You don’t have to be Jewish to celebrate the Jewish new year. Eat some apples, throw bread into a river, and talk about major lifestyle changes that you eventually won’t make. In ten days, on the day of atonement, think about what you’ve done. Or really, think about how you have so much time to think when you aren’t spending every moment either eating breakfast, thinking about a snack, eating a snack, thinking about lunch, eating lunch, thinking about dinner, and eating dinner.
Today marks the beginning of the year 5783. Five thousand, seven hundred and eighty three years ago, God supposedly created the Earth. God created the oceans and the trees and lizards and peaches and snowflakes. Then God created people, so we could make things like Skechers Shape-ups and the Scrub Daddy.
It’s a new year, they’re telling us, but nothing is different. We will still eat things that give us indigestion. We will still rewatch Girls. We will still receive targeted ads for yoga pants made out of recycled Bon Appetit magazines. A new year is not a clean slate, but a time to reflect on how we’ve come one full rotation and again, we still don’t know how planes stay up there in the sky. We have no way of knowing.
Boys keep making my friends cry. In 5 thousand years nothing has changed. If you’re reading this and thinking I’m violating your trust and that this is about you, know that it isn’t. I can name 7 friends who cried about a boy this week. It’s not just boys, you can make my friends cry regardless of your gender. Sometimes I worry that if Hitler was a girl people would have called her a girlboss with an entrepreneurial spirit. Girls can be bad too, we always forget this. Squeaky Fromme. Anyway.
It’s a new year and things will be mostly the same unless we really want them to change. You will never go for a run until the day you want to fucking run. You will never finish that box of arugula you bought. You can’t do it. The more handfuls you take out, the more it grows. Like a plague. Like a fire. How many times are you going to toss your arugula with lemon and olive oil before you crack? Life is so short.
Today is the start of 5783. In this year, many great things will happen. We already know Rihanna will perform at the Superbowl. Derry Girls season 3 will air on Netflix. Harry Styles will continue his quiet and triumphant defense of the receding male hairline.
Many hard things will happen too. We don’t even know what sort of fucked up shit will rain down on us. All we can do is get all the vaccines they offer at our local Walgreens and hope for the best. All we can do is spend time with people who give us energy and spend money on what fills the void. All we can do is put one foot in front of the other, in a sort of zig zag pattern, to throw off our enemies and avoid stepping in dog shit.
Happy New Year, townspeople. May your year be sweet as honey, and easy as pie.
The best thing I ate this week:
Was a bagel and cream cheese with heirloom tomato. There is nothing as good as a good tomato, and nothing as bad as a bad one. That was dating advice. Goodnight.