Thursday, February 17, 2005

Apolitical

I am blessed to have friends without politics. From what I've gathered from the conversation of some of my more peripheral acquaintances (and yes, I admit it, the movies) high school is barely high school without backstabbing, three way phone calls and ambiguous text messaging that leave you in one sided relationships. And I won't get started on the sewage those of the opposite gender introduce into the mix! Just listening to a very smart, rational girl I know recount the epic of her various beaus made me dizzy.
My friends have no boyfriends. My friends don't have cell phones (though not for lack of trying.) We rarely even speak on the phone, except for the occasional homework query. My anti-social tendencies are a running joke between the three of us, and yet somehow they lure me out too subtly to recognize. Topics for conversation are plucked from the air around us and we fill the spaces with laughter. We can be quiet together, tired together, in pain and in horribly rotten moods together, and begrudge each other not a moment. Competition is not a factor between us, and I have never complained about one to the other. It is to them that I owe every particle of public confidence, humor and happiness I posses.
And somehow, together, the future does not scare me.

Monday, February 14, 2005

Mind Sliver

A small, strange clip of poetry that came to me just now...

Keep closed the drapes on sunny days
And eyes at sunset's lurid rays
Beware of time's confounding maze
When mirrors blind all future ways.


Odd times spawn odd inspiration, I suppose.

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Weekend Review

This past Shabbos I attended my Senior Shabbaton (weekend retreat). It was an interesting experience on many levels, most particularly because it was so refreshingly low key. I have nearly always returned from such school gatherings stained bone deep with exhaustion, but today I suffer from no such adverse afflictions. To be honest, I can't quite decide if I enjoyed the experience or not- I am most unequivocally not the sort of person who is at ease in social situations, however innocuous. Spending a night away from my own bed and bathroom is also not a prospect that makes me particularly comfortable, nor is it pleasant for anyone to suffer through a screeching headache from lunch until dinner. However, if I did not quite adore the experience, it certainly was a considerable improvement on the past formula. There was a lot more laughter and a lot less emotional discomfort than in any previous Shabbaton, and for the first time there was Taboo, which I found to be an excellent game. I did not consider not going (Senior Shabbaton, after all), but for the first time I do not regret my decision.

In other news:
~This is the last week of in-school practice for Production. My throat is in tatters and the drama is horrendous (to the extent that I feel lucky not to be in the audience), but I can't help but to feel excited. (My newfound proclivity for optimism is frightening me, by the way.)

~I've finally sent out my application to Stern, with a remarkable 48 hours to spare. Now I have only one more acceptance letter to worry about...

~Speaking of which, this Tuesday is the Red Letter day for Seminary responses. I received one letter this past week, an appreciated but disturbingly brusque form informing me I had been accepted. (It went along the lines of, "We like you. Come. Give us money," as my sister said.) I have one more Seminary letter coming. It should be interesting to see the verdict...

~Aurthur Miller, a great American playwright, has passed away. This is a sad and strange occasion for me, as to my knowledge he is the first author whom I have read who has passed away during my conscious years. I wonder if my English teacher will bring it up tomorrow. Somehow, Mr. Miller always seemed immortal.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

No Business Like Show Business

Every year for the month of February, my high school plunges into an eclectic morass of paint, harmony, vinyl silk and takeout tins. Franticly photocopied practice schedules paper the walls. Teachers stalk the halls with frozen smiles, envisioning the masses of "excuse" notes and guilty grins that await in their classrooms. A stroll up the stairs will result in several near collisions (from above or below) with hoarse, wild haired girls clutching scraps of cloth or sheet music. The very air hums with the potent afterfumes of sweat, coffee and tempera.

Ah yes. Production is coming.

Production is our yearly (or bi-yearly, depending on the rank of the opinionater) play. It usually consists of a tame drama drawn from quasi-recent Jewish history interspersed with choirs, dances, ensembles and the occasional 'stomp.' Practice begins in mid November, stalls over finals and resumes with death-defying ferocity in February. This year, as in every previous year, I am in choir (although this year I am in two instead of the meek and provincial option of one). Thanks to my especial zeal to participate in my senior year I am now required by all but martial law to attend practice sessions from five to eight o'clock at night. It is extremely difficult to concoct the proper metaphor to express the experience of standing in my painfully vain leather shoes and trying to sing a decent soprano with fifteen other talented but increasingly exhausted and temperamental girls for three hours. Suffice it to say that after my first attempt at such an obscene marathon last night, I swore a solemn oath never to undertake anything of the sort ever again. Thankfully, I was able to negotiate a two hour stay tonight and tomorrow with another full shift only on Thursday. As it is, I am quite flabbergasted at the volume of homework I seem to be already sitting atop of. (In truth I suppose it isn't all that much, but it's still difficult to get done after such a day!)

Well, I did sign up for this. By March (ah, March!) it will all be over. More on Production to come yet, I'm fairly certain.


On an entirely separate note, a sincere and heartfelt thank you to everyone who reads and responds to my blog. Your comments mean more to me than you can know.

Sunday, February 06, 2005

Pessimists Anonymous

Because Spring Semester officially begins tomorrow (at 8:15 AM sharp, of course), and because tomorrow is Monday (the unassailably worst day of the week behind Sunday) I have decided to count my blessings and write a list of things a person more optimistic than I would deem 'fortunate', 'happy' and other such depressingly positive adjectives.

1. There are twenty-two days left of February, in my mind the last official month of dear father Winter.

2. Not only do I have a book club meeting next Motzei Shabbos, but I have actually finished the book with more than forty eight hours to spare.

3. Because I have finished the book ('The Plot Against America', by Philip Roth) I can finally luxuriate in 'Harry Potter and the Order of the phoenix' again.

4. Speaking of which, 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' is being released in a mere 159 days.

5. My sister has finished the series she was reading ('Finovair Tapestry', by Guy Gavriel Kay) so after 'The Plot Against America' she can read 'Deadhouse Gates', by Steven Erickson, a book that I have been all but chemically manipulating her towards ever since I finished it.

6. My friend Goldie passed her road test. That's bound to come in handy.

7. The Superbowl is today, which means that football season is over and baseball season is beginning.

And I've reached the limit of my optimism for the moment. A successful exercise, though- seven thoughts for seven days can theoretically equate a full cup, I think.

Thursday, February 03, 2005

The Mitzvah and the Mayhem

Sunday morning. A blindingly bright, frigid day, the kind that always evokes the particles pair of sunglasses and down parkas. My mother and I had just run an errand and were returning to the car with the resigned, shivering stroll that winter so deftly breeds, when we were approached by an elderly woman. She was the sort of lady whom you try to avoid in public, deterred by a concoction of intimidation, pity and awe, the woman you kiss at family greetings and pray never to become. She wore a black felt coat with a colorful kerchief draped over her dull, thin hair and tied beneath her chin. Her body was like a fragile cane, the shoulders hunched and rounded, the head pitched forward in an intrinsic gesture of concentration. She was crying, whimpering in helpless terror.
She came up to us like this, a beacon of need almost painful in its stark clarity. Her desperate eyes passed over me and swung to my mother. Did we know where she was? Did we know where the stores were? The stores, the stores, she was on the bus and she went to far and she got confused and the bus driver didn't tell her where they were and oh, where was she, so confused...
Gently, my mother took her by the arm. Where did she want to go? The beauty parlor, it turned out. Which beauty parlor? She wasn't sure, the one near the synagogue- it was on this side of the street, where all the stores were. Of course, the synagogue, said my mother, she knows where that is. Our car is right over here, why don't we drive her down and we can find where she wants to go? It isn't any trouble, no trouble at all. A simple thing, and we help this lady into our car. Silently, I scurry into the front passenger seat, awed by the tumult ensconced in a body so frighteningly small.
As my mother pulled away from the curb, she delicately brushed aside all protestations of gratitude and asked the woman about herself. Her husband died a few months ago, she has a daughter in Florida and a daughter upstate, and grandchildren. She was so terribly grateful, she hoped she could reciprocate in some way. My mother steered the car, gentle and steady as cursive, down the sunny, snow bleached streets until familiarity dawned on the woman. As she helped her down from the car, she told my mother her name was Dorothy, and could she perhaps buy us coffee, or anything? No, my mother told her with a smile. She was glad to have been able to help. And Dorothy went to get her nails done.