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Today is Purim.

Arguably, it is one of the most festive days in the Jewish calendar. We dress up, make a lot of noise, eat food which should by rights kill us, and celebrate the story of Queen Esther.

For anyone unfamiliar with the story, it can be summed up like this:
Mordechai, a Jew living in Persia, saves the kings life, but the king forgets about it and moves on . . . kinging . . . I guess, though spell check thinks that may not be a word.

Stupid spell check.

The king's wife gets busy and ignores a royal decree and loses her position as queen, so the king marries Esther (who is Mordechai's cousin). Then the evil prince (not related to any of the players in this story mentioned so far but a prince anyway for some reason understood only by Royals, most likely) Haman gets all upset with the Jews living in Persia and decides to have them killed and take their stuff.

You know. Like people do.

Esther is a Jew, but somehow this hasn't come up in discussions with her husband the king. Again, I assume he is just preoccupied with kinging things in kingly fashion, as kings are known to king.

See? "Kinging" is totally a word.

The king agrees to go along with Prince Haman's plot until Esther approaches the king and, through the sheer power of her stunning physical attractiveness, convinces him to not kill the Jews and give their stuff to Haman but instead to kill Haman and give his stuff to the Jews.
There are a couple of parts of the story which are particularly meaningful to me.

First, were I to use the power of my own physical prettiness to my advantage more often, perhaps I too could prevent evil in the world.

Note to self: Work it.

Second, the killing is bad but they also talk a lot about the transfer of ownership and moving of stuff, which then makes me think of our own upcoming move and then panic quite a bit. Hyperventilation is not pretty. Must. . . Regain . . . Control . . .

Okay.

We celebrate this holiday by reading the story of Esther, eating cookies shaped like the bad guy's hat, and (according to law) drinking until we no longer know Mordechai from Haman, or good from evil, or the bed from the floor, or which side of my pants is the front.

You know. Like you do.

As such, I embrace Purim and any other day dedicated to the power of Pretty. Like the season premiere of America's Next Top Model, Extreme Makeover, What Not to Wear and anytime anyone purchases the DVD boxed set of Season One and Two of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
I'm on a special email notification list for that last one.

So, twice in one week I find myself not intoxicated enough to adequately participate in the festivities.

In between those days I found myself not intoxicated enough to adequately participate at my job, so the feeling is becoming too familiar.