My Rosh Hashanah Rant

Three things:

1.) I've been procrastinating writing this blog entry by watching military documentaries for the past four hours (don't ask) (don't tell) (HAHA!) (but not really, that's a sad policy) (but god I'm clever) and OOF. If I decide to join the Marines, it's your responsibility to remind me that I find socializing in humid weather taxing and recently quit a Jillian Michaels On Demand home workout after three minutes to order Greek and watch shit on Hulu. Thank you.

2.) I hate doing this, but I need you to do me a favor and vote for us for Express Night Out's Best Blog. To do so, just click here, scroll down almost to the very bottom, click 2birds1blog for "best blog (non food)" and hit vote. Done. Then perhaps ask a friend to do the same. Promise them sexual favors and delicious spiced meats for doing so. Then when they're done voting and want to cash-in on your promises, simply say "PSYCH!", pat them on the back once and walk away. What will I give you for doing this? Sexual favors and delicious spiced meats. PSYCH! And now I'm walking away. See how easy that was?

Actually, we'll do a giveaway next week, but I need you to tell me what you want first. 2b1b shit? Jäger shit? Some random shit I find laying around my apartment? A comical picture of me from middle school? I'm open, so vote, come back, leave a comment telling me what you'd like and we'll do it next week. (Another reason I probably shouldn't join the Marines: I'm too lazy to think of my own blog giveaways.) Oh, and since I know there's nothing the 2b1b Army loves more than helping me only to fuck someone else over (bless your hearts), we're up against our blog nemesis, The Prince of Petworth. BOOM. Revenge and a giveaway; what more could you want? XOXOXOXO.

3.) I got an email earlier tonight from a reader asking if I was ever going to write about my issue with Rosh Hashanah. And YEP. Sure will. Right now. That's all it takes; one single person asking for it. Because I will rant about Rosh Hashanah to literally anyone who will listen. And frankly, actually listening is a non-issue. Sometimes I line up my Larry Hagman action figures and walk around my apartment just bitching and moaning and making points with animated hand gestures. And now, despite it actually not being that funny or interesting, you fine people will get that pleasure too. So, here we go.

Diane McBlogger: God I love that woman. My mom is one of my all-time favorite people and I love her very dearly. HOWEVER, she is the reason why Rosh Hashanah season gets my modest, ankle-length skirt in a twist.

As I've discussed, we McBloggers are an interfaith family. My mom is Jewish, my dad is Catholic and my sister and I lost interest at the beginning of this sentence. My entire life, our family has only celebrated four religious holidays: Easter, Passover, Hanukkah and Christmas. That's it. That's the ballgame. And I use the term "celebrate" loosely because I really mean we get drunk, watch "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and eat a brisket.

Now, my mom's interest in Judaism comes and goes. And you know what? That's fine. Mozel tov to you and yours. If one day you feel like being a Super Jew and the next you want to host a pig roast with Jesus and Rush Limbaugh—good for you. I pray to Kelly Cutrone, who am I to judge? What I don't appreciate, however, is when her feigning interest in religion affects my life and my schedule. Because if you're going to make the conscious decision to raise your kids all, "Ohhhh, here's a pupu platter of religions! Take want you want and leave what you don't! There is no right and wrong! Come as you are and leave as you were; we're not trying to change you, just educate you," and all that hippie bruhaha, I think it's hypocritical to force me to participate years later just because all of a sudden it's important to you. And yet that's exactly what happened in September of 2006.

I was a Senior in college in September of '06 and much to my chagrin, I was forced to take web design. If you couldn't already tell from how primitive this blog is despite my background in graphic design, I loathe web design. I think it's boring, confusing, and involves wayyyy too much thinking for my liking. Which is exactly why I chose to be a print design major. But our department head, in all of his infinite wisdom and glory, decided to make my graduating print design class take web design so we would be more "marketable" after graduation. Asshole.

Web Design was basically a semester long project where we had to design two versions of a website for a local band; one using HTML, JavaScript, CSS blah blah technical blah and one using Flash. (SPOILER! I didn't do it. My friend Stephanie did mine for me and I say a little prayer for her and her health every night because Christ knows I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. The extent of my coding knowledge is mostly Live Journal based and is limited to bold, italics, underlines, strike outs and my pièce de résistance:

SCROLLING MARQUEES!!!!1

Pretty much all of us outsourced our websites, which looking back made sense at the time, but now that I'm paying off my student loans in one-liners and handjobs, I kind of want to set myself on fire.)

Flash forward to a phone call I got from my mom the first week of September:

D: Meg, I need you to come home for Rosh Hashanah dinner next Tuesday night.

M: Rosh-a-what-now?

D: Rosh Hashanah.

M: Oh. No offense, but...why?

D: Because Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year and it's important that you're here for it.

Let's time out right there: no it's not. I mean, yes, Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year, but it really didn't matter if I was home for it or not. The Jews managed to survive 5,771 Rosh Hashanahs with out me up until that point, I'm sure one more wouldn't have brought on any plagues or frog showers. That being said, who was I to turn down free brisket and facetime with Evie? So, I agreed to go.

Unfortunately, part of my web design project was to create a photo gallery of our band with original photography from live shows. And when was my band's next show before our photo galleries were due? You guessed it: Rosh Hashanah. I figured my mom would be cool about it though because, you know, we had been to Disney Land more times than we'd even discussed Rosh Hashanah and school comes first, right? Wrong.

[Ring, ring!] D: Hello?

M: Hey, it's Meg.

D: Hi honey, what's up?

M: Listen, I've got some bad news—I can't come home for Rosh Hashanah dinner anymore. The photo gallery for my band's website is due soon and I need to go to their show at the Black Cat that night to take pictures. Sorry!

D: Well, I'm sorry too. Because you have to come home for dinner.

M: What? Wait, seriously?

D: Yes. Seriously.

M: But, why?

D: Because it's Rosh Hashanah.

M: So?? I don't even know what that is! This is like you telling me I have to come home for Fluggityfark.

D: Meghan, you know what Rosh Hashanah is. We celebrate it every year.

M: WHAT?! We have never celebrated Rosh Hashanah in my entire 22 years of my being on this Earth. EVER.

D: Meghan, we always celebrate Rosh Hashanah. You're just not remembering and I'm not having this conversation with you anymore. It's important to me that you be there and that's final.

Now, time the fuck out right there. This still boggles my mind. We had seriously never celebrated Rosh Hashanah before and I can't believe she told me otherwise to try to get me to come. Because had my mom just been like, "Hey-o feelin' kind of Jewy, it's important to me that you come home so we can celebrate Rosh Hashanah as a family," that would have been one thing. But to try to implant these false memories in my mind of Rosh Hashanahs past to guilt me into coming is just so manipulative and ultimately, well, Jewish.

And then the truth came out:

M: This is absurd. We have never celebrated Rosh Hashanah before and I can't go because I have something to do for school. They're not going to have another show until after my gallery is due and if I don't get those pictures, I'm going to be totally fucked.

D: Well, I'm sorry, but I already told your sister she didn't have to go because she got tickets to see Mos Def that night and at least one of you has to be there.

...Allow me repeat that: I had to go because Rebecca was going to a MOS. DEF. CONCERT. My already shitty project in the class that I was struggling the most in was now in serious jeopardy because Rebecca felt it necessary to go to a fucking MOS. DEF. CONCERT. I'm aware that older siblings sometimes get preferential treatment, but at that point I was 22 and she was 27; we were grown-ass adults. To let her go to a god damn Mos Def concert and not let me do something for school was just lunacy and borderline reckless. Plus, who gave a shit if neither of us were there?? Who was going to judge?? The only people at that dinner were my parents, my aunt, the cat and a bottle of red. Which part of that cast would have been like, "Ohhhh, the McBlogger girls didn't show up for Rosh Hashanah dinner. What values, these kids!" (Evie, obviously, but still.)

I brought this up to Becca when she was over for dinner the other week and her only response was, "Oh. Hah. Yeah. That was a good show," then went right back to chopping something.

WHAT?!!?!?!? For all the trouble it caused me, that had better have been the best god damn show she's seen in her entire life. Mos Def himself should have showered her in Cristal and performed a one-man rendition of his guest episode of "House" in Latin before sexing up her and everyone else in the audience. "That was a good show." Christ.

In the end, I obviously went to dinner, I'm sure it was delicious, my website sucked, I got a C in the class, and according to Mos Def's Twitter, he just saw Salt and has to say that that ending was the worst he's seen yet, which is saying something because he watched The Last Airbender. SO, GOOD. We're all comedians and we're all winners.

And you know what the most infuriating part of this entire situation is? OUR FAMILY NEVER CELEBRATED ROSH HASHANAH AGAIN!!!1 After all of that! I didn't even know it was Rosh Hashanah season until Chris proposed we do a post about our Rosh Hashanah New Year's resolutions the other week and I freaked out. I was like, "WAIT, IS IT ROSH HASHANAH?" "...Yes." "AND MY MOM ISN'T HAVING A DINNER?!" "Uh...I guess not?" [Drops phone, falls to knees, raises fists in the air] "GOD DAMN YOU, MOS DEF!!!!!!"

So, I've decided that from now on, I am forcing my family to observe Rosh Hashanah, whether we're feeling Jewish that year or not. Just based on principle. Because if it was magically important that year (when I was BUSY) (with something ACADEMIC), it should be important EVERY year. Diane McBlogger should personally provide me with a free hot meal, at her residence, transportation fees covered and Rebecca's presence mandatory. And at said dinner, we will listen to local DC band Deleted Scenes' EP on repeat, pass around my grades from that ill-fated semester and each family member must look me dead in the eye, apologize, give me three compliments—in alphabetical order—and at least two of them have to be based on my physical appearance and have nothing to do with my personality or "wonderful" sense of humor.

Happy fucking New Year.

I got in an Internet fight with the chick who took the last babka on Seinfeld.

I was truly having a wonderful Sunday evening last night. I was sitting on my couch writing letters to you fine people, sipping a glass of Shiraz and watching The 40-Year Old Virgin on TBS in peace. But my brief moment of bliss was interrupted by an email I received from a fellow blogger nominated for the Blogger's Choice Award: Best Humor Blog. It was from a woman named Suzy. It said this:

Subject: Humor Bloggers thingamajig
Message: Hey, a few of us have noticed that your blog just leapfrogged all the other humor bloggers in record time.

*ZACK MORRIS STYLE TIME OUT!* After reading that, I immediately thought to myself, "Wow. My readers are fucking badasses." I gave myself a pat on the back and you a standing ovation. I thought maybe Suzy was writing me from one humor blogger to another to give me kudos. After all, we humor bloggers have to stick together, right? *TIME IN!*

Usually that is a sign of cheating.

Ah. Wrong.

Upon further examination, most of your voters have only voted for 2 blogs, both of which are yours.

Just an FYI, if all your votes are coming from one or two IP's, they will not be counted, at least that's what former people have told us. It's taken me 3 months to get to 115 so how could you get to second place in 3 weeks?

I just thought it was only fair to give you a head's up.

Suzy

I was fuming you guys, fuming. Because of course I didn't cheat! Lord knows I got a lot of time on my hands (let's not pretend I don't,) but I don't have so much time that I'm able to create 288 fake email accounts to win an Internet award. I mean, maybe if I still lived at home, sure, but I do occasionally have a social life. Occasionally. So I sent Suzy back the following:

Dear Suzy:

Most of my readers do not read other blogs. Ergo, they only voted for my blog and the two categories I was voted for. I managed to get so many votes in so little time by asking my readers to vote for me. And they did. You should try it.

Best of luck and thank you for your concern,

Meg

And I was ready to let it go and move on with my life. I was still pissed and offended, of course, but I chalked it up to Internet shenanigans and felt better.

Later, as I sat at the bar of Tryst enjoying a lovely tuna melt, chatting with friends, my phone's email alert dinged and my relaxing Sunday evening was interrupted by Suzy, again:

In a message dated 8/2/2009 4:03:07 PM Pacific Daylight Time, meg@2birds1blog.com writes:

Most of my readers do not read other blogs.

One of your readers is one of my readers and Vodka Mom's readers as well. Kathy B!, and she also voted for me and Vodka. It's kind of ridiculous to think NONE of your readers read anyone but you two. You guys really are in your 20's aren't you? :)

Well, good luck anyway...s

And with that, Suzy ignited the fiery, cold-hearted, bitch within. Before she had only ignited the snarkess within, which of course isn't that hard to ignite, but with just two careless strokes of the keyboard she took it to a whole other level. Which strokes, you ask? I have three words for you: colon, end, parenthesis.

As I've discussed before, I have no time for passive-aggressive people. If you're going to be an asshole to me, just be an asshole. Don't try to LOLZ it off at the end and add a smiley face like you're just joshin' around. Because Suzy wasn't joshin' around. She was accusing me of being a liar and a cheat. And now, immature. Which of course I am, but frankly you're the one researching the statistics of who voted for me for an Internet award on your Sunday evening and emailing me to start shit. But either way, kudos to you for calling me out on being young and immature. However, why add the :) ? :) is on the same infuriating level as when Mark-the-Big-Gay-Co-Worker laughs after he says something rude to me. Busting out a :) and/or laughing after you say something rude does not negate the rude statement you just made. Same goes for when people say "No offense but..." or "With all do respect..." before they say something rude. It's like an insurance policy that if I understandably react with anger, you can always be like, "WOAH, WOAH, WOAH! I was just joking around!!! JEEZ, calm down! LAMAO HEHE :P " And that, my friends, is cowardly. Because if you're going to start shit with me, it's only fair that you be prepared to take the shit I'm going to give you back. Asshole is a two-way street. You give it; you get it.

I threw my delicious tuna melt down in anger. I felt sick. I had lost my appetite. (Just kidding, I obviously finished it later.) How dare this woman 1.) accuse me of being a liar and a cheat 2.) then accuse me of being immature and finish it off by 3.) adding the ever passive-aggressive :) ?? I raged. It was one of those situations where you're sitting there talking to your friends about it getting angrier and angrier and thinking about all of the passive-aggressive people in your life and all of the hypocrites who piss you off on a daily basis until your hands are shaking and you're finally like, "WHO THE FUCK DOES THIS PERSON THINK SHE IS?! NOW TASTE MY PAIN, BITCH!!!!!" So, I sent the following back:

"It's kind of ridiculous to think NONE of your readers read anyone but you two."

That's not what I said. I said:

"MOST of my readers do not read other blogs."

And just so you don't make this mistake again--per Websters Dictionary:
Most (Adj)
1.) Greatest in quantity, extent or degree.
2.) The majority of.
(i.e. not NONE)

'You really are lonely, jealous and in your 30's aren't you? :)' I'm
genuinely SHOCKED you don't have more votes.

Best of luck trying to prove my sinisterly evil master plan of rigging the Blogger's Choice Awards. ;)

- Meg

Before you email me all "WHATEVER BITCH, 30 IS THE NEW 20 AND 20 IS THE NEW 10 AND YOU'RE THE NEW ASSHOLE!!!!" I obviously don't think 30 is old. Given Suzy's dig at me my age, I assumed she was in her 30's. So I made the executive decision to exploit that fact. It's like when you're mad at a friend so you call her fat even though she's obviously thin. You don't mean it, you both know it's not true and you both know you're only saying it out of anger. Was it a cheap shot? Yes. Was it deserved? Of course! But if you didn't want me to take a cheap shot, you probably shouldn't have taken one at me. It's my You Started It Principle.

Her response:

In a message dated 8/2/2009 6:31:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time, meg@2birds1blog.com writes:

'You really are lonely, jealous and in your 30's aren't you? :)' I'm
genuinely SHOCKED you don't have more votes.

Spoken like a 20 year old. I've read your blog, why haven't you checked mine out?

To be fair, I had read her blog. I read the most recent post about how irritating the AT&T rollover minutes commercials are (which I disagree with. That kid is adorable) and then read the next post, which opened with:

"Bloggers have, over the years, asked me how I manage to be consistently funny (lie). Did I have any tips for them to bump up their funny? Being lazy, I ignored those emails completely."

After that I gave up. Because this chick kind of sounds like an asshole. And if I'm reading any asshole's blog, it's Meghan McCain's.

Besides, Suzy was getting off topic here. So I sharpened my knives and responded:

Spoken like a senile old grandma who's just makin' shit up. When did I say I never read your blog?

Her response:

Out of curiosity, why are you so angry in your emails? s

That statement was basically just a more eloquent version of a :). She was throwing her asshole-car into reverse and trying to get herself out of the situation she had started. I just will never understand people who start shit and then act so surprised when I get mad and act accordingly. It's just mind boggling. Steven Hawking should study it.

Alright Grams, lets recap what's happened in the last 4 hours: you went out of your way to accuse me of cheating and rigging a blog election, then passive-aggressively called me immature for God knows what reason. Don't start shit with me and act clueless when you can't keep up with your own accusations.

OH SHIT! OH SHIT! OH SHIT!

Her response:

I was trying to warn you, sorry you took it the way you did. You're on your own now.

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! SO. INFURIATING. Because Suzy wasn't trying to do me a solid and help me out. She was accusing me of cheating! That's rather different than offering heart-felt blogging advice (that I never asked for.) And how else was I suppose to take it? "You're a big liar and a cheat and I'm going to investigate all of the people who voted for you and stalk down their IP addresses and disqualify you from the competition, negating two years of hard work. But you can't get mad at me because I'm adding LOLZ ;)"

K. Thanks again for the selfless accusation. It totally wasn't offensive at all. Let me know if you want stickers.

And that was the end of that. Later that night, I tossed and turned as I struggled with the dirty feeling of having been in an Internet fight. I realize being a blogger I'm already skirting on Losertown and Nerdville, but a bona fide Internet fight/blog war? That's not really my style. But she just enraged me so much I couldn't take the higher road and not fight back. Ugh...unclean...unclean!

One thing stuck with me though: why was she so concerned that I hadn't read her blog? Was there something on there I missed? I went back and read it more carefully. And that's when I saw her bio:

My name is Suzy Soro and I'm a comedian. I'm the woman who got the last chocolate babka on Seinfeld. I'm also the person that Larry David called a very bad name on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Hm. So I was completely incorrect in my thinking she was some random chick in her early 30's living in LA struggling to make it as a comedian. And then I immediately felt like a complete asshole. But I didn't feel like a complete asshole because I had pissed off someone established who could hurt my future career. I don't want to be a comedian or an actor or anything that Suzy's connections could blacklist me from. I felt pissed off because her being older and established made all of my age jokes completely un-ironic and just...mean. And I'm not mean. Snarky? Yes. Elitist? Of course! But mean? Not at all! Because being mean on the Internet is something I am in no way interested in. It takes the wit and intelligence of a glue gun. It makes me no better than this:


I feel horrible. I feel dirty. And I feel mad. Again. Because now I feel so guilty, I'm obviously going to apologize. But me apologizing takes away any and all of the excellent points I made about what a total asshole she was and kind of makes me look like a pussy.

God. I can never win.

Suzy Soro: I'm sorry I called you old. Because you're not old. Andy Rooney is old. I accidentaly stooped to an all-time low, and for that I apologize. Because I only wanted to stoop somewhat low. I mean, after all, you were rude and patronizing, which of course is your own fault. But I shouldn't have called you old. And for that I'm sorry.

Sincerely,
Meg

Sigh...Guess it's time to edit this list:

Meg's Enemies:
The bartender at Axis
Meghan McCain
Suzy Soro