How to Spell Chanukah...And Other Holiday Dilemmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

Craigslist to tonight’s sold-out Sleater-Kinney show at the Showbox. What a day we’re having: strolling, shopping, eating, laughing. I love this city, it’s official. And I love my friends! And now we’re seeing my favorite band at a storied Seattle concert venue! For eighteen bucks! Which is also chai ! Life does not get much better. But for the fact that my sinuses still hurt a little bit after having expelled lemonade from my nostrils at dinner when Jackie made me laugh too hard recounting a comedy routine she saw recently (in which David Cross poked fun at misuse of the word literally, as in “I literally shit my pants!” or “My brother’s wife literally has an ass for a face!” or “My boss is literally retarded!”), I am having a grand time.
    We are busy dancing and sipping vodka tonics when the amazing Carrie Brownstein, between spectacular sets, makes mention of the big C:
    â€œSo tonight’s Chanukah,” she says to the crowd, fiddling with the knobs on her guitar. There are few cheers. It’s a wonderful thing to belong quite so completely to my surroundings. This is what life is for, I think: to be a living, breathing, contradictory mess and belong entirely.
    Janet Weiss, the drummer, concurs. “Yeah.”
    â€œI think it’s like the fifth night,” Brownstein says.
    â€œWoooo-hoooooo!” yells a guy nearby.
    â€œSixth!” I shout, just to participate, but then realize that I am wrong. It matters not.
    â€œSixth? Fifth?” Carrie asks. “Shit, I don’t know. I can’t be trusted with these things.” And with that the ladies rip into “Rollercoaster” (or maybe it was “Dig Me Out,” I can’t remember; I can’t be trusted with these things).
    We forget to light candles tonight, as it’s two A.M. by the time the show’s over and of course it’s raining and we’re pretty buzzed, so as soon as we manage to find a cab back to Sarah’s, we hightail it woozily to bed.
    VI.
    We get into a fight today. Sarah feels left out because Jackie and I share a life in New York; I feel left out because Sarah and Jackie wake up hours earlier than I do and go running together (why would anyone do such a thing?); Jackie’s annoyed because Sarah’s annoyed; Sarah’s annoyed because Jackie’s annoyed; I’m annoyed because Sarah only grudgingly indulges my vegetarianism; and so on. It’s not so much a fight as a crossing of wires, a tripping of multiple overlapping insecurities and anxieties. Finally things boil over and we have a good cry, profess our collective undying love and affection, and immediately feel better. Typical girl bullshit. The truth of it is, my friends are my family (see also: Night I).
    I consider Sarah my cosmic reward for having made it through a decade at Jewish summer camp. We shared a bunk bed when we were eleven, and we got into a fistfight that year. (I won, Sarah; you know I did.) Our time at this Jewish summer camp was the source of much angst for me (and, later, much grist for the writing mill). It was a pretty soulless place. We often reminisce ruefully about the time we, along with all the other adolescent girls at camp, were formally lectured by a kindly and quite well-respected rabbi about the importance of marrying as early as possible and starting a family, and about how prioritizing career and/or self-actualization would mean not only that we would die barren and alone but that the Jewish people, also, would cease to exist.
    Tonight Sarah is hosting Shabbat dinner, so we go to the market and shop for supplies. My contribution will be my signature vegan cupcakes, which are not remotely as unappetizing as they may sound, I swear to God (there is banana involved). In the frosting aisle, I pick up sugar letters (the whole alphabet, in triplicate!) and rainbow jimmies for cupcake adornment.
    The Shabbat crowd is made up of Sarah’s