Yesterday was the first day that I officially had over one hundred visitors in a day! Thank you so much and keep on reading! You like me, you really like me! Woo hoo!
Man oh man, I’m a dork.
Author: Laren
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Child of the 80’s
My brother and sister very often blame me for not introducing them to music, movies, and pop culture of the 80’s. I get no reprieve from this blame, despite the fact that they weren’t even born until 1981, were 7 years old when I basically left home for good, and had little to no interest in my music until the past ten years or so.
I am truly a child of the 80’s. My iPod is filled with artists like the Clash, Elvis Costello, the Pretenders, and the Police. It even contains songs from the Buggles, the Thompson Twins, Howard Jones, Joe Jackson, and Madness. My brain is filled with more useless song lyrics than the majority of people I know, sometimes precluding room in there for much else, it seems. I listened to WLIR when it was good (and when it existed — it’s gone, apparently). Take this 80’s song lyric quiz and see if you can beat my score, which was an 83.5.
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Ah. . . Schvitz
To continue, and possibly to recover from, my week of getting in touch with the culture of my people, I took a trip to the Russian and Turkish Baths in the East Village. I had been looking forward to my schvitz* all week. My friend Melissa took me to the baths for the first time a number of months ago. I had no idea what to expect. First off all, it’s kind of gritty. In my opinion, this is not a bad thing, but if you’re one of those germ-o-phobe types, this is not the place for you. It has been around since 1892 — I think it has undergone some renovations, but I can definitely imagine my predecessors walking up from the Lower East Side for their weekly schvitz in pretty much the same atmosphere. The current crowd is a bizarre mix of old-school Russians and random hipster types, with a few of the rest of us thrown in for good measure. You wear a bathing suit, and I learned from my last trip that the less bathing suit you have, the better. Last time I wore a suit with a tank top — this time I went for the full bikini. There are several different rooms, all offering slightly different kinds of heat, and a room in between with an ice-cold pool. In between your visits to the heat, you can plunge yourself into the icy water, or just sit on the side and cool off a little. On my first visit, I tried the plunge, but it was a bit much for me. My favorite room is the Russian Sauna — it’s filled with heated rocks and it gets so hot that you literally have to dump buckets of cold water over yourself every few minutes to make it bearable.
Most of all, a trip to the baths is just a great way to unwind at the end of a week, taking an hour or so just for yourself or to catch up with a friend. Sometimes we get so harried that we forget to do this as often as we should, especially in a city like New York, where the pace can sometimes border on frantic. And you walk out feeling deeply relaxed, refreshed, and, despite the grit, clean. Thanks to Melissa for taking me there.
So go — take a schvitz already! Tell them I sent you.
* At the suggestion of one of my readers, I am going to start including definitions for some of the Yiddish terms that I use, in order to educate the goyim (Thanks for the feedback, Ryan!).
- schvitz — sweat
- goyim — non-Jews
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Good Timing
I stumbled across a blog the other day called smitten, written by a woman who appears to be about my age, living in NY. One of her earliest posts rang so true with me that I had to share part of it with you.
You know what I am tired of hearing?
How is it that a girl like you is single.
Do you want to know the ugly details or do you want me to tell you that I am not a psychopath?
She goes on to describe some details about her last relationship, and some details about herself, and then:
So, maybe, the next time someone asks me why I am still single, they will instead say, Iām glad I got to meet you while you still were.I feel the same way. Now, I’m not going to go into any details about past relationships and all the different ways they have had an impact on me, etc. (okay, you can read a tiny bit here, but that’s it), but I’m still fairly mystified by the whole “why are you still single” thing. Why do people ask this? And considering the umpteen years that I wasn’t single, I definitely needed to be single in order to really get to know myself as a person — I don’t think it’s possible to be in a truly healthy relationship without some quality time alone.
But now? The next time someone asks, “How is it that a girl like you is single?” My response will be, “Someone should take advantage of this good timing. I promise I won’t be single forever.”
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My Seder Was More Fun Than Your Seder
Last night was my second annual Passover seder at Sammy’s Roumanian Steakhouse on the Lower East Side. I went last year as well, with a slightly smaller group (I even met Jill Sobule there last year — see the picture). When I told my dad I was going there, he said that he recalled the food was very heavy — “your great-grandparents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary there, and your great-grandfather died a week later.” Well, he’s right. They have schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) in syrup containers on every table. They make the chopped chicken liver in a bowl at the table, complete with cooked onions, radishes, and a liberal dose of the schmaltz. I have been dreaming about it since last year — so good, yet so disgustingly bad for you. Mmm. The steak literally droops over the side of the plate. Good thing there are plenty of bottles of vodka frozen in ice to cut through the artery-clogging food. And beyond the food, there is singing and dancing — our table singlehandedly started the hora, and I did a cameo song with the band. They’re not too big on the religious part of the seder, but they managed to cover some of the basics — blessings over the wine and matzo, the four questions, and of course, dayenu. No Cadbury creme eggs, though.
You can find the pictures here. -
Smart is Good
Marriage Rates Rise for Educated Women. “Women with three years of graduate school . . . have bucked the declining trend. For them the marriage rate has actually increased by 3 percentage points, to 86 percent.” Good to know that my 3 years at NYU Law might have helped something in addition to my career. Now I just need to find a wicked smaahhht guy who’s smart enough to marry me.
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My Weekend, as Illustrated by Two Plates
My sister, who couldn’t be at our seder this year, suggested that we have a Cadbury creme egg on our seder plate. Given the fact that our seder was on the wrong night and our matzo wasn’t kosher for passover, I figured the Easter candy wouldn’t make us any worse Jews than we already were. -
Love’s Letters Lost
Although I never lived up in Portland, my Dad’s house there still is home to a great deal of my memorabilia — high school and college yearbooks, childhood books, programs from plays I was in over the years. Also, in a drawer, are two shoeboxes, each filled with mementos of a romantic relationship. One of these boxes contains what are, to this day, the most romantic love letters I have ever received. It was very important for me to keep them, but also important for me to have them out of my apartment. I read an interesting article today called Zapping Old Flames Into Digital Ash — now that most correspondence is done digitally, people end up with emails, digital photos, and voicemails that chronicle any given relationship. Especially in an online dating scenario, saved emails can be as significant as those letters I keep in a shoebox (which were pre-internet, by the way). The article describes how purging the digital record of a relationship can be theraputic. Personally, I haven’t really gone as far as to purge all emails and photos of someone, but I have cleaned out a slew of email messages from a few dating scenarios over the years. None of these have been particularly significant relationships, however. I would imagine that, in a situation where I was seriously invested emotionally with someone and it didn’t work out, that I’d like to do something similar to a digital shoebox — maybe burn everything onto a CD and file it away somewhere. I even printed out a bunch of emails from a particularly traumatic breakup a while back and put them into the appropriate shoebox. But regardless of my method of saving — I’d never erase them permanently. Each relationship is part of who I am, and zapping it into cyber-oblivion is not the answer for me.
What about you? Do you keep digital or non-digital records of your past relationships? Inquiring minds want to know . . .
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Gefilte Dog, or What I Like About Jew, Take Two
This weekend, I am off to Portland, Maine, for Passover. Sadly, I will be missing my monthly wine
clubsociety meeting — we meet the first Sunday of every month. When I told my neighbor, who organizes the wineclubsociety, that I would be home for Passover, he responded, correctly, “but Passover’s on Monday.” “Yes,” I replied, “but we’re having our seder on Sunday because it’s easier for everyone.” He rolled his eyes in disgust. “You guys are changing the holiday for convenience?” “Um, yes.” “How very religious of you.”Now, I know that some might categorize me as a bad Jew. I eat pork and shellfish, often together. One of my favorite culinary delights is the pancetta-wrapped shrimp at ‘inoteca. I only go to temple on high holidays. I have a tattoo. I don’t like lox. But, strangely enough, I generally fast on Yom Kippur. I keep kosher for Passover (or at least I make a valiant attempt). And, I might add, these behaviors definitely make me the Jewiest Jew in my family. In my family, attendance at temple is not mandatory by any means, even on high holidays. My Dad always does a bizarre editing job on The Concise Family Seder, our Hagaddah of choice, so that it is even more concise. He tends to edit out pieces of the story and keep in the random commentary. I also think I’m the only one in the family who remembers the Passover story year after year. Yes, it’s the same story. I have even suggested that we rent The Prince of Egypt, just to keep it fresh in everyone’s minds. Oy vey. But — we are definitely a Jewish family, with Jewish values. Every holiday is an excuse to gather friends, family, and strays for a good meal. We give back to the community in many ways. All three kids were bar or bat mitzvah’d (well, the twins were b’nai mitzvah’d together), and I’m pretty sure we all like gefilte fish.
In other news this weekend, I am making my very last excusable visit to college (with the exception of my brother’s graduation in May). My brother is playing in a steel drum concert at Bates, followed by a Yo La Tengo show. So, I’ll be hangin’ with the college kids. And speaking of Jewish culture, there’s a Klezmer band up at Bates called Gefilte Dog — I always loved that name.
I’m also looking forward to my second annual Passover seder at Sammy’s Roumanian steakhouse next Tuesday (an official seder night, for those keeping track). Stay tuned, and Happy Pesach!
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Happy Birthday Tots!
Who doesn’t love Tater Tots?! Turns out that our beloved Tots turned fifty last week. [via Best Week Ever] And no, this is not an April Fools Day joke — I just had to post it. Don’t forget to check out Jason Kottke’s tater tot hotdish recipe! What’s hotdish, you ask? Here ya go.