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I am going to make it through this year if it kills me
The trees outside my window have broken into full bloom, white and heavy as snowfall, reflecting sunlight into my apartment, and no longer smell so entirely like fish. I still feel botanically ignorant: if I am going to have a fish-scented tree tapping twigs against the glass, I should at least like to know what it is. But it's an oddly pleasant view, all the pale petals nodding and shifting on their branches with the wind whenever I look up from my computer, and it keeps me from seeing the red plastic beer cups scattered all up and down the street from last night's fraternity debauch. They were singing the bawdy song to the tune of "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye" again. I am continually impressed by the existence of that song.
A pigeon crashed into my air conditioner yesterday. I felt terrible. Then it came back and perched on the air conditioner and looked in at me, as though to prove some point. Clearly I am like unto Everest in the world of the pigeon. Go, me?
For the first time in my life, with the help of Eric Kimmel's Wonders and Miracles and a couple of dog-eared coffee Haggadahs that came from my grandparents, I led the Seder at my parents' house on Saturday. There was much historical tangency. There was much improv. There was not enough coaching of my brother on the Four Questions as there should have been, since I am the only person in my family who actually reads Hebrew, but he and his fiancée were fine. And the afikomen was discovered in under fifteen minutes, which is a miracle on the order of the Red Sea because my father has been known to hide half-matzot everywhere from record covers to photographs on the wall to guests' boots to (last year) halfway through Revelations in the King James Bible. I should have prepared more formally for the telling of the Exodus story. I don't have as many prayers committed to memory as I needed. But I think it still went well, and it was surprisingly fun. There are few rituals that, if left to myself, I will keep faithfully. Pesach is one of them.
Worship of the Great American Weevil God and the Well-Rested Ammonite, however, is not.
(Cut for tentacles and future archaeology.)
Me: Thank you for the feedback. I should get to bed
fleurdelis28: Ok. So you will not longer be a disciple of The Exhausted Ammonite?
(That would make a weird cult)
Me: I think the Well-Rested Ammonite would make just as weird a cult, thank you very much.
fleurdelis28: Eh. Cults frequently rely on sleep deprivation. The Well-Rested Ammonite probably has a sadly depleted following.
Me: By the time we are the major factor in American politics, you will come to regret those words. There will be bronze ammonites in nightcaps on poles everywhere!
[A little later that night . . .]
fleurdelis28: There's a patron saint of ptarmigans?!?!
Who even knew ptarmigans were Catholic?
Me: Saint Trebuchet just sounds awesome.
fleurdelis28: Note May 22.
Me: Right between Bear Waking Day and the Tubilustrum, too. Awesome. (The Tubilustrum—Washing of the Trumpets—is real. I love Roman holidays. There's the Robigalia in honor of the god of grain rust, too. Do you know any other culture that celebrates the gods of harvest blight?)
fleurdelis28: Lol! I'm not sure whether the Romans would have been my first guess for that, either.
*pictures the Great Weevil God of the American South*
Future archealogists who want to believe in it will even have that statue to work with . . .
Me: Hey, I like the idea of the Great Weevil God of the American South! It will go right along with the Well-Rested Ammonite.
fleurdelis28: *pictures the Great Weevil God of the American South and the Well-Rested Ammonite playing cards*
. . . Actually, I could see Bronze Ammonite Nightcap being a popular drink.
Me: I'm not exactly sure about popular . . .
fleurdelis28: Well, it would depend on the ingredients and the fashion trends.
Me: That's true. Once we're a grassroots religious movement, all across this benighted country, everybody will be ordering them.
fleurdelis28: That's how you beat the liberal conspiracy at its own game. Bankrupt them on trendy drinks. Unfortunately I think Jonathan Larson thought of it first . . .
Me: Sigh. I'll bet he didn't think of the Cult of the Well-Rested Ammonite, though.
fleurdelis28: That would be a mind-blowing addition to Rent. Especially with its own song . . .
Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dgr8bob for the Mountain Goats' The Sunset Tree, which has become my working soundtrack lately. If you can get the files to play here, I particularly recommend "This Year" and "Song for Dennis Brown." Thus far, my other favorites seem to be "You or Your Memory," "Dilaudid," "Magpie," "Love Love Love," and "Pale Green Things." I need to see John Darnielle live sometime.
There will be feasting and dancing in Jerusalem next year . . .
A pigeon crashed into my air conditioner yesterday. I felt terrible. Then it came back and perched on the air conditioner and looked in at me, as though to prove some point. Clearly I am like unto Everest in the world of the pigeon. Go, me?
For the first time in my life, with the help of Eric Kimmel's Wonders and Miracles and a couple of dog-eared coffee Haggadahs that came from my grandparents, I led the Seder at my parents' house on Saturday. There was much historical tangency. There was much improv. There was not enough coaching of my brother on the Four Questions as there should have been, since I am the only person in my family who actually reads Hebrew, but he and his fiancée were fine. And the afikomen was discovered in under fifteen minutes, which is a miracle on the order of the Red Sea because my father has been known to hide half-matzot everywhere from record covers to photographs on the wall to guests' boots to (last year) halfway through Revelations in the King James Bible. I should have prepared more formally for the telling of the Exodus story. I don't have as many prayers committed to memory as I needed. But I think it still went well, and it was surprisingly fun. There are few rituals that, if left to myself, I will keep faithfully. Pesach is one of them.
Worship of the Great American Weevil God and the Well-Rested Ammonite, however, is not.
(Cut for tentacles and future archaeology.)
Me: Thank you for the feedback. I should get to bed
fleurdelis28: Ok. So you will not longer be a disciple of The Exhausted Ammonite?
(That would make a weird cult)
Me: I think the Well-Rested Ammonite would make just as weird a cult, thank you very much.
fleurdelis28: Eh. Cults frequently rely on sleep deprivation. The Well-Rested Ammonite probably has a sadly depleted following.
Me: By the time we are the major factor in American politics, you will come to regret those words. There will be bronze ammonites in nightcaps on poles everywhere!
[A little later that night . . .]
fleurdelis28: There's a patron saint of ptarmigans?!?!
Who even knew ptarmigans were Catholic?
Me: Saint Trebuchet just sounds awesome.
fleurdelis28: Note May 22.
Me: Right between Bear Waking Day and the Tubilustrum, too. Awesome. (The Tubilustrum—Washing of the Trumpets—is real. I love Roman holidays. There's the Robigalia in honor of the god of grain rust, too. Do you know any other culture that celebrates the gods of harvest blight?)
fleurdelis28: Lol! I'm not sure whether the Romans would have been my first guess for that, either.
*pictures the Great Weevil God of the American South*
Future archealogists who want to believe in it will even have that statue to work with . . .
Me: Hey, I like the idea of the Great Weevil God of the American South! It will go right along with the Well-Rested Ammonite.
fleurdelis28: *pictures the Great Weevil God of the American South and the Well-Rested Ammonite playing cards*
. . . Actually, I could see Bronze Ammonite Nightcap being a popular drink.
Me: I'm not exactly sure about popular . . .
fleurdelis28: Well, it would depend on the ingredients and the fashion trends.
Me: That's true. Once we're a grassroots religious movement, all across this benighted country, everybody will be ordering them.
fleurdelis28: That's how you beat the liberal conspiracy at its own game. Bankrupt them on trendy drinks. Unfortunately I think Jonathan Larson thought of it first . . .
Me: Sigh. I'll bet he didn't think of the Cult of the Well-Rested Ammonite, though.
fleurdelis28: That would be a mind-blowing addition to Rent. Especially with its own song . . .
Thanks to
dgr8bob for the Mountain Goats' The Sunset Tree, which has become my working soundtrack lately. If you can get the files to play here, I particularly recommend "This Year" and "Song for Dennis Brown." Thus far, my other favorites seem to be "You or Your Memory," "Dilaudid," "Magpie," "Love Love Love," and "Pale Green Things." I need to see John Darnielle live sometime.There will be feasting and dancing in Jerusalem next year . . .