New Archive:

January 2001 Issue

Simon Says: A GenJ Writers' Collective

Well, we don't have any writers named Simon, but if we did, here's where he'd do his saying!

When asked about their new year's resolutions and their free associations with the word "home," here's what some GenJ writers had to say:

Ted Roberts ("A High Holidays Proposal"):

Some statements about home:

1) Home is the place where you never have to say you're sorry--except to relatives.

2) "No matter where I seat my guests, they seem to like my kitchen best." (My mama used to say that, every time we had company.)

New Year's Eve resolutions:

1) I resolve never to make another set of those annual resolutions. Why berate yourself as a liar for the next 365 days.

2) I resolve never to eat 4 chili dogs and a quart of Ben and Jerry's ice cream on the same night. (Especially Pepto Bismol pink.) That 384th mitzvah about mixing meat and milk is not totally ridiculous.

3) I resolve never again to forget about the Pepsi I left in the freezer to chill. (You should see what it does to hamburger meat and chicken parts when it explodes.)

4) A guy named Mark Twain (not Jewish, but infatuated with the mystery of Jewish survival), said we shouldn't strive for perfection. He said it was a good idea to cultivate a few really bad habits to throw overboard when the ship of Life hits a typhoon--when you have to jettison something to stay afloat.

Aviya Kushner ("Road Rage in Israel"):

1. Resolutions:

I resolve to give at least a tenth of what I receive, and not to think of it as giving.

2. Home:

Home is where you can hide. A friend was telling me that home for her is not one place, but any location where she can paint and think. I liked that very much. I imagine her hiding from the phone, the Internet, the wider world, and just painting in what she calls home. Home, I think, is where you can just be. And to her, being equals painting.

Sharon Schatz (Upcoming Relationships Article on Making a Jewish Home):

When I was in high school, my friend Jodi introduced me to this semi-obscure Billy Joel song called "You're My Home." Somethin' about a guy who felt that no matter where he was physically or geographically, he was "home" when he was with his girlfriend. Jodi used to play it over and over. Didn't do much for me at the time. Sort of blended in with my "Lost Boys" soundtrack, the B52's, the Beatles, and the rest of our eclectic mix of music at the time. But now, having found the man I'm going to marry, I think I finally get it.

"You're my castle, you're my cabin, and my instant pleasure dome,/ I need you in my house, 'cause you're my home."

You're my home, Glenn!

Benjy Kantor ("A Toast to 'Who Wants To Marry a Multi-Millionaire?')

My roommate did this last year at new year's, and it still cracks me up:

On the morning of January 1, 2000, he walked into the bathroom without saying a word, closed the door, and when he came out he said, "Well, there goes THAT resolution." Had us rolling on the floor.

Home town: Where I've lived, where I was born, where I am.

Esther Kustanowitz (Crazy for Karaoke)

Home is where my room is. In my room, bits of memorabilia from my 29 years of life decorate the walls. Whenever I am home, I always focus on some different wallhanging from my youth and analyze what it meant to me then and how its importance has shifted and, in many cases, grown since the time I first affixed it there: Smallish movie posters that I thought my parents would insist I remove because the When Harry Met Sally one asks "Can two friends sleep together and still love each other in the morning?" and the Pretty Woman one shows Julia Roberts in full hooker garb. My college acceptance letter. A certificate of achievement I received for my participation in a local theater class. A giant cardboard cutout of a musical note, spirited away from my camp production one summer. A letter from Pierce Brosnan, from when he was Remington Steele and I was his biggest fan. An eyechart from when my glasses were new and I had to do eye strengthening exercises with prisms. A laqcuered, mounted copy of my bat mitzvah invitation, which I had hand-lettered with my rudimentary sixth-grade calligraphy skills. And of course, the books, from elementary, high school and college, the ones I return to and reread whenever I am home. All of these things are still in my room, bricks in the foundation of me. Objectively, just pieces of paper, but subjectively, a vital network of nerves that created who I am today. Which is why I can never take them down and my parents are not allowed to sell the house.

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