What's going on with me?
The embarassment that is my yearly religious attempt
Yes, so I did attend services yesterday, at the historic super-old temple downtown. (Fun fact! It is the third oldest and the only neo-Gothic temple in the country) My one jewish friend in town came to pick me up. She is a nut. She’s very nervous about specific things, like driving at night, driving on highways, and wearing jeans. She never wears jeans, only dresses. She wore a dress the one time we went bowling. (I don’t know.)
She’s come to my apartment at least four times but each time she gets lost and I have to direct her by phone. This time was no exception. I should point out that she lives fifteen blocks away and that the drive between our houses includes two turns.
Anyway, we arrived, both attired in the most matronly outfits either of us owns. We had to wait outside a bit, as it’s a really small temple and members are allowed to go in and sit earlier than non-members. We poked fun at a nearby guy who looked exactly like Colonel Sanders. He was resplendant in a straw wide-brimmed hat, seersucker suit, and watch and chain. Of course he approached us, asking if we were from the college, and we said yes, and he was too, and then I asked his major, and he answered, “Historic preservation, OBVIOUSLY,” with a little gesture to his clothing.
I pretty much hated him from that moment on. I haaaaaate supercilious, stuffy, pompous people. Especially if they are, like, my age. And dressed like Colonel Fucking Sanders.
We went in and sat at the back row, the only one empty. We ended up next to another guy from the college, so thankfully I could make awkward conversation with him, while my friend was stuck with the Colonel.
The songs (hymns? crap) started, and I knew the tunes but not the exact words. I can follow along with written Hebrew as long as I catch the song from the very beginning, and follow along in the book with my finger. Once the song has started, it goes by too quickly for me to recognize the current word in the middle of a paragraph and catch up. So I was stuck alternately humming the tune, or doing that crazy thing where you sing the words others are singing, but one second AFTER they have sung it, in a blatent display of I-have-no-idea-what-I’m-doing-ism. Yup, that was me!
Most of it went fine, and I started recognizing the songs and could sing freely in my horrendous voice.
A cute thing happened when they blew the shofar, which is a ram’s horn. They brought the kids in who were being babysat in a seperate room, so they could hear it, and the shofar-blower (crap) sounded a succession of toots followed by one long TOOOOOOOOOT, and there was a brief moment of silence before the choir sounded up, and in that one second, one of the little kids shouted, “Wow!” And everyone laughed.
So that was my experience ringing in the new year. L’Shana Tovah, peops!
9.22.2006
Working for the sparkly
Well, it’s Friday night and I am home watching tv. I had planned to spend the evening since getting off work at 5:00 doing homework, or cleaning the house, or something equally productive/societally acceptable. Instead I have:
1. gotten my eyebrows waxed (good!)
2. showered (very good!)
3. watched some tv (meh)
4. gotten the chicken strips meal from Popeye’s (VERY NOT GOOD)
I just saw Stacy London on a Macy’s commercial. I will be so happy if she becomes a big star. I love What Not To Wear and I love her and Clinton Kelly together. Especially Stacy – her hair is so glossy and lovely.
I think the mouse is gone. I made the landlord come in and plaster in all the holes around the pipes underneath the kitchen sink, so I can’t think of any other way things will get in. I had to do my three-peanut drawing using just the one peanut it had left behind. Oddly, the one it left was one of those crappy, mini-sausage-shaped peanuts, not one of the ones with two distinct nuts inside – of course, the boring one to draw. So I actually had to google “peanut image” and do the drawing while staring at tiny computer screen peanuts. A sad moment in my life.
Oh, the gallery where I am interning is showing three of my paintings! It is a proud time for me. I’ll be on the website and everything. Also, they did the nicest thing. The other day, I was admiring a pair of earrings and I said, “Dan, don’t sell these to anyone, okay? I’m going to buy them when I have some extra money.” And Dan, the manager, was like, uh okay. But then the next time I came in to work, he had made me a present, with a big ole fancy bow and a thank-you card and inside were the earrings I loved! So nice. I guess I am not working for free after all then. I am working for sparkly things!
Tomorrow morning I am going to Rosh Hashana services. I haven’t been to temple in a few years. I hope I remember the words to all the songs. It’s so embarassing, being exposed as the bad jew I am. I have jewish guilt, about being not-so-jewish. Ironic.
9.17.2006
Estrogen – 1, Me – 0
I have 8am classes every day this term. This is a new thing – until now, the earliest classes were held at 9am. There was one class I needed to take that had only one section left, so I had to do the early one, and then I figured that if I was going to be getting up early two days a week, I should probably get up early four days a week, for consistency. Merely two days of classes later, I am beginning to think that this was an incorrect line of reasoning.
Also, weird things are happening lately. I got an assignment in drawing class Thursday to draw three peanuts, which the professor gave to us to take home. I placed them on the floor in the corner of my room, near my drawing papers, and didn’t give them a second thought. In hindsight, maybe it’s not such a great idea to leave unwrapped food items just…sitting out, but really what’s the difference between the floor and the pantry? Or so I thought. Friday night when I came home from my usual Friday night boozing, I happened to glance at that corner of the room and I realized that there was now only one peanut left. I looked around – the other two hadn’t rolled under anything. What is going on?? Am I taking crazy pills again?* I wondered. I searched near the floorboards in that corner of the room. Then I saw it.
MOUSE POO. Holy crap, nooooo! Not again!
So, I have come to terms with the fact that a) I have a rodent (possibly of unusual size); and b) it has stolen the peanuts I needed for my drawing assignment. At 27 years old, I will finally be able to use the excuse that my pet ate my homework. Ba dum bump.
I haven’t written about this until now, but about two months ago I went on the pill. I have been on it for a year or so off-and-on since college and have never had any adverse affects from it, but old age must be making my body really resistant to change, because HOLY CRAP, did it fuck me up this time. It made my boobs bigger and I had no sex drive (thus making the birth control part of its function fairly extraneous) and also it made me a raving loony basket case.
For examply, while I was home over break I went to the local eyeglass clinic, to get more contacts. After the exam, the doctor told me that I had an astigmatism. Now, I’ve had glasses/contacts since age nine or so, and my eyes just get worse and worse each year, so that by now I can’t read the clock right by my face when I wake up in the morning, but the one thing I have prided myself on is that I didn’t have an astigmatism. So when the doctor informed that I suddenly did, it was like my world was crashing down.
Y’all, I CRIED. At the eye doctor’s. Because I had an astigmatism! Basket case!
I was just crazy in general, for weeks. I called the clinic, asking to change pills, and they told me to stay on it for at least two months because sometimes the side effects go away. I said alright. But then a week or so later, I had this horrible night where I started thinking about my stepmom and her illness, and I started crying and just could not stop. I was hysterical, inconsolable, and thank god I was alone, because I HAAATE crying in front of people. I stopped taking the pills the next day.
I feel more like myself already, just a few days later. I guess I could try a different kind of pill, but I just don’t have the energy right now to go through another adjustment period.
Better to save my energy for the battle against the peanut-loving mouse.
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*Actually, yes! I was!
9.11.2006
Sweet lawd in heaven!
Oh my. I had such a nice two-week vacation from school and work that it seems to have extended into a vacation from everything, such as housecleaning, paying bills, watering plants, and keeping up with electronic correspondance and fun. One thing I DID manage to do on my fabulous break was to buy a fancy schmancy handbag over the internets, on this new thing called “eBay.” This “eBay” is completely new to me, but I found myself to be a savant at it! On my first go ever, I landed this little beauty:
Sigh. Not exactly practical, but it’s very pretty and I got it at a great price. I think I happened to luck into an auction where the seller sort of lowballed the Buy It Now price, so just as the back-and-forthing between various people started, I just sort of swooped in and bought it for, like, five dollars over what the latest bid was. Which seems so easy it should be illegal.
It felt goooood. Like gambling or something.
Anyway, so I am back in Savannah. I saw my mom and stepdad and old friends in DC, and then came back home to pick up Manfriend. He and I then visited my dad and stepmom and their “kin,” I guess you could say, in Georgia. Things between everyone went very well. I don’t think my dad was ever alone with him long enough to give any sort of scary dad-like “I am capable of killing a man with my bare hands"-type speech to him, which was my main goal of the weekend. Not that my dad would have pulled anything that coarse or brutish. He’s a tax attorney, my dad. Need I say more?
Classes start Wednesday. I ended up getting straight As on last term’s classes after all, so I guess Crazy British Red Pen Professor did end up forgiving my colossal stupidity when it came grade time. Dork status intact!