Being Jewish in a Small Town
By Lyn Lifshin
Someone writes kike on
the blackboard and the
"k's" pull thru the
chalk stick in my
plump pale thighs
even after the high
school burns down the
word is written in
the ashes my under
pants elastic snaps
on Main St because
I can't go to
Pilgrim Fellowship
I'm the one Jewish girl
in town but the 4
Cohen brothers
want blond hair
blowing from their
car they don't know
my black braids
smell of almond
I wear my clothes
loose so no one
dreams who I am
will never know
Hebrew keep a
Christmas tree in
my drawer in
the dark my fingers
could be the menorah
that pulls you toward
honey in the snow
--------
Rushed post after rushed zip through my friends list. Tonight all my comments on fic and art were along the lines of *love* and *yay*! Please don't be upset; the choice was either comment while I was thinking about it or save the fic and try to remember to go back and comment later, and I figure most people would rather have the "Yay, read it!" than risk nothing at all. And I did save the longer fics, anyway.
It snowed more! I took my kids to the movies and didn't worry about parking on the upper, uncovered level, because I hadn't heard and reports of additional precipitation headed our way, and I came out and my van was covered! The roads, fortunately, were clear though wet, but the windshield wiper fluid had frozen and all the salt spray made the front window cloud up badly and I couldn't squirt to clean it and had a few scary moments on the highway when I could barely see. This is why I stay close to home when there is weather! We did see Phantom again, and both my kids seemed to enjoy it more this time, though they sometimes get restless on repeat viewings; in this case, though they had known the music for years, I think it really helped them to have a visual sense of the story. We had a long conversation when we came out about how come they felt sorry for the Phantom even though he was sort of the bad guy, and it was interesting how many details they had picked up on (including Christine's specifically erotic attraction to him -- I thought they tried to block things like that out *g*).
This evening I wrote a bunch of drabbles, trying to clear my brain from the two inconsistent directions that the "Compellation/Affirmation" sequel wants to go -- it can do one or the other but not both. "Whelping", for the beginnings challenge at
Tonight we watched the History Channel's Digging for the Truth on pyramids, but my in-laws called in the middle so we missed a great deal of it. Then we left the channel on and watched the special on Nefertiti, which was very interesting. I had intended to pop in a movie (I was in an Alan Rickman mood, surprise surprise) and fold laundry, but I didn't, so I guess the laundry will get folded to Veronica Mars. I am very proud of my scathing Enterprise review this week because it garnered six pieces of hate mail, the most I have gotten all season; I had feared that absolutely nobody was watching the show any more, if they were not bothering to write and tell me what an idiot I was for whatever I said about it! Obviously I just needed to be really scathing. But honestly, how many times can the producers do a straight riff on a classic Trek episode rather than a new spin on it?
Some squirrels to go with the gerbils from the other day. Again, for the uninitiated, these are Jack and Stephen, so named after Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin from Master and Commander etc. Speaking of whom, people in Europe who have Nikolai Tolstoy's biography of Patrick O'Brian: is it good? Is it worth my ordering from amazon.co.uk and paying overseas shipping, since it isn't out here yet? I read his Merlin novel a long, long time ago but don't remember it very well, and have never read anything biographical by him. Thanks!
While he's doing important reconaissance looking for birdseed, Jack catches Stephen snoozing in the sun.
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