos
So cute it makes my teeth hurt
but sometimes I like a little pain
in the light of the past
everything is illuminated
they say that my neshama
floated like a dandelion bloom,
up on the winds of history
from the tombs made of
earth and pine
dreams of another land,
stories that I haven’t read,
lives filled with the joys pains sorrows,
lived in some eastern European cloister,
before being scattered by chaos
I embarrassed to feel a sting in my eyes, tightening of my throat and
realize that my “story” has had some revisionist editing to fit;
my memories molded to fit the uncertainties of my present.
jewishness conveyed by mysticism has always bothered me.
today, however, I pray with memories not my own.
in the light of the past
everything is illuminated
