!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> Jen's Dirty Thirties

matzah madness

2006-04-13 / 3:08 a.m.
everything is in transition. soon, the trees will pop with leaves like jiffy-pop. a few days ago, i was headed to work and those little purple flowers had started growing in the corn fields. from a distance it looked like someone had spray painted patches of the fields in lavender. it was pretty fucking gorgeous. the tulip trees are a bloom, the air is warmer, and i can leave the doors open to let fresh air into the house. i can't wait for the scent of the honeysuckles. may in southern indiana is pungent with the sweet perfume!

i was able to go to a training session for work about an hour and a half north of me. driving there, i reminded myself how grateful i am that i don't have to work in indy anymore. the training was at 8:30 am so of course, i was faced with the usual rush hour clusterfuck on the highway.

at the training i learned some dry stuff about juvenile legal issues that i really needed to hear, and attended another training session on supervision. i'm not a supervisor YET, but i hope to become one sooner or later. the food was good at lunch: some sort of chicken dish, vegetables-(with all my favorites asparagus, squash, broccoli, carrots, etc.)the keynote speaker was fine for the first 20 minutes, then he embarked on a masturbatory rant about all of his fucking accomplishments. i love inspirational stories like anyone else, but the litany of genius has to stop after a while, or one just sounds like a retarded braggart. the fun didn't end there, he discussed 'faith based initiatives', which to me, is code speak for "no jews, muslims, pagans, or religion that doesn't worship jesus". i found myself getting really hateful, and i removed myself when he ended his platform with a prayer by a penecostal minister. by then lunch was over, and i found a private place to bentch-(hebrew prayers after meals). i had to revisit my resentment towards religious zealots, and reminded myself i didn't want to perpetuate the intolerance that others have towards me. y'know, that whole loving your enemies sort of shit.

speaking of the spiritual, last night was the first night of passover. i attended the reform seder at the hillel center on campus, something i've never done before. i usually go to someone's house, or attend the seder at shul, but i had a conflicting date with the community seder and my friend's annual "matzah madness" party that i've been attending for the past three years. sooo, i hung out with a ton of people i didn't know, missed out on the big seder at synagogue, and look forward to my friend's matzah party tonight. the food was awful. next year i'm going to pay the extra $10 and go to the beth shalom seder, or make sure i have plans at someone else's house. sysco-(a food supply company) just can't make good passover food. the cake was fucking awful, and that's my favorite part.

for those of you not familiar with passover, jews get together and go through the exodus story with the ten plagues and kind of re-enact leaving egypt. we never leave the table, so it's not as theatrical as one would think. after a bunch of reading and some wine (grape juice for me), we eat a huge meal that is very tasty and is made of matzah. one of the best passover foods in the world is manischewitz's matzah cake. since it lacks the leavening that a normal cake has,is usually my food consumption for the week-(during the whole week jews can't have leavening, and can only eat matzah based products, hence all the shelves at the grocery store being stocked with "kosher for passover" food in the ethnic aisle). soooo, after that horrible pesach meal, i went home and consoled myself with some manischewitz cake.

since i've done my yearly revisiting of the exodus, i've thought about the itemized things in my life that i'm a slave to, and want to remove those things-(or reduce them) so i can have some peace. i know i'm hard on myself, but i'm frustrated...didn't i just go through this shit during yom kippur?

-gossiping: it's so fucking easy to fall into this one, especially at work, and that's where i engage in most of my verbal assassination.

-coveting: specifically jealousy over other people's accomplishments. for example, a couple of my writing friends have published their books, and are doing a reading tour. granted, i don't want to be jenfish superstar anymore, but i really wanted to have the money to get my book published. i'm envious of their ambition. i start to compare myself with what they've done and my soul gets really ugly.

-procrastination: there's so much i want to say about this awful habit. i'll write more about it later.

-chosing my battles: i just get so fucking angry about people and their stupid shit. i invest all of my energy in how i feel wronged, or that there is never going to be any justice in this world, and i miss out on serenity. i do this at work and with anything i perceive as 'wrong' in this world.

i just finished reading, "life expectancy" by dean koontz. he is what i refer to as a "chili dog" writer. i'm embarassed to admit i like his stuff, because i'm afraid that others will find out i dig horror books, specifically his horror books, and they will think that i'm not intelectual enough, and too lazy to read stephen king. i'm not lazy, i read king as well. in fact, i am 1/4 the way through "the stand". the truth is, chili dogs are fucking tasty, and i'm going to want one every now and then. anyway, a line from the book about "when there is no hope, there's cake...and there's always cake".

i think i'll just end on that note. thanks mrs. manischewitz.

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