Bring Out the Bling

There’s something ironic to everything, and I think one of ironies of my life is that everything I say I’m not, I become. For example, I’ve never considered myself one for jewelry, and yet I find I wear more now than I ever had before–period. The funny part is, when I forget to put on my watch, or when I lost my Equality Ring in the car one day, I felt a part of my identity had slipped away. It was like missing a breath and knowing your lungs aren’t as full as they should be–but that breath is already gone and you can never bring it back.

So, although I’m sure it’s an odd thing to say (especially coming from one such as myself, who frequently must refer to dictionaries to divine the meaning of slang), today I’m thankful for bling.

Sabbath Delight

Family was this week’s theme. My brother and his family came up the first and we all visited until they left today. And whenever I had free time, I was busy journalling and playing video games. In fact, I’d probably be off playing video games right now if it weren’t Friday.

“If it weren’t Friday?” But–but the weekends are supposed to be for fun! And aren’t video games fun? Well, yes, but you see, that’s not the only thing the weekends are for….

To Give and Not To Get

Giving is one thing, but getting is another. I enjoy getting presents (who doesn’t?), but sometimes I feel a little heavy when I get stuff… Maybe it felt like a compulsory gift, like it was given without heart? A mandatory procedure, purely bureaucratic. Is a cabinet gift a meaningful moment?

Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.

Anyways, there’s another kind of gift that’s not just meaningful for the one who gave it (or the one who received it), but for many others, too: And that, if you didn’t already know, is a gift that keeps on giving. And that, which you should see coming, is what leads me to being thankful for what I’m thankful for today: Charity.

I’m a Name-Caller

Let me be honest with you: I’ve lost count of all the nicknames I’ve garnered over the years, especially the years since I’ve started college. There’s the insubstantial–sweetie, cutie–to the meaningful-because-of-who-uses-them–pumpkin, love, muffin–to the comical–D-rab (like A-rab like Arab, a nickname I somehow stumbled into in Israel), Strongman (which is funny because it’s true even though I’ve never seen myself as much of a pinnacle of strength), Breaks (long story)–even to the slightly-offensive-if-taken-in-the-wrong-way–of which Gay Jew Dude is still my top favorite. Then there’s Mr. President. That one sits in a category all its own.

And please, don’t salute.

I use: love, dear, sweetie on occasion.

I often wonder: Is this inequality a lack of reciprocation, or is there something more to it than that? Is a name really just a name, or does it bear more weight than that? We all know Shakespeare–”A rose by any other name…”–but do we all know each other, if one name weighs the same as another?

I is for It Gets Better

Back while I still pondering over what H is for, I felt I was for Invincible. I said to myself, being open, being confident, being who you are, makes you invincible, makes you impervious, makes you incredible. I felt of sharing: When I’m afraid, when I don’t think I can go on, I surround myself with positive things–with thoughts of my friends, thoughts of the great people in whose presence I stand, of the glory of God imbuing everything there is with his light and his love, and then I feel invincible and I can go on.

Last week, I began to wonder if I really is for invincible. Instead, I began to think I is for Individual. I felt of sharing: There is no greater bliss than of knowing who you are, all your faults, all your foibles, all your fortes. To understand what goes on inside is to make you impenetrable, insightful, indivisible. To feel, nay, to know what is hidden beneath your exterior, that part of us that we so often wrongly equate the entirely of “I”, is to open doors and possibilities and events that otherwise would remain lost forever. To be an Individual is perhaps among the greatest gift God has ever given us.

Today, although both of these statements stand true and always will–I am Invincible, I am Individual–I know that they are not all I is worth. I is worth a wealth of ideas, a well of inspiration, a river of incentive. I spoke the other night with a wonderful man, a man of whose nature and build I did not think even God could have crafted, and it made realize, in that strange way that unrelated events inspire worlds of difference, in the way that butterflies in Africa incite hurricanes in America, that I is well worth so much more than all of this.

I Heart New York

Growing up I was like most little Jewish boys, I suppose: I dreamed of someday having my own family, a good wife, a few children, going to services on all the major holidays, going through the melodies like rote, work in the mornings, love in the mid-morning hours of the night. I had crushes on girls in my class, because they seemed to be images of the perfect future girlfriend and wife that my typical Jewish upbringing had instilled in me.

I forget when my fantasies became unhinged, when my own personal and still unconscious desires began to take over the cultural ones that had attached to my blood and filled my veins. I recall, walking in the EUC while my sister was at college, thinking I’d have a son someday, my wife having left (in retrospect, I don’t think I ever gave a reason why she would leave; in fact, I don’t know if the leaving part was even her doing, I just recall us having a son, and then the relationship being no more; I was never her husband in my mind, only my son’s father).

My other imaginings were only even more complex. So strange, in retrospect, that I really don’t know how or why it took me so many years to identify what they truly represented. A good example: If I played through this image in my mind, my so-called son would somehow transform into a man my own age, and together we’d raise a family of two or three other children. It took the mask of family units I understood to show me unconsciously what I’d always desired: A family headed with two men, two husbands, a union that was completely foreign in my childhood.

Now that I’m older, some things have changed, yet others stayed the same.

H is for Ḥaverim

These past four days I was attending the ISJL Education Conference, the ISJL being shorthand for the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, the organization that provides Hebrew school curriculum and other services to over sixty congregations in thirteen southern states. It was a gathering of at least a hundred, if not two hundred, Jews from more cities than I’d ever heard of and it was wonderful.

We had a fellow from the ISJL who visits every few months. It’s just part of the program, you could say. One thing she told me often is that I must, that I absolutely without a doubt had to meet the ISJL staff rabbi, one Rabbi Marshal Klaven. He was unlike any other rabbi I’d ever meet, she said, and I’d like him.

I did like him. And he really was unlike any other rabbi I’d ever met.

G is for Gophers

G is also for gays, great, goodness, good-will, and God, but as we all probably know, all of those are–can you guess it?–givens. (Did you see what I did there?) I could easily speak of all of these, and I’ve especially already spoken of the first and perhaps the second and third as well, and good-will is easily covered and God is a topic always burning with new ground to cover (better question: did you see what I did there?), but today, I’d rather speak of something more important and more pertinent than any one of those: Gophers.

A bit of background is in order, and the beginning of background comes in the form of frogs, which is not a g-word unless there’s only one and it’s hopping backward, at which point you can call it a gorf. In any case, I happily admit that I knit, and in the knitting community, the technical term for unraveling a knitted piece of fabric is called “frogging,” because you “rip it, rip it.” (True story: That incredibly punny pun is not of my own crafting, no pun intended.)

There’s a few other animals that also need some mentioning here: There’s wolves when we choke down dinner, there’s bears when we have things to carry, and there’s always donkeys when we do thing half-assed (don’t disagree with me, I’m positive that’s where the term comes from, and since the human body is electrically neutral, you can be sure that that means I’m certain).

We deal with many other animals on a daily basis as well, although unfortunately we don’t usually wish to remember them: We all have a sad tendency of being involved with too many pigs, snakes, and female dogs, don’t we, even when we wish to leave the petting zoo and come home at last, not to mention the occasional chicken, rat, or cougar that we cross paths with. It happens. We’re only human.

But there’s one more animal often neglected, and it’s this animal that I’ll be speaking of today.

Since They Say Size Doesn’t Matter

Years ago I heard about the miniWORDS competition, which was (and might still be, I’m not sure) a competition to write super-short flash fiction to win large prizes of money, recognition, and fame! I entered, but never won. Nonetheless, some small words are worth digging up and sharing, aren’t they? Little bits to think about, a moment in time to take another’s breath away.

So let’s get going, shall we? Size doesn’t matter, or so they say, but is it really true? Why don’t you tell me!

One More Yellow Brick Behind Us

The news is late. If by now you haven’t heard, what are you reading my blog for? I’m an openly gay Jew–so I would presume most of my readers should know–and on account of this, if you’re following me, you’ve surely been following the news. So it’s no news today what I’m going to be most thankful for, and if it hasn’t been guessed already, then, really, why are you here?

No, I jest! Please stay! And here I shall refrain from writing “lol.”

24. The Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

I had hoped my scathingly sarcastic and inherently ironic post a few weeks back would help push the people to seeing sensibility, and I suppose somewhat it might have worked–for not even a whole week or two after, it was successfully repealed! It’s been a long and arduous fight, but we’ve made it, my fellow monsters, we’ve made it!