#beshert meant to be

[splendiforouslife]

Pure Authentic Enthusiasm

I saw pure, authentic enthusiasm from caring middle schoolers today… They could so easily understand (better than most adults) how they could have an impact on a peer’s life by spending their time intentionally creating, both through words and crochet, a gesture of kindness with Med Snugglers. When I spoke about my background in mental health administration and that I helped the helpers…

[mariacallous]

Three single Jewish men sat next to each other onstage. One nursed a mostly-empty beer and scratched his graying stubble while another readjusted his kippah. To their right, separated by a blue divider, the bachelorette — wearing hot pink pants and sorting through a stack of cue cards — sat on her own.

Those in the audience at Caveat, a venue on the Lower East Side, knew what the contestants looked like, of course, but the bachelorette on stage did not. Nor did she know the men’s occupations or their names — nothing that could create any preconceptions. All they knew were each other’s voices, and their shame-free answers to some of life’s most personal questions.

From the men’s responses to probing questions — including “What Jewish icon was your role model growing up?” and “How many times have you been in love?” — the bachelorette would pick one man to have a dinner date with at a local Jewish restaurant. 

Welcome to The Jewish Dating Game, a monthly live show that’s inspired by the long-running 1960s game show “The Dating Game.” This live, Jewish version of the game was launched in July by actor and writer Linnea Sage. Sage’s goal is to help contestants — and audience members — find their beshert, or soul mate. 

What sets The Jewish Dating Game apart from a non-Jewish one? “I don’t think it would be as funny,” Sage told the New York Jewish Week. “At the end of the day, Jews have something special. We’ve got some pizzazz, you know, that I think is just endearing and entertaining to watch regardless.”  

At Caveat on a Monday evening last month, the night’s bachelorette, Dina Plotch, excitedly dove into her questions, which had been written by Sage. “Ooh, this [question] is super important —  do or die,” she said after flipping to the cue card of her liking. The audience of approximately 75 “Jews and allies,” as the event’s description reads, waited with bated breath. 

She leaned into her microphone: “Did we free Britney [Spears] too soon?” 

“I don’t totally know what you mean,” Contestant 1 responded, with unabashed honesty that earned the room’s loud applause. Contestant 3 chimed in, saying he’d seen the documentary about Spears’ conservatorship and that “it seemed like we did it at the right time.” 

Finally, Contestant 2 brought it all home: “To be honest with you, I go with bachelor number one’s answer. Because whatever is meant to be is meant to be, and you know what? God has a plan, and when she’s meant to be free, she’s meant to be free.” The audience went wild.

The idea for the Jewish Dating Game came to Sage while she was stuck in a creative rut this past spring. She and her husband, Paul Skye Lehrman, who co-produces the show, are both voice actors — and in May, the couple sued an A.I. company that cloned both of their voices without their permission. 

“I had this huge reckoning with like, ‘What am I doing now for the rest of my life?’” Sage said. “Because the industry is changing so drastically.” Hosting The Jewish Dating Game, she added, has allowed her to tap into her background in theater and improv comedy.

Sage said she was also inspired by a growing need for involvement in the city’s Jewish community after Oct. 7. “I so quickly felt like I needed to be around my people as often as possible, and in as loving ways as possible,” she said. 

She was already attending Jewish events organized by friends. “But I didn’t really think that that was going to be any part of my career,” Sage said. “I thought I was just sort of an attender.” 

At large Shabbats organized by SHIUR — a group that aims to take “the ancient Jewish practice of text based discourse integrated with space, ritual, and practice to the world of art, diplomacy, culture and more” — she’d befriend other women who, as soon as they learned Sage was married, would ask to be set up with someone. “I would literally spend the rest of the evening shuffling nice Jewish boys in front of these women,” she said. “And like a live Tinder swipe, they’re just like, ‘Left, left, no, forget it.’ And I’m like, ‘Can we give these people a chance?’ Like, so much of attraction is based on getting to know somebody.” 

Her Shabbat matchmaking attempts helped inspire The Jewish Dating Game — specifically, its focus on values and personalities rather than looks. But her “a-ha moment” happened when she literally woke up in the middle of the night with the idea. Sage, as she normally does when she dreams up an idea, went back to sleep. “If I wake up in the morning and I still remember it, then it was worth remembering,” she said.

Sage woke up still thinking about the idea — and she hasn’t stopped since. “I feel like the people on ‘Shark Tank,’ who are like, ‘This is my baby and this is all I do now,’” she said. “I literally don’t stop thinking about it.”

In July, Sage put on the first edition of The Jewish Dating Game, inspired by the matchmaking show that in 1978 infamously featured a contestant who later pleaded guilty to seven counts of murder. Said Sage, “I try to screen my contestants enough that I know they’re not serial killers.”

Other than refraining from murder, singles interested in a spot onstage must complete a submission form that asks for information like their line of work, level of religious observance and what they’re looking for in a partner. Then, after completing social media background checks and getting a feel for the candidates’ personalities, Sage uses her “yenta magic” to concoct a lineup with compatible pairings.

Plotch, the November bachelorette and full-time social worker who also acts, said she was excited to be featured. “I love being onstage and I date Jewish boys, so like, why not?” she said. 

Plotch said the answer to the Britney Spears question is what clinched her decision. “Obviously, as a lady of a certain age, [I] grew up with Britney as the be-all and end-all,” she said, adding that she took notice that one of the bachelors was not only aware of Spears, but had even seen her documentary. “I felt that that was a sign that this was my beshert — or at least beshert for the evening.” 

Earlier that night, the audience had been treated to a fun surprise. During Round 1 of the game, which featured a bachelor interviewing three bachelorettes, one of the contestants was Harmonie Krieger, a star of the Netflix series “Jewish Matchmaking.” Krieger, who’s since become a dating coach for the Lox Club, a Jewish dating app, said she had an “amazing” night — though she wasn’t kidding herself about her connection with the bachelor. 

“Listen, from the beginning, I knew that guy wasn’t my type,” she said in an interview after the show. “He said, ‘I’m not really an island [vacation] person,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh no. This is not gonna work.’”

While not ultimately a winning contestant, Krieger expressed the importance of an event that facilitated Jewish matchmaking in a time of rising antisemitism. “I’m Reform, I never grew up like I had to marry Jewish,” she said. But since Oct. 7, her view on the matter has shifted. “And now I feel such an inclination to, almost like, do my duty and carry it on.”

Beyond the matchmaking, Sage said her goal for the show is to provide “a night of Jewish joy” for all involved. Lehrman, Sage’s husband, said he’s seen that vision come to life. 

“It’s not the easiest time to be publicly Jewish,” Lehrman said. “And the foundational thing for this show is there’s always a moment in the evening where I look up and see the audience, and there’s this feeling where people have allowed their guard to go down.”

Following two rounds of matchmaking, the house lights came on and audience members roamed the theater to mingle. People lined up to introduce themselves to contestants as if they were newly anointed celebrities. The room was abuzz with not only singles looking for a date, but also couples who were just there to enjoy the show. 

Zach, 38, who attended with his wife, said he felt like “automatically, everyone’s already a friend you could talk to” because of their shared experiences: “We all had the same critical mother, we all had the same pressure to find a Jewish spouse — it’s like a fun way to kind of share that.” 

He added, “I don’t even talk to the person in the elevator who [lives] on my hall of like, four people. No way. But, you know, you bring a bunch of young Jews together with some libations, and everyone’s having a good time.”

The next Jewish Dating Game is Monday, Dec. 23 at Caveat (21A Clinton St.). Get tickets and info here.

[babbushka]

In The Becoming

Mob!Kylo Ren x Reader

1.5k ; cw: Mild angst (metaphoric discussion of depression and past trauma), introspection/existentialism, Jewish theology, Kylo just loves his wife so much

Available on AO3

                                                     -------------------

If it be your will, that I speak no more

And my voice be still, as it was before

I will speak no more, I shall abide until

I am spoken for, if it be your will...

 Kylo has never been a religious man. Yes, he goes to synagogue, and yes he celebrates the holidays. Yes he keeps Kosher and he knows the mother tongue, yes he wears his chai proudly around his neck. But he’s not so sure he believes, really believes. Too much of a skeptic, he always has been, even his mother says so. He doesn’t know if anything is out there, condemning or judging him. He’s never been concerned with condemnation, Kylo thinks.

Well, perhaps that’s not entirely true, he muses as your palm smooths up against his, and your fingers twine together. He steals a glance at you, just a peek at you from the corner of his eye. He hopes to see you stealing one at him too, but you are staring straight ahead listening to his uncle, Rabbi Luke, give the shabbat service on this Friday night. It is the second night of Hanukkah, and Luke always gets excited about adding in the special verses and prayers.

Kylo speaks them when he’s meant to, but he finds that when he does, it is not an all-knowing all-powerful God to whom he prays.

It’s to you.

If it be your will, that a voice be true

From this broken hill, I will sing to you

From this broken hill

All your praises they shall ring

If it be your will, to let me sing...

 For as long as Kylo can remember, you have occupied the holy space in his mind. If he has a soul, you are the one whose fingers are clutched around it. And how kind are you, that with this power you hold all you want to do is love him? He has loved you for as long as he has known you.

Kylo would do anything – anything to protect you, to keep you happy, keep you safe. He knows no other person who deserves the magnitude of his strength; and if he did, he would strike them down so you can remain on the pedestal that you have rightfully carved for yourself out of his ribs.

Beshert, Uncle Luke had called it. Two halves of a whole, cut from unique unseen scissors, fitting only with their missing partner. Kylo had never been more divinely inspired, than by learning of this ideology during one of Luke’s school sessions. They had tried to encourage him to become a Rabbi in his own right, follow in his uncle’s footsteps and keep him out of the crime which his family was infamous for. Poor Luke had to deal with him for an entire summer, taking Kylo under his wing and teaching him all he knew.

It hadn’t gone well.

Sitting there in synagogue with your hand in his, Kylo remembers the hours of studying and of discussion, asking all the right questions but not being satisfied with any of the answers:

“Maybe that is the point,” Luke had offered one summer afternoon, when Kylo wished he were enjoying lunch with you instead of being lectured by his uncle, “Maybe we’re never supposed to be satisfied. Maybe we’re supposed to spend our time questioning, learning, and working towards answers that may or may not come.”

“How long have we spent questioning, Uncle Luke?” Kylo had grumbled, thirteen and angry, so filled with rage that he has no outlet for expressing. “How many thousands of years? You’d think we could agree on an answer for something.”

He has nothing but his books, and they are so very vague.

“Ah, but the beauty of it all is in the becoming.” Uncle Luke had said, and that’s something that has stuck with Kylo for his entire life.

In the present, Kylo frowns at the memory. You give him a squeeze of your hand, before pulling it away to gently pet through the baby’s soft hair as she fusses in your arms. He leans over and taps her on her little shoulder, and she gives you the exact same look that you always give him when you think he’s about to do something very silly.

The similarity stuns him for a moment, and he just presses the smallest little kiss to the top of her head, and she lets out a happy sound, before snuggling back against your neck.

He doesn’t blame her, that’s where he would spend all his time too, if he could.

 From this broken hill

All your praises they shall ring

If it be your will, to let me sing...

 For too much of Kylo’s life, he has felt like he was drowning, a raging storm out in the open oceans. Leia and Han giving up on him at such a young age had done it, he’s sure. Allowing Snoke to come into his life and ensnare him with promises of power and control – control he desperately sought – had been a nail in a coffin. The gash in his face at the hands of his dearly departed sister reminds him that it didn’t have to be that way – but it had, hadn’t it?

He was drowning, gasping and spluttering on life, limbs sore and aching in his bones. He killed and maimed and brutally beat those who Snoke had commanded, and he had done so without any thought, hoping hoping hoping that perhaps now he would feel something, perhaps now he would be free.

Kylo should have known you were the one who would free him, he should have known from the minute he had asked you to dance at your bat mitzvah, two pre-teens awkwardly stepping on one another’s toes and shyly laughing about it all the while. He should have known then, when you didn’t even tease him for the way his ears stuck out from under his yarmulke.

When you killed Snoke, the night of Han’s murder, the night Kylo thought his life was over, he knew then. He had been drowning in the ocean of humanity, but when you rescued him from the gutter and kissed him for the very first time, he happily swallowed the salted water of your adoration until his lungs were full of it – and for the first time in his life, instead of fighting the tides, he became them.

 If it be your will, if there is a choice

Let the rivers fill, let the hills rejoice

Let your mercy spill

On all these burning hearts in Hell

If it be your will, to make us well...

 When he sees the little bundle of joy in her pretty white dress, her eyes big and wide and eager to take it all in – the lights and the glass windows of the temple, the music and sounds and prayers and the candles on the menorah that burns proudly. A million possibilities for life in this one small infant, so many opportunities.

And you, his wife whom he would do anything for – what a miracle that you are his, and he is yours, here together in this temple alive and well, after the lives you have lived. How far you both have come from those first meetings, those shy attempts at conversation. How far you have both come from the anger and pain and violence and rage – to be sitting here, in synagogue, on Hanukkah together.

He is overcome with emotion then, blinks back tears as his jaw clenches to try and keep composure. Luke is looking at him, speaking words that Kylo doesn’t pay attention to, because all he can think about, all he can pay attention to in this moment is you. Kylo would have walked into the flames of hell for you, had you asked. Even as a teenager, he sought ways to force the universe’s hand to grant your wishes.

Sometimes you look at Kylo and wonder what goes on inside his head, when he is so quiet the way that he sometimes is. He doesn’t have the words to voice the depth and ferocity of his love for you, and he doesn’t know if he ever will. He is overwhelmed sometimes, with the truth of it all – you love him too. You voice it in different ways, but you are vocal just the same. It reminds him of the Torah, of how the text is there but the interpretation is ever-changing.

The service is over, and you move to stand. Like the current to the moon, he stands with you, moves with you, a hand on the small of your back. Kylo’s heart pounds as the little face peeks over your shoulder at him, and when he smiles, she smiles too.

She has your smile.

He knows what Luke meant, now.

The beauty is in the becoming.

 And draw us near and bind us tight

All your children here, in their rags of light

In our rags of light, all dressed to kill

And end this night, if it be your will

If it be your will.

[spideystark-2021archive]

|| DRABBLE ||

tied to mine and @unpaidpiper ’s long ass thread o-o

Well Peter was shifting things around on the Stark Industries 3D holo work table he had in a corner of Shuri’s lab encase of a visit where he needed to do work he got a thought, figuring he could use a break anyway he pulled all the things he was looking at down onto the flat table top looking space. He walked over to the small desk maybe 8 feet away and pulled up the holo screen on his watch to do a quick search, he wasn’t exactly sure how to spell the word that Nettie had said during the conversation they’d had in that kitchen but apparently it was pretty much how it sounded.

He read over the meaning of the word quickly enough, but he didn’t move afterwards. Instead he continued to stare at the screen for at least a minutes before Shuri poked him on his cheek.

“Spider boy! I was trying to ask if you would like food.” Peter didn’t answer her, instead standing up and pacing from his chair to the 3D holo table he’d been using and back. "What is happening?” Her question was directed at Karen who had walked up next to her and just shrugged as she watched Peter pace.

He was making a second lap back towards the table as he said. “He said his Mom would have called us ‘Beshert’.” He stopped and turned back towards Shuri and Karen as he said that, he could already see Karen raising her hand up in a sure sign that she was about to do a search on a screen that only she could see. “It means soulmate!? Well apparently the literal translation is destiny but-still-he-”

Karen and Shuri just looked at each other for a second not exactly sure how to reply to that, after a second though Karen walked over and put her hands on his arms in an attempt to calm him down. “Peter, take a breath before you trigger your tremors.” She waited a few second for him to do that before saying. “Good, now. What are you talking about?”

Peter took a step back from her and reached up to run a hand through his hair, wishing he had asked instead of assuming that what Nettie had said next was the entirety of the explanation. It was similar to what he said but soulmate was. “We were talking in the smaller kitchen that I usually go find breakfast in and at one point he said his Mom would have called us Beshret and didn’t know what that meant, but then he said that ‘we work like we were meant to’ and I thought that was it but it means soulmate in most contexts and-What do I do with that!?”

Shuri said something that Peter didn’t understand in Xhosa with a roll of her eyes before saying “Talk to him. Boys, I swear.” She walked away, presumable to go get food like she had been planning on.

[snickerdoodlecocoa]

Day 20

what do you do when you dream about the past? the past that you tucked into a box and happily placed on a shelf? the past you've made your peace with, the past that is truly in the past?

if you're me, you wake up and stare at the ceiling, reviewing as much of the dream as possible. every detail, every smile, every single little thing. because for however long that dream lasted, i was happy. i think i ought to tell you what the dream was about at this point.

for context, i dated a guy for about 8 months between freshman and sophomore year of high school. this kid had been crushing on me since we were younger and in 9th grade, i finally returned his feelings. i always cared about him as a friend but one day it became more than that- and i was okay and a little thrilled about it. we never got to have an anniversary (though i don't even know when it would be). dates were, lovely, but awkward. we were 14 years old, dropped off by a parent (public transportation wasn't an option), and mostly communicated over text. as much as we liked each other, we didn't know how to actually be with each other. i can probably count on my fingers how many dates we actually went on. eventually, by the summer, things were slowing down, drifting apart, and in october, i got dumped over text. imagine one of those "i'm just not feeling it anymore, but let's still be friends!" sort of messages which actually just means we'll never talk or see each other again.

i don't think i could say that i was heartbroken. i missed having someone who cared about me, but it didn't ultimately change the way i lived life. we went to different schools and he always texted me as soon as he was out (30 minutes before my school day ended).

every once in a while, my mom (who is still great friends will his mom) says that i should reach out to him, that we should become friends again. she thinks we're each other's beshert- soulmates, meant to be. and i'll be honest, if he showed up at my door and said that i'd never have to worry about finding love, there's a 30% chance i'd say yes. but i can't be the first one the reach out, not without reason. i've been thinking of reaching out on his birthday, just for maturity's sake.

so, the tl;dr is this: dated a guy in early high school, broke up, mom still wants me to get back together with him. now, onto the dream.

i don't remember how it started, but i know that i was home and all of a sudden, he showed up. what he actually looked like was a little blurry, but that's probably cause i haven't seen a recent picture of him in a while. we were vibing on the mudroom bench when he stood up and told me the following: "when we were together, i didn't just like you- i loved you." and i'm pretty sure i kissed him after that. i then told him about the acapella guy i hooked up with during sophomore year of college cause honesty, ya know? after that, i don't really remember much. but seriously, what the hell with the "i loved you" bit? if our dreams only show us stuff that we've already seen, where did that come from? we never got to the "i love you" stage.

i have a theory, that if we had gone to the same high school, we would have been high school sweethearts that would eventually get married. the two of us worked really well together, until we didn't. i think what terrifies me the most about reaching back out is all of it. regressing to the past, to sending "hey ❤️❤️❤️" every day at 5pm. but i think what scares me the most is that i know something about how i love now that i didn't know then.

i feel loved when i have someone's attention. when someone thinks of me, texts constantly, that sort of thing. it's not a healthy way to feel love, cause everyone's love language is different, but it's what killed me last time. i don't know what my love language is- it sometimes feels like all of them, and sometimes feels like only one. the one i dreamt about made me feel loved, every single day. i haven't felt that in years.

i've been writing for 30 minutes now, and it doesn't feel any better than it did when i started. maybe i'll dream of him again, maybe i'll never see him again. whichever it is, i'll find peace with it.

[masterofmagnetism]

♡ — How would your muse define love? Do they believe in soulmates? Do they believe this definition of love is achievable?

Erik is quiet for a long few moments, finds something to distract his hands with as he considers his answer.  

“When you love someone, they change your world.  When you think back to your life before you met them, it seems less complete for it, black and white versus technicolor.  They add brightness to your world, and you want nothing more than to stay close to that light and keep it burning, keep them safe.  Their happiness makes you happy with them, their sadness makes you sad with them, their anger makes you want to burn through whatever upset them.  You want to do whatever you can, everything you can, to bring a smile to their face or a laugh to their lips.  When you love someone, there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for them.  You want them healthy and happy and safe, even if it comes at your expense.  No matter the expense.  You think of wanting to tell them when something exciting happens, you think of wanting to lean on them when something tragic happens.  You see bits of them in the little things that make you smile.  You want to be your best self for them, and make the world its best self.  And g-d, it feels like losing a piece of yourself when they go away.  

“As for soulmates--we have a concept, in Judaism, called beshert along those lines.  Divine providence.  They say your other half is chosen before you’re even born, and that it’s not a union but a reunion of two souls.  But there’s some flexibility--we’re people, after all.  We have free will.  You could end up with the person chosen for you for your entire life, or you can choose to fit your soul with someone else’s.  And if you break apart from your beshert, that doesn’t mean you won’t find another.  I thought for a long time that my wife was mine.  I thought Charles might be, too.  I don’t believe that there’s some cosmic rule that says that you’re going to end up with a particular person, and the people who think that are probably going to not put in the work they need to keep a relationship alive because it’s ‘meant to be.’  We have agency, and where there’s agency, there’s responsibility.  I think there are certain people whose souls mesh better with yours than others, but you both have to be willing to work for that connection to stick.  We grow as people, and you need to be willing to work to smooth down the rough edges and bubbles that happen as you’re growing together.  Divine providence doesn’t mean letting life just happen to you.  It means taking the opportunities you’re given and working to make something of them.”  

[[AN: So a couple things to unpack here: first off, Erik’s idea of love isn’t necessarily a healthy one.  He lost his entire family to the Nazis, and he married Magda while he was still a teenager after they escaped.  He didn’t have much time to see any positive relationship modeling before-hand, and when he was with Magda, they pretty much only had each other the entire them they were married.  This is where some of Erik’s less healthy ideas about love start cementing--his fierce, almost possessive protectiveness of the people he cares about comes from decades of constantly looking over their shoulders and being responsible for taking care of someone else when he never even got the chance to take care of himself.  A lot of Erik’s ideas about love are based on self-sacrifice, and he made a lot of sacrifices to keep them afloat and to keep her safe.  The one time he dropped his guard, he lost the family he’d spent so much time protecting.  

Because of this, Erik also doesn’t really grasp the concept of letting go.  He doesn’t understand how you could just step aside and let go of someone you love instead of fighting for them.  With Charles, he would never have left the Institute if he hadn’t taken their conversation on the beach as Charles telling him to; he wasn’t going to force himself somewhere he wasn’t wanted.  And as soon as he felt like he had some sort of door to get through to him, Erik started paying Charles visits, texting him, calling him, trying to rebuild a relationship he never actually let go of, up until this latest thing with Big Bird. 

That is also gonna be one of the obstacles with their reconciliation--Erik feels like if you won’t fight for something, then you must not have really loved it in the first place.  He’s honestly very confused and more than a little bit hurt, though he’d been doing his best to tamp that part down in the interests of trying to build bridges himself, that Charles doesn’t appear to have been trying to do the same.]]

[bisluthq]

One day you said you wanted Jack to be cut for your fantasy, what was that fantasy? 👀 because I feel like you just dropped that and didn’t elaborate

I can’t deal with uncut dicks in my fantasy. I’ve seen one irl and it freaked me out and I like did a half assed handjob and fell asleep and then felt super annoyed when he didn’t call me back the next day because then I decided we were meant to be. And my now ex bestie was like “dude you didn’t even like him like you fucked him last night because you were bored” and I was like “NO WE ARE BESHERT” and we were not.

But genuinely I can’t deal with uncut dicks like too much is happening and I don’t want to be involved.

Not judging and also it’s more ethical to not circumcise your sons and all that but idk idk.

[spideystark-2021archive]

"You'd have to get a new wardrobe to fit the hipster aesthetic, maybe start riding a bike everywhere." He couldn't help laughing at the mental image of Nettie dressed as a hipster wheeling a bike behind the counter of a record shop. Peter took the mug when he held it out to him, talking a sip maybe to soon when he asked what it was he wanted to talk about. He wasn't exactly worried though, he was sure his tongue would be fine within an hour if that.

"Just uh..." He was wishing now he'd thought more about what he was going to say on the way here. "Well first I didn't...when you mentioned beshert when we were talking that one time I didn't know then what it meant and I do now but I don't know that it means what I...hope it does."

He was fidgeting with his mug as he talked, stunning the handle from one hand to the other and back again. "I've tried talking to you about it a few times and you've always seemed to think I wasn't serious or joking."

spideystark​:

Peter could understand that, if they were worried for their kids safety it probably wouldn’t be as simple as claiming an emergency took him out of town or some other excuse. But still-he hoped that Nettie was able to get his slots filled again soon, and he was glad that he’d paid ahead so far when he helped him the month he was short.

“Well you can probably find something that’ll pay more then, maybe there’s a music store looking for someone.” He trailed a bit behind Nettie as he went to get the apple cider, he knew he didn’t like asking for help but he hoped that if he needed it he would. “Well I wanted to talk to you about something, I was going to wait until everything was done being wrapped up with what happened but I was talking to-it doesn’t really matter who but they pointed out that I’ve been putting off talking to you about it for…awhile.”

“Ugh, I can be a hipster guy in a record store.” Nettie smiled wickedly at Peter as he reached to take the cider out of the microwave. He gave it a stir, and put it back in for another thirty seconds to take care of the cold pockets. “Imagine me behind the desk and pretending to be super cool.”

He pulled it back out as it beeped and handed it over to Peter. He assumed his friend would be smart enough to “blow” and know “its hot.” so he didn’t say so. “Sure. What did you want to talk about?”

[sarahbethlibrarian]

Y’all I am so upset about the Dirty Dancing remake that I can’t even see straight. 

Do you know what dirty dancing means to nerdy jewish girls? Oh my GOD it is our EVERYTHING. Like, it is honestly a top five most meaningful movie IN MY LIFE. I can sing every word to the Kellerman’s theme song. Baby in her cutoffs and tank top and keds is a pivotal style moment to me. When Patrick Swayze died, I cried the entire day and had a first date that night and knew we weren’t meant to be when he didn’t understand why I was upset (also our date was at Uncommon Ground, a RESTAURANT, at 7pm, and he didn’t want to eat dinner. it was clearly not beshert,  A WORD BABY WOULD KNOW BC SHE IS MOT.)

It is a perfect movie for a perfect generation and THIS NEW ONE IS AWFUL AND WHY DO WE NEED IT

WHY

WHY

WHY

WHY 

I hate it

Will I watch? OF COURSE.

And I WILL STILL HATE IT.

[dahnuhem104]

It's our 13/14 ~

My Hubs & I are celebrating our 13 years married/14 years together today. We typically go away but this year it's home-improvement projects. We're squirreling away funds & hoarding every dime to pay for it all outright. May not be very romantic but when you're with the right person you make your own kind of romance. We met 14 years ago on a Jewish dating site. He was still in the Navy & overseas. We e-mailed for months before we even met in person. Once we did, we knew. It was beshert - meant to be. He's been the partner I knew was out there. I'm a lucky woman.

[miss-butter]

Things I Thought That Were Not COVID (January - June) Ending

~having journaling sessions so intense I get a headache 

~ the RHONY cast casually drinking martinis plural at bars like it's a chill thing to do and they're not immediately going to black out?? Damn. 

~ e v e r m o r e 

 ~ the intensely stressful harmonica opening of All I Really Want while Alanis wails "do I stress you out" over the top of it 

~ today I feel like an eye that opened very very wide. What I saw was a door, opening 

~ through the fog I thought the city was the sky 

~ I carry all of this inside of me. It makes me very still 

~ "I am slow as the world. 

I am very patient, 

Turning through my time, the suns and stars 

Regarding me with attention. 

The moon's concern is more personal: 

She passes and repasses, luminous as a nurse. 

Is she sorry for what will happen? I do not think so. 

She is simply astonished at fertility." 

~ people with no self awareness/people with no sense of humor about themselves truly need to go live on a farm away from me 

~ the piano player that lives below me, the guitar player that lives above me 

~ "the sun whose rays are all ablaze" 

~ Room Memory I: the PERFECT sensation. Wearing my coat with a bagful of plastic spoons in my hands, leaping into krts car that smelled like dogs and cigs and is a smell that makes me feel so warm. Going over the bridge into Minneapolis chatting with them while the radio played (krts parents would play the radio, old and new, it was a thing I have never ever stopped appreciating). The times we'd get snacks at the theatre, dreaming of the day we'd be old enough to look upstairs (we haven't yet). The dark room, the laughter in the shadows and the feeling of fulfillment and validation. How their parents were there to collect us after and I got to see them on the Monday after that night. 

~ Room Memory II: me and emma and bast going to see it in the winter of a year I can't remember. Driving across the Minneapolis bridge in a snow storm, slow but with intention. We arrived early, and saw a cat on it's way home before taking shelter in a late night kowalskis. They had never seen it before, and I think my friend Eric was there but that might have been another time. Laughter, darkness. Emma drove home in the blizzard, tracking over deep, deep, inches of snow in the dark over the bridge and home. When we got back my parents were asleep, and I remember us piling our feet over the vent to catch the heat in my living room. Oh, babes. 

~ why do people ask where the love you had for a person goes when that person is no longer with you?? As though feelings are so easily generated that you can just release a life that you led and say "that goes there now, away". I think I'm STILL feeling everything I've ever felt in my life, nothing can truly ever go away. Also, the idea that because a person is no longer beside you that that somehow influences how you feel and what you feel and when you feel it! Can't relate. 

~ That Scene in Frances Ha where they fight in the bathroom and: 

Sophie: You're bullshit, and you're making me feel really bad right now. 

Frances: I want to love him if you love him, but you don't love him. 

Sophie:  I DO. 

Frances: Sophie, I fucking held your head while you cried, I bought special milk for you, I know where you hide your pills, don't treat me like a three hour brunch friend. 

Sophie: I'm not talking to you while you're like this. 

~ I never would have known, but there are pieces of me only Paul and Fred can reach. I want to go back to my Little Self, the first time I saw Fred, probably hungover, wiping sleep out of his eyes in that chair in Brownville, and whisper: "that's your brother. That's your real brother." She might burst into tears and never stop weeping with joy. That she had a brother who was a good man. A man of character. 

~ I got fired, and two days later I allowed myself to get packed into a truck and taken to a lake. On the way there I stopped at the first restaurant I'd been to since march, and I was so scared I slurped down three vodka sodas with a burger. When I arrived it felt like a miracle, like paradise. I remember everyone went to the beach in the twilight but I stayed, and sat on the patio and smoked a stolen cig, and listened to The Beautiful Ones 5 times thinking of how badly I'd like to be a nun because I couldn't stand the thought of other people. Somehow the moment still makes me feel so. Just So. Hearing it now is like seeing a ghost. 

~ do all people feel this way? Oscillating between airy fulfillment and vanilla scented oblivion? When I think about death I think of little sideways smiles, heavy lids, radiator squeaks, That Tree I still see in my memories. Somedays I feel like I'm full of Cool Whip, otherwise gelatinous, heavy, falling apart like an aspic. 

~I still refuse to be sorry that I find some of the things lena dunham does and says to be funny, suck my hood 

~ I constantly see tweets and stories that go something like "I told my 4 year old ____ and then they *insert action or phrase no 4 year old would ever do or say*. Yes, brilliant child. Yes." Like....the compulsive need to make shit up about your child in order to appeal to strangers on the internet is a form of Munchausen by proxy we as a society would do well to reckon with. It wasn't ok when those lesbians with the adopted kids made their son hug that cop, it's not cool for your "cute" tweet, babe. 

~ people who refer to their pets as "fur babies" have either tried to or successfully gotten their pets to eat them out. You can't change my mind. 

~ the stars in Death Valley 

~ next year in Nebraska 

 ~ it's beshert. No matter what you choose, no matter where it goes, the act of looking and of learning was beshert. This moment was meant to be. 

~ it's going to be such a bummer when my tits start to go off to the side when I lay down. How can we endure it? 

~ family: watching musicals with The Boys, swearing that we'll go to NYC together. Fred's face, Paul's smile, the sound of MEMORY let your Memory lead you I remember a time I knew what happiness was let the Memory live again 

~ I'm too upset to write / I'm too upset not to write 

~ the bruise, the deep round bruise, the lump beneath it 

~ $80,000 each; $240,000 total after amendments 

~ I lean to my wound, I lean to my wound 

~ disgusting girl, nasty pie-faced thing filled with fruit the color of plastic gems. Veins plugged up with sugar, eyes full of stars. 

~ its lucky to not be bothered at all by blood, I must have been born under something (or over something) 

~ this is the worst lead up so far I've ever had. Utterly alone, unsupported by....who? The r u b i c o n, the gentry, even the rabble. Sitting in a lukewarm tub, soaking the wound, empty head in the room between shitting and living. Thank god for grapefruit chapstick, and for Them. 

~I'm.......babing out 

~ how nice for her, how nice for him, how nice for everyone  (breaks glass in my fist) 

~ I am the drug that you need, shoot me up shoot me up 

~ Jennifer Jason Leigh in Single White Female was a definite top 

~ muttering to myself in a Mark Wahlberg voice just to get a good giggle 

~ making things for my brothers daughter; playing peeks with Jeremy; reading a book with John; playing sticks with natalie; talking about books with Noah. Being a woman with five nieces and nephews to watch grow up. 

~ “She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris.” 

~ Nora Ephron, and Melissa Broder. The now maligned art of self-confessional writing that I find infuriating when men do it (woody allen) but not unlike sinking into a hot bath when a n y o n e else does it. 

~ My dad telling me about his golf tournament, my dad telling me stories of seeing bands in the 70s, my dad finding out who Blac Chyna is and saying "she's amazing", my dad knowing every character ever on Law and Order, my dad and Noah bent over a chessboard, my dad taking a splinter out of my sisters finger. 

~ if I was a Housewife my tagline would be: "my attitude isn't MY problem, it's yours!" 

~ I have a recurring nightmare where I went to my first day of Spanish class and then just never returned? And I knew I was going to fail but for some reason really wanted to make it to the final bc that might make a difference? True claustrophobic panic. 

~ I have an incurable disease? I have an incurable disease! 

~ a m e r i c a n  w o m a n 

~ DR Q: should I be on antibiotics until surg? Ointment yes. What in detail will happen after surg/how will it heal/will it heal? If the wound is not going to heal after surgery is it necessary to do it at all? Down the line, when can I have sex? Can I take full body baths? Is there a specialist I can take these to? Should I shave before surg? Infections? 

~Potential Bday Marathon w bois: Big Lebowski, Wild, Stand By Me, Almost Famous, Frances Ha 

~ I am going to be well, I am going to heal, and I am going to be better one mesh shirt and gauze pad at a time 

~ Tommy Wiseau saying "I've sumfin fer youuuuu" 

~ hating the Grateful Dead SO much but knowing all the words to Box of Rain. Singing it in the bath first thing in the morning while my coffee brews. 

~ I've been making this list for a year 

~ "Butt out, Baby" 

~ What I have done I was compelled to do 

~ sitting here in this humid April heat, remembering the blizzard last Easter, with Band of Brothers episode 5 on the tv, a lavender candle flaming, a message from Fred flitting across my screen like a dear little bird, my disease pulsing in my cells, my hair long in a ponytail, thinking of my brothers wedding in a few days. I've cried three times. 'You should be so lucky,' I think, over and over again. 'You should be so lucky to have this love, to have room for this pain. Le douleur exquise.' Thank you and thank you and thank you (and, if you have time, let me heal) 

~on the phone with Natalie, laughing hysterically as she takes shots and calls me Marat 

~ Last night in my dream the doctor called my wound "the bog" 

~ I might....actually want to watch Desperate Housewives again 

~ the dinner the RHONY gals have in the Berkshires season 8 is my IDEAL meal, just a roast chicken with herbs de provence, mashed potatoes, fresh green beans, and cranberries. 

~ Again, tonight in the bath: 

"Just a box of rain 

Wind and water 

Believe it if you need it 

If you don't, just pass it on 

Sun and shower, wind and rain 

In and out the window like a moth before a flame 

And it's just a box of rain 

I don't know who put it there 

Believe it if you need it 

Or leave it if you dare 

And it's just a box of rain 

Or a ribbon for your hair 

Such a long long time to be gone 

And a short time to be there" 

 ~ a really cathartic thing to do is throw ice cubes at the wall 

~ crying on the kitchen floor and thinking of amy winehouse singing: "I cried for you on the kitchen floor." 

~  note for later: what are you doing? What are you d o i n g ? Get out, get out, get out. It ain't shit, babe. Ain't shit. 

~ you're a woman of genuine wit, write what you feel and how you're feeling it. Someone, someone, someone anywhere will see it and will cheer 

~ that season of vanderpump where schaena fucked adam and denied it the whole time but was so obviously in Love with him while he could care less about her, culminating in her adopting a penguin from the zoo and giving him the gift of it. She named it after him. Imagine loving someone that much that you would do this. 

~ the loveliness of a braid. A braid in hair, in rope, in bread. How a figment becomes a pattern, becomes history slapping against my shoulders. 

~ spring cleaning for mothers day. Egg salad and a nip of whiskey after dark. Feeling very old and yet very at sea 

~ A Thought: I should think about my neighbors on my death bed. I hear them speak through my walls, the boy that gets in screaming philosophical arguments and the upstairs girls who shriek. My neighbors who stomp, and my neighbors who dance all around me, the ones who were groaning in pain in the stairwell before going quiet. I can hear their laughter, and I've thrown things towards it and felt bad about it later. Their pianos on cold fall afternoons, and the late night guitar they probably think nobody hears. The couple with the large, spindly dog who isn't allowed to be here, and the cat that I pet on the stairs, the barefoot boy cradling his cat in his arms after the fire alarm went off, the chic looking lady with her carrier. The girl I went to college with, hidden somewhere in here. The ones who've come, and who've gone. They've likely heard me, too; crying, coming, laughing until I have to scream into it. Maybe they hear my music, too. I've left them cough drops, left them notes, brought packages upstairs, held the door, gifted cups of detergent. I'll remember the bike, abandoned in the laundry room even when management kept sending emails about it. 

~ I'm afraid one day I'm going to turn around in bed and my wound will be my lover, my wound will be companion, who will press up against me as I make coffee, who will throb under my sheets, who will sit beside me as I eat dinner, drink a glass of wine. She weeps, and last night I thought: "do I make you wet, baby?" and I laughed. Hedwig says laugh because otherwise you'll cry, I'll remember it forever. When I laughed everything tightened up and I Hurt and Hurt. Tonight I'm very, very, very alone, and my bath radiated through me like I was a boiled lobster. When I watched RHONY naked I felt the wound put its hand on my thigh, and it felt like I was living with someone I didn't trust. Gone Girl hours. 

~ I look like a cloud 

~ I have a true disease of the soul and mind in which I'm not capable of forgetting anything. This must be due in part to me being a Leo and therefore being a righteous holder of grudges, but I can't even manage to forget a purchase I made at CVS that I didn't feel great about three years ago much less an interaction with a friend that isn't reflective of Either of us now but that fills me with rot. In this sense, retrospect hits me very hard because nothing ever leaves me. I'm like a desk and papers get piled on top of each other and sometimes it gets messy but each memory is just under the surface of another. Needless to say, if I tell somebody that I can't remember something I'm usually lying to them just to avoid being bored. Which is something to think about, to be sure. Anyway, tell me the story again. 

~ I feel naughty and covetous, big-titted and sharp-toothed and green-eyed and hungry hungry hungry hungry hungry. I always get this way when the whether turns hot. Everything is getting deeper, thicker. For the better and the worse. Keep your candy away from me or I'm going to take it from you. 

~ "My daughter. My last one. She's my sin. She's what I smeared on the world." 

~ the beginning of the summer I sweat, and I bleed, and crack, and i hate and hate, until. Until. The window must be left open, to let the lion in. While I sleep it crawls out of my closet and lays down upon me and I wake up with my hair in a snarl and an insatiable throbbing in my veins. The air is hot, and I'm ready to swallow the moon again. Be  r e b o r n. 

~ it's nice to meet you. I'm 26 years old, I'm a woman of cracks and fissures, a woman of unprentention who relishes pretending, baddest, chatterbox slut, writing gay porn every night if i can manage it, irremediable sky watcher, secret smoker, mainliner of unhip music, dizzy lady, silly goose. I think the moon is in my neighbors window, and I look up at the impression and thank her. 

~ I'm vaccinated, I'm going to a party at my sisters house, I have a person in my phone who I think likes me and I Know wants to fuck me. I've written 1,000 words every day this week. This year I’m spending my birthday in Nebraska. Let the season begin, let me move west into a long, brilliant wind.