My 60-day Challenge

I've signed myself up for Round Two of Moxie's 60-Day Take Yourself Seriously Challenge. One of the challenges I've given myself is to post here at least three times per week, at least one of which must be substantial (defined as 100+ words). Because I'm a wuss, I'm counting this post as one of my three.

Costuming

We put lots of thought into our Purim outfitting this year, and have come up with some wonderfully subtle costumes.

I am dressed as an exhausted mother of twins. This costume is similar to that of an unemployed lawyer, but varies from the latter in that I am not carrying around a dog-eared law review and casually hidden stack of business cards with my contact information on one side and a miniature resume crammed onto the back.

My husband will be going as a working-from-home engineer. This costume is distinguished from that of a working-at-work engineer by the absence of an employee identification badge; all other aspects of dress and personal grooming remain the same.

My daughter is dressed as a boy, because when she woke up this morning, the cutest clothes remaining in the dresser were all in shades of blue. Never mind that we dress her like this on a regular basis.

My son is an abstract representation of a backyard organic vegetable patch, in that he is wearing a brown shirt with a carrot on it, captioned: "Home Grown." The effect is somewhat diminished by the presence of ice blue pants, but in order to enhance his costume we plan to allow all dirt that accumulates on his face and hands to remain there for the duration of the day.

Chag Purim sameach!

My Ki-gdom for a...

I have just discovered how difficult it is to live without the key to the left of M/to the right of B. Stupid opposite-of-old laptop.

New level of sleep deprivation

Julian and I just had an extended debate about whether or not I'd already taken the shower I intended to take before bed. I couldn't remember, and neither could he. In the end we had to go check to see whether the shower stall was wet.

It was.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think it's time to sleep.

Eleh haDevarim...

I was born in New York.

I ate, slept, pooped, moved from New Jersey to Michigan, and toilet trained somewhere along the way. We were the only Jews in our town. I was checked for horns. I taught people about Chanukah. I grew up some. We got a dog.

We moved to Long Island. My sister was born. My mother got cancer. My paternal grandfather died. My mother died. I flew to Israel for the funeral, even though my father told me not to. We sat shiva at my maternal grandparents' home. I finished high school and went to the prom without a date (but did not lack for dance partners).

I went to college. I joined a sorority and started dating this very nice guy in early February, but I had already committed to being some other guy's date for a fraternity dance on Valentine's Day. I dumped the very nice guy on our one-month anniversary. He ended up marrying my roommate from the sorority. I was a bridesmaid in their wedding. In the meantime, I met another very nice guy. I married that one. My maternal grandmother got cancer, and no family from Israel came to the wedding. Before that, though, the dog ran away and I started law school.

I covered my hair when we got married, but only sometimes. The (second) very nice guy and I lived in different states for a while after we were married. Then we decided that this was very silly, and I moved. My maternal grandparents died within four months of each other. I tried to fly to Israel to see my grandmother before she died; instead I was there for the funeral. I didn't fly to Israel for my grandfather's funeral; instead I finished writing a final exam. I attended another law school, started a blog, took the Massachusetts bar exam, and got a job. I started covering my hair all the time - almost.

We bought a new, bigger, apartment. My paternal grandmother died the next day. Fresh out of grandparents, I took a day off work to sleep in the middle of my new living room floor and field international phone calls. My sister got another dog. My father got cancer.

I bought some fake hair to cover my real hair, but never really wore it (except for that wedding where I was a bridesmaid). My father got a little better, then he got a lot sicker. I got a new car. I got pregnant. With twins. I stopped looking for a new job. My father died. I didn't fly to Israel for the funeral. I sat shiva in four places, including an airport.

I grew a little older and a lot wiser in areas where I would have preferred to stay young and naive. I had carrot cake on my twenty-seventh birthday, blew out candles lit in binary, watched an aging Dick Clark fumble his way through midnight, and said goodbye to my last year of non-motherhood. I pushed out a couple of kids.

We made a brit milah and a zeved habat on the same day. We named our daughter for my mother and my mother's mother. We named our son for my grandfathers. We made a pidyon haben about three weeks later. I've made gallons of milk. They've made plenty of dirty diapers.

The (second) very nice guy's paternal grandmother died. He went to New York for the funeral. The (second) very nice guy and I, for the first time, hosted Pesach seders in our own home. Our daughter, not wanting to sleep, joined us for the second seder. Our son slept through both. From this we learn that it was because of the righteous women that Israel was brought out of Egypt.

I wandered in the wilderness, reading blogs and wikis and message boards in the early morning hours, a child draped over my shoulder or held to my breast. Our children grew, a little. Nearly half a year passed in the space of about five minutes, which may explain how the world was (or was not) created in six days. I found my way, lost it, found another. There is no certain way, just faith. I lost my faith, found it, lost it, looked again. It's out there somewhere, or in here somewhere.

Let's go looking together.

klutz

For those of you who don't know this already, now is the time to learn:

I am an injury magnet.

In the course of the past week, I have managed to: burn the back of my left hand with steam; slice open my left thumb on the blade of our food processor; twisted my ankle out of whack by slipping on a plastic bag (no medical attention required); cut the base of my right thumb on a chipped mug; and (you'll like this one) smashed my finger between the toilet seat and the rim of the bowl by--wait for it--sitting down while adjusting the seat positioning.

All in the past seven days, people. Over the past seven years I have punctured or lacerated each foot more than once (one injury required stitches), ripped out said stiches, scraped off at least a total of a square foot of skin (no, not all at once), practically bisected my right thumb (don't ask me why I didn't go get stitches for that one), and burned my forearms more times than I can count. I'm not even going to mention the number of times I've turned my joints in odd ways, broken off splinters under the skin, or foolishly aggravated a minor injury into an oozing, infected mess.

In unrelated news, if the kids in the elementary school behind my building don't stop screaming after each thunderclap, thereby ruining a perfectly enjoyable storm, I am going to give them some injuries to write about.

(I kid, I kid. Mostly.)

bzzzzzzzzzzzz

I'm quite certain there were no mosquito bites anywhere on my body when I went to sleep a few hours ago. I woke up around 2 AM with some sort of buzz-detection system going on in my head. If I recall correctly, certain items in my dream needed to be "together," and when they were separated there was this droning sound. Or maybe it was the reverse. Whatever it was, it seemed perfectly logical at the time. After about ten minutes of this semi-conscious confusion, I realized the droning was--surprise, surprise--an insect of some variety. Another few minutes...hey, my arm itches! Lights on: agh! big, ugly, swollen mosquito bites.

For those of you who don't know this, I do not react well to mosquito bites. I am incredibly thankful to Ms. Mosquito for attacking my left arm way up near the elbow, and reserving the hand- and wrist-bites for my right side. Had she bitten my left hand, I'm pretty sure we'd be cutting up my wedding ring in the morning.

Anyway, I read for about half an hour, half-noticing a faint buzzing in the room but figuring maybe Ms. Mosquito would take the hint that she's not welcome and buzz off (sorry). Close book. Turn off the light. Snuggle down into pillow. Doze slightly.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Lights on. I stare alternately at the ceiling, the corner near the window, and the space between my pillow and the wall, waiting for the buzzing to come back. Ten minutes go by. Turn off the light. Snuggle. Doze.

Bzzzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I think I understand water torture now. As if I weren't already sleep deprived. It's going to be a long, long day.

here

In Israel. All in one piece. Admit it, you worried about me just a little.

There will be lots to post when I get back home, I'm sure, but expect the blog to be kind of quiet for the next 10 days or so.

coming and going

In case you're playing along at home, my bar application is finally ready to be mailed. Unfortunately, Julian is going to have to mail it for me, because...

I'm leaving for Israel tomorrow--er, today. Train to NYC at 11 AM, flight from JFK at 11:30 PM. I'll try to update this blog when I get there (Monday afternoon Eastern Daylight Time, Monday evening local time) but no promises. Back to New York on Sunday the 16th, graduation on the 18th and 19th, then (finally) back home on the night of the 19th.

It's not as much fun as it sounds like. For starters, I'm leaving Julian in Boston. I love you and I miss you already (even though you're just in bed in the other room).

/mush

like a band of gypsies we roll down the highway

Food made. Clothes packed. Sleep had (though of course not enough, but that was due to insomnia, not unpreparedness). I just have to put stuff in the cooler, change into something halfway-decent to wear to this brit I'm going to on my way out of town, and perhaps burn a few mp3 CDs. There's a lot of driving ahead.