Thanksgiving may only be my 5th favorite holiday, but I'm still thankful for it

Ah, Thanksgiving. My fifth favorite holiday.

Mostly because it gets me out of school for four sweet, glorious, sleep-filled days.

Well not this year, because I’m going to LA at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning (literally. The VERY crack of dawn), and coming home on the red eye Saturday night because my dad is a complete and utter psychopath and the antithesis of sleep.

Why is it my fifth favorite holiday? Well Purim is the clear winner because you get to dress up in costumes and (they don’t tell you this part in Hebrew school!) you’re SUPPOSED to get so drunk that you can’t tell the difference between Haman and Mordechai. Jews know how to celebrate a holiday.

 Of course, all of our holidays are basically about the same thing. Someone or something tried to kill us. We won. Let’s eat.

Hanukkah is number two because I love presents. And the hot firemen who show up when I almost burn my house down every year. That alone makes it an awesome holiday, even though it’s a little weak on the religion side.

Thanksgiving probably used to be higher on the list, but the combination of crazy family drama (my desserts aren’t kosher enough for the very recently ultra-orthodox branch of my family. Hypocrisy at its finest considering how often I’ve seen them eat shellfish, but I digress.) and the major weight loss this year that makes me feel that food is my absolute arch enemy has lowered it in the ranking. Now it’s somewhere in between Rosh Hashanah (I like apples. I like honey. Win.) and Tu B’Shvat (which I think is the tree holiday. I’m not really sure what it is, but it doesn’t require that I do anything and I can claim it’s a holiday so I don’t have to do work).

I get to avoid the majority of the drama this year because we’ll be in LA, but that makes this year’s celebration a religious experience for my parents. Their religion? Adamism. They will be spending the long weekend worshipping at the altar of my brother’s feet, while I gag in the corner and try not to incur the wrath of Adam’s most fervent followers while looking at all the yummy food that I no longer eat.

Oh joy, rapture!

Sorry, do I sound bitter?

I’m really not.

And to prove it, here’s a list (in no particular order) of some of the things that I’m thankful for this year.

1) Bruce Springsteen is alive and well and touring. I know it’s an odd thing to be thankful for, but it’s been a hell of a year for me and Bruce! The future of the E Street Band looked uncertain at this time last year because of Clarence’s death, but I did four shows in the same week in the spring run, and then had my own personal Courtney Cox moment when I got pulled up on stage to dance with Jake Clemons, Clarence’s nephew. Seriously, one of the best nights of my life and I’m thankful that I got to experience that!

Hugging Bruce. Yeah.  It happened.

Dancing with Jake. Because he rules.

Campaigning with Bruce.  I still don't know how this wasn't the official Obama campaign ad.

Yup.  Just holding hands with Bruce Springsteen.  Typical day in the life of Sara Goodman.

2) My newspaper kids—I promised them a shout-out! It’s no secret that I was pretty miserable at my old school, and I still don’t want to be a teacher when I grow up. But my newspaper kids are the ones who get me out of bed in the morning. Okay, technically, my psychotic addiction to exercise gets me out of bed in the morning, but my newspaper kids are the ones who get me to school. Love you guys!

3) The new version of the Great Gatsby with Leonardo DiCaprio in it.  Leo + Gatsby? Oh, there aren’t words to describe the level of thankful that I am for this combination! If there was just a Bruce song in this movie, it would be the most perfect thing EVER in the history of mankind. Just saying.

4) Obama winning! Woohoo! I don’t have to get my ass back in the kitchen and make you a pie!

5) My super awesome boyfriend, who I am sending home for Thanksgiving with a pie that I made. Not because I had to because Romney won, but because I WANT to. See the difference? (But seriously, I’m thankful that this year, when I have to deal with my family, I’m no longer the sad, pathetic, schoolmarm-ish spinster. Not that I ever was, but I was treated that way, which was almost as bad. He seriously quoted Springsteen to me at 7am yesterday. Epic win.)

6) Rosie. That little furball ruined the carpet in my apartment, pretty much destroyed my leather sofas, and has basically destroyed everything else I love. But she’s my baby, and I’m grateful that the little demon is in my life every day.

7) My parents. They annoy the bejeesus out of me. They call me every three minutes with absolutely nothing to say, try to run my life, yell at me constantly, and are generally pretty mean to me. Because they love me very much. They won’t SAY that. But they show it through the constant need to talk to me and the presents they buy me instead of saying they’re sorry when they’re REALLY mean to me (or in my mom’s case, when she creeps me out by picking out baby clothes. STOP IT MOM!)  But my mom did FIND me number 5 on my list, so thanks for that too... JUST STOP BEING CREEPY!

8) That my best friend’s divorce is final. Seriously, I did a little happy dance when that came through. She’s the best and deserves the best and now she has a chance to find it, which I am VERY thankful for!

9) The people who buy and read my books! Someday, when I’m a famous author, you get to say you were reading me before everyone else. You’re my Obie (the Bruce fans get that one) and I appreciate and love you all!

10) Cake. Do I need to explain this one?  (The people who got the joke just died laughing, I promise.)

11) RGIII. Again, no explanation needed. He is the Luke Skywalker of the DC area. He is our hope. He is our future. He will hopefully not kiss his own sister like Luke Skywalker did. But if he does, it’s okay. Because the Redskins suck significantly LESS with him in town.

12) The block feature on Facebook and Twitter.  Some of you know why I'm so thankful for this one. And to Verizon, yes even Verizon, for allowing me to block phone numbers when stalking gets scary.  Thanks guys.

13) Apple products. They all just work, and they work together, and they can do anything and everything. (Hint hint Nick.)

14) Black Friday sales. Because losing weight was REALLY a ploy to get my mother to buy me new clothes. It’s working beautifully.

 

15) Sushi. I’m a newbie, but I’m obsessed. It rocks.

Obviously this isn’t an all-inclusive list, but it’s a start. And thinking about what we’re thankful for is really what this holiday is about.

That and carbo-loading for all the Black Friday shopping! Stock up on that stuffing and cornbread now! You’re gonna need it to keep your strength up for tomorrow!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Good news: I have a boyfriend! Bad news: My mom wants grandkids. NOW!

I believe that today marks the end of my blogging career. And most likely the end of my life.  

Because my mom is going to murder me for this blog. And now that she and I are the same size (that’s right, I said it, I can wear size two jeans! Bring it Mamadukes!), it’s definitely not a fair fight, and I’m pretty sure she can take me.

So why, you might ask, is my mother going to kill me and quite possibly mount my head on her living room wall? 

Easy.

I did exactly what she asked me to do.

Since my prodigious birth not so many years ago (screw you, I’m not old! I don’t care what you say or when you claim to remember me being born, it wasn’t that long ago!), my mother has held great expectations for me when it came to my romantic life.

Then, as I got a little older (and my eggs apparently a little less fresh… which yes, sounds like the start of some horrible commercial on Lifetime. Side note: Is anyone else secretly excited for the Lindsay Lohan Liz Taylor movie? Like I refuse to watch Lifetime under any circumstances, but I’m so planning to cover my windows with light-proof paper and soundproof my apartment so no one knows what I’m up to and watch the hell out of that! The two greatest Hollywood trainwrecks of all time colliding in one Lifetime movie? There hasn’t been a collaboration that awesome since Ben met Jerry!), her criteria devolved to one word: Jewish.




 
This point was reached when I turned approximately seven.

But mom and dad screwed up and sent me to a public high school that had a Jewish population lower than post-Holocaust Germany. (Can I make that joke? No? Okay, sorry. A Jewish population lower than the audience in a Mel Gibson movie? Happy now?) So I never knew Jews growing up and never learned how to bond with them. So by the time I DID meet some in college, I might as well have been a shiksa. But I have a theory on why shiksas are so appealing to Jewish guys: if you tell your Jewish mom that you’re dating a Jewish girl, there’s all this pressure. If you tell her you’re dating a shiksa, no pressure at all. In fact, you’re WAY too young to be serious! Don’t even THINK about getting married yet! Grandkids? Nah, we don’t want ‘em, be young. Enjoy yourself.

I lacked that appeal. So the Jewish boys stayed far, far away, and I viewed them much as one would view a unicorn: a mythical creature that some weird girls claim existed, but that I was pretty sure was never real. Or if it was, Noah didn’t take it with him on the Ark.  

There were family setups over the years, as there always are in big Jewish families. And they were such epic disasters that decency (and my teaching job) prevent me from going into full detail here. Let’s just say that I saw something that I shouldn’t have seen before this one dude who my DAD gave my number to even kissed me! (And to this day, I’m still trying to figure out what my dad said about me to make this guy think THAT was appropriate!)
(The video below sums up the situation quite nicely.) 

And there was the guy who my great aunt thought would be perfect for me who looked like Quasimodo but without his endearing qualities.

And the one who told me on our first date that he thinks books are dumb. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this winner said that TO AN AUTHOR/ENGLISH TEACHER AND COULDN’T UNDERSTAND WHY I DIDN’T WANT TO GO HOME WITH HIM THAT NIGHT.

Finally, I think my mother gave up on me.

Okay, I knew she didn’t. But I chose to believe that because I developed a convenient case of complete and total deafness whenever she mentioned giving my number out to anyone. And as anyone who has ever tried calling me knows, I screen my calls pretty heavily in case she (or my grandma, who has developed an equal case of deafness when I say no to giving my number out. And in general. Talking to her now requires a megaphone, one of those old fashioned ear horns, and the Let’s Get Ready to RUUUUUUUUMBLE guy. It’s difficult at best.) ignores my state of non-hearing and gives my number out anyway.

But for whatever reason, I agreed to ONE LAST setup.

Which, somehow, turned out to be awesome. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Sara Goodman has a super cute boyfriend. And he’s Jewish. And he reads. And he loves my books. And he grew up with miniature schnauzers. And he’s taller than me in heels. And he’s super into music.  And he's smart.  And funny.  And thinks I'm awesome.  And treats me well.  And he makes me happy.

Awww look how cute we are.  And yes, he's wearing a Great Gatsby t-shirt.  Which I plan to steal.  And which he plans to let me steal.  Because he's awesome like that.

I’d go on, but I can hear you vomiting from here.

So, I also hear you asking, once the retching has stopped, why is Mama Goods (as he calls her—so cute!) going to kill you?

Easy, because she’s being a total creepy psychopath about this entire situation, and I’m now exposing her for the yenta stalker that she is. At first, it was funny. I used information about us to get her to buy me stuff. But then she started tricking me. Like when she called me crying hysterically because the caterer had screwed up all the food for my grandparents’ anniversary brunch, and the world was ending. So to make her feel better, I gave her some free information. Then when I showed up at the brunch, the world had not ended and the food was fine. I had been outwitted.

And then she started picking out baby clothes. Literally. We went on one of our, “I’ll tell you this if you buy me that” shopping trips, and she starts PICKING OUT BABY CLOTHES.

Not okay, mom.

And when I let her talk to him when she called me one day and didn’t know he was over, I turned to him after and said, “You know she just bought us a stroller, right?” (Sign that he’s a keeper? He laughed at that instead of running away so fast that there was a Bugs Bunny-style hole shaped like him in my door!)

But when I talked to my mother later, and she went on for 18 ½ minutes (the exact length of time missing in the Nixon tapes. Coincidence? Hmmm…) about how awesome and amazing he is (which I agree with, but I find it odd that my mother keeps trying to sell me on my own boyfriend. I’m already dating him. I know him better than you do, mom. Stop it.), I finally cut her off and was like, “Mom, return the stroller.”

 “What stroller?”

“The one I know you bought after you talked to him on the phone.”

She laughed. “I didn’t buy a stroller. It was a crib and a mobile, silly.”

Operation Mama Goodman Wants Grandchildren has begun. To the point where I’m pretty sure that if I were on the Pill, she would have snuck into my apartment and replaced them all with TicTacs already.

But the good news is, until she kills me for writing this blog (or arranges a Rosemary’s Baby-style fertilization ceremony. Seriously, these are the things I have to worry about these days), I’m actually really happy.

So mom, please don’t kill me or implant Satan’s baby in me. Because I love you and you’re very thin and very pretty (even though you’re acting like a complete and total nut job right now!).

Love you, mommy. And thanks for bribing me with a new leather jacket to go on that date. TOTALLY worth it.

(And for actually finding me a good guy.  I was told I had to put that in here or I WOULD be killed for running this blog.  So thank you mom.  Now stop creeping on us and NO FREAKING BABY STUFF, k?  Thanks.)





         

It's been a week and I haven't ordered the new iPhone yet. That's progress!

My name is Sara, and I’m an Apple-aholic.

Hi Sara.

Thanks. Like most of you here, it started years ago with an iPod. Just a little, 32GB iPod. Everyone else already had one. I tried to be a good girl and just use my little non-Apple mp3 player, but everyone made fun of it. So I gave in to the peer pressure and tried my first Apple product. I’d seen my dad using them, so really, how much harm could there be in trying something Apple?

And at first, I had it under control. That one iPod was enough for me for a long time. True, I started toting it everywhere with me, just in case. And yes, I used it to hide from uncomfortable social situations. Turn it on, slip those little white earbuds in, and suddenly I felt good again. Was it a crutch? Yes. But I couldn’t see that at the time because it was just one little iPod.

I should have known there was a problem when I had to have it wired into my car because I just couldn’t function without it. And when I would panic if I didn’t have it with me. But one little iPod can’t hurt you, right?

But then I got my MacBook Pro. I’d had a Dell laptop (which, admittedly, I had wanted because they came in colors. I’m a girl. Deal with it.). And that’s when the addiction really got bad. Because I never wanted to touch that old Dell again once I had my MacBook. Oh no. Everything just felt RIGHT when I used my Mac. Everything worked.  There were no more viruses to worry about.  No left button/right button confusion. And I felt superior to all those PC people who had to hit “CTRL” instead of “Command.” Losers.

And I didn’t even have an iPhone or an iPad! Clearly I wasn’t an addict. Addicts couldn’t be away from their Mac products for longer than three seconds without dying like the the guy who drank from the wrong cup in the third Indiana Jones movie. I, on the other hand, chose wisely.  I could leave my iPod in my purse for most of the day and be fine.

That’s how they suck you in though. That MacBook is a gateway drug. Because it came with a free iPod touch. Which meant that I was using Apple more than ever. I could leave my old iPod in the car and use the touch for everything else. I could even use it to get online when I had wifi and was away from my computer.  Which, yes, I could do with my Blackberry, but it was just BETTER with an Apple product.

And oh how I clung to that Blackberry! I saw how addicted my dad had become to the Apple way of life, and I know that addictions are hereditary.  I didn’t want to go that route. So I vowed never to get an iPhone! Never to get an iPad! Never to fall prey to that Apple-induced madness that possesses addicts every time a new product is announced! Oh no, not me! I didn’t have a problem! I could stop any time I wanted to.

Addicts, however, tend to surround themselves with other addicts to justify their behavior. And my parents are no different. Like the worst of smokers and drinkers, I started using my parents’ iPads when they weren’t looking. A websearch here. A Facebook update there. An email. A YouTube video. A round of Words With Friends. But they caught on. And because they don’t see their own addictions as a problem, instead of castigating me, they bought me an iPad for my birthday last year. The Apple TV quickly followed suit.

And after that, there was no turning back. I woke up at 2:45am the night that the iPhone 4S went on sale to make sure I was alert enough to order mine EXACTLY at 3am. I claimed I had a doctor’s appointment and left school early the day it was delivered--the FIRST day that anyone could have one, to rush home to set it up. Behavior that a non-addict would find simply appalling.

I couldn’t stop though. I popped apps like they were TicTacs. I spent countless hours installing things I didn’t need, had no use for, but craved because they were there and they enhanced my Apple products like nothing else could. I preferred texting other Apple users because they too acted like our behavior was normal. They got it. And with iMessage, I could see when they were replying to me. And we could send emojis. Non-Apple users didn’t understand and judged us for preferring the company of other Apple-aholics. Clearly THEY were the ones with the problems.  Not us.  Never us. And even if some of my friends were addicted, I wasn't.  I couldn't be an addict. 

But when they announced the new iPhone 5 and I actually debated spending $700 on one because my contract isn’t up for another year, I realized that I had a serious problem. Buying the iPhone 5 was the equivalent of going SEVEN Springsteen shows. (Okay, three with Ticketmaster fees. But still). I have bills to pay. A mortgage. A schnauzer to feed. And I was actually debating spending that much money just to get the new iPhone a few months earlier.  Not good.

Maybe there was a way though.  The day that the announcement was made, I tried to figure out if I could make the money.  But when I posted this on my Facebook (JOKINGLY):

And got THIS as a reply from someone who shall remain nameless, but whom I will from now on refer to as the Creepiest Person I Know:

I realized my addiction had gone too far.  (NO I DID NOT CONSIDER HIS OFFER.  I'm NOT that bad!  But that is a REAL, UNEDITED message that I got the night that the iPhone announcement was made.  SCARY.)

So I’m taking a stand. I’m going to try to break the cycle of addiction. I can make do with the 4S with the upgraded iOS6, which does let it do most of the same stuff as the iPhone 5.  No, it doesn’t have the slightly different body to let everyone know immediately that my phone is superior to theirs in every possible way. But I’m strong. I can manage. And, God willing, with the help of other Apple-aholics out there who are also fighting the urge to spend $700 on a slightly better phone just because it’s new and Apple makes it, I can resist the daily temptation to buy the iPhone 5. I know the craving won’t ever actually go away. But I just need to take it one day at a time.

That’s all any of us can do, right?

It’s been on sale for pre-orders for over a week now. I’ve made it a week so far.  And that’s longer than I ever thought I would be able to last. It’s been hard.  Especially because my dad ordered his right when they went on sale. And I was lying there in bed, staring at the ceiling, praying that I would have the strength to stay away from my MacBook.  Because I knew that as soon as I sat down at that screen, I wouldn’t be able to resist going to the Apple homepage and ordering that phone. But I’ve made it this far, and I keep hoping I’ll have the strength to resist even when I see other people with the new iPhone.

Damn you, Steve Jobs! I feel your icy grip clutching me from beyond the grave!

God, I want that phone.

Stolen from http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple

Teaching 9/11 to students too young to remember

It’s first period and, as I do most years on this day, I’m staring at a computer screen, debating scrapping my lesson plans for the day in favor of some kind of September 11 activity.

Some years I’ve gone with my gut and done it, some years I’ve gone with my gut and haven’t. With ninth graders, it’s usually a huge flop anyway, as they tend to have the attention span of fruit flies on acid. In journalism, you can focus on the news coverage, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t depending on what you use. I’ve found that the falling man images are a little too extreme for me, let alone kids.

But this year, I realized something: I can’t do a “Where were you when you first heard what happened?” activity. Or one about how the events of that day changed you. Because my freshmen were three years old on September 11, 2001, and if they did know something big was going on, they certainly weren’t able to understand the magnitude of it.

In a sense, I envy these kids. They never experienced the lost feeling of safety that none of us who remember it well will probably ever fully recover. They don’t remember the utter incomprehension of that day. The frantic phone calls. The sighs of relief when they went through. The panic when they didn’t.

To these kids, 9/11 is no more real than the Cold War was to me. I was alive during the end of it, but it never meant anything to me. I never hid under my desk in a bomb drill or had nightmares about the Soviets blowing us up. My first understanding that my world might not be impenetrably safe came when my elementary school teacher let us watch CNN when the Gulf War started—something so unheard of that we were glued to the screen, fascinated. I remember hearing the phrase “terrorist reprisals” mentioned and, in my young mind, the only image I could fathom was silent, Arabian Nights-style extremists climbing up to my window, a pirate-like cutlass between their teeth, to slit my little American throat. But when I confessed this fear to my parents and was assured that a) that wasn’t what the phrase meant and b) that I was perfectly safe, I went on with my unworried childhood.

I don’t even remember thinking the word “terrorism” again until the Oklahoma City bombing, which only had a strong impact on me because my brother’s friend’s father died in that. And as a teenager, it was still something that happened to other people, someplace far away, even though I knew someone involved.

But for my generation, 9/11 changed our collective social consciousness, probably in a similar way to the effect that the Kennedy assassination had on my parents’ generation. It became our “Where were you when?” moment. Maybe every generation has one of those. Maybe every generation needs one. And I’m sure that my current students, who are too young to remember mine, will have their innocence stripped away in one of those moments all too soon.

Maybe it’s wrong to not focus on it in my classes today. You could certainly argue that I’m not doing my part to honor the memory of the innocent people who died eleven years ago. And I would agree with you. But I don’t know that there’s an appropriate English-class way to make them understand why it’s so important. I personally could write a paper on the Kennedy assassination or the Cold War or Hiroshima, but I couldn’t really feel it because I didn’t live it. And that’s part of my decision to stick to the curriculum today.

But the other part is that while I was one of the lucky ones who didn’t lose anyone eleven years ago, it was still a day that changed me. It changed all of us who are old enough to really remember it. And part of me wants to let these kids keep their innocence until the world forces them to lose it. Yes, by all means, teach them what happened in history class and at home. Explain the significance. Help them to understand what happened in a way that those of us who saw that second plane crash into the World Trade Center never truly will. But don’t teach them that they have to live with the fear that we never completely lost because of the events of 9/11.

They’ll learn that lesson on their own soon enough.