What am I thinking about?

Okay, so I have Freudian slips all the time.

My best is a short story I wrote where some girl showed up in a wet t-shirt and the word nipple was in there for no reason (I wrote this story when I was nineteen, so I hadn’t learned about editing yet).

Anyway, some woman just wished me a happy holiday and–she’s in Louisana–I got confused. First I thought, is she wishing me a happy Passover? Then I realized she shouldn’t be on the phone if she’s wishing me a happy Passover.

Easter. I forgot about Easter (because it, unlike Passover this year, doesn’t affect me in the slightest).

But more–Easter’s a holiday you wish people to have a happy holiday over?

Pragmatically speaking… you don’t a) get presents or b) get a day off of work (which actually makes it one of the more acceptable federal holidays to me, since it doesn’t fuck up my mail). So what’s there to be happy about? There aren’t Easter pies or cakes, are there? I mean, Thanksgiving and Christmas have good desserts at least.

I’m confused.

Passover for athiests

So, like I said before, I grew up the child of a couple failed Catholics. Even though I’m pretty sure my dad wasn’t raised Catholic for long. His mom was raised Catholic at some point and it’s kind of always there. My mom was a nun. So… I guess if you quit being a nun for liquor, tobacco and men, that makes you a failure as a Catholic. My father, as far as I know, never went to church except for funerals and weddings. My mom was the same way, though she threatened to go on a couple holidays and rarely did.

Growing up, until high school, I basically knew Catholic people and Jewish people. There must have been protestants in there–I mean, my hometown has a fuck-load of churches–but they never talked about it. I did have a friend who was Jehovah’s Witness or something… he couldn’t celebrate holidays. Anyway.

In high school, I encountered my first churchy. He wasn’t that bad… he thought dogs had a heaven, so obviously, he wasn’t a good churchy.

After high school, I worked with Jewish people and Catholic people. My closest “friend” when I worked on a stock floor was this devout, self-loathing Catholic who was a hoot. Got thrown out of college for robbing his frat’s treasury to buy coke. Hilarious guy. I’m sure he’s dead. He was a bit of a piece of shit, but an amusing one. And he’d talk to me about religion, him being a Catholic. Made me watch The Exorcist once, didn’t understand why I wasn’t as freaked out as he was. Whatever. Solid guy in a lot of ways. Nice to my mom. I kind of miss him. But not really, he was a sexist, racist piece of shit. The Jewish guys I knew were older, they were traders; we had breakfast most days of the week.

Somehow, though, it didn’t occur to me until two days ago I have no idea what Passover is.

I think I got days off of school for it. No idea what it is. Considering I thought Easter was all about the Easter Bunny–no religion in my family holidays, though I did manage to offend my mother, when I was twenty-two, by suggesting a Jesus doll that sang “Hey, now, it’s my birthday” and kicked his legs out to the sides on a cross–I’ve since learned, of course, there’s a connection between Passover and Easter. Somehow. I’m not really interested in that connection, I wanted to find out what Passover was all about.

And, if you’re reading this and you think you know why I want know about Passover or you’re the reason why I wanted to find out about Passover, you’re right. Thanks, you’re encouraging me to learn. That I’m only learning this because of you… eh… ignore that part.

I started at wikipedia, kind of browsing their article. I got caught up with the matzo thing. It seems very complicated, like I might need a diagram. I mean, really, I know the place names from The Last Temptation of Christ, so… it’s kind of hard. I might need a map too.

But, I figured, if the Agnes Moorehead of Colloquial Blogs isn’t for explaining how an athiest learns about Passover, what the fuck is it for? I don’t know if Agnes Moorehead would be proud. I doubt it. It’s not an insult. She’s an incredibly handsome woman. It’s kind of Orson Welles’s fault for never casting her as the love interest.

Anyway. Passover. For Athiests.

So, I found chabad.org’s article, which seems to be written for kids. (I also can’t understand why they allow comments on it–first rule of cheap hits, attacking someone’s religion–which the first comment is–I did this to great effect in a short story once, I was so proud of myself, immediately turned everyone against the protagonist). But, I get it now. Some of it.

Let’s take into account… most of my understanding of Jewish traditions come from things like The Big Lebowski.

Walter Sobchak: I told those fucks down at the league office a thousand times that I don’t roll on Shabbos!
Donny: What’s Shabbos?
Walter Sobchak: Saturday, Donny, is Shabbos, the Jewish day of rest. That means that I don’t work, I don’t get in a car, I don’t fucking ride in a car, I don’t pick up the phone, I don’t turn on the oven, and I sure as shit
[shouts]
Walter Sobchak: don’t fucking roll! Shomer shabbos!
The Dude: Walter…
Walter Sobchak: Shomer fucking shabbos.
The Dude: Oh fuck it. I’m out of here.
Walter Sobchak: Dude, come on…
[rolls his eyes at Donny]
Walter Sobchak: BABY…
[Donny nods]

Which does not provide, really, a lot of information.

The chabad page is okay–the links are really neccesary, like the one to the Laws of Yom Tov, for people like me, who also probably learned most of what they know about Jewish tradition from episodes of “Seinfeld,” which might not have had education in mind.

Am I just confused, Christians don’t do stuff like this, right? Do they? There’s the long repetitive thing Catholics do at funerals, which I’ve blocked out (not because I’m a general dick, but because I’m a specific dick–it reminds me what a fucking lousy grandson I was), and some other stuff… but…

I mean, I think I’ve seen The Ten Commandments–but, as a bored kid–so….

I’ll close this with something I think Lewis Black needs to do. He has to do a TV series where he lectures about the New Testament. It’d be fucking hilarious. Here’s his skit about Christians talking about the Torah.

For those wondering if the whole point of this post and my survey into Passover was simply to find out what was up with one person for the next seven days (i.e. level of communication). Yeah, it probably was… I mean, what the fuck, right?

Am I worried this person is going to think I’m shallow? Not really… a little bit, but nothing to be insecure about.

Like I said before, the reason I learn something isn’t as important as that I learned. I only learned to read as a kid because of Penthouse Forum*. The blog’s not called Frontal Lobe Disinhibition for nothing.

• That statement is actually not true. According to my mother, I only learned to read as a kid because I wanted to read about monster movies. The Crestwood House Monster series, actually. By Ian Thorne. I’ll have to thank ol’ boy for getting me to read in some dedication somewhere.