Deityblog

Two weeks ago this time I was bitching, cursing, and generally being miserable. I had to pretty much make Pesach by myself. My husband's grandfather died suddenly, and he went off to Cleveland to be with his family. So I was left alone to clean, cook, and deal with oodles of family drama. Thank God, things turned out all right, and Yaakov ended up doing a lot more than I would have in his position. But still, things were pretty harrowing.

The problem is, my grandmother freaks me out. She's our family matriarch, for all the best and worst that that implies. She's sweet, sharp, and funny, but also hypercritical, vindictive, and manipulative. I love her, but I can't stand to see her hurt my mom, who is the most wonderful woman in the world. The drama of my grandmother and aunt and uncle coming in for the second seder and following shabbat was absolutely ludicrous, and not worth getting into. It's over.

And the second days more than made up for it. We went out to Casey's parents' gorgeous house in Owings Mills. Holy holy chevra, just good feeling and good times. I lained for the 3rd time ever. Second night, we made a campfire and a select few of us stayed up all night singing niggunim and showtunes and playing freeze. It was an atmosphere of no-holds-barred joy and total friendship. Most of us hadn't even met before, but there was nobody putting up a front of being "too cool," we all got into the corny, blessed moment and belted out Les Miz and many others at the top of our lungs. No egos whatsoever, just joy. I haven't had that much fun in a long, long time.

And it didn't end there, we had one more gorgeous day of yom tov, then I got to stay up all night with holy brothers Baruch and Jose showing one another fun stuff on the internet, which apparently now counts as a hobby. Jose showed us RetroJunk, and about eight hours later we finally went to bed, our heads filled with You Can't Do That on Television, Punky Brewster, Roundhouse, and many many more. If you have a day in your life you just want to devote to mindless fun and have people to bond with doing it, check out this site.

The best thing is, we get to do it all over again this Shabbat, with Jews in the Woods. I can't wait.

Enough complaining and angst and all that crap. Life is fun and good and get over yourself and stop being afraid. If "fear" is fuck everything and run, then let me resolve to fuck running, embrace everything. Please God.