communit-frikkin-y

stop the presses! i've figured out what i'm missing. it's not fame or admiration or buckets of tax-free cash, although all of those things would be much appreciated and will hopefully someday figure prominently in my life. no, far simpler, my friend: i'm missing, for the first time ever, communism. i mean community! community.

every place i've ever been for a length of time has had either a natural or forced sense of community: cty, ramah, various pre-college summer programs; jds, my K-12 all-jews-all-the-time skool, for sure, not to mention the jds Take Your Hormones to Israel senior trip; swarthmore, even my study abroad program. they might not all have had theme songs (does hatikvah count as a theme song?). they might not all have had bonfires, or pledges, or mixers, or other forms of mandatory bonding. my life has not been one long fucking girl scouts meeting. however, i have lived in a venn diagram: my close group of friends, circumscribed by a larger group of somehow-related -- basically, jewish and/or intellectual -- peers.

and now! where the hell am i? more importantly, where the hell are my friends? everything is scattershot now. some people from work here, a couple college friends there, some other assorted folks from the past far off in that corner. nothing coherent. and i love things that cohese! also i love the word cohese. i'm pretty sure it's a word.

charlotte bronte was disatisfied with her first job out of college. she was ambitious, restless -- she knew where she wanted to be but didn't know how to get there and wasn't sure she had the patience for the journey. hear hear, charlotte! i may take umbrage at your disrespecting ms. austen, but i feel you on the late-adolescent angst. i don't, on the other hand, want to engage in a series of fruitless, tabboo love affairs and die young. there must be another way.

mr. ben, who is in my ways my refuge, accompanied me to steel magnolias and bore it without complaint. luckily the acting was good, even if our (comped) seats weren't. my only quibble was the scene that always gets me in the movie. it didn't have the same power in this production. a couple tears dribbled out of my eyes but i had been ready to geyser. that was a little disappointing. otherwise, i'm glad i went; and shoutout to becca's boyfriend for building the set!

how on earth does one find community in a city this sprawling? i wish you could place an order for it on the internet and have it delivered to your door the next morning: Fresh Direct meets soylent green meets jdate.