I Hate Birthdays

First thing: I promise this is not a subtle, passive-aggressive way of saying that you should really say happy birthday to me. Second: I really am grateful to my parents and Hashem and everyone who's pushed me out of the way of a moving vehicle or woken me up out of an alcoholic stupor or otherwise contributed to the very unlikely occurrence of my still being alive.

So I guess, technically speaking, I do not hate birthdays. But all the same, every time someone wishes me a happy one, or goes out of their way to talk to me when they wouldn't otherwise talk to me, it feels like a knife applied to a particularly sensitive and recently-fed area of my stomach.

Most of all, it's that I haven't done anything to deserve it. Like, what is this day which demands more compliments and wishings of wellness than any other? I didn't do anything. Actually, if we're going to get technical, today's the day I probably least deserve it, since I put my mother into more pain than she's ever been and started the long downhill slide of dependency on other people for my basic human needs.

Like, can you please save it for when something good happens that I've actually earned? Because my pirate novel is still sitting in a corner unsold, and I'm still wearing crappy clothes that don't entirely fit, and I just demanded an entire dialogue rewrite, which is probably necessary, but is going to cause a bunch of people a bunch of nightmares, and I haven't brokered peace between Israel and Palestine, or even between my 6-year-old and 4-year-old.

But I know at heart that it isn't a bad thing that people are wishing me stuff. Even if it's something I would rather gets slipped under the table and forgotten, good vibes are -- should be -- always appreciated. And I don't mean to shoot you down, and I can just see my mom's face when she reads this, But don't you feel good when..., and at this point in my life (old) (sick) (and kind of sweaty) I can use all the points I can get. So if you really want to wish a happy birthday today, probably the place to go is here: My mom's facebook page. Feel free to post on her wall. She deserves it.

In Judaism, you don't really get presents for your birthday. Instead, you're supposed to give blessings to people. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to happen, both to relieve my birthday depression and to make me work a little harder: instead of getting stuff, maybe I should be giving. So, seriously, hit me up.

Oh, and here's a present: They Might Be Giants are giving away their first album free. I know. I know. Happy birthday to me.

Steps to Tishrei

Today is the first day of Rosh Chodesh Elul, which is basically a whole month spent preparing for one day. We blow the shofar and start reciting selichot (well, unless you're Ashkenazic or something). At dawn and at nightfall, we recite Psalm 27, which is both weirdly hopeful ("The L*rd is my light and my salvation") and weirdly catastrophic ("Do not hide Your face ... do not thrust [me] aside ... do not forsake me, do not abandon me," which was actually quoted in a They Might Be Giants song. Well, a really gloomy TMBG song).

In this morning's Simchat Shlomo email, Sholom Brodt talks about how Yom Kippur is all about fixing our external behavior, the things we do to other people -- "both knowingly and unknowingly," as we say about a zillion times over in the High Holiday liturgy. Elul, on the other hand, is about fixing our unconscious, and making ourselves good on the inside, in our thoughts. It's like taking the potential goodness or badness of everything you can do, and making sure it's aimed in the right direction -- so that, once Rosh Hashanah rolls around, we're ready to make it actual.

One more thing: The month of Elul is symbolized by the letter yud and the left hand -- which sounds cool, although I've never really understood where all these things come from. (According to Rav Sholom, it's from the Sefer Yetzirah ... although that still doesn't explain it.) He writes: "The letter yud is the smallest letter and it is also a part of every letter -- as soon as you put the quill to the parchment, you have already written a yud. So the yud represents the innermost point--your innermost point of being a "yid'."

That part, I do get. Just by existing, we're continuing to create.

The Sway Machinery Cover the Torah

Jeremiah Lockwood, the venerable proprietor of the band The Sway Machinery -- a side project of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Antibalas, and Tom Waits's band -- blasts out, as warned, with the second G-dcast of the week.

It's abstract and moody and kind of the opposite of anything we've ever done. It's courteously animated by the fabulous Liesje Kraai, of They Might Be Giants movie fame. And it kidn of reminds me of that Dr. Seuss book that came out after his death, My Many Colored Days -- which, instead of trying to jive with Dr. Seuss's own style, skews radically against it, possibly even for the better. In any case -- my favorite G-dcasts are always the ones where I have nothing to do with the animation. This one, I've had the least to do with of all -- and, true to form, it's one of my favorites.

Jeremiah closes out the book of Leviticus, the third book of the Torah -- and I am so wildly exhausted and dizzy and I can't believe that we're more than halfway through this one year tour. And if you're up for a retrospective, here one is....

G-dcast: Acharei Mot

OK, you asked for it -- this week's G-dcast. Zombies, vampires, incest, and a special Lode Runner cameo.