While I haven't always lit candles every day over the years, it's somehow the one holiday tradition that I actually do find myself following fairly consistently, even when I'm alone. Can't really think of other holidays I'd do that for - mainly, maybe, because most other traditions involve prayer, making food, or having other people around, and lighting candles is something simple you can do to mark the holiday even when you're alone. Also, firelight in the darkness! That's always fun.

Counting the days of Hanukkah so far:

Day 1: had job interview with CEO of a small but growing start-up in the morning. Shopped for groceries. Peeled and grated roughly one million potatoes by hand. SUCCESSFULLY LATKE'D. Successfully hosted partly-extended family for the first time, for the first candle. There was singing, there were candles, there was food and coziness, overall graded myself an A.

Day 2: Baby sister came over in the afternoon. We briefly lit candles together in the evening, then left to meet my aunt and uncle for drinks and a movie - Scaffolding, a fairly depressing Israeli drama.

Day 3: Went to second women web coding class (I officially know a tony bit of CSS now), bought a new menorah at Nahlat Binnyamin, started listening to the Call Me By Your Name audiobook* (*WE WILL RETURN TO THIS), and had dinner + Star Wars: the Last Jedi in the evening (fun times, enjoyed reading people's reactions after.) Lit candles when I got home at 3AM.

Day 4: Candle lighting in the evening with sisters and parents, at my parents' house.

Day 5: Spent the day in bed, basically. Lit candles at home.

Day 6: Had second job interview at same company. Got job offer, and they want me to start tomorrow /o\ Felt overall very strange about this swift turn of events. Received contract draft by email, had a few questions/revisions that I sent back, am currently still waiting for them to get back to me. Lit candles at home. Drove to a town in the center to meet a good friend for coffee, updates, and freak outs about life; ate the best pomela I have ever tasted in my life, and picked another one from their tree to take home with me, no offense intended to my parents' pomela tree.

***

So, job-wise: basically I am waiting for their feedback on my comments and if all goes well I guess I'm going to start tomorrow. I am not unconflicted about this, but I think/hope it'll be okay and prove to be a good decision, and we'll see soon enough.

***

Let me take you back now to Call Me By Your Name because wow. The movie's coming out here next month, and after seeing some adorable clips and cast interviews it was definitely on my radar as both 'to watch' and potentially 'to read', especially after seeing tumblr descriptions of it as "one of the most romantic books I'v ever read" ((c) Someone On Tumblr).

And then suddenly youtube decided to bump up this 7+ hour video into my feed, which is the ripped Call Me By your Name audiobook narrated by Armie Hammer.

NOW. I figured to myself, okay, let's listen to a sample, and if I like it let's go ahead and buy the real thing. FRIENDS I COULD NOT CLICK THE 'BUY NOW' BUTTON FAST ENOUGH. Just a few minutes in, it was very clear to me that I definitely wanted to listen to all seven hours and forty-four minutes of Armie Hammer's gravelly voice in my ear, like a long, slow seduction that is nearly impossible to listen to in public without blushing. Like, imagine walking down the street with his voice IN YOUR HEAD going "I felt myself getting hard" or "I wanted him to put his fingers in me", like, WHAT EVEN dude, have some mercy. And I'm only in chapter fucking five. And then he started saying words in Hebrew. Help.

All of which is to say, if you have Audible, books currently have a 50% discount. If you don't have Audible, you can get the 30-day free trial and get your first audiobook for free by using 1 credit. Which I think is what I did. So know that that is out there.