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Scare the hell out of me. Somehow they manage to address things I am TALKING about, that have never hit a computer. I am very disturbed by this.

More comments from friends

"you remind me of the crazy girl in the breakfast club"

Headaches

So I find it fascinating enough that some people evidently get headaches from eating cold things. I forget what these are called, but I just even have trouble believing this is true, or understanding how you could allow it to happen to you more than once, given the dramatic reaction people have when it happens to them.
Ditto for my new headache finding, the "sugar headache." Evidently, some people get headaches as the result of excessive sugar intake. I discovered this in a posting in a nytimes article about obesity that went like this "Our preoccupation with weight and diet obscures the opportunity to feel great and comfortable in our bodies. Somehow the guilt of a pancake breakfast overrides the discomfort of the sugar headache that we endure all morning. " Like people are constantly having sugar headaches? I mean, I've never heard of this in my entire life.
Here's another one - headaches when the weather is icky. Now that one, I believe and it's not anyone's fault, but it does qualify as weirdness.

Wes Anderson

I think this is likely far too revealing about myself, but I think I'm in love with Wes Anderson. The reason I think it's really love and not just a liking or an infatuation is that my feelings are very complex, run the gamut, and yet at the end of the day, in his world I feel like I am in my world, for the only time ever and I feel like he cares about and understands me. Take, for example, the royal tenenbaums, which I believe to be my favourite movie ever in the history of the world. There's something remarkable about how the personalities of the children and the parents and the servant blend together into this perfect symphony of human reality. All those people are my people, they are all just like me, in different ways. It's like he took me and broke me into my component parts and then exaggerated them into full entities.
For Rushmore, I have the same love. Rushmore, again, is basically, a different version of me. I could have been him had circumstances been different. I was similarly involved in a panoply of activities in school and was constantly trying to start random things and causing disruptions but I never had real academic problems because my parents should have heeded the advice of the studies when I was 6 and they told me to skip 5 grades and then I wouldn't have been such a troublesome student (because I never did ANY work and was bored out of my mind) and I would have added 5 years to my life, but that's another complaint for another time.
The Life Aquatic is the one that causes me slight pain. I feel that it attempted to live off the success of the royal tenenbaums. There were clearly some good parts to it, but so much of it had to do with competition that doesn't really speak to me. I mean, competition in general doesn't speak to me. That's sort of untrue, but it's true at the same time so for now, we'll leave it at that.
However, I loved the colouring and I understood what he was going for and I agreed with the idea behind what happened. So I'm good with it.
Most recently, the Hotel Chevalier was just an ode. I really can't go any further into it.
The Darjeeling Limited I originally was highly disappointed with. Part of it is that every time I see I new Wes Anderson movie I assume it will be my new favourite movie. So expectations were high. Part of it was that I went to India a year ago and had a mixed experience (including 3 major illnesses) and so I wasn't so into seeing India again plus I knew what it was really like to travel in India, which differed a decent amount from Wes Anderson's version. However, a few days ago, I realized that I wanted to watch it again. (I of course bought it, assuming it would be my new favourite movie) And I realized that it, like Anderson's other movies, was brilliant. He just has this unbelievable gift for delving into the issues and problems that plague the truly neurotic and bizarre among us. And then, turning them into people. And making those people do terribly silly things while pretending to be adults. Or I suppose, doing their best to act the way adults do, without any of the skills of adults. Like moving into a hotel in Paris as you run away from an ex or leaving your wife six weeks away from her giving birth or taking a random mixture of medications you manage to get from the Indian drug store.
Anyways, it's nice to have an unrequited love. Not that I mind the requited ones, but it's nice to mix things up :)

Food Shopping

Always rather entertaining putting the food away because inevitably, I discover that I already have several of whatever I've purchased. I'm up to 5 containers of pesto now.

Fat

So a particular pet peeve of mine is the way women harass each other by saying "Oh! You're so skinny!" Inevitably, the person in question is not particularly skinny but the motivation is often not clear. Sometimes, women say this because they're jealous because the woman in question has lost weight. Other times, in contrast, this is said to draw attention to the woman's weight and the fact that she is NOT particularly skinny, usually done to draw contrast to the speaker, who is thinner. On other occasions, and most commonly, this essentially has nothing whatsoever to do with the woman's weight and a way of one woman insulting another. It usually follows up with subtle or not so subtle accusations of anorexia and feigned concerns for the woman's health. For the boys out there, one woman accusing another of anorexia is one of nastiest attacks that can be made, due to all the negative associations with self-esteem and the illness in general.

Also on the subject of fatness, for some reason I find it really kind of gross when people are super tan, like they clearly go tanning at least once a week, and they wear really tight clothes that cause their bare skin to create rolls of fat. It's especially weird because usually these people aren't particularly fat, they've just made bad clothing choices.

Finally, another annoyance is when things are marked "small" and you notice that the clothing doesn't fit on a normal hanger and has to be wrapped around to stay on. Like, clearly it's not a small. But then you don't know if any of the things are properly sized so then you have to check everything by digging in for the tag and you tire so greatly...

Garbage

So now that Whole Foods no longer offers plastic bags, are we allowed to throw our garbage out in paper bags?

Discourse

One of the reasons I anticipate this being an odd evening is that I haven't been able to walk in a straight line for the past couple of days. Not sure what that's about, I try to keep people noticing it to a minimum, obviously, but when you're just crashing into walls and slipping all over the place, it's hard to be subtle. It started, oddly enough, the morning of my sleep study. I had a sleep latency study where they test how you sleep in like hour long intervals. (absolute torture in my opinion, as that is far too little sleep) This was a follow-up to the standard sleep study where you sleep overnight and they see how you do. I sleep SUPER normal. It's actually quite abnormal, how healthy my sleep habits are. And yet, I need like 20 hours of sleep a day and pretty much have forever. So the new test will perhaps shed light onto medication that will keep me awake. Alternatively, I may have to take regular naps during the day. I would prefer the former, as I am familiar with the latter and it is a bit of a bitch to sleep/work/sleep/work etc.

Night of nonsense

Tonight this blog is going to be a mess of nonsense. First off, I love erratic cab drivers. Almost more than any other part of any city, anywhere, in the world (with the exception of Moscow but that's because I spent a previous life there and so there is a special bond). I feel so at one with the world when the cab is jumping from lane to lane, suddenly jerking to a stop, screaming and pounding on the horn, and then zooming off again. It's like aromatherapy to me.

Inspirational (sort of) Friday

ASHER YATSAR, Mishkan T'filah

Rachel Naomi Remen tells a beautiful story of learning about blessings from her grandfather. He tells her the story of Jacob’s struggle at Peniel, when he wrestles with a messenger. Remen’s grandfather describes the encounter between Jacob and the angel, telling her that Jacob’s leg was hurt in the struggle, and that before the angel left, he touched Jaocb on the place where it hurt. Remen recalls that as a child, “This was something I could understand, often my mother did this, too. ‘To help it getter better, Grandpa?’ I asked. But my grandfather shook his head. ‘I do not think so, Neshume-le. He touched it to remind Jacob of it. Jacob carried it all the rest of his life. It was his place of remembering.’” He leaves her with the idea that confusing an angel with an enemy isn’t the most important part of the story. Instead, the most important message is that everything has its blessing.
Remen reflects on this later in life, as she struggles with disease and pain, and finds meaning in it that struck me as I read the settings of Asher Yatzar. In response to the Jacob story she concludes, “It is a puzzling story, a story about the nature of blessings and the nature of enemies. How tempting to let the enemy go and flee. To put the struggle behind you as quickly as possible and get on with your life. Life might be easier then but far less genuine. Perhaps the wisdom lies in engaging the life you have been given as fully and courageously as possible and not letting go until you find the unknown blessing that is in everything.”
I have been fortunate to have been healthy and significantly pain free for most of my life. Yet I encounter theologians, mystics, physicians, congregants and friends who have struggled with illness, or with bodies that fail when the mind is strong, and have found such deep courage, strength, and meaningful connections to the Divine through this process. And I often find myself questioning my ability to have a similar deep relationship with God without having gone through such a struggle. I am particularly struck when I read the line, “were one of them to fail – how well we are aware!” we would lack the strength to stand before you.” As clergy, I am aware of this empirically, but not with first hand knowledge. Yet, why then, do I find myself reciting this daily blessing of real appreciation and gratitude – not only for my own continued health, but for the miracle that is the human body?
Some days – the second selection calls to me. I fear those moments of weakness; I know that failures of systems or health are inevitable in all our lives. So I find myself deeply responding to this idea, that though “I have asked for so much”, please God, don’t let me feel the pain and the defeat.
Years ago, I wrote a paper on the theologies of illness and healing for a class with Dr. Eugene Borowitz. Writing the paper reminded me of an old Judging Amy episode, in which Amy’s close friend is in remission from cancer, and tells Amy that she has found God. Amy is incredulous, seeing as her friend was the most “intelligent and rational” person she knows. Amy asks her friend, laughingly, “You don’t really think God cured you, do you?” The friend responded, “No. The medicine and hospital care cured me. But God was there.”
I’m challenged by this idea because the idea of “finding God” in a moment of distress sounds the alarm of “religion” and “fundamentalism”. However, when Amy says to another co-worker, “Can you believe it – my friend found God?” He replied, “I didn’t know He was lost.” I remember being caught off-guard by this. Maybe it’s less about finding God, as being able to take a look at your life in such a way that you notice that God was there all along. Like Jacob, as I have struggled with my faith, though I’ve doubted my ability to “find faith” if I am not ill, my search has led me to recognize the faith that might have been there, bamakom hazeh, in this place, all along.
Rosalie Boxt is the cantor of Temple Emanuel of Kensington, MD.
For more information about Mishkan T'filah, visit urj.org/mishkan.

Profound question

How much longer can I continue to wake up in the morning? It seems increasingly less likely and all obvious problems go along with that, but it seems as though my body has taken over and said, sorry, but I simply am not going to be able to work more than a 5 hours work day. This is extremely disturbing to me. I need to work like 12. So the disparity is a significant one.

Neimans v. Saks

Now, over the years the quality of these stores has changed dramatically. The way the salespeople approach you, how they sell to you, the frequency with which they provide their business cards, their suggestions for other purchases that don't necc. need but they you think about later and say, well maybe, yes, that is something I need...It's a little unfair to lump Neimans under here but Neimans has been on this downward spiral so I feel that it is somewhat justified. Saks died some time ago - of course, to be fair, my only shopping experiences since October have been with returning gifts.
My only point here is that, well, I'm exhausted again. We wait with rapid anticipation for me to get a diagnosis of narcolepsy. But for now. Back to bed. I mean, it is 9:30 am. Understandable that would need to go back to sleep...

North Korea

So while I think it's great and all that Christiane Amanpour has gotten access to this closed-off country and is broadcasting what she has learned around the world (and as a side-bar, I have infinite respect for Christiane as she is basically the only person on CNN who is a legitimate journalist) it sort of begs the question of, who cares? I mean, at the end of the day, North Korea is just another silly country stuck like 50+ years in the past and that oppresses its citizens and pulls crap like those parades of tanks and military personnel through the streets. Seriously, when you have to parade your defense system through the streets and broadcast it on international news, aren't you really defeating the purpose of having a defense system? Obviously, unless you are scared to death that someone is going to attack you, this just lets everyone know exactly where your strengths and weaknesses are and how to exploit them.
I'm a little biased against Korea in general due to a dispute a roommate and I had in London over the second gulf war (she was South Korean). We were watching the coverage in the first few days and she was basically all, the U.S. is going to get destroyed. And for me, that was kind of like saying, all major banking corporations will collapse in the next three days. Like, madness. And I sort of let it go, because it seemed so wildly off-kilter, but when the U.S. didn't go crashing down, she didn't take it well. I, on the other hand, being younger and less careful about my safety, promptly began traveling every weekend as prices were low. And to places like Istanbul. By myself. But what really got me was that she didn't give up on the downfall of the U.S. Now, I like the U.S. like anyone else, not really nutso about it, but I don't appreciate it when people we've spent massive amounts of money, people and general effort on over the past 50+ years are totally indifferent to our safety and our attempts to improve the quality of the world. So in sum, I don't get where the South Koreans get off with this anti-American attitude, given that their country, as they know it, wouldn't exist but for us. I mean, maybe we just live in an era now where people have no sense of decency, I don't know.

Annoying things

1) People who let their young children scream in public places. They should be shot on sight.
2) People who send you the same e-mail three times in a row. (LAS - I will be separately pointing this out to you)
3) Many, many programs on tv. Far too many to list. There are basically only a handful of acceptable ones.
4) Getting a credit card bill for half your salary when your only expenses are your rent, your phone and the supermarket.
5) Having an apartment that does not warm up in the summer. I still have to wear socks. This despite it getting unbearably cold during the winter.
More after I get some caffeine in me....

Advice from friends

Received this advice today, had to share: "seriously, wouldn't you rather try becoming a prostitute in moscow?"

Caloric intake question

If you just drink alcohol and take vitamins, do you think you're okay? you get the calories through the alcohol and the nutrients through the vitamins. In theory it seems like it would work, but somehow you know in practice there would be problems.... (thanks for Laurence for not responding for turning this into a post)

More on elevators

Today the elevator I was in (after a harrowing day best left forgotten over a bottle of wine) stopped two floors short of my destination, without opening the doors. I was alone in the elevator. Interestingly, I just totally calmly pushed and held the button for my floor until the elevator went there. I was subsequently surprised by my total lack of fear etc. at the elevator stoppage. I wonder why I didn't care. Or maybe it was just that I remained calm in the face of stress. Who knows. But it was definitely a little on the weird side.

Floor confusion

Does everyone else have the same problem, that even after being in the same places for a year, every time you get in the elevator, you have a pause and quickly rack you brain as to which floor you press in this particular elevator?

EKGs

So the reason I find EKGs funny is that whenever I go to the doctor, they can't be bothered to remove all the sticky things they've attached. So for days afterwards, I will randomly find my pajamas sticking to the mid-part of my thigh and am all, what is this...and it is a random sticky black thing. The worst is when you come home, go to sleep, wake up, go to bathroom, and feel this slight uncomfortableness all around your chest. And you start feeling around and are all, what's this? because you don't remember clearly (if you're me) because you were knocked unconscious, maybe had a seizure etc. and so you don't remember anyone sticking anything on your chest. And you unbutton your pajama top and there are like 20 random sticky things all over the place. In very compromising places, I might add. So you take them off, but you feel a bit dirty, both about someone having put them there, but also, weirdly, about them having been there at all.
But even more entertaining is the earlier referenced part, when you keep finding these things for days afterwards. Because they actually put them all over your body but (if you're like me) you don't remember b.c. your brain is fried. So you'll wonder why your pajamas are falling in this unusual pattern, but you're not functional enough to check (brain still fried) for at least a couple days, when you finally uncover the random sticky thing. And the several others that surround it.
And I think it begs the question, I mean, if you are messed up enough that you are in the hospital and having this test done, shouldn't they get all these things off you so you're not confused about weird forces in the universe pulling at your clothes for like a week afterwards? Isn't there some sense of humanity that fits in there? Comments, as always, welcome.

Favorite story of the year

So a female family friend who is Jewish is married to a Catholic. The first year they were dating, on Christmas eve they went to his parents' house. He wanted her to have gifts to unwrap like everyone else so he went and bought things for her. Then, at the office, he noticed that a Jewish colleague had some wrapping paper by his desk. So he asked him, is that for Hanukkah? He said yes, so the now-Husband asked if he could use it, was told yes, and so he wrapped the presents in the paper. Christmas eve he gave the presents to our Jewish friend and she said to him, what kind of wrapping paper is this? He says, it's for Hanukkah. She says, no, this is for Kwanzaa, it says salaam and has the candles. He says, I thought it said shalom and that was a menorah.
He went back to his Jewish colleague, complaining about what had happened and said, I thought you said you were a jew - to which he responded - I said I was a jew, I didn't say I was a good jew.