Happy Holidays!

Above- Me (as Sydney) with Lex (a drag king) last Halloween.

Right: Me as Medusa (see the snakes in my hair?) with Nathanial at Bacchus one Halloween back in college.

Thank goodness for Rosh Hashanah! According to a little online research, it is “the Jewish New Year, the Day of Judgment, the Day of Remembrance, and the Day of Shofar Blowing" (http://www.holidays.net/). Oh, and a Shofar is a trumpet fashioned from a ram’s horn. It’s a little embarrassing that I had to look up a major holiday of a major religion. It seems like something I should have known. Also embarrassing: the reason I’m so excited about Rosh Hashanah is because it got me out of school for two days. Then I just have to get through Thursday and Friday, followed by a three-day-weekend. (Thank you, Christopher Columbus! Sure, you subjugated the indigenous people of America, but you also paved the way for my ancestors to come here and got me out of work on Monday.) Then there’s no school for Yom Kippur on the 13th “(the day to ask forgiveness for promises broken to G-d” and the “Sabbath of Sabbaths”).Everyone likes days off…I know that. But now I rely on them.

Just two broken weeks and two whole ones until November. Trying to handle this job 180 days (a whole school year) at a time isn’t doable for me. I break it down, vacation-to-vacation, weekend-to-weekend, even day-to-day. I’m in a program called the New York City Teaching Fellows, and we’ve a running joke: “Just take it one day at a time…like alcoholism.” This is a pretty good sign that teaching is not the career for me. I know my last entry about teaching ended on an optimistic note, but my feelings tend to yo-yo.

Speaking of November, I’ve asked my parents to visit for Thanksgiving, and they’re thinking about it. I know that they won’t come, though. It’s not that they don’t want to. My mom likes the idea of seeing the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and, more than that, the tree-lighting. Unfortunately, the tree isn’t lit until the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and we all have to be back to work on Monday. Last Thanksgiving, I went to the parade and had a microwave turkey dinner. I chatted with my family on the phone. I had been dreading it, but it was actually nice. Now, as the holiday approaches I’m in the dread phase again.

Fortunately, I’ve got Halloween to help get me through it. I adore Halloween, and my last few costumes were fabulous. I loved them, anyway, and that’s what matters. In recent years I’ve been Medusa, the moon, half-devil-half-angel, a flamenco dancer, and Sydney from the season 2 finale of Alias. Now I’m at a loss. I’ve got the perfect little-black-dress to go as Holly Golightly, but last year at the Village Halloween parade, I saw at least three Hollies. It's that "So you think you're an individual..." problem again. Maybe I’ll soon be struck by inspiration.I'm glad that I haven't told anyone (except my dear Vali) about this blog, because so far it's BORING! Oh, well. It's cheaper than therapy and the pictures are pretty. (Below- Me as the moon with Rosa, a devil, at Carnival de Cadiz in Spain).