7 Years

Ok. So. There was an election and the blue wave was monstrous and real and made me cry. We were disappointed about Beto, and Gillum and Stacy Abrams, but all in all, we fucking crushed.

And I was definitely going to write about it. I even had the title of the post picked out:

“We must meet disappointment with power and joy” Beto and the Blue Tidal Wave.

(It’s a Beto quote that I stole from Stephanie Wittels on twitter forever ago. It’s on a sticky note at my desk at work.)

However, more news kept happening. And then it was Thanksgiving. And I kind of just needed a minute. And I was thinking.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. 

For people that may not know me, my Hamilton obsession is pretty intense. I saw the show when it came to LA. 

Twice.

Time #1: Me and Momma

Time #2: Solo and sobbing

I know all the music, of course, and I want to know about everything LMM does. In a I like to watch him on Ellen way, not a creepy stalker way. I was just listening to a podcast that he was a guest on, and I almost started crying. In a coffee shop.

 Unacceptable.

The reason I bring this up, other than just enjoying having an excuse to talk about Lin is because I’ve been thinking about the fact that it took him 7 years to create Hamilton.

It took him almost 3 years to write 2 songs until Tommy Kail told him to get his shit together and start writing if he ever wanted this thing about the founding fathers to be anything. My brother is my Tommy and has told me to get my shit together many times. It works in the short term.

But then.. I don’t know. I get distracted. I let his deadlines wiz by, and I decide I’m going to write a movie. Or a pilot. Or a play. Or a research book. Or a sex book, but it’s a novel maybe. Or I’m going to give it all up and work in politics. At a media company. Or for a campaign. Or I’ll write about it.

Being in my head is exhausting sometimes.

The point of all of the thinking and the Lin and the brother and the frustration with where I’m at in my career and feeling some pressure about turning 26, is that I’m on the hunt for something that sparks something in my brain and overtakes it completely. Something that I like enough to do for 7 years.

This isn’t really about politics, but this is our blog and it’s what’s on my mind. And I do know I want to do something political. Or at least partly. Like maybe I want to be Aaron Sorkin. Only funnier. Like all the funny parts of The West Wing, without all the shootings and kidnappings.

Or maybe I want to write a play.

So what job is political and about women and I get to write and also maybe food?

My brother says the editor of The New Yorker.

He’s not wrong, but that's a pretty big swing. And David seems to have things mostly under control over there.

I’m on the hunt for something. It may be a little unrealistic to be hoping to find something to write that I love that much. But I think I’ll be able to. If my Hamilton obsession has taught me anything, it’s that I think words are magic. Which is embarrassing to say, but it’s true.

God help and forgive me,

I want to build something that’s gonna outlive me.

I just have to find it. 

Happy 5th of November.

Happy 5^th of November. The last post I made was also on the 5^th of November, right before midterm elections. Eight whole years ago. It seems fitting that my return to this blog should be on the same day, which also happens to fall on the eve of the Midterms.  

I could have never guessed what the political climate in America would have been like eight years after Guy Fawkes Day in 2010. I voted in my first national election a few days after I made that post. I have voted in many since then, but I will never forget sitting on my couch almost two years ago when the realization that Donald Trump would be our next president hit me. I got numb. I cried. How in the world could we take such a huge step back when we had just had our first black president who did not get everything done we wanted to be done, by any means but gave us so many fantastic strides forward. And who also (and possibly most importantly) gave us FLOTUS Michelle Obama. But what really got me was how could the MAJORITY of white WOMEN vote for a man who clearly HATES women instead of a white woman who wanted to help women?

https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls/national/president

Van Jones called it whitelash. I agreed. The next day I went to work, and I was so angry that I barely said a word to anybody. For months I came home and sat on my couch watching CNN for hours on hours as the chaos that was the trump administration unfolded. I got so numb from the craziness that I stopped watching the news altogether.

A few months ago, my fellow Liberal Lady texted me and said we should start the blog back up. I still had news exhaustion and was not paying much attention to politics, but I thought about how much I used to love knowing what was happening in the government. I slowly started trying to get back into keeping current with the news. I was mad that Donald Trump not only won the election. He got us to stop paying attention, exhausted from trying to digest the racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, bigotry, and all the other insanity. Don’t let this be normal. This is not normal.

When the government is not working for the benefit of the vast majority of the people, then it is not a government that is working. I would tell you all to vote tomorrow because we need to stop this dangerous administration and because it is a literal life and death situation for so many people. But you already know that.

So, I will just leave you with this.

Remember, Remember… 

Hatikvah and Other Feelings

I am Jewish.

I am a Jewish American person. And I get really tired of feeling like I have to prove it to people. Yes, my name is Montana. It’s not a Jewish name. And yes my last name isn’t especially Jewish either. And yes I have green eyes and don’t go to temple anymore and my mom is Catholic.

That doesn’t make me “half-Jewish”.

And it doesn’t matter that I went to Jewish summer camp for 5 summers or that I had a bat mitzvah and was confirmed or that I was the social action chair of my youth group or that I went to Jewish conventions or even that I went to Israel for a month in high school.

I don’t “look” Jewish or “seem” Jewish, so I’m can’t be.

However, here we find ourselves after another horrible shooting. This one hits home for me just as much as the one in my hometown. I’m just as much part of the Jewish community as I am the Jacksonville one.

And I don’t want to have to justify that. Because the truth is that my heart is broken. I can’t imagine the pain that the congregation is going through. I really want to have a hot take or something interesting to say. But the truth is simple. Our president is a monster, Congress is broken and republicans don’t care about us.

My brother and I were talking earlier about why people hate Jews so much. Not that any group of people should be hated, obviously, but what is it about Jewish people? And what makes someone Jewish? If they don’t practice or marry a non-Jewish person or decide that everything is the worst and nothing matters and there’s no heaven anyway (though Jews don’t really believe in “heaven”) so why even try, are they still Jewish? What if your aunts and uncles and cousins are and your mom thinks it’s important that you call yourself Jewish even though you’ve never really been to temple and hated camp?

What do we have to do to make us worthy or unworthy of this nasty, vile hatred?

Am I safe because I can pass?

People who hate Jews are certainly getting a pass right now. As I write this, I just got an email about Mel Gibson being cast in a new movie.

What.

Everything is just ok now? There are no consequences? People are barely even tweeting “thoughts and prayers” about Pittsburgh. Why would they?

They’re going to take it back next week anyway. It doesn’t fucking matter.

And yet.. we press on. We get out of bed and I wear my shamrock necklace and yell at my brother for not wearing his and tell my Jewish roommate that I think it’s great she started going to temple again and I go to my industry job and listen to people say that Jews control it. Because what else can we do?

Israel isn’t exactly crushing it right now with their response to this whole thing, but I am going to pull something from them anyway. The name of the Israeli national anthem is Hatikvah, which means hope. It’s a real Esperanza Rising vibe. Did you guys read that book in school? Should I be bringing this up in the middle of this nice thing about the Jewish spirit being enduring?

No.

But, the point is that Hatikvah means hope. And that’s what we really need right now.

To quote lyrics from the song that I still can’t get out of my head, by the star of the Jewish summer camp circuit Rick Recht, “This is the hope that holds us together, Hatikvah, the hope that will last forever.”

An Ode to Plastic Water Bottles

(Ok I don’t actually know what an ode is. I just liked the way it sounded)

Confession: I love plastic water bottles. I love buying the giant Smart Waters before my sweaty yoga class. I love going to Whole Foods and getting the $0.79 squeezy bottle of electrolyte water that probably doesn’t do anything but I like it. I love the sound that the bottle makes when you start to unscrew the top and that first rush of cold water. I love walking across the street after a night at my favorite bar to be greeted by the warm glow of the red CVS letters and a giant cold Fiji water. I love watching Instagram stories and seeing what new hot water that celebrities are drinking. And I love buying it.

I like water. It’s kind of my thing.

I’m definitely not one of those people who claim to not like water, or say they need to add Crystal Lite or whatever flavor to want to drink it. I don’t really like flavored water or Vitamin Water. I don’t even really need fruit floating in it. Unless it’s grapefruit. Basically, I want water. And I want it to be in a plastic bottle that I pluck off a cold pharmacy/ grocery store shelf.

I have taken a lot of flak for this love. It’s somewhat forbidden. I’ve been reminded that it’s not good for the environment to use the plastic and maybe there are chemicals in the plastic and make sure you don’t freeze the water in the bottle and then drink it once it’s thawed and don’t you know how easy it is to get a reusable bottle and you bought that reusable Starbucks cup with the straw so buying a bottle for water shouldn’t be that hard.

But, it is.

I’m not especially proud of it, and my nice boss is super anti-plastic water bottle so if I bring one to work I have to hide it.

See: forbidden love.

Ugh. But now, I can’t buy them anymore. Because, as you may have heard, the planet is totally fucked.

My Final Beloved Water Bottle

That big UN report freaked me out. And for very good reason. I don’t enjoy children, so I don’t envision myself having them. However, I would like to live on a functioning planet past 2040! And I would like my brother’s future kids to have an Earth to live on. And we can’t really rely on Elon Musk to save us, because he seems to be self-combusting.

I know me not having plastic bottles anymore isn’t going to solve everything, Or probably anything. And my not eating much beef anymore will probably only make me angry every time I drive down Pico or toward the mall.

What I do know, and stole from someone who I would swear was  Ben Rhodes -- but I now can't find it in his book-- who was quoting Barack Obama, is that better is good.

I think about that every single day. Better is good. It’s not everything, but it’s something I can do.

So I will no longer be purchasing plastic water bottles.

God (I don’t really believe in) help me.