Had a decent Yom Kippur, at least as decent as you can have for a day where you're supposed to be remorseful for all of the bad things you've done. For me my remorse was largely remorse for all of the tremendous anger I felt about my past relationship with the ex (and her mother) back in NC. Need to move on, as folks in the current relationship are counting on me and I shouldn't dwell in the past.

Wish I could have attended the blogtoberfest...it just had to be scheduled on Yom Kippur...aargh! Was it actually devoted just to bloggers, or was it a general octoberfest? For some reason I'd never imagine that there were that many enthusiastic Buffalo bloggers outside of (e:strip). I'd like to see Central Terminal sometime before there's some huge bat guano problem and they have to knock it down to prevent an epidemic. I wonder if they give tours...

Today at an estate sale (e:inscrutable) and I got a chest of drawers for $40 for our move to the new apartment. It's kinda moldy and the drawers don't open because the humidity of the basement made them swell shut. I'm really more worried about the mold, as the thought of the mold spreading throughout the house and making my existing respiratory situation (already exacerbated by (e:inscrutable)'s cat zeke and (e:ktmuffin)) gives me the willies. I need to find a can of "mold nuke" (if it exists) and apply liberally to said dresser. The dresser does have substantially dovetail joints and looks circa 40's-50's, so I'm hoping it turns out to be a good deal. It's going to be a pain in the butt to move it from the storage warehouse we're storing it in to the apartment, but hopefully we'll round up some of (e:inscrutable)'s friends to help us.

Oh, yeah, I'm moving from Elmwood Village to north buffalo on Sanders St. I'll probably writing more about this event in a future journal entry.

With the coming of Yom Kippur, there's the inevitable thoughts of death. There is the thought of death in the future (will I make sufficient amends for g-d to inscribe me in the book of life for another year) as well as thoughts of those around you who have died in the past.

Buffalo, I've noticed, is also a city of death. I see so much around me that was once beautiful and grand being subject to endless decay and destruction. I thought I had seen it all until I saw Beth Jacob cemetery, an abandoned Jewish cemetery in eastern Buffalo that is pretty much as destroyed and desecrated as a place in Buffalo can be. Until I had seen Beth Jacob, I've had been able to somehow stomach much of the blight in the city, but seeing blight on this level was the ultimate outrage.

In spite of my feelings that this situation with the Beth Jacob cememtery has got to change, the one thing that sets this place apart from all of the other decaying places in this city is that it's the only place where I have found decay and growth, death and life, in equillibrium. The area has so devolved that nature has taken over, and the decaying headstones are covered over with vines and surrounded by tall green grass. It's awful, yet quite eerily beautful at the same time; when I went about two weeks ago (with (e:inscrutable)) we saw deer in resting out in the open, as if to stake nature's own claim on the area.

"The Gates of Repentance are always Open"



The Deer we saw



The rest

Today, I spent the first day in the year of our lord 5768 reflecting long and hard about the person I want to be. The gates of repentance have been opened with the blast of a horn, and it is up to me whether I will be inscribed in the Book of Life for another year, or whether I will part from the life I want to lead ten days from now.

There's so much that I'd like to write right now, but I don't have the time tonight. However I think that my posts for the next nine Days Of Awe will be a little more deeper than usual, especially considering the challenges and life-changing events in the coming year.

"That which is hateful to you do not do to others. All the rest is commentary."--Hillel.

Here's the gratuitous Channukah pics I mentioned. While I know that the holiday (and Christmas, for that matter) is over, I'm going to post these pictures anyways because I had meant to post them while the holiday was still in-session.


I try to celebrate the holiday as regularly as I can, as it's the one period in this stretch of time between Halloween and New Year's that I can truly celebrate my being different and not being driven insane by a several hundred-billion dollar bombardment of music, commercials, decorations, food, and other societal artifacts celebrating a holiday I don't participate in

To start with, I uploaded as my music Tsum Balaike performed by the awesome Klezmer R's, a klezmer band from Hungary that is only like the best klezmer band ever. If I were a rich man, I'd have them as my wedding band (if I ever get married). Not exactly Channukah music, but festive enough.

On with the pictures.



First night. Accidently forgot the proper ordering of the candles (place right-to-left, light left-to-right, it's just so confusing).



With the lights off it looks cooler.



The sixth night. This time with aluminium foil under the menorah; wax kept dripping on the heavy silver plate tray I recently bought and resurrected, and I didn't want to make the job of cleaning 8 days worth of bee excretion from it any more difficult than it already was.



The eighth night, all candles blazing at full burn.



I spun the dreidel, just for kicks. I've toyed around with the idea of replacing the chocolate gold coins (aka gelt) usually used in the game with shot glasses--it would make for an excellent drinking game.



Dreidel frozen in mid-spin. The magic of photography and a lucky shot. The Hebrew letter hay being shown wins half the pot, if you land on it.



Another frozen-in-spin picture, this time with the litter gimmel, which wins the entire pot.



I finally made latkes! (potato pancakes). The first batch I made, back when I went to school in Ithaca, was a total disaster. I don't remember whether (e:lizabeth) remembers the horror, but I sure do. I managed to acquire a good recipe that my dad uses, which only adds about a zillion critical ingrediants that my first batch 10 years ago didn't have. This second batch was really good--good enough that my third batch will be next year when my cholesterol has declined to reasonable levels again.

My family sometimes has, er, strange tastes in gifts. We usually get each other weird/utilitarian stuff, but then each one splurges on a single expensive gift as well that we ourselves want and hand it to the family members to "give" to us on one of the eight nights. My splurge gift was a PCI graphics accelerator to make up for the fact I bought an underpowered, non-upgradable emachines computer (no AGP/PCI-E slot--second life is intolerable). I already put it in, so I can't very well take a picture of it.



What better way to say "I love you" than with a level?



The commemorative pins are cool. I don't care what people up here will say.



I got this one night; it's one of several gifts my parents left here when they visited me a month ago. I really didn't know what the hell it was, figuring either it was a sculpture or something that wasn't art but rather served some boring mundane purpose, like hanging ties or propping up ironing boards. I cam to the conclusion "it's art, I should display it prominently", and hoped that my mother wouldn't rib me for making a tie rack or shoe tree into an objet d'art. Turns out I was right and it was a sculpture after all.



What were you expecting, Joy of Sex?