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mallorys_cameraThe Quest For Tribal Identity took me face-to-face with the worst gefilte fish I have ever seen, smelled or tasted last night. Truly. It looked like cat turds on a plate (artfully arranged on leaves of iceberg lettuce) and tasted like something a pelican might regurgitate to feed its teratogenically altered spawn. I was at a Seder table with the Dorothy-Parker-bobbed Jean, her traveling trio of doctors, long-suffering Ben and my preternaturally beautiful Robin whose eyelashes seem to grow another half inch every day and who crossed himself at random intervals during the Haggadah reading.
The traveling trio of doctors continues to intrigue me. At least one of them is married to Jean, but all three seem to live with her. When I first met them, I thought they were all gay but now I think they may all be cancer survivors. Don, closest to me at the table, kept making wistful references to Gourmet magazine as he explored the gefilte fish with the prongs of his fork. "Are you Jewish?" I asked.
"Oh, God no. Any religion that uses Manishevitz as a sacrament is not for me. I'm an Episcopalian."
"I'm Jewish," said David across the table. David kind of looks like W.H. Auden in a badly fitting blond wig. "Some people grow up thinking they're women trapped in a man's body. I grew up thinking I was a Jew trapped in a WASP. I converted years ago."
Are you serious? I thought but did not like to ask, and shortly thereafter the conversation evolved into Seder songs as interpreted by the Grammy winners of yesteryear. David did Eminem, Don did Barbra Steisand, I did Barry White. Peter beamed at us like Buddha and Robin squirmed under his yamaka: "When can I take the beanie off?" Mildly entertaining.
At the end of the evening Jean slipped me her phone number. "Let's get together." And I was very pleased. One of the truly awful things about middle age is that there seems to be an assumption that you've maxxed out your friend quota, that you hardly have time to keep up with the friends you already have let alone make new ones. Whereas I am always cruising for new people to conscript into the inner circle, and I'm self-conscious about that, as if it makes me somehow less of a grown-up.
Aside from the Seder, it was a frustrating day. After a week of business meetings and crunching and recrunching cash flow analyses and break even points, I let my right brain out of its cage yesterday and sat down to write the gruesome Yeltsa slaughter scene. It was gruesome all right, I even succeeded in creeping myself out but it reads more like splatterpunk than noir. And then there are all the structural anxieties – Yeltsa's murder has to be written from Yeltsa's point of view. But that means there are now three POV characters – one of whom (Yeltsa) only lasts a single scene – and since at some point, I want to add Ridenour, the alcoholic art historian, into the mix, my aesthetic sensibilities are blasting red alerts. Ah well. It's only a first draft.
The traveling trio of doctors continues to intrigue me. At least one of them is married to Jean, but all three seem to live with her. When I first met them, I thought they were all gay but now I think they may all be cancer survivors. Don, closest to me at the table, kept making wistful references to Gourmet magazine as he explored the gefilte fish with the prongs of his fork. "Are you Jewish?" I asked.
"Oh, God no. Any religion that uses Manishevitz as a sacrament is not for me. I'm an Episcopalian."
"I'm Jewish," said David across the table. David kind of looks like W.H. Auden in a badly fitting blond wig. "Some people grow up thinking they're women trapped in a man's body. I grew up thinking I was a Jew trapped in a WASP. I converted years ago."
Are you serious? I thought but did not like to ask, and shortly thereafter the conversation evolved into Seder songs as interpreted by the Grammy winners of yesteryear. David did Eminem, Don did Barbra Steisand, I did Barry White. Peter beamed at us like Buddha and Robin squirmed under his yamaka: "When can I take the beanie off?" Mildly entertaining.
At the end of the evening Jean slipped me her phone number. "Let's get together." And I was very pleased. One of the truly awful things about middle age is that there seems to be an assumption that you've maxxed out your friend quota, that you hardly have time to keep up with the friends you already have let alone make new ones. Whereas I am always cruising for new people to conscript into the inner circle, and I'm self-conscious about that, as if it makes me somehow less of a grown-up.
Aside from the Seder, it was a frustrating day. After a week of business meetings and crunching and recrunching cash flow analyses and break even points, I let my right brain out of its cage yesterday and sat down to write the gruesome Yeltsa slaughter scene. It was gruesome all right, I even succeeded in creeping myself out but it reads more like splatterpunk than noir. And then there are all the structural anxieties – Yeltsa's murder has to be written from Yeltsa's point of view. But that means there are now three POV characters – one of whom (Yeltsa) only lasts a single scene – and since at some point, I want to add Ridenour, the alcoholic art historian, into the mix, my aesthetic sensibilities are blasting red alerts. Ah well. It's only a first draft.
