:: Dictated But Not Read ::
Musings from the ''Miracle Girl''| [::..archive..::] |
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| Things That Have Been Said About Me |
| You are the Minx. |
| She plays taller than her height. |
| You have a refreshing attitude. |
| You're such a renaissance woman. |
| She's not much of a biller. |
| You are very angry. |
| You are so self aware. |
| You need a more sophisticated haircut. |
| You are not afraid of anything. |
| You have a great attitude. |
| Your life is like a Seinfeld episode. |
| You are winsome. |
| You look great in hats. |
| Miracle girl. |
| I am belligerently conciliatory. |
| You've got it big time. |
Sunday, August 10, 2003
My SentenceWe are fast approaching the season of the High Holy Days for Jewish people. The second of the High Holy Days is Yom Kippur when we atone for our sins. We fast and go to the synagogue for hours and ruminate on our sins. We even have a prayer called the “Al Chet”, which literally translated is “on the sin”. The prayer is pages long and contains a phrase for every conceivable sin beginning with “Al Chet Shechatanu” which in the modern prayer book is translated as “And for the sin we committed when..” Each of these phrases concludes with a specific and often obscure sin. Some of them are obvious like not honoring your parents but many are things like gluttony. As you chant each of these phrases you beat your chest. In my synagogue we have about 3000 people and the sound of all of those people reciting the prayer and the sight of them beating their chests in powerful and sometimes awesome. There is a refrain or chorus that is sung in a rather catchy tune about 3 or 4 times during the prayer that basically asks that for all of the sins that we be forgiven. All of this is the part of the atonement that centers on asking God for forgiveness, however there is another aspect to the holiday which mandates that before the holiday you go to people you know and ask them for forgiveness for anything you may have done to them in the prior year. You are obligated to ask for forgiveness whether or not you can think of anything you may have done to harm that person. Each person is judged on Yom Kippur for all of his/her deeds and his/her fate for the following year is sealed.
I am starting early this year. I do not have to wait for Yom Kippur for punishment for my obscure sin for the year. If it were included in the Al Chet it would probably be something like “for the sin which we have committed by heart break.” In any case, I have been sentenced to six months. No I am not in jail. I am expected to go on leading my life, working at my job, being a friend, doing my volunteer work in the community, being a daughter, sister, and aunt, but I am serving out a sentence. The sentence is that I am not supposed to be in contact with a very special friend for a period of six months. I am to see him again on a specific date and specific time, not before. I will serve out my sentence but it will be a struggle and I will miss him terribly, but I will take my punishment like a woman. I will also ask, as my tradition mandates, that he forgive me.
D.B.N.R.
Sunday, August 03, 2003
Felons R UsI manage to attract some interesting men. They usually come in waves. I can go months without anyone of the male species noticing that I am alive and then suddenly all sorts of people become interested. The last time that happened to me was several months ago. I was at my favorite neighborhood bar and almost every guy in the bar (it was fairly empty) was showing me some attention. I was particularly interested in one of them, Q. He seemed to be witty, intelligent, and to have the combination of traditional job and unconventional personal life I like to think that I have. Q. and I ended up leaving and meeting at another bar. (It was necessary to escape from one of the guys at the first bar.) Q. and I were hanging out at the second bar, watching a band, and having a good time. We ran into his friend S. and S. started flirting with me. It was a bizarre evening. Q. and I indicated that we were together (though in truth we had just met). After I said what I do for a living S. gave me a semi-believable story about a friend who needed help with a divorce and asked for my card. I idiotically gave it to him and took his. He mentioned in passing that he had been a prison guard and therefore knew a lot of criminal lawyers. His card indicated that he was some kind of security expert for the federal government. While Q. was in the bathroom S. told me that he loved my smile and that if I was not with Q. he would hit on me himself. Over the next week S. began to call and e-mail me a bit too often and it was not about his supposed friend’s divorce. I went out with Q. a few more times and found out that S. was not in fact a friend but was more like an acquaintance. My habit when I get attention from a random man and realize I have made an error by giving him personal information is to do a Google search on him. I found out more than I ever wanted to know about S. Apparently his criminal trial is a particular source of pride for Court TV. It seems when he was an off duty prison guard he shot some people. An ex-girlfriend saw some news about his trial on Court TV and provided some information that broke the case. Court TV is quite proud of the case and has written about it extensively. Obviously I did not respond to the calls or e-mails after that and Q. apparently started avoiding S. as well. S. stopped calling and writing fairly quickly (so did Q. but that is another story). I had not thought about my capacity to attract a felon in a while. Frankly, I am more proud of others I have attracted, for example the psychotic Pulitzer prize winner or the egocentric Buddhist novelist. Somehow the worst ones always seem to find me again. So I should not been surprised when I got an e-mail from S. the other day reminding me (as if I could have forgotten) where we met and that I had been dating an acquaintance of his at the time. He saw me on an internet dating site and thought he would “say hello”. His e-mail signature indicates that he is now a Vice President of a private security company. Did I mention he is a convicted felon? Ah well, chock it up to more great experiences: Pulitzers, novelists, sax players, and felons. On to bigger and better things, perhaps sports writers?
D.B.N.R.
Friday, August 01, 2003
It’s not like that with usLots of people have crushes on celebrities. Some people might confuse my relationship with John Feinstein with one of those kinds of crushes. The relationship is much more than a silly crush. John has written more than ten books and an untold number of articles about sports. I first fell in love with his commentary on college basketball but have come to appreciate all of John’s work, even those pieces about sports I do not watch. I love sports and I feel they are routinely short changed by the media. Reporting on sports is frequently the purview of writers who cannot string words together to form a sentence. By way of contrast, John is capable of weaving a story together that involves not only the facts of how the game was played but also the interplay between the personalities in the game and the underlying politics of a particular sport. John and I have connected on an intellectual level. When John does his weekly report on NPR ending with “Goodbye Bob”, I know he is really saying “Goodbye Margot.” He just cannot say that on the radio. We have a special, subtle, cerebral connection. It should not be confused with some kind of sleazy sexual liaison. People are so quick to assume that is what is happening. In order to find my name in the acknowledgment section of his new book Open you have to read between the lines. John worries that people will misinterpret what we have and he is right to be concerned. Just the other day a friend of mine warned me not to read Open just before I went to sleep because he feared I would get too “excited”. I had to remind him that it’s not like that between my sweet, special, cerebral John and me.
D.B.N.R.
