Dear Sara,

It’s me again! I’ve been doing pretty well since last time I wrote. Doing the usual things: sitting around, watching television (I’m sure you’ve seen it somewhere. It’s a box with a glass screen in the front. Moving pictures are seen through the glass, and sound is heard from within the box.), playing video games (joy!), reading books, and doing other random useless things as well. Been putting off writing letters and e-mail (get an e-mail account, think how much better it will be to not have to physically mail letters), but decided that I should do both tonight, or should I say this morning. It is now a little after 1 a.m. I’m such the crazy night owl! Thought I’d start with your letter.

I was very happy to hear from you! I guess I was wrong, you do have a heart (albeit a small one – I think it has something to do with your small fist, genetic I guess.) The most exciting news (if you can call it that), is that I took the job offer with Coopers & Lybrand in Washington DC. Jumping on the first job I guess, but since I haven’t heard from any of the companies I sent resumes to (seventeen of them!!) I’ve decided not to chance it. They offered me 31k with a moving bonus. Not really that much (I think I could have done better), but it’ll keep me fed, housed and with a little on the side to buy myself toys. I doubt I’ll stay with them for more than a year, but it should look nice on my resume (it is a top five accounting firm), and they’ll hire me with no experience (suckers!) I’m going to move down there within the month I figure. Get an apartment, do the crazy adult thing (scary huh?) Wow, I just noticed I use a lot of parentheses in my letter (oh well, sue me!), I think it’s a lack of much good English training.

Moving on with other exciting news, I bought a really cool music book for my trumpet. It came with a tape which had all the solos with piano and trumpeter on the first side, and just the piano accompaniment on the second side. Do you play bass over there? I really don’t want to stop playing, but I’m afraid I’ll reach a point where it just won’t be possible to play with any frequency. If you can’t play a couple of times a week, it just isn’t worth playing. But as long as I’m home doing nothing, I figure I might as well blow my brains out, piss off the neighbors, and give my family headaches. Ah, the joys of a brass instrument.

My mother’s uncle (which makes him my uncle?) came in from Argentina. He’s an older man (about 70 I’d say) and doesn’t speak a word of English. Of course this makes it quite hard to communicate with him, seeing as my seven years of Spanish taught me four words. Sigh. He’s an avid chess fan, so I played him. He whooped my butt three times in a row. I don’t know if you play chess or not, but it’s a horrible feeling when you’re in the middle of the game and you can’t do anything except sit back and watch him take your pieces one at a time. The worst part is that you can’t attack any of his pieces. Sigh. A lesson in humility.

Life seems to be moving quite quickly now for me. I keep thinking about my future, and it scares the shit out of me. I’m not sure what I want to do, or if I’ll be happy doing what it is that I want to do. It’s horrible. Especially when I think about it, or write about it. I wish I knew what I liked. That would help me decide what it is that I want to do.

As for Jewish things, haven’t done or read much of anything. The New Years is coming. I must admit that I dislike this holiday (probably the wrong word to describe it) immensely. . . Uh, if this letter is like to long, I won’t feel bad if you just like skip to the good parts. It feels like I’m writing a book here, but there’s so much I want to tell ya’. Your views are as weird and sick as mine, and that makes me feel all warm and mushy inside. But if you must, skip right to the end (not that it gets any better mind you, except for the signature part, damn I have great penmanship. But I digress, again. . . I think I dislike it (it being the high holy days) because of all the praying. The fact that I don’t understand a word is only a small problem (there is the English translation on the left side.) The biggest problem is when I read the words I can’t understand why anyone would want to say them. Apologizing and repenting for the sins of the past year. I can psychologically understand how this would be good for a person; what I can’t understand is how religiously this is good for a person. I think this ties in with my dislike of Shul, and the whole organized religious experience. Haven’t really described this well. Maybe I’ll go into it another time. Boy this is a long paragraph!

Hmm, let’s see what other musings I’ve had lately. Ah yes, I was thinking about what you wrote. The part about “every person has their place in Jewish history”. You said that the rabbi mentioned that even the Israeli soldiers have their place in this history. That’s seems kind of obvious how they fit into the history. It’s us Jewish civilian folk that are the ones who have trouble fitting in. I think that it’s the people who worry about their place in history who are the ones who are going to be left out it. As long as you follow your heart, desire and feelings you’ll find a niche which is important. The important part is to make sure you are happy with what you’ve done. History remembers and forgets the most foolish and profound of people. If you worry to much about on which page there will be a footnote about you, it becomes self defeating.

That sounded quite profound to me, but seeing as it’s 1:56 in the morning, I’m sure to a normal person, at a normal time it’s not. Sigh. I try though. I’ve also enclosed my law school personal statement. I thought you might like to read something I’ve written (besides this crap -- I mean this sentimentally beautiful work -- which I try to pretend is a letter.)

Write back! I want to hear more about how you’re doing. Are you just now realizing that the social scene is full of losers? Imagine meeting a profound person in it? (Although I do fancy myself part of it at times, and I consider myself quite profound, so, maybe, nah!.) You want to spend the rest of your days in Israel don’t you? That was the other possibility that I was talking about which American-students-visiting-Israel does to people. It’s brainwashing. Must be something in the sand. Sigh.

Love,

“Beware anger, fear, aggression; the dark side are they. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny!” -- Yoda

Enclosure (always wanted to write that!)