Surreal but somehow silent weekend. First, I attributed it to a sense of citywide sense of melancholy on Saturday, maybe caused by pre-recall election media saturation burnout in a city soaked in politics, the failure of the local golden boys of baseball to deliver playoff victory, or simply climatic shock as this two season town shifts from Not-Winter to Somewhat-Like-Winter. Added in were these unsympathetic vibrations that hum away from the downtown buildings on weekends, like a rendering plant waiting for livestock to pour out the chutes on Monday morning. Yet, I wondered if it was more that my inner harmonics were more attuned than usual. Was I mistaking outward moroseness for a growing inner quietude? The one month mark for the move to Seattle is nearly upon me and I'm experiencing the expected doubt, which will only grow and creep around inside my skull. Somehow, I'm holding out against the doubt with the mantra that if I'm a total idiot for what I am about to do, least I am a total idiot, doing what I am about to do, of my own free will. I believe, because I hope. I know this hope well. It's the hope that keep me sane.. well, saner.. when my schoolbooks would vanish from my locker and end up under temporary buildings, when I spent whole classes under aerial barrage of erasers and paperwads, when nothing I did seemed to work out right. And I thought, as a Jew, boy, do I understand hope. That is when I checked the calendar and I realized that Sunday sunset marked the opening of Yom Kippur. The Day of Atonement. When a Jew goes before God and clear the books before the universe, at least for one more year. You know, I've come to believe that syncronicity is the punishment we pay for quixotic crimes against the Self. So tomorrow, after I drop off my uniform for dry cleaning, I'm heading somewhere green to clear the books. I think the true legacy of Judaism for me is I far as I run away from the ritual, I still value the meaning. I still need the meaning.