Hi Lindsey, I just got done at the hospital and I am driving home. I can take so long, I’m going straight home farts in the car? Hope all is Nicole and hopefully I will see you as soon as possible. Thank you!

Damn, Tuesday and I are good. I just depressed myself into a heartache.

Poor Colette.

You know that dream where you’re running and running but never getting anywhere?* I kind of feel like that with the book I’m doing now. I love it, don’t get me wrong, but the chapters weren’t numbered. So I numbered them, poorly. I thought there were 23 chapters, plus the first chapter of the next book. I am recording 2-3 at a time on my non-school days (which fortunately are an average of four a week this month HAPPY SUCCOS!) and I thought I was getting somewhere and had maybe 2 more days of recording at most. But I checked, and there are 25 chapters, at least in the marked up one I use to record on my tablet, and in the version on my Mac, I think the chapters I recorded today, Chapters 19 and 20, are actually Chapters 17 and 18. So. one day I will be done, presumably, but that day is not anytime this week.

[tried to insert running-in-place GIF but don’t actually know how so just imagine it it’s DIY people work with me here]

 

*Last night, I dreamed Adam shaved off his eyebrows.

I was weird about religion as a child. Even though Atlanta is an island in the middle of the Bible Belt, it is still part of it. Someone still thought it was ok to put a small Klan symbol in the high school yearbook.* (They recalled them; he was suspended, etc. But still. This is the school system that emphasized State’s Rights as a Civil War cause as opposed to slavery, and near the location of the largest Confederate mural carved into stone. I say the largest, which means there’s actually more than one. Feh.)

I was so confused and bitter for the month of December. What do I do with this Christmas thing? Can I have some? Is it not for me? It was certainly being shoved down my throat everywhere I went. It’s not my religious holiday–Christian people** didn’t seem to recognize Passover or Rosh Hashanah, so why should I have been invited to Jesus’s birthday? On the other hand, my sister sang Christmas carols all year, and no Old Testament G-d came along to smite her. (Which seems out of character–he told the Israelites to stone a guy for picking up sticks on Shabbat, and killed everything in the world because they weren’t worshiping him enough.***)

In first grade, we made Santa Claus heads out of paper plates in art. (The real tragedy there was product over process.) In second through fourth, we sang Christmas songs the day before the Thanksgiving holiday after watching “Oliver!” every year. Oh, at the winter concert, a class sang the dreidel song, so…all better?****

 

Yesterday, we had our third rehearsal for Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins (or “rehearschel.”) Table work and dramaturgy. Katherine, the dramaturg, asked if the Jewish people in the room had any Hanukkah traditions that we’d share. (Short answer: not really…traditions were for important holidays.) But we all got the types of presents for what Lewis Black calls “the back-to-school-holiday”: pencils, notebooks, socks, plastic earrings, etc. But we got into other traditions. Someone***** yelled, “Shechet b’vacah shah!” And the room immediately responded appropriately.****** We started talking about all the inside [jokes-or-not] that Jews have, and with every passing minute, my outsider defense muscle unclenched. Because this was a room for us, and our comrades in theatre. It was pride that I felt when we learned about Yiddish theatre history. And it is a miracle for my young self that not only is there a play that caters to my people, but that I and other Jewish people are in it.

The song “Wherever you go, there’s always someone Jewish” is no longer something to aspire to, but where I am now.

 

Dear Little Amy,

There was always “Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins” somewhere. In Lvov. In New York. In Atlanta, even. Mazel tov on finding it.

 

 

*Now that I think about it, the Ku Klux Klan is like those daycare centers with the horrible names: Kiddie Kollege, is one that readily comes to mind. It’s an indication of ridiculousness; they’re “klowns,” if you will. Dangerous klowns, but klowns nonetheless.

**I was not aware that Islam or any other religion existed, though my 2 best friends in first grade were Iranian and Indian, and may not have been Christian or Jewish, now that I think about it.

***Torah G-d? Def “him”. But that’s another story.

****When did I learn about Eid, you ask? Oh, about five years ago. [insert embarassment-for-self-and-society emoji here]

*****me.

******”hey,” for my goyim out there.

“Would you prefer steak or fish?”*

“Yes.”

Look closer. Closer. There you go. That “yes” doesn’t mean you want both; it means you do indeed want steak OR fish.

If you’re implying that you would like both, the proper answer is below:

“Would you like to have a head massage or a neck massage?”

“No. AND.”

or just

“Both, please.”

 

There will be a test.

 

 

 

*Actually, my answer would be steak. I don’t like fish, so the point is moot. That’s why we’re asking YOU.

One of my first jobs was at Eckerd’s, a drug store that doesn’t exist anymore. I stocked shelves, did the cash registration thing…I think that’s pretty much it. Oh, and I called people to tell them that their film was ready. THAT was horrifying. No wonder I blocked it out.

They played nice, easy listening music all day. That “Summer Breeze” one, about “going to the jazz bowl in my mind” or whatever it is*, “We’ve Got Tonight”, “Time After Time”, you know how it was. And some of them made me feel a way I did not particularly care to feel in the middle of restocking batteries. These were ones that made me almost cry. And they still seem to have that effect 25 years later.

When I am done working in my studio for the day, I turn on the air purifier. And it makes a sound like the beginning of “Save the Best For Last” before a final chime. So I leave singing that song, and remember how it would come on the air, and I would well up with emotion during that crappy job** and listen to these beautiful lyrics and her beautiful voice. So I had to go to YouTube and listen, and it was wonderful, and it reminded me that it was sung by Vanessa Williams, and then I had to go look her up, and now she’s my hero.

So thank you, Ms. Williams. Namaste.

 

 

*Unclear, is what it was. They needed to enunciate.

**See criteria for a crappy job, July 30.

 

A few years ago, I knew I had to change my way of thinking. I was still teaching (still am. Still, still, still) but rather than cursing my luck, I decided to start thinking about it as a video game. Each year, I would try to beat the level. I had failed so far, but it’s a game, so it’s more fun, and big deal if I have to start at the beginning of the level. It’s annoying, but I had faith that one day I would get to the end, even if I was just discovering that our princess was in another castle.

So I told my therapist Lizzie, and she thought for a second, looking dubious*. Then she said this**:

“Rather than thinking you failed, why don’t you think about it this way: You’re holding an ice cube. You have warmed up that ice cube in your hand. It’s still frozen, but it’s frozen at 29 degrees*****. It might have started at 2 degrees. So you’re much closer to melting that ice cube, even though it’s still frozen.”

I think the point was that you’re always doing the work. And that is a relief to hear.

 

 

*I know from dubious because it was Strikes the cat’s resting face.

**It’s not word perfect. Don’t @ me.***

***as the kids say.****

****and by kids, I just mean people on Twitter, I guess. Do they even say that anymore? I’m sure I’m behind. I’m old. I haven’t downloaded any new music in 2 decades, and the fact that I only listen to things I download should tell you just how old I am. I still refer to “tapes.” Tapes! I’m an audiobook narrator, for gods’ sake.

*****Fahrenheit. This is Amur’cuh, goddamn it.

This summer, I sent out so many demos and queries and submissions. And then I went back to school.

But today, I got an email from one of the publishers I submitted to! They asked for a sample.

So of course I sent them the wrong one.