Satanists Are Using Common Core Math to Create a New World Order

 

Common Core Math is a part of a conspiracy which subdues children into drone-like states as part of an agenda to destroy the institution of public education. Although It has not yet been proven as an attempt to actively promote a homosexual lifestyle, many people believe it IS a Communist attempt to dismantle the federal government.

The common Core emphasis is on comprehension, not memorization. The wrong answer is the correct answer if you use 74 steps to get there! Getting the question right is so 2014. But you probably didn’t know Festive Beard Lights were a thing, either.

Here’s an example of Common Core, used in multiplication. In ye olden days, we lined up numbers neatly and carried over. Let’s multiply 26 times 39, Common Core style.

1. Round up 39 to 40, which is easier, because it’s a multiple of 10.

2. Now multiply 26 times 40, then subtract 26. But wait – you can’t just multiply 26 by 40. You want to multiply 26 by 10. Common Core folks are obsessed with the number 10. That’s not creepy or anything. So, 26 times 40 is really 26 times 10 times 4, which is 260 times 4.

3. But hang on, make it 250, which is far superior to stupid random 260. Isn’t this easier than the old timey way? Wheeeee! 250 times four is 1000, then add in that 10 you left out when you turned 260 into 250. So that’s 10 times 4 equals 40.

4. Now add that to the product of 250 times 4, which is 40 plus 1000, which equals 1040.

5. Oh, but WAIT!! You were supposed to subtract 26 because you multiplied it by 40 instead of 39!

 

Common Core is part of a conspiracy to ruin our children’s minds with strange new ideas. It’s a 20-minute-deep dive into a simple math problem meant to take 30 seconds, because we need more excruciatingly long and dragged out projects in today’s frivolous Insta-Pot world.

 

I have provided for you a sampling of Common Core math problems. Judge for yourselves.

Students at a university in China had to solve this for the WiFi password in a dining hall. Did they have to kneel on rice to gain access to the bathroom?

Was that racist? Because of the rice? Look, I’m not the one making students solve math to get a password. I like a good Hangzhou-Style Duck Pickled in Soy Sauce as much as the next person, but I’m not going to contribute to the misrepresentation of Asian people in the media.

 

You can’t add cherries and shamrocks. Cherries are small delectable globules of juicy red sweetness that make delicious pie filling. Shamrocks are for drunken Irish people.
And what is that thing with the green leaf toupee? Is that an orange, or a drawing of Donald Trump?

This picture disgusts me.

 

3.

Again, with the Chinese? This is racial profiling. Although if an Asian person wrote the question, are they racist? It’s very confusing. The Chinese woman who owns the drycleaners referred to herself as “Oriental” which we know is politically incorrect. But the dry-cleaning ticket has my work pantsuits listed as “lady pants” and that’s the best thing I’ve seen all week.

 

4.

As you can see, goats are a hugely popular retail item. This is due to the new trend “goat yoga”, which is a bunch of white people (shocker) doing yoga with goats.
I’m all for being nuzzled by furry creatures, but goats love to urinate on their own faces. Hard pass.

 

5.

This fresh hell is known as the “Rhieman Sphere.” Drawing this requires the use of a mathematical compass:

However, most schools have discontinued the use of these with the introduction of Common Core, because students were using them to gouge out their own eyeballs.

Common Core Geometry is especially useful for those pursuing a career in professional quilting.

 

This is what happens when you legalize marijuana. Just saying.

 

7.

Here we use a Common Core math proof to demonstrate that 1 actually equals 2.

Next, we’ll go over another Common Core proof which confirms that looking into the microwave while it’s running will deform all your future babies.

 

8.

This is clearly the work of Satan.

In fact, the Bible states, “And the devil said onto Methulea, I will take you up into a high mountain, to show you all the evil of the world in a moment of time, and it shall be Common Core Math. And on the 7th day, you shall listen to Black Sabbath.”

~Corinthians 25: or 6 to 4

 

9.

Why is Skylar measuring in metric? This is AMERICA! Metric measuring tools are not easily available in the US, which is a pain in the kazoos for my friend Olaf, a Swedish amateur woodworker, but getting back to Skylar – he identifies as a boy? Skylar is a girl’s name – a girl who goes to prep school with Piper and Sloane.

Also, don’t talk to me about measuring a maze. I’ve seen Children Of the Corn.

 

10.

I feel sorry for Ben’s parents. Those poor people spent a fortune on Ben’s education, and for what? So they can tell people their son is a “dynamic branding consultant?” Even worse, he makes 12 dollars an hour more than people who work at Walmart, and they actually DO something.

 

11.

This Common Core word problem is part of the “No Child Left Behind Without A Gun” Act.

 

It seems that money taxpayers trusted would be spent on education is being siphoned off by asset plunderers and money exporters on Wall Street. Has it been developed by a fringe group who worship the devil and plan to create a New World Order?

Let me get on my tinfoil hat and think about it.

Is Common Core Satanist, Communist, or connected to terrorist organizations?
Talk to me. I’m listening. 

 

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I Sang At a Club and Bombed Like a Motherfucker

I got a voicemail from a guy who had heard I was a singer and invited me to sing a few songs with his band at a gig that Saturday. In case you’re wondering how he got my number, I don’t know. This past summer I was practicing to perform some songs with the ex-boyfriend’s band, which never materialized. I did, however, tell everyone that I now sang with a band, including the dude at the post office who was helping me track down the “Good Morning I See the Assassins Have Failed Again” mug I had ordered from Etsy. Which apparently had been delivered to the wrong address so Post Office Dude took my number and I think he gave it to a guy who gave it to a guy.

Or something. Who the hell has time to play Inspector Gadget when fame and fortune come knocking at your door?

I was initially hesitant. I haven’t sung in front of an audience since college when I fronted a punk band called Freddy Fetus and the Coat Hangers, but in MY MIND I’m a singer. In my car and in my shower, I’m a goddamn singer. This guy I was dating, whom my friends referred to as “Mr. Atlantic City,” said “You’re gonna go sing with some band you’ve never heard, without rehearsing, and just WING IT in front of an audience? That’s a terrible idea, you’ll be TERRIBLE” so of course now I HAD to do it.

Atlantic City is Las Vegas with a yeast infection. Mr. AC owned a weekend house there, so for the last few months our dating consisted of cavorting around town until 5 am. There’s so much more to DO there than there is in the suburbs, what with the casinos, the cash for gold places, the tranny prostitutes and getting shot. His house has an elevator, and in case you’re wondering if the very rich are indeed different from the rest of us, yes they are. In a recent study which I made up, scientists concluded that 100 percent of men who drive Bentleys with vanity plates “are jackholes.” Mr. AC wanted to do only what HE wanted to do. He was furious with me for cancelling our weekend casino debauchery to go sing, even though I invited him along. No dice. (see what I did there?)

On our first date Mr. AC declared “I’ll pay for you to get a boob job, but only if they’re HUGE” and I hadn’t even mentioned wanting one. But fuck yeah, if you’re buying me titties, I’ll take three. He was also pissy because in two months he had wined, dined but not yet vagined me.  Rich dudes don’t expect to wait for sex. Every time we spoke on the phone he ended the conversation by saying “GROW THAT RUNWAY BABY” which is surprisingly less charming than it reads. Did I mention he had an elevator in his house?

Breaking the date was the end of our relationship. He was fun, and good-looking, especially from certain angles like when he was reaching for his wallet, but it was for the best. On our last casino romp he’d won $600 at the craps table, which he’d tossed at me and said “use this for something sexy to wear the next time you see me” and I was struggling to figure out how to make my utility bills look sexy.

The gig was in South Jersey, which is so white-trashy it should be a separate country from America. They have a completely different world view down there;  the number one recreational hobby is aggravated assault and “MILF” is a career objective. The entire southern tip of New Jersey smells like the inside of a fake leg. The minute you drive south of Exit 100 on the Garden State Parkway, you can hear the twanging of dueling banjos. The gig, coincidentally, was in the same town where the ex-boyfriend lived. No, I did not invite him. We haven’t spoken since we ended our relationship amicably, and by amicably I mean I was screaming ‘YOU LIMP DICK MOTHERFUCKER” on his front lawn.

I went to the band’s website to look at their song list, and I decided to sing ‘Brown Eyed Girl’and ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You.’ Yeah, I know, you think of me as all punk rock and Nirvana but schmaltzy lounge music is SO my jam. You haven’t lived until you’re heard  Robert Mitchum mumbling his way through “Mama Looka Boo Boo.” In the privacy of my home, I wipe off the heavy winged eyeliner, throw on some Bonnie Bell Lip Ssmackers and rock the fuck out to the Fifth Dimension.

I got to the club and it was packed. PACKED. I met the bandleader, a bearded, portly HIspanic dude. I knew I had made yet another of my famous bad decisions when he asked me what key I wanted to sing in. What KEY? Is this a gig or are we taking our fucking SATs here? I tried to deflect him by playful responding “oh you’re such a troublemaker” and lightly smacking him in the jowls which is what people in South Jersey do to show affection. Beat one another.

That’s when I began drinking shots. I’m a lightweight when it comes to alcohol. As a matter of fact my superpower is turning tequila into crippling regret, but hey, I was at a bar in South Jersey and when in Rome, right? Since it was too late to get a bad tattoo or develop adult acne I started pounding shots of Patron.

A bleached blonde who’d known these guys for 20 years was sitting up front with her husband and decided she was my new best friend. She bought me shot after shot and told me all about her affairs and her 2 grown kids in rehab. Once I’d drank enough tequila to let my brain cells leak out my asshole, I completely forgot the words to ‘Brown Eyed Girl,’ and she was kind enough to write them for me on a napkin. When I told my bestie about this, she asked, “a sanitary napkin?” but NO, a cocktail napkin. Although looking back I wish I HAD gone on stage with a sanitary napkin because that would have been like in 1974 when an inebriated John Lennon stuck a Kotex on his head at a nightclub and John Lennon is a GOD.

When I got on stage the band leader dude handed me a tambourine. I was all SMASH THE PATRIARCHY WOULD YOU HAND ME THIS IF I WERE A MAN? so I said, “Don’t give me this, I don’t play the tambourine! FUCK your tambourine, man!” And then I said “that’s actually the name of that song. People think it’s ‘Tambourine Man’ but it’s really ‘FUCK Your Tambourine Man’”and I cracked myself up so much the band had to play the intro a very long time until I could stop laughing.

That went so well I decided to do a sexed up version of ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You.’ It was less a song and more me dry humping the band leader. My friends on Facebook were disappointed I didn’t get video of this but imagine, if you will, a drunk Jessica Rabbit with one bad leg giving a clumsy lap dance to Puerto Rican Santa Claus.

When it was over, my new best blonde friend said “Well, you LOOKED good” and some chick gave me her card and told me she was a vocal coach and that I should call her. Like, immediately. The band didn’t invite me to sing with them at their gig next month but I’m gonna show up anyway. I’m getting my sanitary napkin ready and practicing the Fifth Dimension’s ‘Wedding Bell Blues’ and that’s a string of words I never thought I’d put together. But there you have it.

 I present me singing, unironically, “Can’t Take  My Eyes Off Of You.” Recorded live this morning in my bathroom so please excuse the clunking sounds in the background as I got ready for work.
The recording ends abruptly, but so do many things:

https://www.smule.com/recording/frankie-valli-cant-take-my-eyes-off-you/1624246345_2641155142/frame

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Dear “Humorist”: Your Rape Joke Isn’t Funny

 

Sometimes, it feels like the ceaseless watchdog of political correctness has cut the balls off the English language. We have to monitor every word we offer for public consumption.

I’ve never been particularly invested in coloring inside the lines. But I’ve reframed my awareness of what may hurt others as empowering, not limiting.

You can live in denial of progress all you want. Nevertheless, it exists.

Progress can infuriate the public. When 17th century astronomer Galileo advocated that the earth orbited the sun, rather than the other way around, he was tried by the Roman Inquisition and found guilty of heresy. He spent nearly a decade under house arrest until he died.

People don’t like having their belief systems challenged. It took the Catholic Church 350 years to apologize to Galileo, who was unequivocally right.

Progress. With enlightenment, comes awareness. With awareness, comes responsibility.

 

 

It’s not that everyone is so damn sensitive. It’s that we’ve made progress as a culture. We’ve learned that language has the power to create injustice. To shape attitudes and influence actions and ultimately determine how people are treated.

I’m certain some people find it offensive when I use profanity. I have an incredible family of readers who show up despite my potty mouth. I’ve also lost an entire population of the reading public because of my language.

When does humor cross over the line from bold and edgy to insensitive and damaging?
Herein lies the problem.

 

I’m not suggesting that I be the arbiter of humor, but I’ll offer this as a parameter: avoid joking about OTHER people’s anguish.

This does not mean horrific tragedy is off limits. Many people who have suffered through cancer, for example, successfully inject levity into that experience and find it remarkably healing.

But I’M not going to be the one making cancer jokes.

 

Here’s my short list of what isn’t funny:

1. Rape jokes. This includes rape culture jokes. If you crack jokes about writers jumping on the “anti-rape bandwagon,” you are participating in rape culture.

The “anti -rape bandwagon” is the finest fucking bandwagon in the universe to jump on. I encourage everyone to jump on it until their brains rattle in their skull.

Let me break it down. Anti-rape = good. Anti-anti-rape = bad.

Anyone who is callous enough to resort to this kind of humor has obviously never been close to someone who’s been raped. Once you look into the eyes of a woman whose psyche has a pile of ashes where her hopes and dreams should be, you lose all desire to exploit trauma for a laugh.

If you are accused of contributing to rape culture, and you sneer, “whatever THAT is,” you are officially part of the problem.

2. Heroin jokes. Lives are ruined, careers destroyed and people die from drug addiction. You have been blessed thus far not to have tangled with this demon, but don’t press your luck. One minute you’re tweeting heroin jokes, the next, you’re dropping your kid off at a rehab.

3. Jokes using the word “retarded” or “gay.” Many of us grew up using the word “retarded” to mean stupid, but we were adolescents with no accountability. Words matter. Before you use the word “gay” pejoratively, please check in with someone who has been fired, ostracized, bullied or beaten up for being gay.

4. “JEW” as an adjective. They’re Hanukkah doughnuts, not “Jew” doughnuts. Your lack of education is not an excuse. You have access to enlightenment via Wifi, so take time away from the Buzzfeed quizzes to watch Schindler’s List.

Persecuting Jews is not just a thing of the past. My son lost friends in kindergarten because the parents found out  he was Jewish. Yes, Virginia, anti-Semitism is alive and well in the 21st century.

In summary:

A person can be a Jew. It’s a noun.*
“Jew” is derogatory when used as an adjective.**

If you need this reviewed, ask your Jew boss about it.

*Nouns are person, places or things.
**Adjectives are descriptive words.

5. Boob Obsession. Everyone loves boobs, including me! I also happen to be quite fond of large penises, which I occasionally allude to. Yet, if all I did on Facebook and Twitter was post about big cocks, people would find me repulsive.

Have fun with occasional boob references but don’t devote your ENTIRE SOCIAL MEDIA presence to boobs. Aside from being creepy and desperate, you’re helping embed in our culture that it’s acceptable to reduce women to their frontal charms. You’re sending a message that women’s breasts belong to everyone. Don’t be surprised when your tween boy violates a girl by snapping her bra in class.

This includes tasteless jokes about Breast Cancer Awareness Day, which actually ISN’T about leering at women’s breasts flopping around, unencumbered.

6. “Crazy” jokes. One of the main reasons I never write about my PTSD, anxiety or depression is that I am terribly ashamed. I’m frightened that the people I love will stop loving me if I admit freely to having mental illness. People who glibly tweet jokes about craziness and psychos demonstrate insensitivity and intolerance.

Who among us is in a position to characterize what is crazy? Who isn’t crazy?
I don’t know any sane people. I just know some who are better at hiding their insanity.

 

 

A particular stigma has unfortunately manifested around being overly cautious with words, with some asserting that this is tantamount to censorship. I don’t experience refraining from making certain jokes as censorship. I feel empowered and compassionate.

And there’s so MUCH to laugh about in this world. I can probably write an entire post about how I get outwitted by laundry, weekly.

Like any art form, humor needs to be transgressive; it needs to push boundaries. However, exploiting pain for a cheap laugh simply demonstrates a lack of talent.

You’re fortunate to have led a white picket fence life, devoid of addiction, sexual assault or mental illness. On behalf of the rest of us, please choose your joke fodder without fostering a culture of disrespect around different identities and experiences.

 

What kind of humor do you find offensive? Are we getting overly sensitive, or just the right amount of sensitive?
Do you have a funny joke? Tell it to me. I’m listening. 

 

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I Stopped Exercising For One Year: Here’s What Happened

There’s a reason why the expression is gym “rat.”  It’s not gym “puppy;” puppies are adorable and cuddly. Rats are annoying.

For most of my adult life, I was a gym rat. I exercised every day; some days, for hours. I craved the endorphin high and the all-day energy boost. I loved being fit and strong. If I’m being totally honest – I also measured my self worth by how fit I looked.

My life revolved around the gym. I didn’t intentionally set out to make gym friends but only other people who make exercise such a priority can stand gym rats.

It’s no wonder. While the rest of the world was “aaahhh”-ing over their first sip of coffee, I was at grueling outdoor bootcamp classes. The crack of dawn found me running around Central Park in tights, holding a tire over my head. If an alien from another planet observed me from a far-off galaxy, they probably imagined I was some kind of AAA superhero.

“Flat tire on 86th street? Car Repair Woman saves the day!”

 

During my exercise mania days, I ate “clean” most of the time, which means, I stripped every bit of fun out of the experience of eating. Every day I ate grilled whatchamadingle with a side of steamed doojawockey. I removed sugar, alcohol and complex carbs out of my diet, along with the will to live.

I lifted weights. I trained with kettle bells. I climbed a zillion steps to nowhere on the stairmaster. I yoga’d and spun and kick boxed.

I set impractical and ludicrous fitness goals, like being able to do 20 unassisted pull ups. As my parting gift for this achievement, I received permanently jacked up shoulder joints. I have bone spurs in both rotator cuffs. It feels like tiny angry gladiators are spearing me right where my wings would attach to my body. If I had wings.

I’m supposed to get the spurs surgically removed, but I have to recuperate in a shoulder sling for months. It’s not really practical at this time in my life, or any other time for that matter, since I won’t be able to drive, eat, sleep or wipe my vag after peeing.

Over the years, I’ve injured every part of my body exercising. I’ve pulled muscles, pinched nerves and torn cartilage.

I sprained my asshole.

 

There were other downsides to being an exercise devotee. Going to the gym was time-consuming. Aside from exercising, there’s also getting changed, traveling to and from the gym, showering afterwards – it took up hours of my day.

I put more energy into my relationship with exercise than I did with a living human being.

 

A little over a year ago, I started to dread exercising. I could no longer bear the sight, sounds or smells of the gym.

So I stopped. I know exercise burn out when I feel it.

Playing exercise hooky freed up so much of my time that day, I was delighted. Was this what it felt like when you’re not a slave to the gym?

 

I didn’t want to stop exercising completely, so I took up walking. But when it was snowy or rainy, I skipped those days.

Once again, I marveled over all the extra time. Gradually, I just stopped exercising.

And then the dam…BURST.

I started eating junk food, stuff I hadn’t eaten in decades. Doughnuts, and candy bars, and cake. Carb-o-rama.

I gained 30 pounds. Of course, it bothered me immensely. But some extra weight settled in my breasts, which were finally bigger than a B cup. The last time that happened, Cujo the newborn was gnawing on them constantly. Now, I had a great, baby-free rack.

No one complained that I went from “waif” to “sturdy.” And the extra fat in my face was like taking a Black and Decker steam iron to some of my eye crinkles.

 

For several months I tried to burn fat just hating exercise, but it didn’t work. When I realized I was getting winded eating pancakes, I knew I had to start working out again.

I joined a gym near my house. The fitness director encouraged me to do some really extreme classes, but I declined. I used to measure the success of my workout by how much I wanted to puke. Nowadays, I have no interest in exercising to the point where I’m yakking in the ladies locker room.

I used to be hard-wired to enjoy the pain of exercise. In just a year, I managed to completely turn that around.

This has been such a paradoxical journey. On the one hand, I feel liberated. Those extra hours a day gave me more time to waste on the Internet write. Weekend mornings, instead of bolting out of the door to the gym, I hang out with my kid.

On the other hand – I worry about my health. My father died of a heart attack suddenly at age 46 – the age I am now. I think the the best way to avoid death is to become a moving target.

I’ve had to reframe my whole idea of myself. My identity was wrapped around being waif thin, and I’ve had to give that up. It hasn’t been easy, but to ease the pain of the transition, there’s cake. Mmmm, cake. 

I’ve started back slowly, going every couple of days. I do it only because I must. Exercise has lost its allure for me. The whole time I’m on the treadmill, feeling like a hamster on a spinning wheel, I’m counting the minutes until I can get home and back in front of my keyboard.

The only thing I seem to enjoy exercising these days is my mind.

 

Do you exercise? How do you stay motivated?
Is anything as good as cake? Talk to me. I’m listening. 

 

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How To Avoid Planning the Biggest Event of Your Life

 

I got married at city hall. I wore a white leather mini dress and white leather boots. I was going for an ‘Amy Winehouse retro’ look but ended up more ‘boozy Nancy Sinatra’.

Afterwards, we had a barbecue in our backyard. My lawn caught fire which I expertly handled by drinking copious amounts of tequila. I’m told I ran around the backyard in various states of undress, but I have no memory of that. It was pre-camera phones. Thank God.

 

I love to throw big parties, although admittedly, it’s been a while. I provide excessive amounts of food and alcohol, make an 8-hour mixed tape that whips the crowd into an orgiastic frenzy of dance, and pray that no one pees in my living room.

What I can’t do – or rather, what I loathe doing – is plan events like weddings. I got married at city hall precisely because I’d rather set my teeth on fire than worry about center pieces and invitations.

This is where “you do you” comes in. I’m sure there are scads of people who wouldn’t devote an entire Saturday to hunting down a Partridge Family lunchbox, like I did.

 

According to everyone in the free world, I should already have started planning my kid’s bar mitzvah. It’s in November. Most mothers where I live would have already booked a summer face lift.

There will be a Saturday morning service at the temple, at which time my kid has to read his haftarah– a portion of the Torah.

It’s endless pages of hieroglyphics, and everytime he practices it, I marvel at his ability to learn a language that’s written right to left, in a completely different alphabet. Considering most people I know mangle this one.

There’s a small brunch-y reception right after the service,the kiddush, and then a big party that night. I have to decide what we’re serving at both those events and it has to be kosher, and what foods are kosher?! and did I forget to mention that my Ex used to call me “the Shiksah” because I don’t know jack shit about my own religion?

I should have already picked a venue. Places are booked a year in advance. But they won’t re-open CBGB’s to host a bar mitzvah, and beyond that, I don’t care.

 

A month ago, I was asked what my kid’s “theme” will be.

Theme? I was having a fun little fantasy wherein I begin every conversation at the party with “So, these adult diapers I’m wearing” and then this…theme thing happened.

I went into protective mode. I became a hedgehog whose life is threatened. I shot up my prickly spine and hissed and hoped it would all go away.

The decor and centerpieces are supposed to reflect said “theme” and I’m wondering if the theme can be “themeless.” Just like this blog.

My kid is looking forward to a party – after all, he’s been studying for 5 years – but he’s not invested in how elaborate it is. He did, however, also ask about the “theme.” HISSSSSS.

I have to pick out invitations and pre-invitation invitations, ‘Save the Date! notices. This locks people in so they can’t get a better offer at the last-minute and ditch us.

I have to decide who we’re inviting, and who we’re leaving out because we’re not inviting everyone we’ve ever known and I’m capping this bitch at 50 people.

We’ll need a DJ. But not JUST a DJ.

You need pyrotechnics and flashmob choreography. People hire entertainment companies, complete with girls dressed like rap video hoes, to get everyone shaking it on the dance floor. And to get air humped by pubescent boys.

 

Traditionally, the bar mitzvah boy has personalized yarmulkes (beanies) created in his favorite color, with his name and date printed inside. Little Dude cannot make up his mind what color to have, and recently suggested rainbow-colored. Which would be convenient, if we were going straight from the bar mitzvah to the Gay Pride parade.

I need to wear grownup clothes to this. Not just one outfit – I’ll need TWO. One suitable for a morning service at the temple, and one for the party that night. I have to buy these because I DON’T OWN CLOTHES LIKE THAT.

I’ll probably break tradition and wear a rock tee-shirt and jeans to the party that night because (this is becoming my mantra for the event) WHO CARES? My kid is fine with that, but has already put me on notice that I have to wear something “mom-ish” to the morning service.

I’ve decided to purchase an expensive, tasteful dress at a local department store. I’ll wear it with the tags still on it, Febreze the shit out of the armpits and return it the day after.

 

 

My mother passed away last fall, and while going through her belongings, I found ancient family photos. One yellowed packet contained photos of my eldest brother’s bar mitzvah. It was right before my father died, leaving my mother a widow with six kids.

It’s the only bar mitzvah my family had, although I have no memory of it beyond these photos.

I am 3 years old in the pictures. I don’t remember my father, or the mother of those pictures. She is laughing and whirling. She is beautiful; her body svelte and her flaming red hair matching her red lips. She is holding a cigarette in slender fingers just like mine, elegantly photographed at some catering hall in the Bronx, I suppose.

I do remember my brother, although he too, is gone now. There’s one picture of him holding me, laughing. Behind us are our parents, who are smiling for the camera, but mostly for the day and the joy it held.

Everyone but me in that picture is gone.

All that remains is a faded analog reminder of a different era; a time when we were all still alive and together and happy.

 

My son deserves his day.

Tomorrow, I start planning.

 

Are you good at planning these events? Do you want to plan this one?
Talk to me. I’m listening. 

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