A professional associate called to let me know that upon Googling me, he found my business specialty listed as rhinoplasty.
In the first place, I informed him, I was raised to marry a doctor, not to become one. And secondly, I continued, had this been my occupation, my nose would be smaller and my income larger.
Ba-dum-tsssss…
© 2017 Jaclyn Schrier. All rights reserved.
My insomnia is of the world-class variety, the kind that gets you qualified for the most selective treatment programs. This does not make me feel special. It is not like getting accepted to the Ivy League.
So sleeping, and the consequent dreaming, are just not a regular part of my life. But last night, I had an incredibly vivid dream. Really true to life.
In the dream, my car dies. There is no hope of resuscitation. I would like to get a Prius or some other environmentally-conscious vehicle. But I am completely broke.
My anonymous boyfriend — his face is actually pixelated in the dream, like on TV to protect the identity of the whistleblower — tells me he will come up with something. And he does. He brings to me an adorable but older vehicle. He brings to me a small delivery van. He brings to me a German car.
Now, you should know that my practice of Judaism tends to be more in line with the spirit of the law and not so much the letter. And my priorities, they are not terribly logical, even by my standards. I make no judgment, but there are some traditions I would never violate. I would never eat of the pig. I would never tattoo on my body. And I would never drive a German car.
Anyway, back to the dream. I tell the boyfriend that I would not drive a German car. I am thinking that I must have told him this before, probably many times, but even if I didn’t mention, he really should just know. I tell him we have to take it back.
I instruct him to get behind the wheel. Just sitting in the passenger seat is bad enough. OK, we go in the car and make the beeline. Right into the telephone pole. I am sure we deserve this fate. I mean, what were we thinking? Driving a German car?
He asks me to wait while he goes to the nearby service station. So I stand beside the car in the heart of downtown, where you always bump with the people you know. I try to hide behind the car. All I can think is G-d forbid somebody sees me by the Hitlermobile.
Let’s face it, I have some real problems in my dream. My bank account has no money. My boyfriend has no face. My car has no insurance. But my biggest concern? That someone should think I am not a good Jew. And then it starts to rain.
This morning, I recount the dream to a friend who laughs heartily and tells me the dream reminds him an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
On the show, Larry and Jeff really like this Palestinian restaurant. But they know their Jewish friends would feel to eat there, it’s a terrible affront on Israel. And the place is next door a Jewish deli, so they worry someone should pass by and see them.
As for me, guess if you’re gonna live a sit-com life, you’re gonna dream a sit-com dream.
© 2017 Jaclyn Schrier. All rights reserved.
When we were kids, we rarely got to do normal Saturday morning activities because we had to go to shul.
Five times a week we had to go to shul, but Saturday mornings were the most painful. The services were interminably long and conducted almost entirely in Hebrew. Even worse, in those days women and girls were not allowed to participate. At all. Unless you count setting out the herring and schnapps for kiddish.
So, while the goyishe kids were doing goyishe things like playing sports and —
Actually, we did not know how the goyim spent their time besides playing sports and trimming trees. Nor did we know why they had to trim trees that had been chopped down dead and could not possibly grow any wayward branches. Anyway, while we were stuck in shul, we were sure the goyim were having all kinds of fun.
We did know one thing the goyim got to do on Saturday mornings. They got to watch cartoons. Hours and hours of cartoons. And word on the street was that these Saturday morning cartoons were sooo much better than the “classics” rerun ad infinitum weekday afternoons. Bugs Bunny? Please.
Back in such ancient times, there were no VCRs, much less DVRs or TV web sites, so the only way to see these shows was to be at home on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, there were only two reliable excuses for missing shul: vomit and blizzard. Alas, these two events were as unlikely as they were undesirable.
Truthfully, we could do without Fat Albert and Scooby-Doo. My mother had already conditioned us to abhor all human adipose and adore only small dogs.
No, it was The Jackson 5 we were dying to see! Of course, Michael danced even better in real life than in cartoon life, but he was darling either way and certainly this girl’s pre-teen dream!
So it turns out the complete series of animated Jackson 5 videos is now available by DVD. But somehow it doesn’t interest me.
When the show premiered in 1971, my demographic profile made me the ideal target audience. Today, not so much. And it’s kind of sad to see Michael as an innocent youngster now that we know the unfortunate details of his adult life. Besides, the forbidden fruits of childhood, mostly they don’t age so well. SpaghettiOs? Panty hose? Tiny nose? No! No! No!
Maybe it’s best we leave the past in its place. Still, just a little taste, it wouldn’t hurt…
Oh, darling, give me more chance! Oh, Michael, you and me both.
© 2016 Jaclyn Schrier. All rights reserved.
They don’t let you exercise at Eating Disorders Camp. They don’t let you do much of anything but sit around and eat and talk about eating.
And the food is really, really bad. Hospital food bad. If they are so desperate for you to eat, you’d think they’d give you some more appetizing options. But they don’t.
They do give you options, but I cried “Kosher!” and pleaded “Vegetarian!” and so was able to choose the same menu every day.
For breakfast, I had raisin bran and banana and (whole) milk. They don’t allow coffee; G-d forbid the caffeine might stimulate your metabolism a little bit.
For lunch, it was fruit plate; a soggy scoop of cottage cheese, slices of under-ripe cantaloupe and honeydew, a few red grapes.
For dinner, the cheese plate; a sleeve of Saltine crackers, a package of Kraft “cheese” squares, desiccated sticks of carrot and celery, some unspecified dip-like substance.
Of course, each meal was washed down with an Ensure chaser; a completely artificial, chemically-tasting form of liquid sustenance. To add insult to injury, they would always bring me Strawberry, the most disgusting flavor by far.
Note. You may be thinking I got off easy, that this menu would qualify as a weight loss plan by any normal standard, but this was not the case. The quantity of food so exceeded even my non-anorexic diet that I gained weight at a depressingly rapid rate.
Each meal came with a paper form listing all of the items on the plate. After ingesting what we could tolerate and rearranging the rest, an orderly would come around to complete the checklist by filling-in the estimated percentage we had consumed of each foodstuff.
If we passed and it was lunch, and only if we passed and it was lunch, we could go outside to the courtyard for the remainder of the hour. This was a much-desired privilege; fresh air and sunshine, albeit for a short while, was a very welcome respite from the dingy, institutional environment.
During this recess, we were supervised, in order to prevent any unnecessary burning of calories. There was a swing set, however, and on some of the days I was able to coax the Shaynas — three attractive, accomplished young women, all with the same name — to join me for a gleeful arc through the air.
Truthfully, I felt like something of a den mother. Though past forty, I was not nearly the oldest; a few of the campers were into their fifties. But unlike a fine wine, anorexics and bulimics do not age well, so except for the co-eds and me, the rest of our group was more-or-less inanimate.
One day, it happened they were short on staff and we were left unguarded during the after-lunch interlude. A few of the girls took advantage of this unexpected freedom to pace the perimeter. Others discussed strategies for making an escape, but were too sapped to scale the fence.
Suddenly, one of the prisoners called out that she had found a football. A football? How a ball of any variety had found its way into our gated community was a mystery of epic proportion and surely an act of subversion. While uninteresting in any other context; to us, there and then, a football was sheer delight.
Immediately, I threw my arms in the air and shouted “Anorexics against the Bulimics!” and the girls started dividing themselves into teams according to diagnostic code.
As soon as the words passed my lips, however, I realized this was a very bad idea. I mean, most of us anorexics could be knocked down by a mild breeze. And the bulimics, well, more than a few of them were built to play the offensive line.
No, this would make for a very lopsided and dangerous scrimmage indeed. It was my intention to reconfigure the field, but before I could say anything, our sentry was back on duty. In an instant, the football was confiscated and we were led back to the sterile, florescent day room.
The weeks dragged and I didn’t get much from this supposedly salubrious setting. The counselors weren’t terribly engaging and the campers were dreadfully disconnected. Anyway, my issues were already well-understood, and in all honesty, dangerous as my disordered thinking might have been, I just really, really liked being anorexic.
Turns out that not eating was almost effortless for me. Friends from shul would confess they couldn’t possibly fast a full day for Yom Kippur. One day? Please. I never counted calories or looked for “thinspiration”. I just ate very lightly and exercised very vigorously.
Most women have no idea how good it feels to go by the Macy’s Petite department and find a size 0 is too big. I could do yoga like nobody’s business; it is very easy to twist about when there is nothing to get in the way. My mind was free, no longer needing to worry about my weight all day long.
And the positive reinforcement was out of this world. In the locker room at my gym, women — women! — would come over to say I had a beautiful body or to ask if I danced ballet. Men appreciated me in a way I could never have imagined prior to achieving this sylphlike status.
Though I did not enjoy the constant medical attention, it was very convenient not to get my period. Also, there is a slight light-headedness that comes with malnourishment that is surprisingly pleasant. The euphoria overwhelmed the fainting spells, serious symptoms, severe side effects, and well-intentioned interventions.
While this was a miserable way to spend the season, my doctor had decreed the cost of my liberty would be 100 lbs. It was an exorbitant price to pay, seemingly impossible, but like so many others sent to summer camp against their will, more than anything, I just wanted to go home.
© 2016 Jaclyn Schrier. All rights reserved.
Whenever we needed any sort of professional services, my parents always got a guy from the shul. The attorney, the dermatologist, the tailor, the whatever. Except when we needed a dog doctor or a wall painter or a hairdresser. These don’t come in Jewish.
Apparently this is a thing. And not only among the chosen people. The newspaper advertises real estate agents specializing in the Chinese community. Maggie Anderson’s Our Black Year chronicles her African-American family’s attempt to buy from only Black-owned businesses for an entire year.
And Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald’s Blindspot acknowledges a bias that takes the form of a secret preference for your own group rather than any active discrimination against other groups.
Sounds about right. Much as I hate to admit it, I am one of those otherwise egalitarian people with a tendency to favor my own landesman. Certainly when all the other things are equal. And perhaps even when they are not.
When my parents needed to buy a car, naturally, they went to a dealer from the synagogue. A man my mother did not like. OK, she didn’t like anyone, but she really, really did not like this guy.
My mother never referred to the dealer as Mr. ———, as was custom for business relationships in those days. She never referred to him as Bob, though she would call other acquaintances from the temple by their first name. It was always “that momzeh gonif Bob ———”. Like “momzeh gonif” was his title.
Certainly, there were other lots in the area, but again and again, she returned to the lying thief. Go figure.
It is this kind of irrational communal loyalty that has led me to make all kinds of questionable purchasing decisions despite the clear and present danger.
Like a few years ago, an eatery called The Roast Shop opened a few blocks from my apartment. Kosher, closed on Shabbes, the whole megillah. The only such restaurant in the neighborhood and only one of two in town.
Not a delicatessen type of place, they advertised as specialists in roasted meats. In either case, not really my style, especially when there are so many wonderful Mediterranean and vegetarian options within a few blocks walk.
Also, they received terrible reviews. The Yelp, the Chowhound, the Urbanspoon, the whole internet seemed to agree they were just awful. And yet I felt compelled to go there and waste some hard-earned money.
As soon as I entered the restaurant, I wanted to back myself out the door. The tables were empty, never a good sign. They had been open a couple months, there should be at least a few customers.
Still, I ordered a plate and I tried to eat. I tried but I did not succeed. It was truly one of the worst restaurant meals I had ever been served. And I have been served at a roadhouse in rural Indiana. I have been served on a shrimp boat in redneck Georgia. I have been served by a hofbräuhaus in Baden-Württemberg.
Though I have never tasted shoe leather, I am sure it would be a close culinary cousin to this so-called brisket. Pure gristle. I could not cut it with a knife. I could not shred it with my teeth. I could not be certain it was actually meat. Feh!
The side of cholent was both flavorless and uncooked and contained bits of gristle. I have eaten black beans by the Mexican restaurant. I have cooked garbanzo beans by my own hand. Beans are never supposed to be hard and crunchy.
The side of mixed greens — this is California — was acceptable. Multi-colored and slightly bitter. A few thin rings of red onion. Nothing special but nothing to complain. It was the only thing I could stomach.
The meal was more than $24. Absolutely outrageous. And I didn’t even get a Dr. Brown’s Black Cherry.
The funny thing — and the point of the story — is that I kept thinking I really should give them another chance. Fortunately, and perhaps predictably, they went out of business before an opportunity presented itself.
Anyway, so it happened, when Bernie Sanders announced he was running for President, I was immediately drawn to his candidacy.
To be fair, my attraction was based on firm political footing. I can’t count the number of times I have said, “I’m so liberal, I’m practically a Socialist”. In my heart, I agreed with many of his proposals, such as Medicare for all, though I thought the rich people could very well pay for their own kids’ college educations.
Also, I was impressed that Mr. Sanders’ fundraising focused on small donations from individual citizens rather than big bundles from corporate interests. But, let’s face it, the way he talks, a Jew from Brooklyn, it makes me to feel right at home.
Alas, the way Mr. Sanders seems to shun his Jewish heritage quickly cooled my keen.
OK, maybe the man doesn’t believe, he doesn’t practice, that’s his prerogative. But, to refer to his parents as Polish immigrants? They were not Poles, they were Jews. It is not the same thing.
And when he speaks about his Jewishness, he is really describing humanism, which is not a bad thing, but it is, by definition, anti-religious. My strong sense is that he is not being forthright about his feelings.
Even so, I wanted desperately to feel the Bern. Hillary Clinton has her pluses and minuses, but I could muster no enthusiasm. I would watch the debates to make my decision.
Indeed, it was those debates that finally convinced me. It wasn’t anything that either candidate said, it was the non-verbal cues. It was the way Mr. Sanders kept making faces and laughing and wagging his finger whenever it was Mrs. Clinton’s turn to make her schpiel.
It felt annoying. It felt disrespectful. It felt like something I did not want to watch for the next four or eight years.
So today, as we cast our ballots in the California primary, I am not “buying Black”.
I’m with her.
© 2016 Jaclyn Schrier. All rights reserved.
Like most regional ethnic groups, the New York Jewish people have their own special holiday traditions. For Christmas, we eat Chinese food and watch Jewish movies. Chinese food because the Chinese restaurants are open and uncrowded. Jewish movies because the Jewish movies make us feel like we are the stars of the day.
Some of my Christmas-observing friends think this is a sad way to spend the “best” day of the year. It is not. Despite the sensory overload of the season, I do not feel left out of the festivities and I enjoy the solidarity of sharing the day with people who believe as I do.
Christmas arrived shortly after we moved to Palo Alto. We ate Chinese at the Su Hong and saw The Garden of the Finzi-Continis at the Guild, both nearby in Menlo Park. The restaurant and the theater were mostly empty, but still, it was comforting to keep the tradition alive and know that most of the other patrons were probably landesman “celebrating” the holiday in the familiar fashion.
The next Christmas, having spent a year in California, we were more assimilated. We went mainstream, driving to the mega-plex to watch Titanic. We planned to see the earliest show, but when we arrived, the place was positively jam-packed with people, the majority of whom were clearly not like-minded Jews.
Apparently, people of all faiths need to get out of the house after a few hours with the relations.
Anyway, the matinee was sold out so we got tickets for a later show and took the car to find a Chinese lunch spot. Except we didn’t. Find any Chinese food. The only restaurant open for business was the always open Denny’s, where they didn’t even serve any faux-Chinese food like “Chinese chicken salad” or “Asian stir-fry”. All in all, it was a very goyishe Christmas.
The next year, we felt a desperate need to return to our roots so we got tickets to Kung Pao Kosher Comedy in San Francisco, advertised as “Jewish comedy in a Chinese restaurant on Christmas”. It sounded perfect. The surprise headline performer turned out to be Margaret Cho. Alas, her style lacked that, umm, Hebraic sensibility.
Each year, we tried a different approach, never quite recapturing that old heymishe feeling. One year, we went to the JCC. They didn’t have enough Chinese food for everyone — who ever heard a Jewish affair should run out of food? A shandeh! And if that wasn’t enough already, the projector failed in the middle of the Israeli film — alright, we all know a Jewish gathering where everyone can tell you how to fix whatever is broken but no one has any practical experience handling a screwdriver.
Perhaps no matter your heritage, no matter the holiday, things never turn out quite the way you remember. But what could possibly be better than a new story (and a chance to kvetch a little besides)?
© 2015 Jaclyn Schrier. All rights reserved.
Amazon.com is streaming a new series, The Man In the High Castle, based on the Philip K. Dicks novel that imagines a universe where Hitler won the second world war and the Third Reich encompasses the United States.
To promote the show, Amazon has decorated a working New York subway car with nazified American symbols, for example, the seats are wrapped with a version of the American flag that replaces the familiar fifty stars with the Nazi Iron Eagle.
I can’t tell you what it must feel like for some elderly Holocaust survivor to step into that car and be surrounded by images reminiscent of those that once terrorized their youth and continue to haunt their dreams.
But I can tell you this. Some while back, I was in the audience enjoying a production of Cabaret, the musical depicting Berlin during the years in which the Nazis came to power.
All of the sudden, in a single beat, the orchestra and the company went completely silent as red ceiling-to-floor banners bearing the Nazi swastika loudly unfurled throughout the theater.
Instantly, I rose from my seat with the intention of running toward the exit.
While it took only a moment for me to regain my sense of time and place, my response had been visceral, automatic. And I am born in America, many years after the Shoah.
So, this advertising, we can argue about free speech until the cows come home, but such a stunt seems very cruel indeed.
The MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) standards call for maintaining a safe and welcoming environment for all customers and employees. Yeah, right.
© 2015 Jaclyn Schrier. All rights reserved.
I like Halloween. I don’t know why. Certainly, there are no happy childhood associations, though one year my mother did get a pumpkin.
Of course, we only got to watch while she did all the carving. She wasn’t into collaboration.
If we had been of a Jesus-related faith, I’m certain we wouldn’t have got a Christmas tree. It’s not like there would have been any presents to put under it.
In the unlikely event we did get a tree, well, I’m sure she would’ve decorated it all by herself while we were at Hebrew School or something.
Anyway, we only got a pumpkin that one time because it got smashed. Maybe that’s just the fate that awaits all but a few lucky pumpkins come All Hallow’s Eve. Or maybe we would have had better luck if she wasn’t always yelling at the neighborhood kids.
But still, costumes and chocolates, what is there not to like?
So, when the time came that I was both grown up and coupled up, we moved to California, to a beautiful neighborhood in Old Palo Alto, and set up a holiday-friendly home.
That first year, I was really looking forward to the Trick or Treaters. I had done my research and knew which candy was the most prized. I bought five times as many pieces as we could possibly need. And none of that cheap miniature or corn syrup crap.
When evening arrived, we waited and waited, but our doorbell did not ring. It seemed odd. Our lights were on. Our decorations were up. Maybe they start later out here, I thought, we just need to give it time.
The time did pass, but our house remained unhaunted. We tested the doorbell and resumed our watch. We heard children running and laughing in the street. Were these the sounds of mere spirits and not flesh and blood boys and girls?
We went outside to investigate. No, these princesses and pirates were real live kids. But they were skipping past our address and flocking to the surrounding abodes.
See, ours was a very posh precinct, the neighbors included Steve Jobs and Steve Young as well as other Steves less note-worthy but equally net-worthy. Though darling, our place stood out, in a Section 8 kind of way. In truth, many of the nearby garages dwarfed our modest home.
This was prejudice in its purest form. The treats from our cozy cottage were just as good as the sweets from the stately mansions. Even better!
Books! Covers! What are they teaching in the schools? People, please!
© 2015 Jaclyn Schrier. All rights reserved.
So, by Linked In, they have a button with the hands shaking. Not the way my hands shake with the dishes dropping on the floor. The way hands shake when people make the meet and greet.
Now, I’m more of a hugger than a shaker, but when I do the handshake, say, with a business acquaintance, the other person invariably remarks “cold hands”, to which I always respond, “warm heart”.
Another thing about the handshaking. In graduate school, one of the professors shook each of the girls’ hands. He said nothing makes a weak impression like a weak handshake. All the other girls, he told to tighten the grip. Me, he warned not to break anybody’s metacarpals.
In my experience, however, it is men who are far more likely to give the wimpy shake. Especially doctors. They have no problem to prod and to poke all over your private parts, but your hand they touch like it’s a cesspool of germs. Oh wait. It is.
Anyway, with the Linked In, you would click the “hands” button if you should want to see “People You May Know”. I wanted to see people I may know. So I clicked.
Here is a sampling of the names…
Levy. Levin. Levine. Levinger.
Katz. Katzen. Katzman. Katzenberg.
Goldman. Goldfarb. Goldberg. Goldstein.
Notice there seems to be a trend…
Edelman. Ackerman. Friedman. Fleischman.
Goodman. Adleman. Perelman. Kaufman.
Shulman. Keleman. Feldman. Silverman.
Please, I am not making this up…
Bernstein. Weinstein. Rubinstein. Finkelstein.
Rosenbaum. Rosenstein. Rosenblum. Rosenfeld.
Aronowitz. Berkowitz. Horowitz. Rabinowitz.
Steinberg. Fineberg. Ginsburg. Koenigsberg.
Still, the list is going on and on…
Cohen! Wexelblat! Shimelfarb! Teitelbaum!
Siegel! Perlmutter! Klein! Hirsch!
Frankel! Kaplan! Shapiro! Schwartz!
OK, it’s a small community, but really, we don’t all know each other!
© 2015 Jaclyn Schrier. All rights reserved.
Mrs. Scherz is from my childhood. She is now re-married to Mr. Schwartz. They are in their 70s and have the New York Jewish thing going in a big way.
This takes place at my mother’s funeral. At the cemetery. It is silent. Mrs. Scherz is shoveling the dirt and quite vigorously when Mr. Schwartz calls out:
“Irma! You don’t have to do the whole thing by yourself.”
The words, the accent, the delivery; it was a perfect moment in the midst of a most dreadful day.
© 2015 Jaclyn Schrier. All rights reserved.
Anecdote Alley 