Too Good for a Free Banana

Life continues to be stressful. You know how it goes.

That said, I recently came into 18 pound of fresh Palisade peaches because I'm an idiot and don't know how many peaches are in 18 pounds, and my coworker's kid was selling them by the box as a fundraiser. Friends, these peaches were fucking phenomenal. Incredible. I had to go wash my face after eating one, they were that juicy. I made a cobbler (was okay, the cake part sucked, i need a different recipe), a crisp (incredible, I've got another one in the oven right now), and plan to use the last of them in some freezer jam. Peaches are my absolute favorite fruit and having so many excellent peaches around has been the highlight of my summer. Fuck me up with peaches.

Aside from that it's been business as usual. My closest synagogue friend is expecting a baby and that's very exciting and we're all awaiting that in good time, but she also is probably leaving shortly after that to be closer to a terminally ill parent, so I'm very bummed about that. I know the move will be better for her on most fronts, so while I'll miss her a lot, I'm hopeful this is going to be a great new chapter of her life. We'll still have her for several months, so it's nothing like, super imminent but it is coming.

I struggle to make close friends and so, selfishly, I'm worried about what I'll do when she's gone. I need to put myself out there more (and I will - there's a D&D group forming at my shul and I reached out to the rabbi in charge of it to ask to participate). Everyone has been very nice and welcoming, but it's an uphill battle to meet and connect with people in any situation and I am tired of fighting against myself, but it is what it is. It's either fight against my anxiety shitbrain or rot away alone in my apartment foreverty-ever, and I don't want that. I don't. I've started to come to terms with the fact that my horrible relationship with Ex-Friend many years ago fucked up my ability to connect with people and if I tell myself that I can't let her win, it can sometimes get me past it. Sometimes. Is spite a healthy motivator? I don't know, but it's what I've got.

I have been trying to write more original stuff on top of the fics I've been writing, and it's going... okayish. This is the first time in a long time I've ever thought of writing with an eye towards publishing it and I almost wish I hadn't thought of it, because the "what if this is too cliche, what if it's been done, what if this is stupid and nobody wants it" is a lot less loud when I'm just telling myself I'm writing for fun.

I have two stories in progress right now - one is a mid-20th century murder mystery with a main character who is a widowed funeral director, and the other is a supremely self-indulgent (as if the other one isn't that) AmRev romance that is probably secretly TURN fanfiction somewhere deep at its core.

I am trying very hard to embrace that "holy shit two cakes" mindset and tell myself "just because it's about spies in the American Revolution doesn't mean it's too much like TURN and also who gives a shit it's schmoopy historical romance which, as a genre, loves tropes and cliches and so do you" so we'll see. I don't think anything will ever come of either, if I'm being realistic, but maybe that's the best way to get myself to write them: by telling myself they're just for me anyway.

I got to take two friends from synagogue to the Renaissance Festival for the first time and we had a blast, and then left the place to find out that Biden stepped down from the reelection campaign. I have a lot of feelings about that that are irrelevant at this point, but while I do really think Harris is a solid candidate, the uncertainty of all of this is making me really, really nervous. I've already been making plans to volunteer in the upcoming months but last night channeled a bunch of my nervous energy into signing up for postcard campaigns.

I could vomit all my political feelings here but I won't because they're nothing anyone else hasn't already said on the topic.

Aside from that, I've been listening to a lot of audiobooks at work which I want to put on my list here and also write about, so look forward to that hopefully.

The Renaissance Festival is always a good time, but there's something so delightful about getting to accompany someone on their first time there. Colorado's faire is enormous and has so many great performers and vendors, and the experience of seeing it all with someone who has never been anywhere like it before is fantastic. This sounds silly, but it's easy to forget that things like ren faires and conventions and all of that are pretty foreign to a lot of people, and if they're open to the idea it's a completely new world for them.

It's always nice to see people out and about just really doing their thing, fully invested in having a good time.

I forgor about the dreamwith

Sorry <3

I submitted an application to a new job that I would really like to get, and I have an appointment with a gastroenterologist this week to address some mildly concering symptoms (that have of course been less concerning since making the appointment because ain't that just that way it works), and I'm still writing USJP fic and that's... about it.

It was Shavuot recently, which is a Jewish holiday that celebrates the receiving of the Torah, and my synagogue had a dinner and all-night study session with lectures/group discussions led by members of the congregation on a variety of topics and it was really cool.

I went to one about the current situation on the ground in Israel led by someone who'd recently been there and met with a lot of different people from across the political spectrum, including some Israeli Arabs, and it was really interesting and (naturally) a bit emotional. After that I went to one about Judaism and abortion, one about Moses and stuttering, and one that was a quick rundown of the history of the land of Israel that addressed different owner claims over the years, and they were all super fascianting. I missed a few other interesting ones because of time conflicts (there was one about homosexuality in medieval Spanish Jewish poetry that I am so sad I missed), but all in all it was really fun.

I think Shavuot might be my new favorite holiday, which is no surprise to anyone, I'm sure, because I am a big nerd.

The ren faire started this weekend so I have to decide when I'm going, and I'm really looking forward to it. A couple of synagogue friends have expressed an interest in going and it would be their first time, so that would be really great if it works out! I love taking people to the ren faire for the first time.

All in all, doing okay. Gotta keep on truckin'. Please send good job vibes if you can - this position isn't exactly what I want to do but it's a hell of lot closer than what I do currently.

After waking up in forest with no memory of how he got there, Japan meets a human man with the name and face of a dear friend. It quickly becomes clear that he is very, very far from home - In more ways than one. The man welcomes him as a guest and Japan finds himself inadvertently swept up in the lives of the people around him. With no obvious way home and a growing sense that this human is more than the simple man he seems to be, Japan must seek an explanation for his sudden appearance in colonial America against a backdrop of the war that defines his friend's existence nearly a century before they will ever meet.

Chapter 20 is now up on AO3!

Can't believe it took me so long to update, and I also can't believe I've been writing this for over a year, and I REALLY cannot believe it's 20 chapters long and we're not even halfway through.

Thoughts under the cut!

( Read more... )

Well, I'm posting about this here because I don't want the attention it would bring to post about it on Tumblr, but I feel like I need to get my thoughts out about it. Someone snuck into our synagogue today to disrupt services and it was a pretty minor thing, Baruch Hashem, but the thought that someone could come in with ill intent and sit among us undetected and throughout the entire torah service is, of course, unsettling.

As we sat down after the torah was lifted and one of the twin bar mitzvah boys prepared to read his dvar torah, the chazzan approached an older woman sitting in the middle of a pew a few rows back from the very front and and asked her to come with him, and she stood up and started shouting about how she "can't stand you people" and something about all the yelling and shouting? I later talked with a friend about it at kiddush and we both said that we had assumed she was having some kind of issue and was overwhelmed by the unusually boisterous services. Since it was a bar mitzvah it was very, very crowded and a lot louder than it normally is. As someone who lived for a few years with a relative suffering from dementia, this could make a lot of sense? But maybe I just wanted it to be that. I don't know.

She tried to yell more from the aisle as she was led out but someone started singing a nigun and everyone started singing along very loudly until she was taken into the lobby, where she yelled about Jesus for a bit. I don't know what happened after that. We sang a prayer I'm not super familiar with and then continued with the service. At announcements the rabbi said that we take mental health very seriously at our shul and thanked the people involved for handling it so smoothly and with compassion and that was all. I don't know if she was actually mentally ill. Ultimately it kind of doesn't matter, I guess.

All in all, not a huge deal. I feel badly for the bar mitzvah kids and their parents above all, because I know it can be even years of study and work to get to that point, and to have someone come in and try to disrupt it is a bummer, to say the least.

But despite this being pretty mild in terms of security issues/antisemitic displays, I'm not sure what the effects are going to be. The fact that she came in like any other congregant is concerning. The fact that she sat there the whole time and we didn't know is concerning. (She had a bag with her. Is it weird to have noticed that? Everyone has bags with them, but not everyone yells about Jesus in the middle of a bar mitzvah.)

Another friend expressed sympathy for the security team because this is going to feel like a failure to them, but really, at a bar mitzvah with loads of new faces, who is going to question an old woman who comes in and sits in the sanctuary with everyone else? Nobody. Except probably now, even just in the back of our minds, we will. And I hate that.

On the other hand, the fact that someone obviously noticed something was up before she made the disruption (because someone was already asking her to leave as she started yelling) is comforting. The fact that even not knowing why she was there or what was going on, the staff and security team handled it so calmly and easily is good. The fact that instead of allowing the disruption to continue, the entire congregation was like "eh, nope" and snatched all the wind out of her sails and she didn't get to make whatever bullshit Jesus statement she was trying to make is good.

The fact that she was a (possibly mentally ill) old woman who wanted to yell at a bunch of Jews about Jesus, and that was all she was, is very good. Baruch Hashem. And she didn't even really get to! We didn't let her!

I still can't shake it, though. I feel silly and dramatic for being so unsettled because in the grand scheme of things, nothing really significant happened. Nothing at all. We got put behind for like three minutes and if "you people" is the worst thing any of us get called as Jews this week, it'll be a good week. But she was in there with us that whole time...

...And I think more than anything that's what's bothering me. She was with us that whole time, and she heard us sing, and saw us pray together, and saw all the people who got aliyot and received mi sheberach from the rabbi, and heard the beautiful speeches the bar mitzvah twins' parents gave about their sons, and saw and heard us singing as they carried the torah around the synagogue and heard these two boys read torah in front of the synagogue for the first time -- a sacred and special milestone for them, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Not one of these things made her think she shouldn't do what she was hoping to do... and I guess that doesn't surprise me that much. But I hate that she saw all of that. I hate that she intruded on that. I hate that her presence there is now going to leave people questioning if our security, already so much more than any church ever needs in this country, so much more than we should have to have, is going to be enough.

I've been a Jew-in-progress long enough to not be surprised by or find the security needs of a synagogue (or any Jewish building) unexpected. I know why we have an armed guard at our door every shabbat. I know why we have a security team. I know why you have to register to go to any events we hold, and I know why they don't give out location information for those events until you have. I know why we have "in case of emergency" information in the pockets of the pews next to our siddurim, and it's not because there might be an accident.

It just feels pretty unfair, sometimes.