the resounding partnership of no

Thursday: Twenty-Four Hours of Awakehood, Some of Which Lecturing, Some of Which in a Dubious and Possibly Vampiric Warehouse

Around here, Thursday night, post-teaching, is not historically a night to find oneself in some kind of dubious warehouse. It is also not a night to be in this warehouse surrounded by weird thumping DJ music, pressed up against lots of overexcited persons while one remains completely still, making facial expressions and wearing exactly what one wore to work that day. I was pressed in so close to the people around me that, to draw blood, all that would have been required would be to open my mouth and then very slightly gesture downward with my incisors. It was enough to make me glad that I'm a bloodless being, although just to be safe from biting I strategically positioned myself in front of Shimon, with whom I had come there -- being fairly satisfied by this point that he is not a vampire, or at least that if he is, he has been waiting an anticlimactically long time for the reveal.

In the end, we were rewarded for having waited (and waited and waited) for two! hours! this way, sweating crazily and watching dudes pump their fists in the air -- with Ghostland Observatory and their excellent musics and lasers. It was well worth it, even for a Thursday night, and even if it ended up meaning being awake for twenty-four consecutive hours, way too many of which were spent in that city where I teach.

Friday

In which it transpires that staying awake for twenty-four hours brings happiness to the house of no one.

Saturday: Chag Sameach, Motherfuckers; or, In Which Berkeley is Once Again Visited and Matzah is Erroneously Consumed

Yesterday marked the beginning of Passover. In the story of Exodus, we learn much about the story of Passover, which involves shank bones, lice, blood smearings, and unpleasant stale crackers, much like the nurse's office in elementary school. Jews made haste across a red sea. There were boils, cattle disease, locusts, and all kinds of unpleasantries to pave their way out. Therefore we now have long dinners involving chicken and flourless cakes. And that's just the abridged version.

Helene's friends Aaron & Jeannie were nice enough to include me in their wonderful Berkeley seder for the second year in a row. I am traditionally not a huge hit at seders, since I'm allergic to matzah, the key player in the meal. Matzah and Crohn's Disease are a giant, resounding partnership of no. No to matzah + Crohn's Disease. To that end, I demurely avoided the matzah, or else believed myself to be avoiding the matzah -- a myth that was summarily shattered on the BART ride home, during which I began to feel specifically and unpleasantly ill in a way that could only have been caused by the pernicious Jewcracker. 

What did Jews fleeing Egypt with Crohn's Disease do during the Exodus, when there was only matzah to eat? I'll tell you what they did. They died. Talk about an anticlimax: For years they're enslaved by the evil Pharoah, worked to the bone, punished, beaten. Being champs, they pull through. Then, finally sprung from the Pharoah, hastening in glee and excitement across ye olde desert, they die because some crackers shred up their intestines. Felled by crackers. This is just remarkably lame and sad. Pull it together, ancient Crohn's Jews. Pull. It. Together.

Don't be too sad, though. Obviously one or two of them squeaked by, maybe by eating lice or locusts or something, thus to pass on Crohn's Disease to more people through the ages. Well, thank God for that! I mean, Dayenu!