4.24.2008

I'm Only Jew-ish

(thanks and apologies to whoever - whomever? - I heard on the radio for that title!)

I live in a cohousing community, which is not as much naked hippie commune as people think, and no, we don't all live in the same house. But we do have a common house, where no one lives, but there's a kitchen and useful space for gathering. And we have meals together weekly, and tonight we had a mini-passover seder. With chicken curry. (Now you see where the "ish" comes in) And with a passel of small, impatient (is there any other kind?) children eagerly wanting to drink their grape juice, we chose the 2 minute haggadah. Have you seen it? Everything you needed to know, condensed: "We were slaves in Egypt. Now we're not. That's why we do this." (more thanks and apologies to who(m)ever actually wrote it!)

I'm technically not one of the chosen people - my dad is Jewish, my mom Methodist, neither are practicing, and I grew up around Hinduism and Buddhism and a mishmosh of other stuff. But. It was always something we celebrated culturally - I was one of those lucky kids, with all the presents and none of the services. And I've always been vaguely agnostic, though I went through phases - militant atheist, wannabe wiccan, and so on. As I get older (I'm halfway through my golden year - I turned 30 on the 30th!) I'm coming to realize that basically we know nothing, and there's an awful lot of inexplicable shit that happens. So is there something out there? I don't know. It's still no excuse for killing lots of people in the name of. But it is pretty damn amazing, when it comes down to it.

All in all, we had a grand old time, and ate yummy food, and the dog got the have the shankbone (which was really a dog bone). Let's hear it for the Jews!

4.20.2008

The Morning After

I somehow feel like this is a big deal, even though it isn't really: I started a blog! Look out world, here I come! Except nobody even knows about it yet. And everyone and their dog seems to have a blog these days - for real, have you seen all the dog blogs? Nevertheless, there is a tiny frisson when I think of it. What will I write about? Will I add pictures? How often will I publish? How long will it last? Is it an auspicious time to do this? Should I have poked around in some entrails before getting started, or checked my horoscope? Will April 19 become a date to celebrate? Will I get a book deal?! (aside: I think we should revive the interrobang, don't you?)(also, we should adopt the Spanish upside-down question mark, although that would look silly in a string of questions...hmm)(and - Esperanto!) Ok, the end for now. Off to the real world. Chances are these first entries won't be that compelling, as they'll just be me being excited about this new toy. But perhaps they will be sheer genius, and we'll all go 'round shouting off the rooftops for everyone to check it out. Heh.

4.19.2008

Rejected Blog Titles

I've been coming around to the idea of having a blog for quite a while now...when I finally decided to go for it, the hardest part was figuring out what to call it. This is why I may never write a book. It's a good thing I had help naming my dog. Fittingly enough, it reminds me of the early days of the internet, of the very first time I had to come up with a user name for a bbs - and then later, learning you weren't unique, as various email programs helpfully offered suggestions like "yourname742". Eventually you didn't care what name it was, as long as it didn't already exist. You told yourself you could always change it later, but of course, you couldn't; it became who you were in certain circles. So - the list of alternate identities for this blog:

Dance Backwards
Vivo Ergo Cogito
Naked Mango
Tickle Your Catastrophe
Unbought Stuffed Dogs
A Poem About Everything
Reality Tastes Like Bread
Geographic Memory
Ceci N'est Pas un Blog
Literature and Butterflies
Absolutely Trivial
The Unexamined Life

There were more, too. Some that wandered over from other lists: Cherry Blossom (porn star/psychic/romance novelist names), Panty McSnuffles (things I call my dog), Le Singe est Disparu (things that always make me laugh), Dancing Queen (mix tapes).

But I'm sticking with Imperfect Tense. It's from a line by Nietzsche, which goes something like: "Life is a never-to-be-completed imperfect tense." Now we just get to wait and see what happens!