Second Night Seder

[mallorys_camera]

Spent a couple of hours last night playing Legos with a most engaging 8 year old. It's been a long time since I built anything out of Legos. We were working on cups for Elijah.

I'm one of those grownups who actually prefers the company of children to adults – but they have to be a certain kind of children. They have to be those pale, precocious children with vocabularies that are a bit too advanced for their age.

Joshua fit the bill.

Joshua's parents live together in the same $800,000 hideously sterile townhouse in a gated community in Great Neck, one of those complexes where they spent millions on an atelier but left cracks in the foundation. But Joshua's parents are getting a divorce. Which has taken its toll on Joshua.

Joshua's mother is D's daughter. A very brilliant malpractice lawyer who dabbles in astrology. Needless to say, I also bonded with her.

I was there for a second night Seder, having lobbied D incessantly. On High Holy Days, I want to be around other Jews. Never mind that I'm as crypto as a Jew can get. It was kind of D to invite me.

Joshua's father refused to come out of the bedroom.

Since D talks non-stop about the incidentals of her life, of course I knew the back story. Blah blah blah. Troubled Sharon, brought to the United States from Israel as a young child, a little younger than her Joshua, speaking only Hebrew, doomed to perpetual Outsider-hood in stuffy Lawn Guyland. Poor self esteem. Self destructive spirals. Finally goes to law school. Gets her first job. Partner chooses her to have affair with. Partner's wife finds out and divorces partner. Partner is stuck marrying Sharon. Partner = Joshua's father.

Partner is around my age, but you'd never know it. He has a kind of elfin, Peter Pan-ish quality. Like he spends a lot of money on Sublimage Regenerating Cream or something. Sharon is in her early 40s.

Anyway, we valiantly carried on the Seder without him.

On the ride home, D said, "That man. He is – I'm sorry to use this word – an asshole. You saved the day. You made the party. You were so lively and engaging that we all had a good time even though he was a jerk. I give you all credit."

"Well, that was my intention," I said. "Thank you for noticing."

###

When I finally fell asleep – much, much later than my usual bedtime – I dreamed I was in Havana. Joshua and I were trying to catch up with Maria Wilhelm, of all people. We were taking shortcuts through various hotels and lobbies high up on a hill, and I kept telling Joshua that we were missing out on the real Havana – the street scene with its boulevards of decaying pink palaces and rusting, vintage cars, and its narrow alleyways fronted by houses with secret gardens.

"This isn't going to be here in another five years," I told Joshua. "When Castro dies – bam! The U.S. will normalize relations and the tourism developers will all move in."

"So what?" said the dream Joshua. "Who wants something that's old?"

Then I woke up. A light was shining through the window. The full moon.

I fell back asleep.

This time I dreamed I was singing.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly…

But I needed an instrumental accompaniment so I picked up this battered guitar and tried to make chords on it. Only it was hideously out of tune and half its strings were broken.

Comments

[robby.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that I don't dream about the new people that I've met. For some reason, the cast of characters is limited to people that I've known for a period of time. For some strange reason, I can play a dream guitar and alsosing much better than in real life.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I almost never dream about people I know IRL period, so to have two people I know in the same dream was quite unusual.

I don't remember ever having sung before in a dream, and I don't and never have played the guitar. So that was pretty unusual as well!

[robby.livejournal.com]

The night after writing this, I had a dream about you trying to start a van that you had stored in a horse pasture for a time. Horse trailers and dream horses were scattered throughout.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Interesting! I like that image a lot, actually. I wonder if this was in reference to my dating life? Dr. Fraud would see sexual implications in the horses. :-)

You've never met me. What did I look like?

[robby.livejournal.com]

You were wearing blue jeans, and had long brown hair, no grey. You looked a little like Meryl Streep.