HOUSE OF LOVE AND BRAGGING
Aimee Bender

“…I am not, in general, so God-fearing. I consider myself a highly assimilated Jew. At Jewish summer camp, in the big Shabbat sing-along, we all joyfully screamed, "Nutter Butter Peanut Butter" in between verses of Debbie Friedman's "Not by Might, Not by Power." My parents are assimilated too. My mother freely confesses to eyeing the crosses around her classmates' necks as a girl, and wanting one for herself. Every year, my parents host a Seder, and everyone enjoys it, but it lasts ten minutes. Maybe twenty, including opening the door for Elijah and a plucky round of Dayenu.

And I am fine with this version of Judaism, with a pick-and-choose method of incorporating the religion into my daily life. It's a giant buffet here in America; in my yoga class, the guy in front of me has the Shema tattooed all over his back, so I sing “Hear O Israel” to myself while stepping into Warrior One. It's kind of nice.

But all that said, sometimes my unconscious seems much more religious and superstitious than my day-to-day self. I don't believe in a figure who is out there watching us; I don't think that the Nazis are going to return and take over Los Angeles. But I am still haunted by this fear of punishment when things are going well…”

Aimee Bender is the author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt (Doubleday, 1998) and An Invisible Sign of My Own (Doubleday, 2000), as well as a new collection of stories which will be out in fall '05 from Doubleday. Her short fiction has been published in Granta, GQ, The Paris Review, Harper's, Tin House, and more, as well as heard on NPR's "This American Life." She lives in Los Angeles and teaches at USC.