Lydia’s Blog

The day after I arrived back in the U.S., I went to a family wedding.

Once again, to my grandparents’ unwavering chagrin, a Steier jewess married a goy. This fact didn’t seem to hinder any number of pastel-swaddled middle-aged to old jews from hauling their arthritic selves out onto the dance floor to get nasty with “Baby got back” and “My Lumps” and most disturbingly “Lick my pussy and my crack”.

That DJ was a total ass. Still, I dug his sense of irony. Sort of.

My brother Ted got shitfaced. He was in good company. At one point, I saw him chatting up a beautiful young asian woman, apparently quite successfully. She was the only non-caucasian at the wedding, and was also the proud owner, as my brother said, of huge groobies. Next thing I knew, Ted was catapulting past me back in the direction of the bar.

I blocked him, “Ted, stop…you were doing so well….what’s up?”

He turned toward me with wide eyes devoid of any levity “That piece just told me that this September she’ll be a senior…IN HIGH SCHOOL!”

I let him pass.

My family put on a good show that day. Cavalierly referring to each other’s arrest records, mortifying their children, inadvertently (I hope) exposing themselves, stumbling, gossiping, griping, air-kissing…the works.

Still, I couldn’t ignore the fact that although I was enjoying the proceedings, the best I could do was observe, never participate. Something enormous was missing, some part of me or my personality that connects me to these people…these people who I’ve seen humiliating themselves and each other for nearly thirty years.

I tried to tell myself that it’s just the distance…or maybe jet lag. Still, somewhere deep inside, I know I’ve lost something. And no amount of vain, idle contemplation will bring it back.

Le Chaim.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 7th, 2006 at 7:49 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.