lyrics for Yom Kippur

"the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul.

When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant..."

-from The Future

OK, so the rest of the song might not be so appropriate for Y'K, but it's by Leonard Cohen, which I find explains alot. great, haunting song. sigh. i think it's time for LC listening again. If you want something a little less black, check out If It Be Your Will instead.

And if you can find it for an affordable price, you really should buy Book of Mercy. It's got an amazing collection of prose poems, structured like Tehillim. Very beautiful, haunting, and powerful. Like prayers

LA and NY

I suppose L.A. can be encapsulated in this conversation fragment we overheard, standing outside the Beverly Wilshire hotel.

"Oh, You can get lips like that!"

A nice N.Y. moment, on the other hand came a couple of days later, sitting outside in the Bryant Park Library (no, not the New York Public Library--the BPL consists of a few racks of books, magazines & newspapers left outside for the general masses to read), reading literature (ok, People mag), with a table of people playing chess beside me, and beside them, the cast and crew of Law & Order, filming a park scene.

L.A. was actually great, and if you go there, don't forget to check out the Getty Museum. The gardens are amazing and the buildings & view are awesome. I don't know about the paintings & sculptures, since we got there with only about 20 minutes left before closing, but I hear they're lovely as well.

My first time on the West Coast, and I feel I saw alot in the 2 days of sightseeing allotted--Universal Studios, Venice Beach, Rodeo Drive & Wilshire Blvd, UCLA drive-through, Bel Air drive through (couldn't see very much though--apparently anything worth anything is behind the very very high fences & trees).

And I even bought a pair of unnecessary shoes.

Gmar Tov to all

shana tova

Enjoy your holidays...

I'm off to sunny California :)

Conversations at work III

"Al-Qaeda wouldn't take me, so now I work for [Your Company Name Here]."

Friends, thoughts, and birthday wishes

So all my birthdays are officially over, and I had a few surprises. Some good, some not.

Well, let's go with the good first – I have wonderful friends, and sometimes I feel like I don't really deserve them.

First there was AB², who actually remembered my birthday and baked brownies for me as a surprise dessert on shabbat–topped with colored chocolate chips! Yay! How fun is that? It was completely surprising too, since I'm not best friends with her, and totally didn't mention a thing about my birthday coming up...

Then there was SR arranging an impromptu 'surprise' party, GG calling to apologize for not coming, even though she didn't even know about til 5 minutes before, cards from R, MAB & NB, TK, J&E, all totally unexpected... especially the mailed ones! Who remembers birthdays early enough to actually mail a card??

To everyone who emailed, called, IMd, commented–Thanks! you rock!

So for the most part, all was great, even though I'm an old fogey, and a spinster to boot. Though I'm getting to like the spinster part. I would get some cats to complete the picture, but i generally dislike cat hair, and I'm not particularly fond of cats either.



I've also realized that my quasi social hibernation over the past couple of years was really not good for me. And that I can't expect to keep in touch with friends if I don't call or write or otherwise speak to people if it's not shabbat. So, my project for the next year is to be more pro-active in maintaining and building friendships, since it looks like I've managed to maim at least two very good ones. So plan A for this year is to actually work at friendships, instead of taking them for granted.