Depression Era Spending

This is going to sound so dramatic, so paint-my-nails-black-and-listen-to-Tori-Amos, but I wake up every day fairly convinced that I'm not where I should be. I live in SDO, on a pretty street, in a pretty apartment, and everything in my life is absolutely, totally fine (aside from the staggering propensity of 13 year old boys to be total dicks, and the fact that I have to routinely interact with said crackmonkeys). But I want to be back home--home like Jerusalem, home like Israel. The holidays here have made it very clear to me that this is just what being in exile is: being on the faded outlines of the periphery, away from the vibrancy that infuses and makes every choice vital. It's not a bad exile, and really, it's the lovely padded cushy-cell kind of exile that makes it easy to see why so few American Jews make aliyah. I could never get anything close to a Borders or an AmVets or a boutique yarn store in Israel; I'd always materially be choosing to get by with less, or not get what I wanted, or find myself one day buying a pair of hot pink platform sandals, or rocking a non-ironic mullet inflicted upon me by an Israeli hairdresser that knew what I wanted better than I did. But I'd be in Israel, at the forefront of the redemption, at the center of history, making a decision every day that meant something to someone.

I don't think there's any similar situation in America, really, and even though I might find a reall high-quality material life, I don't feel satisfied here. I feel separate, disparate, different, off-kilter. I have so enjoyed every thrifted dress and every Sunday brunch, but sitting in services today, I just wanted to be home at a shul down the street, walking to a friend's house for break fast, feeling the day and the 10 days before it in an inescapable rhythm that colored time itself. I wanted meaning and purpose, not just the meaning that I gave to my spiritual effort, but communal meaning and purpose, as well.

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I keep spending money that I shouldn't. Yesterday, I celebrated the half-day from school by driving straight to AmVets and plunking down a cool $30 for about 5 dresses. (So cute, I must say.) I continued my new practice of "2 Back", the incredibly technical method of saving money in which I...erm...put at least two things back before checking out. And, I passed on incredibly cute but unnessecary Naturalizer heels (which I must say, I kind of regret doing, even though they were high enough that I could never wear them to teach in. Which renders them practically useless, but still...they were really cute...)

I ended up with an 80's print dress with 50's styling; a bold, graphic, gutsy orange and white tunic, a mint green flowered 80's sundress, a black fullskirted sundress with tan/ gold embroidery on the bottom (a little last year, I think, but really nice for school, since I hardly own anything black) and a red, folksy smockey type thing with embroidery and cut out arms that needs to be shortened, but about which I am super excited. I think I have about 20 dresses at this point. I don't really wear anything else--only own three pairs of pants, really--but I am not kidding, the closet rail is beginning to sag a little.

Pictures would be a good thing, I guess.

Now, it's finally the weekend, the much earned, long awaited weekend. I would normally be toasting my freedom with a glass of $2 Chuck, but am too tired and footsore to make the trek to Trader Joes. Maybe post-nap? Good G-d, the sheer sybaritic luxury of even thinking those words makes me curl my toes in pleasure.