At MoMA

Rebecca and I went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) on Tuesday. Thanks to my $25,000 tuition at the New School, we saved $20 on my admission and $12 on Rebecca's and got in for free when I showed my school ID card. If that's not a bargain, I don't know what is.

We wandered aimlessly, and came across a work by Carroll Dunham, which depicted square objects that looked like trees, monsters, or robots with shooting penises:


For a few minutes, we were stunned.

"When I went to museums with some other friends, I used to play a game we called, 'Can I make, too?'" Rebecca said. "I think the answer here is yes. It looks like a doodle made by a fourth grader!"

"Nah, I think you don't give him enough credit. I say an eighth grader. Fourth graders might not draw so many penises."

We continued through the museum, coming to a room with white walls and black writing on it. The art project is to have a museum staff person measure your height and record it on the wall with your first name and the date. The swirling black writing concentrated in the range on 5'3" to maybe 6'00" looked like a swarm of angry bees against the stark white paint. This was pretty awesome, Rebecca and I agreed.

Ah, modern art. I scratch my head (or laugh) at most of it, but then something really connects with me.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

"Do you ever wish I was less petty?" I asked Husband as we sat in a taxi, returning from his brother's apartment.

"Yes," he said with no hesitation.

I have no idea what prompted me to ask him, but damn, am I sorry I did. I snarled and made nasty little comments for the next hour, as I could not help be petty. It will be so tragic when I do the first load of laundry in our newly installed washer dryer tomorrow and all his undershirts come out pink. Mwa ha ha ha...


Seriously, though, I am so excited to take the washer and dryer for a spin.

My New Beaver Spreader

I forgot to bring my furry little beaver to BlogHer this year. However, my friend and roomie Suebob rendered the stuffed animal moot: she gave me a plastic cheese/butter knife shaped like a beaver. (Right now, I am unable to upload the delightful photo.)

Now I can ask people to take pictures with my beaver spreader!

Free Hot Dogs

On Sunday, the City of New York shut down traffic in Times Square and created a pedestrian and bike zone. Normally, I hate Times Square (too much traffic of all three kinds) and avoid it at all costs, but Husband and I were curious to see what it was like without motor vehicles, and the weather was gorgeous, so we strolled down to check it out.

Cars and trucks or no cars and trucks, Times Square is a nightmare on a holiday weekend. As we wove our way through the crowds, I noticed a lot of people munching on hot dogs. Eventually, we stumbled upon a man stood on a corner, waiving an aluminum pan in the air, yelling, "Free hot dog! Get your free hot dog!" Hebrew National had set up a slew of tables and served up the foil wrapped dogs. As I watched people eat the juicy wieners nestled appealingly in fluffy buns, my mouth watered.

"You know, 15 years ago, if someone tried to slip me a free hot dog in Times Square, it would've meant something completely different," I told Husband.

Satan Comes In Many Guises

Just as I prepared to hit the sheets last night, I noticed a message in a Facebook thread mentioning that so-and-so was not planning to hang out after class on Wednesday night because her class was canceled. Incidentally, her class is my class (let's sing it together, "This class was made for you and me..."), and I didn't know bupkes* about class being canceled. I spent the next hour or so clenching and unclenching my fists while inhaling and exhaling deeply. Long story short, this is the second class (out of two classes) where the administrators of the program don't have me on the list.

My tuition is $22,000 and change. I take a whopping two classes per week, and attend some literature readings and weekend seminars. For all that money, I expect that people could make some fucking effort to figure out who is in what classes. Since this is obviously not the case, I decided to attempt to transfer to another school in city that shall remain nameless but costs 1/4 of the price. Last week, a woman who blogs about how God dictated her stories to her and she writes for the glory of Jesus received a phone call admitting her to the program that my tax dollars support. I did not. (Fists clenching and unclenching, deep breath in, deep breath out...) No, I'm not bitter at all.

Once again, I had a restless night and on my way to the subway this morning I passed by a group of people tempting me with forbidden apples, if it is possible that the plaza in front of the 72nd St. subway station is Eden. Yes, that's right: they were giving out granola bars. Along with propaganda about the seven deadly sins. (Motto: "They may be deadly... but they sure are fun.") My cravings for granola bars are somewhat less this week than last, but still bad. Fucking religious nuts, screwing with me everywhere, I swear!!!

I took a granola bar. I decided that I would not eat it, but save it in my desk at work just in case I ever got snowed in or something and needed sustenance. (I also have a large bar of Jacques Torres milk chocolate, distributed by the landlord of the building for Valentine's Day, stashed in my drawer. And an insulated container of 2% milk, the kind from Horzion that doesn't require refrigeration. It's almost enough to make me hope I get snowed in so I can chow down, but I digress.) Really, I took it because it was free, and I hate turning away free things. Also, I wanted to waste the crazy church's money. However, I am not so evil that I took two. God didn't give me that story to write.

Sigh.

*Yiddish: shit

Names Changed to Protect the Formerly Young and Stupid

(With name changes, you know this will be a good one.) Facebook notified me that I received a message from Bob Gold. The subject read, "from someone long ago." "What? Who the fuck is that?" I wondered. This was not long after a girl with whom I had a Mean Girls-style friendship (I was the loser mean girl in the relationship, and the guilt has plagued me for years now) sent me a message on Facebook, so I was extra curious to see who else was crawling out of the woodwork.

Here's the message, typos included:

i couldn't help the thought of seeing if you remembered me and to see how your life has been.

i'll take you back in time and see if you can piece it together if the name hasn't struck your memory already ... was 1988/89-ish ...

Nope, still no clue as to who the hell this is. I read on:

Rachel, David, phone dating, bad breakup over the phone, a small mylar baloon broken into a bunch of pieces and sent back via envelope.

Oh my God! I totally know who this dude is. (If he hadn't referenced my friend Rachel and the other guy, though, I have to admit I would still not have the foggiest concept of who this person was.) This was when I was in 7th grade, and Bob and I were chatting on the phone a lot. I was supposed to go to a movie with him, but I backed out the night before. At the time, I freaked out for what seemed like no reason, but wizened 33 year old Suzanne knows that I was totally not ready to go on a date at the age of 12 or 13.

The mylar balloon, though? Zero recollection, although I laugh like a hyena every time I read that. Did I give him a balloon and he sent it to me to avenge his broken heart? I vaguely recollect receiving an envelope with a chopped up balloon in it, but I think that is due to the power of suggestion. It is equally likely that Bob gave me a balloon and, in a fit of pique, I chopped it up and sent it to him. I was totally dramatic like that. Oh, the hilarity of adolescent angst!

Anyway, the rest of the message was the usual, how are you, let's chat, blah blah blah. I messaged him back, but haven't heard anything yet. My lame little storied past is so amusing to recount. Not so much to live through at the time, but worth a good smile these days.

Beware of VD and Important "Marxist Feminist Dialectic" T-Shirt Info

As an early Valentine's Day gift, the landlord of the office building in which I work gave every employee a full size bar of Jacques Torres milk chocolate on Thursday. This is a South Beach Diet eye poke if there ever was one. Does anyone ever dole out free, expensive chocolate when I can eat it? Of course not. I wanted to cry while everyone savored their chocolate, but I insisted that my cottage cheese and cherry tomatoes were delicious. (They were, but not as delicious as I am sure the chocolate was.)

It's not just this year that I feel like Charlie Brown as Lucy pulled the football away as he lifted his foot to kick it. I've always hated Valentine's Day. Like the other types of VD, I find it's treacly ookiness just infects everything. My freshman year of high school I griped about it so much that when sweet but decidedly odd Mark Weinberg (not Mark Weingarten, for those of you who know either of them and get confused, as my friends did when I later had a crush on Weingarten and had to clarify that Mark Weinberg was "the Wrong One" and Weingarten was "Not the Wrong One," but I digress) gave me what was probably the kindest card anyone has ever given me on VD, saying that he knew that I hated the holiday but he hoped I would have a good day, that I missed that he was interested in me. I don't know if I would have been interested in him, but man, did I waste that opportunity to thank someone for doing something really nice for me. (Fast forward to next VD when I was grounded and Mr. X [name removed at his request, 11/17/09] showed up at my house while I was doing laundry to give me a rose and I basically slammed the door in his face because I was a stupid insensitive fucking bitch and I will forever feel guilty about that because even if I didn't like him, I should have been nicer. But I digress again.)

The point is, VD annoys me and causes me to grouse and be even crabbier and more crotchety than usual. However, I hope that you are all having a lovely day.

More important, for those of you who like the t-shirt I got earlier this week - "My Marxist Feminist Dialectic Brings All the Boys to the Yard," it is still possible to order one at T-Shirt Hell, but only until Monday, Feb. 16. I am thinking of ordering another one just in case the one I got shrinks, as it is stretched to the max as it is. (For the record, the ringer t-shirts are a size smaller than the chart says.) This has been a public service announcement.

I Made It!

This is probably the only time I'll write about work since I try hard to pretend that my "professional" life and my "writing" life are two very separate things, partly so that I may continue to have a "professional" life. Anyway, the first day was good, if a bit overwhelming. First days are always overwhelming, though.

The time flew (it helped that a co-worker's birthday was celebrated), and I learned many things and attempted to start many others. I only made two slightly inappropriate comments, and both were as we were leaving. (I said that I didn't care that a foundation that worked to preserve the "purity" of Judaism by discouraging interfaith marriages had to close its doors after Madoff - a Jew - scammed all their funds, then I made a nasty comment about the Hasidic people who own an electronic shop and refused to let my new co-worker return her brand new flat screen TV - still in the box - after she figured out that it was one inch too large for their entertainment unit.) The work will be very interesting once I really dig in. I'm excited. Still nervous and overwhelmed, but excited.

When I arrived back at my castle (ha ha) after slaving away all day, I was dismayed to see that the super was still in the process of soliciting bids to fix the hole in the wall in the bathroom. Fortunately, the shower was fixed, so it is now possible to bathe in relative comfort, with both cold and hot water in a pleasing combination that is more than a trickle. I shall prepare for work tomorrow (I'm still adjusting to the idea that I will go to a job five days this week, and next week, and on and on) by washing my hair with the ridiculously fancy mint oil shampoo that I absconded with from the ridiculously fancy hotel in San Francisco.

I Forgot to Step Away from the Hyperbole

Last night in workshop, I made the following statement:

"Many times this semester, I've felt a lot like Trig Palin at the Republican National Convention. Everyone surrounding me is totally with the program and knows what's going on, and I'm sitting here, blinking, wondering where I am and how I got here."

No one laughed. This is not the first time I made an exaggerated statement that produced no reaction. I forgot that people in my workshop are not so into hyperbole. Or my random political jokes. Oh well.

I found it hilarious, though. I love me some extravagant exaggeration.

Barbie Memories

Instead of going to bed when I got home from post-class hanging out (which I would do if I had better judgment), I farted around online for a while. "Why not check out the status of Off the Beaten (Subway) Track on amazon.com?" I thought to myself. "Sleep is overrated, anyway."

I was distracted from my fact finding mission when I opened the Amazon homepage and was greeted by this:

What's Your Favorite Barbie Memory?
Over the past 50 years, Barbie has filled homes with memories and inspired millions of children to dream--to see themselves as astronauts, rock stars, doctors, fashion designers, professional athletes, and even female Presidents. Shop the Barbie Store for great deals just in time for the holidays.

Gah! I swear that must be James Bond Villainess Barbie! It is so evilly insipid and scary, I can easily imagine it luring James Bond Ken into bed ("Hello, Mr. Bond," it says with a Russian accent as it removes its top. "Would you like to heat up this new cold war?") and then trying to bludgeon him with a frozen Chicken Kiev.

That said, I loved Barbies until I was nine or ten years old, which was several years beyond my peers' interest in playing dolls. In second grade, I received the Barbie Dream House and the Dream Store as gifts for Hanukkah, and I went to town setting up the store on the first floor of the house. I liked combing Barbies' hair, dressing her in glamorous dresses and stiletto shoes that inevitable fell off her feet and got lost in my bedroom carpet until I found one by stepping on it barefoot and driving a mini hole in my sole, and, in the later years, assisting Ken in scoring. It is almost sad how much interest my penis-less Ken had in humping my ultra smooth Barbies.

Somehow I don't think Amazon wants me to share my memories of the sound of hard plastic hitting hard plastic as Ken and Barbie went at it.

Offensive Things to Say in Yiddish

Several years ago, my parents gave me a book called Drek!: The REAL Yiddish Your Bubbe Never Taught You by Yetta Emmes. (Of course, my bubbe did teach me some of what was in the book, like kurvah, which means "whore." She pretty much bitterly refers to any woman who is not yet widowed as a kurvah, but I digress.) With apologies to the adorable Millie, whose online Yiddish lessons I so enjoyed yesterday, here are some choice phrases in the book that I enjoyed learning this afternoon include:

• Gey tren zich - go fuck yourself


• Ich cock ahf im - I shit on him!


• kish mich in tukhes - kiss my ass


• Bareh nit - don't fuck with me


• Drek oif a shpendel - shit on a stick


• Groisser potz - big prick

I wonder how to say these things in Ladino, which is a mix of Spanish and Hebrew, the way Yiddish is a mix of German and Hebrew...

From Mr. Lower East Side to the Queens County Farm

For the first time since my inaugural experience in 2005, I made it to the Mr. Lower East Side Pageant. My experience at the Mr. Lower Side Pageant was one of my first blog posts in October 2005. I had the greatest time then, and the greatest time in 2008.

This is a pageant hosted by the Lower East Side's most infamous performance artist, Rev. Jen.. (She's the proprietress of the Troll Museum - it's in her apartment - which is probably the highlight of my book, Off the Beaten (Subway) Track.) I confessed to my friend Sara that I am a little bit of jealous of Rev. Jen because she leads this interesting life, not that it is one that is right for boring me, but still something that I am envious of. (Sara said she thought the same thing.) Anyway, the pageant features talent, swimsuit, and evening wear/interview components, usually of which are conducted over the audiences shouting, "Show us your balls! Balls! Balls!" On a semi-frequent basis, the contestant complies, and raucousness ensues. Usually the and cock flasher is not someone's whose cock and/or balls I really want to see (like the furry guy in his mid-60s, whose talent is standing on stage completely naked and staring at the audience*), but I was pleased that a cutie with pierced nipples eagerly pulled himself out at the first request.

OK, now not only am I digressing, but I sound like an old pervert. (Yeah, I am a pervert, but whatever.) I was forced to leave the pageant a bit early to be sure that I was home when my friend Mara and her two year old daughter arrived at my apartment, so I'm not sure who won. My friend Vicky stayed behind to represent, and I can't wait to hear about what I missed. Another friend took video, incidentally, so I will try to get some footage from him and post it. (I swear I only drooled a little when I wrote that.) I so cannot wait for next year.

In stark contrast to the Mr. Lower East Side Pageant, Husband and I are attending a colonial dinner at the Queens County Farm Museum tonight. Dinner is served in a farmhouse from the late 1600s, on dinnerware from the 1700s. The food is cooked on an open hearth using recipes from the 1700s. When I made the reservation in May, I snagged the last two spots. I'm pretty psyched for it.

And that is not only what I like about living in New York, but what I like about my life: I can do all these different activities that satisfy my varied interests with a range of friends. That's about all anyone can ask for, isn't it?

Buzz Off

Husband returned from his trip to Los Angeles and Las Vegas last night/early morning. As we went to bed, we traded stories about our respective trips.

"I got a free vibrator!" I told him. It was dark, so I couldn't make out the exact expression on his face, but he seemed to be pretending to frown and holding in a laugh.

"So you're replacing me?" he wondered.

"Not all of you, silly! Just part of you..."

"Hey!" he protested, tickling me and laughing.

Ah, good times. I forgot to tell him about the four boxes of Merci chocolate in the fridge. Hope he doesn't get the wrong idea while I'm at class tonight.

Possibly, The Most Tasteless CUSS Post to Date

You've been warned. If you have some misconception that I am a good person, this post will remove that fallacy from your brain forever...

So I was perusing the groups section on Facebook, and saw a group that one of my Facebook/former high school friends recently joined. Based on the joinee, I was certain that the group was very, very serious about its cause, although the logo made me snort evil fits of laughter because it looks and sort of sounds like a bad joke:
It just seems like a Saturday Night Live skit towards the end of the program. Laughing at earnest tone of the Foundation's website only adds to my ranking as a truly horrible person. I kept thinking, "This can't be for real." But it is. The Facebook description is even more dramatically hilarious:

Although this law and Safe Haven has been approved, millions of young women are unaware. So instead of safely delivering their newborn, they frantically leave their baby to die.

Millions of young women? Really? Man, garbage men in Illinois must be finding perfectly good dead babies every single day. Do they dread opening every trash bin, knowing that a dead baby awaits discovery? They must need serious counseling by now. (Maybe this is why Alex's husband got such a severe warning one day when he came out late with a bag of trash; the garbage men probably thought he was disposing of a last minute baby.) Do not miss the heart-wrenching testimonial and photo of "Matthew," an adorable potential garbage baby whose fate as a dead baby was averted when his wise mother abandoned him at a fire station instead of throwing him out like those millions of other stupid young women do with their high quality newborns.

Shit, this was definitely in some movie. I am so hearing a jive-talking black garbage man mutter about "perfectly good white babies" in my head. Anyone know what this is? I know that throwing out babies (or even pets, as Steph and I used to joke that Husband would do with my pet rabbit rabbit while I was out of town) in dumpsters is totally not funny. It's just that I cannot stop cracking up right now. What with the Bushies now defining birth control pills and IUDs as abortions, if I don't laugh I will curl up in the fetal position (and risk mistakenly being trashed by a frantic teen!) and cry.

The Sniff Test

"Where ya been?" I asked Husband when he walked in the door a few minutes before 12 last night. I knew he had a business dinner, but usually they don't last until midnight. (Although to be honest, I barely noticed what time it was because I was hustling to finish editing my book proof before Friday, and due to extremely poor time management, am mad behind schedule.)

"After the dinner, most of us went to a bar," he replied, leaning over to kiss me.

"A bar, huh? Was it in a strip club?" I inquired, joking. On the extremely rare occasion when he had to go to a strip club with colleagues, he left almost immediately. If they really went to a strip club, he'd have been home by 10:00. Plus, he wouldn't hide that he did. Instead, he'd discuss the club's profit margins. This is why I adore him.

"No! We did not go to a strip club!" Husband said indignantly as he headed to the bedroom to change. A few minutes later, he re-emerged in the dining room, where I was still sprawled out with the book and my laptop. "You coming to bed soon?"

I stopped what I was writing and looked him up and down. "Come here," I said and pulled him toward me. From my sitting position, my head was exactly at crotch level. Before he knew what was coming, I took a deep whiff. "Nope. Doesn't smell like a lap dance."

He swatted at my head. "Back off!" Then we laughed, and I packed my things up for the night.

Grow a Happy Bunny

My mother-in-law gave me a Grow a Happy Bunny toy when I was at her house for Passover on Saturday. (How I love that little innocent-looking asshole rabbit!) Thanks to my gutter-mind, the instructions make me fall down laughing:

"It will begin to grow within 2 hours and will be full size in 72 hours. When removed... it will slowly shrink back to its original size. Your grow item can be grown again and again! For Entertainment Purposes Only. Not for consumption."

Sounds just like the instructions for Viagra during its testing period!

Whatever Floats Your Boat

"Where you going with that magazine?" I asked Husband as he walked down our small hallway holding a Business Week.

"I'm putting it in the rack in the bathroom," he replied.

"Oh, so that's what you jerk off to in there!" I teased, while nodding in a serious manner. "Makes sense."

Get Your Popemobile Off My Highway!

Important things are occurring tomorrow. Passover begins at sundown, and we'll be heading to Husband's parents' house for what counts as a Seder in our lax Haggadahs: recite the Four Questions, sing Dayanu, then chow down. Mother-in-Law doesn't even bother getting desserts that are kosher for Passover. Wisely, she believes that if you are going to eat dessert, it should taste good.

Prior to my Passover eating fest, I will attend a baby shower in Yonkers. Yonkers is a city just north of the City. It is the 4th largest city in New York State, but since it lives in the shadow of New York City, it gets shit on a lot as a suburb. (Sort of like Newark, but Newark is even more screwed because it is in New Jersey, but that's another story.) Most likely I will eat a lot of yummy foods at the shower.

The problem is that two leaders of institutions of evil will make it difficult to get to the baby shower, and then to Long Island. It seems that the Pope and Dick Cheney will be visiting some seminary that is just off the Cross County Parkway, thus forcing the highway to possibly close. We need this highway to get there. There is one alternative, but no one wants to read my rants about the Cross Bronx Expressway, which was built by Robert Moses and killed communities in the Bronx. (Cheney and the Pope belong on the Cross Bronx, believe me.)

Hopefully, we'll get where we need to go. (By "we," I mean Husband, who is going to drive me to shower and run amok at Costco for about an hour, then pick me up again.) What also concerns me is how low energy Tycho, my 13 lb. rabbit, is today. I think he is depressed that the Pope is in town. He heard a rumor that a distant relative of his, the Easter Bunny (perhaps you heard of him?), was molested by a priest. He's not down with the excuses that the Pope made that these incidents are the fault of a permissive American culture. Can't say I blame him.

The Price is Right, But Who Cares?

Between running down to the basement to do laundry and vacuuming, I'm half-watching The Price is Right. My sister and I utterly adored this show when we were kids. As interactive viewers, we were not content with merely shouting advice at the TV's contestants. We also pretended that we were related to them.

"Bid $600 on the washing machine!" we'd yell at little white haired ladies. "Yay Grandma!"

Today, I'm not nearly as involved. It helps that Drew Carey is not such an inspiring host. In addition, it occurred to me a few years ago that most of the prizes are complete fucking crap that no one needs, and most likely does not even have space for in their homes. One of the Showcase Showdown packages included a cafe-style cappuccino machine and a spa/whirlpool thing that seats 4-6. The pudgy guy who was forced to bid on it managed to look excited, which I think likely makes him an excellent actor. Cast that man in a TV show or movie, pronto! That man has talent!

Watching The Price is Right back in the day when Plinko was new, my sister and I dreamed of someday attending the show. Now I know this will never happen. Even if I did get on, there is no way I could pretend to want a grand piano. The producers likely try and avoid contestants who would make faces, and say, "No thanks," although I think California law allows game show winners to take the cash equivalent instead of the prize. If that is the case, I'd jump up and down, shriek, and giggle. I gotta pay to do my laundry some way, you know. ($11.20 for four loads!!!)

Yeah, I Did Ask That

Here's a recent conversation I had with a friend I hadn't seen in ages:

Me: Hey! How are you?

Friend: I'm really happy! Things are going so well. I started seeing someone.

Me: That's awesome. I was wondering about that, but I didn't want to ask. I thought it would be prying, and I didn't want to ask anything inappropriate.

Friend: We started dating about a month ago.

Me: Soooooo... is he circumcised?

Friend: (laughing uncontrollably because she is used to me)

Me: Yeah, I just realized how wrong it is that I felt uncomfortable asking you if you were dating someone, but not what his penis looks like.

Friend: (still laughing uncontrollably)

Me: I can't help it. I have this weird obsession with uncircumcised penises. I don't know why, but they fascinate me.

Friend: Well, I haven't seen it yet anyway.

Me: Right. It would probably be wrong for me to ask you to report back once you do, wouldn't it?

Friend: (laughing uncontrollably)

While I was replaying this conversation in my head, I thought about what a great GEICO commercial spoof this would make. (You know, those commercials where they hire a "professional actor" to dramatically repeat the story of the actual GEICO customer?) Fred Willard or Sarah Silverman could totally play me. Hilarious.

Welcome to the Insect Graveyard

Since we live on the ground floor of our building and our windows look directly out onto the sidewalk, Husband and I never open our curtains. While I would prefer to allow the sun to shine in every once in a while, I also am not cool with people inspecting our fine home as they bop down the street. Two halogen lamps keep our living room brightly illuminated to make up for the lack of natural light and chase away some of the cave shadows that seem to form.

The halogen lamps work very well for us in more than one way. In addition to giving us light, they also appear to annihilate large numbers of winged insects. Recently, as I looked at the lamp while turning it on, I noticed that dozens of insect carcasses filled up the clear plastic piece at the bottom of the light.

While I am glad that my lamp kills flies, the unfortunate part is that the graveyard is below a large metal plate, and hence not possible for me to empty into the trash. Now every time I turn on the lamp, I am forced to look at this grotesque scene and contemplate about mortality. Oh, the conundrum!

Totally Inappropriate Comparison...

Although my dental appointment yesterday was mostly without incident, every time the hygienist accidentally scratched my tender pink gum with the sharp scraper tool while cleaning my teeth, I thought about how utterly awful a coat hanger abortion would feel.

In Which I Spazz Out

There is both a lot going on here and nothing at all going on here. That combination drives me up the wall, stresses me out, and makes me extra bitchy to my parents, who I yelled at on the phone last night for no reason. (Honestly, I do not know why they put up with my crabby insolence.) Of course I felt horrible about it the second I hung up (as I do every time this happens), but I had a sinus headache and didn't feel like calling them back to apologize. Instead, I sat around feeling like an asshole and wondering why I can't be nicer to my parents, which made my headache worse.

The problem is that my work life is very uneven. I've got nothing to do for stretches of time, and then I suddenly have tons of jobs that need to be done in a short time. For example, on Tuesday I had lunch with a friend/colleague, then got better fitting bras. Wednesday was spent freaking out while perusing various blogs about MFA acceptances, then attending a bris. I played a lot of fake Scrabble on Facebook on both days, and also applied for some part-time jobs.

Last night I got a frantic call around 9 pm from the woman organizing the program that I touch in about things I should bring to my class this morning. Why people can't get their shit together in a timely fashion is beyond me. My class today, as it was last week and the Thursday prior to that, is from 9 am - 12:30 pm, which is a loooooong time to talk about budgeting. I'll drop off my headshots and "resume" to the agency, finally. (Since it was not ready before, I've made no progress with my quest to be a dead body on Law & Order. Hopefully submitting my materials will change that.) Then I have a meeting at 4:30 pm to talk about another round of training. Tomorrow, I'm meeting a friend/colleague for lunch to discuss a new consulting project that I hope will not pan out because it sucks, and then running over to my consulting gig to finally wrap that shit up since people finally decided to comply with my requests for information.

Next week? Nada. I am very much looking forward to meeting Mar on Tuesday and showing her and her mum around the city a bit. So, long story short, I am stressed and spazzing out.

Appropriately Uncouth

When I called the unsurance company's intermediary a few days ago to supply them with the information they needed to reconsider approving a bilateral breast MRI, I was sitting on the porcelain throne taking an enormous dump. I figured it perfectly expressed my feelings on the matter, even if the woman on the other end (who actually wound up being very nice) had no idea what I was up to. It turns out that only my doctor can tell them what age I was at my first period, how I was at my first birth, what my ethnicity is, and what my prior pathology reports have concluded. Seems a lay person is not knowledgeable about these things about herself.

Since my doctor is an asshole who won't take five minutes to call it in, I am shit out of luck. See? The whole situation stinks.

Deep, Dark Secret #423: Uncontrollable Cravings

Food and eating are often on my mind. I hate cooking, but I love food. All kinds of food, from cheese grits at Waffle House to fancy fish at Le Bernadin, are equally valued by my mostly undiscriminating taste buds. From street food to gourmet, all I require to enjoy what I am eating is that it be yummy.

Thus when Suebob wrote up an observation she made at work about food and eating, I was aghast at the situation. To wit:

I was at an all-day work meeting and a box of See's Candy was being passed around.

The woman next to me carefully selected a piece and took a bite.

"Oh, my God, that's good!" she moaned.

She then put the other half of the piece on a napkin, where it stayed until the meeting was over 4 hours later.

She never ate the other half.

I don't get this at all. First off, just reading the post made me want.chocolate.right.now. My salivary glands went into overdrive. All I could think about was what kind of filling the piece of candy had. (I don't know why I assumed it did, but there you go - strawberry creme? caramel? coconut? I'm generally not so crazy about coconut, but sometimes it hits the right note...)

Next, just as most of the other people who left comments on the post did, I wondered who the hell takes a bite of a piece of candy, exclaims how magnificent it is, and doesn't finish it? I don't even take bites of chocolates like that. I shove the whole thing in my mouth, and if it is not good for some bizarre reason, I spit it out because I am infantile. Then I grab another one. And if it was good, I have to fight with myself not to eat more than one. (Or two. Or three.)

Now I will admit something completely repulsive, which may or may not distract you from the morally vacuous admission I will make next. To avoid eating too much of something good at home, I often throw a portion of the food away. However, there are times when I want it back so badly that I actually retrieve it from the trash. I'm not so depraved as to do so if there are nasty things in the garbage, but if the item I want is on the top of the pile, maybe on a clean-ish napkin, I may find myself eating it. Seriously.

Anyway, as I was eating dinner last night (an Amy's Organic Indian tofu and spinach wrap - yum!), I read the day's newspaper. An article in The New York TImes reported on a current case against a guy who is accused of brutally beating his stepdaughter to death a few years ago. The whole thing is a horrific tragedy, and it shook the city to its roots when it happened. So I'm reading this sad article and it mentions that it has commonly been reported that the guy beat the girl to death for eating a yogurt without his permission, but in fact, the snack item that triggered her murder was probably a container of Jell-O pudding. Immediately, I intensely craved pudding. Chocolate, vanilla, tapioca, rice pudding. The desire to eat pudding haunted me for the rest of the night.

Sick, isn't it? Cravings are scary. It's a good thing I never plan to be pregnant. I can't imagine what those types of cravings would do to me, given my current level of patheticness.

Sigh of Relief from the Irritated Vagina

OK, this really has nothing to do with an irritated vagina, but I loved Working Girl's use of that phrase in her comment on my previous post and want to use it as often as I use the expression "beavers suckle beavers." Or more often, actually, as I never remember to throw my beaver suckling line out when it matters.

Anyway, this post is neither about irritated vaginas or suckling beavers or the cause and effect one might have on the other. It's about the relief I feel now that my MFA application is officially complete and ready for review. Am I mad that it took them weeks to inform me that my transcript was missing, leaving me to scramble at the last second? Fuck yeah! Does it infuriate me that it took an additional 72 hours for the admissions office to process the transcripts that I hand delivered as a result? You better fucking believe it! However, it is complete, and now I can relax and wait and see what happens. If I don't get in, that will suck, but at least I can take comfort in being considered in the first place. Not getting in because the admissions office never processed my transcript and thus my application was never reviewed would be frustrating beyond belief.

Plus, it is Friday. While I enjoyed my work project this week, I am really ready for it to end. Every day I stare for hours at financial statements and loan reports, crunching and recrunching the numbers. I can barely see straight at the end of the day. Even harder? Stopping myself from swearing out loud, which requires constant vigilance on my behalf. (I suspect that is why I am exhausted by mid-afternoon. Swearing is rejuvenating and entertaining as an effective stress-relief mechanism, so holding it in when I want to tell someone that the motherfuckers are driving me crazy with their constantly changing accounting methods is doubly harmful.) Pocketing that paycheck is going to feel mighty fine. It would be awesome to use some of he proceeds to hire someone to clean my bathtub for me so I can take a nice, hot non-vagina-drying bubble bath. I can dream, can't I?

Foreskin and Seven Days Ago

Last week, I attended my first bris. Given my semi-rigid belief that generally people are born with what they need and we should just accept that bodies are hairy and not typically in need of improvement (e.g. - breast or butt implants), it seems like I should be against circumcision. Oh contraire, mon frere. I'm no connoisseur when it comes to penises, but I do prefer them to be foreskin free. The whole smegma thing just grosses me out too much and I don't trust most guys to be clean enough. Yeah, it makes me a big fat fucking hypocrite. Oh well.

Despite my support for circumcision (not that I am against the uncircumcised), I was a little queasy when I thought about attending a bris. Due to my incompetence (I forget that cars need to be cleared of ice before they are safe to drive and one must budget time for the task), I arrived at the bris a wee bit late. As I was taking my boots off in the hallway outside my friend's parents' apartment, I heard the baby begin to wail. "Oh, I guess I missed it," I thought with a mixture of relief and regret. I was wrong - who knows why the baby was screaming his sweet little head off at that point - and eventually witnessed part of the procedure. Oddly enough, the baby barely cried as his foreskin was removed. He was then given a nice rag soaked with liquor to suck on, and drunk, he slept like, well, a baby. It was interesting.

This past weekend, Brother-in-Law (BiL) and Sister-in-Law (SiL) borrowed our PT Cruiser, Fred the Red, to drive to New Jersey for their new nephew's bris. I'm pretty sure that this was the first bris that BiL attended, other than his own, which I am sure was a very different experience. I don't know exactly what happened at this bris, but BiL must've been either overjoyed at his nephew's pact with God or distraught at the penis chopping, because he had an overenthusiastic encounter with a curb that circumcised Fred' wheel well and prevented him from driving straight. (While none of this was funny on Sunday, the little scenario I postulated here is sure slaying me now.)

My point is that I don't think circumcision really hurts anyone (unless its botched, which is always a possibility), and at the same time, I completely understand why a parent would not circumcise a kid. When I wrote on BlogHer a long time ago about a study that showed some very minuscule health benefits from circumcision, some extremists accused me of being a callous genital mutilating monster.* Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also help kill unborn babies. What can I say? I'm just a bad character all around when it comes to the defenseless.

*It strikes me as hilariously ironic that one women yelled at me about the sanctity of preserving genitals as nature intended and months later emailed me about her scheduled Brazilian wax, but I digress.

British Adults More Evolved than American Adults

While cooking a Thanksgiving meal for 12, my ever talented multitasking friend Mara also presented me with a book of matches.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Look closely at the picture on the back," she replied and went back to cooking up a storm.



I understand that I am not supposed to fall down laughing when I see a stick figure's arm on fire. It is even less funny when one considers that the stick figure on fire represents a child. After all, as the warning clearly states, fire kills children. Howver, this dramatic warning makes me think that as British children go through puberty, they develop fire proof skin. How awesome is that? Yet another reason* our friends on the other side of the pond kick our American asses.

*Reason 1 is that they have extremely delicious chocolate bars. (However, I am sad to report that there are no longer candy machines on the platforms of tube stations. The extent of my disappointment is enormous.) Reason 2, which may be related to Reason 1, is that the scale in my hotel room told me my weight in stones. I suspect that the sale of candy on tube platforms may be a contributing factor in the increasing average stone weight of the British populace, so perhaps that is why candy bars are no longer sold on tube platforms. I don't know. What I do know is that I weighed 8.8 stones on Friday night, which sounds cool.

Holiday Wishes

Although stores have been encouraging people to shop for the winter holidays since the 4th of July (OK, I exaggerate - retailers have only been pushing the holidays since approximately 9 pm on Oct. 31st when they thought it was unlikely to get any last minute Halloween sales), the season officially begins on Friday. Store understand that people are more vulnerable to sales pitches after they've overeaten and spent time with beloved family members. After all, we need to assuage our guilt at all the calories consumed and the number of times we had to repress the urge to strange a beloved family member.

My birthday also sneaks up after Xmas, so I'm beginning to get inquiries from my family as to what I want for Hanukkah's and to celebrate the day I emerged into this world 32 years ago. I don't have an answer. Thanks to Husband, I am more or less set on things that I want. I get to travel frequently. If I want a new sweater or pair of shoes, I just buy it. I don't really wear jewelry other than what I am always decked out in (six random earrings, four rings, and my feminist necklace; most of which are cheap). Technology doesn't interest me much. When I want to read a book, I get it. I'm very lucky and comfortable.

What I really want, though, is for the majority of the world to stop annoying me. Anyone inclined to get me a gift can give the funds to a progressive political candidate instead. For those who think that is a waste, how about a donation to the National Network of Abortion Funds? As I told my mom, there's no better way to celebrate my birth than by preventing innocent souls from being born themselves.

The Man-Hating Lesbian Koala

This is a very nice picture of me. Husband took it while I was sitting around on Sunday while other people took official pictures with their friend, who was getting married later that afternoon. If I could have an author picture, I would crop this and use it.

Out of curiosity, I am wondering if the first thought of anyone looking at this picture was, "Wow, this woman is obviously a radical lesbian." When I was at the BlogHer conference this past summer, someone insisted that I project "radical lesbian." (In fact, the first thing this woman asked me during the ice breaker was whether I was a radical lesbian, which I thought to be sort of rude, regardless of whether I am or not.) Not only rude bitches seem to think that I am a lesbian. This began after I started wearing a little female sign necklace when I was a junior in high school. It seems that it is not possible to be a proud feminist without also being a man-hating lesbian. When I got my hair cut short, I further conformed to some dyke image that people hold sacred in their little minds. I'm not a lesbian, although I do hate men. Now, there's no need to get your man-thongs (aka "jock straps") in a bunch over this fact, because I also hate women, too. People in general raise my ire.

Looks are deceptive. Not only do I look like a lesbian, but I also appear to be a friendly and nice person. Sometimes this is true. However, while the picture was taken, I was thinking something like, "Motherfucking asshole cockface who made me leave a party early on Sat. night, then rise at the fucking crack of dawn so I could haul my ass to the middle of fucking nowhere in that shithole state of New Jersey so that Husband could be in two fucking pictures then stand around for hours before the damn ceremony, I hate your fucking ass." Just like an adorable fuzzy koala bear, a stranger would never know the vicious thoughts that run though my pleasantly dyke-y looking little head.

The Whole Story

Although Brother-in-Law's (BiL) wedding was not until Saturday night, the gang headed down to New Jersey for the event on Friday afternoon. During the 90 minute drive, traffic clogged the roads and rain poured down in bucketfuls. Bubbe took the time to tell my mom and I how essentially every party she attended over the past two decades made her puke at some point. From her 40th wedding anniversary surprise party (she "vomited it up" from the shock) to my sister's bat mitzvah (undercooked broccoli made her "vomited it up" because she can't eat raw vegetables), we heard it all.

Fortunately, no one that I know of vomited it up after the wedding. On the other hand, the bathroom door in Big O's room fell off and all the guest rooms smelled like there was a mold infestation. Plus, one of the three elevators broke down and was not repaired for some time and the hotel deigned to have service elevators, which meant that the poor room service folks and maids were left standing with their carts as elevators chock full of people passed them repeatedly. At least the beds were super comfy.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I had a blast at the reception dancing it up with the family. I was rather self-conscious about the brown bridesmaid's dress from the get go (while the cut of the dress was very flattering, I felt like I looked like a big turd so much brown, although I am very happy that it was brown instead of orange or seafoam green or some other completely cruel hue), at least my $195 of alterations left me secure that it would fit me well. Oh did I say it fit me well? My bad. At first it fit perfectly, but as the night flew by, the top expanded and expanded. It happened with the other ladies as well, I noticed. We were all hauling our tops up and hoping that our boobs wouldn't fly out. There's no rationale for this, as the fabric was not stretchy. This (nor my imperfectly shaved armpits) did not stop me from throwing my arms up in the air while boogying it up.

After brunch on Sunday, we dropped Sister and Sister's Husband off at the airport (sob!) and spent the afternoon with my parents, bubbe, and Husband's parents at our place. It was very pleasant. My parents stayed at a hole-in-the-wall hotel (there are no hotels in Manhattan other than this one that gives guests private bathrooms in their cells for only $100 a night plus tax). It smelled in the hallway, but not like a mold infestation and the cell had a beautiful view of the Hudson River and lights of New Jersey's east bank. They came back to my apartment this morning to wash up.

Now everyone is gone, which makes me sad. Overall, the whole weekend was fantastic and I only yelled at my various relatives a few times despite being tired and crabby. I guess it's back to my "usual" routine, whatever the hell that is.

Vim & Vigor or Vinegar & Piss?

It's obvious that I have a lot of anger towards other people that I consider to be morons. (Another reason why it is such a bummer that I do not speak Yiddish. A book review in yesterday's New York Times notes, "Yiddish parses the stupidity of others in a thousand ways, and find distinctions matter." Damn, that makes me laugh and beam with pride. This shit is in my genes, even if I don't speak the mama loshen - mother tongue.) Something happened yesterday that made me rethink some of my rants.

My friend Logan is a certified sex educator, completing her PhD in Human Sexuality at NYU. She has worked with hundreds of New York City school kids, covering the full range of the socio-economic spectrum, and wrote an awesome book about how to talk to kids about sex. A few nights ago, she was on TV discussing birth control. Her honesty about what kids are up to these days and her frank approach to helping kids make safe, rationale decisions about sex caught the attention of a conservative blogger. Needless to say, the kuneh-laiml didn't agree with her and took it upon himself to launch a written assault on Logan's character. His minions chimed in, and reading their nasty attacks literally made me ill. (I'm not going to link to him because if people click through and he tracks referring links, I have no doubt that I will get hateful comments, and I don't want to deal with these shmendriks.) Later, Logan received an email from a yold who ranted about how he can't wait to meet her in person because she's a horrible person and he's going to sue her for sharing her ideas that result from the fact that her parents don't love her. He ended his misspelled and grammatically incorrect missive by noting that he didn't "need a college degree to make him dumb." (Obviously not.)

At first, I felt morally superior to conservatives because I don't write such vile personal attacks on my bl.. oh wait. I do. Maybe I am not better than these judgmental douche pipes who confuse "having morals" for "being a shithead." While I am pretty certain that I've never gone as far as these right-wingers do in character assassination, I still call them names. (Sometimes even in Yiddish.) On the other hand, I've never sent anyone an email threatening to sue them because I think their ideas are stupid, and certainly not insulting their children. Hmmmm....

Threading the Douche Pipe

Although it is a tetchy product, douche is turning out to be far more hilarious than I anticipated. I told Husband about "Sweet Romance," and after he stopped laughing, he admitted his curiosity was piqued.

"What other things do they make?" he asked.

"Well, there's the combo enema/douche kit..." I began.

"Really? No, I don't want to hear more about that," he said, looking wildly away from me. "That's just disturbing."

But it's true. Reliable drugstore.com sells two different kinds of combo douche/enema/water bottle systems. The directions should be read as a stand up comedy performance, I swear:

Douching Use:

Slide shut-off clamp (in open position) lengthwise onto tubing and clamp it shut.

Flush bottle with water before each use.

Fill bottle with warm water or mixed douche preparation.

Thread adapter cap into bottle, cover opening, and shake to ensure proper mixing.

Slip end of tubing onto adapter cap. If necessary, use soapy water to aid in assembly.

Slip pipe adapter onto other end of tubing.

Thread douche pipe onto pipe adapter.

Punch out perforated hole on bottle hang tab. Suspend bottle by hook, less than 3 feet above vagina.

Release clamp to expel air in tubing before inserting douche pipe.

Positions: A) TO USE IN SHOWER, stand with feet apart; B) TO USE IN BATHTUB, lie back in tub, knees slightly bent apart; C) TO USE ON TOILET, lift one thigh while seated. When in position, gently insert the douche pipe into vagina. Open clamp to permit solution to flow gently.

You can't make this stuff up. I'm only pissed that the phrase "douche pipe" had not entered my lexicon years ago. The enema instructions include the phrase "enema pipe" (as in, "Apply lubricating jelly to enema pipe.") That is not nearly as hilarious as uploading some Sweet Romance through the douche pipe, but still amusing.

Kiss and Make-Up

Suebob wrote a very insightful essay about forgiveness, which ends with in a typically Suebobian perfect fashion that left me chuckling and nodding in recognition. Forgiveness is not one of my strong suits. A long time ago, people told me that I should find out what I am good at and focus on those things. Turns out that I am excellent at holding grudges. Not long after I read Suebob's post about forgiveness, Steph called.

"You know what's crazy?" she asked me, and then not waiting for an answer, she went on. "MySpace had a survey and one question it asked was about how many people you hate. Lots of people answered that they don't hate anyone because it's too much effort."

"Yeah? Well, they are lying," I replied.

"Seriously," Steph said, "It takes much more effort to try and not hate people."

"Amen to that," I laughed.

I thought about this all as I was trying to sleep earlier this evening, and failing miserably. I have a gig tomorrow to do a workshop, and for no reason at all, I kept fixating on how much more respectable I'd look if I wore a little make-up so that I didn't appear to be the living dead. On the other hand, I'm no better at doing my face than I am at the live-and-let-live philosophy of life, so I suppose I fail on both ends of the kiss and make up spectrum. So it goes.

Jewish Pussy Expansion

I am pleased to announce that people are becoming slightly more discerning in their Google searches for "jewish pussy." Over the past week, CUSS had several hits based on searches for "kosher pussy" and "beautiful jewish pussy." My pride is overwhelming. I can't wait to see what people come up with next.

Pause.

That was a short wait. So my friend, who is a liberal like me, keeps being contacted by a guy who read her profile on jdate. (Jdate is the Jewish online dating site, for those of you who might not be in the Jew loop.) His profile explains that he is a Republican, and likes football, red meat and the stock market. In addition to being a Democrat, my friend tends toward chicken, fish, and other non-meat products, has zero interest in the stock market, and is one of four Americans who doesn't watch the Super Bowl.

Not that opposites can't attract, but the kicker is his blog, which describes his interests as:

Blogging is a shameless ploy to get what I really want, which is to be sandwiched between two hot republican Jewish brunettes. If I only get one of them, that is good enough, provided she gets pregnant and the kids end up with her loveliness and my last name.

My friend did point out that he might not be that bad, as the woman might be able to keep her name as long as the kids get his. Oy vey.

Attack of the Penis Head

Pride and dignity should never stand in the way of a good joke, so I will fulfill Alex's request for photographic evidence of my penis head haircut:



To be fair, this actually looks better than it did on Thursday and Friday. Yesterday it was so bad that I kept my little fisherman's cap on all day, which then made it worse by giving me penis head hat head. The problem is a rounded top with bangs and a too long back resembles a circumcised frenulum with shaft. I fear getting arrested for indecent exposure. The good news is that I discovered that if I pull the sides of the top back a little with clippies it reduces the penis head a bit, so I almost look normal. I'll still have Des trim it a bit tomorrow, though.

At any rate, looks clearly dictate behavior, as I once again acted like a massive dickhead yesterday. After writing about how important it is to call ahead when trekking to small, weird museums because websites are not frequently updated, I neglected to do so again. The Big O and I took an hour long subway and bus journey only to be met with a closed door because the director of the Poppenhusen Institute happened to take the day off for a long weekend. The caretaker took pity on us, though, and gave us a quick look around.

I hope when I no longer look like a penis, I'll stop acting like one.

Advice I Should Take

Why don't I listen to myself? In the past two days, I told myself I would or would not do certain things, and then I went ahead and did the exact opposite. Not that either action had serious consequences, but consider:

1. I ordered an amazing chocolate covered orange peel flavored milkshake from Ronnybrook Dairy Bar around 5 pm yesterday. (Does it make a difference that it was made with skim milk? Nah, I didn't think so.) Then I bought some luscious brownies from Fat Witch Bakery to bring to a going away party I was attending. As I sucked the milkshake down, my taste buds sang and my stomach rumbled. "Hmmm... maybe I should skip the caramel brownie," I thought. Hours and 1.25 brownies later, I am erupting with gas like Mt. Etna. I'm sure the hamburger I ate before the brownies didn't help either.

2. In the introduction to my upcoming book about eclectic New York City, I am very clear that people should always, always, always call ahead to make sure that a museum or other desired destination is open. Plus be sure to bring the phone number with you, just in case. Even if the website of, for example, the Kurdish Library & Museum claims it is open on Tuesday through Friday and Sunday from 1-5, they might randomly decide to close for a few weeks for Labor Day. It is not fun to find this out after you call your husband at work and have him look the museum up so that you get their number and call them while you stand in front of the locked door, especially if it is sunny and a zillion degrees and you once again forgot to put on sunscreen.

I need to listen to myself more often.

Bad Taste

My interview with egomaniac Tucker Max is up over at BlogHer. It was ready about a week before I posted it this morning, and every day I've been increasingly nervous about it because I think I am going to disappoint people since I don't hate him. I acknowledge that I have bad taste. I can't help that. I'd try and blame it on my upbringing, but there's a big difference between my mom not understanding why people think that Graceland is tacky and me laughing my ass off at a guy who accidentally jizzes in his own eye. It is not my parents' fault.

Raunch culture is a complicated thing. Things like Girls Gone Wild offend me about as much as anything possibly can, I'm totally not into strip clubs as cool places to hang out (for guys or ladies), and I don't get things like ookie cookie at all. Anti-woman jokes rarely strike me as funny. I HATE Revenge of the Nerds, which implies that women who are snobbish deserve to have spy cams installed in their homes so that nerds can spend their days watching them naked without their knowledge. I'm not a post-feminist feminist at all. Yet there are just some horrible, evil, vile types of humor that I can't help fall prey to although I know in my heart of hearts that what I am laughing at is not funny, but there I am, cringing in disgust while guiltily rolling on the floor with tears squirting out of my eyes.

So now I am sitting back cowering and hoping that quality feminists who I respect and like immensely don't unleash their wrath on me and shun me for my weaknesses. (But have you seen Varsity Blues? Horrible butrhilarious....)

No More Rain or Idiots, Please

The rain has me down. It is amplifying my friend Des's problems. Right now, I am trying not to scratch my eyes out at the horrific online class I foolishly enrolled in. (Although how was I to know how bad it would suck?) My only consolation is that I don't have to sit in the same room and try to not want to kill people. Instead, I can make fun of them on my blog. For example:

Instructor>> First, think of it as not just blogging, per se, but really, Web 2.0. It's not what it was when if first started - basically, online journaling that was oh-so-self-obsessed. Rather, it's now the accepted way of providign content on the front end, while outsourcing the back end coding to your blog provider.

Idiot #1>> thanks! Maybe I just need to be reading some of the better blogs, 'cause most that I've read seem to be more like journals

Instructor>> exactly, naval gazing is blogging 1.0 to a T. Its evolved tons past that!)

You know what? The best blogs are personal blogs. I hate this class. Someone help me. Please let it be sunny tomorrow. Des and I are planning to go see the life-size statue of a bull elephant with a two foot long dick at the UN Sculpture Garden, and we need to laugh. (Her more than me, but still.) Giant statue elephant schlongs are funny, even with rain, but much more hilarious in the sun with ice cream. I'm buying.

Whew! I Am Still a Feminist!

After my recent discovery that I will laugh hysterically at some guy who tells horrific stories about the women he has sex with as long as a heaping side of steaming poetic justice is served up (for example, guy has anal sex with woman and video tapes it without her permission, a heinous act that is rewarded when she has diarrhea all over him, then pukes to top it off), I was wondering what was wrong with me. I've also laughed at jokes in the movie Varsity Blues about date rape, which is not at all funny. I know that. My credentials as a humorless feminist are going right down the toilet.

Thus it was with great relief that I found a little test over at Fetch Me My Axe about feminism. Belledame222 came out 96% feminist. Could I prove myself worthy of her?

You Are 96% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn't mean you're a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It's a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

Are You a Feminist?

Yay! Go me. (Although what's with the picture of the hot woman with red boxing gloves? Is it saying that feminists are combative or that we have to fight to get our message out? Weird.) It seems that you can be a horrible person who laughs (and cringes!!! I swear I also cringed a lot!) at select self-described assholes and raging dickheads and still be a good core feminist.

An Eye Opener that Burns

Laurie challenged me to write about Tucker Max for BlogHer for Blog Day later this month. I thought that was a brilliant idea, once I realized that she didn't mean Tucker Carlson. (It took me a few hours.) My usual clueless self had no idea who this Tucker Max character was until Husband told some story about his book. It seems that he turned down some publishing deal because he thought he should get more money since zillions of people read his dating/sexcapade stories on his website.

"The publisher didn't think that frat guys buy books," Husband said. Long story short, Max wound up selling the book to frat boys out of an RV he rented and drove around the country.

"Serves him right, I said and folded my arms across my chest, satisfied at his failure. The stories, I was told, were very misogynistic tales of fucking whores and all that good stuff.

I never bothered going to his website and checking them out myself until yesterday when I was desperately trying to do anything but write up three months of work that I did for the city so that one day, they might actually pay me. When I read the first story, something unexpected happened: I couldn't help but like the asshole. Is he a drunkard? Totally, and I am not too keen on slobbering drunks. Is he a shithead? For sure. Are his stories not flattering to women? Absolutely. Would he probably rate me on his vile "Tucker Max Female Rating System" as "a common stock pig?" Likely, although on a good day, I might make "Respectable pig," neither of which I particularly appreciate being called. Is he a good writer? Now that I am learning about what makes good writing, I also think he is a terrible writer.

So what won me over? The man wrote a story about how he accidentally got his own jizz in his eye. Damn, that is funny. He also makes himself look every bit as bad as the women dumb enough to consort with him. (He admits that he got his own jizz in his eye! Someone crapped on him! That is funny, funny shit!) Also poetic justice is meted out in almost every story. Not that he learns any lessons per se, but he degrades himself genially along with others. And, he sort of reminds me of my friend the Big O., which scares me.

It's not like I want this dude to be a role model, which he inevitably is to the lamer portion of the male population. (Those guys will always find some douche bag to look up to, anyway.) Stories about jizzing in one's own eye will always amuse me to no end. Call me a self-loathing misogynist and take my feminist card away if you must; I can't help it.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

You know what happens when I spend 11 days in Chicago, mostly hanging out? I get behind. Very behind. I am behind in:

1. My consulting job, although I began that at the end of April and those fuckers have yet to pay me (my last invoice-y thing was rejected for "not having enough verbs") and I am getting to the point where I am not going to do things for them until I see a fucking check;

2. My book, which I have no excuse for since I had lots of notes to turn into melodious paragraphs and I (unsuccessfully) shopped for bathing suits and new underwear and ran around cemeteries with my mom instead, as that was more fun;

3. My ridiculous online travel writing class, whose start date I misunderstood and tuned in for the first online chat last Wednesday, only to find that the first chat is tomorrow and I can't "attend" because I am supposed to go to this Police concert with Husband, Steph, and Stupid McFuck (Husband's high school friend who votes Republican against his own economic interests) and Dr. P is also arriving for one night only (although that has nothing to do with my ability to log into class); and

4. A freelance article I hoped to finish about the complex but loving relationship that exists between me, Husband, and my long-time companion, Theo Roosevelt Reisman (my teddy bear), but I didn't write the last paragraph because I spent the afternoon with my friends Rachel and Jenny and their adorable genius 2 year old daughter.

Seriously, I'm not stressing out or anything and freaking instead of watching the Mets game with Husband, who I have not seen in 9 days, or petting Tycho Bunnae, who I last pet 11 days ago. Not at all. (Maniacal laughter.)

Scratching the Itch, Smelling the Fish

Yesterday was my seventh wedding anniversary. To celebrate, Husband and I went to a fancy French seafood restaurant that my friend Mara recommended. At first I was nervous, of course, because fancy restaurants make me uncomfortable. I'm convinced that people can tell that I don't belong and will ask me to leave any minute, which then makes me want to misbehave and do something like drink out of the creamer or eat sugar. The food made me relax, though. Saying it was amazing does not do the food justice. Tears of joy practically formed in the corners of my eyes during the second course, crab with mustard sauce.

The waiter came by. "Enjoying?" he asked in French accented English.

"Delightful," I replied.

He smiled and walked away. I turned to Husband. "How do you think he would have reacted if I said it was as good as Red Lobster, maybe better?"

Husband and I laughed and laughed. And that is why I love him.

A Day in the Life

It all started like a very good Beatles song. You know: woke up. Got out of bed. Dragged a comb across my head. Found my way downstairs and I drank a cup. Looking up, I noticed I was late. Found my coat and grabbed my hat. Made the bus in seconds flat. Found my way upstairs and had a smoke. Then somebody spoke and I went into a dream.

Except that I found my way into the dining room and had a bowl of high fiber cereal instead of coffee. And I don't really comb my hair. I just took my asthma meds, put in my contacts, and brushed my teeth. (Come to think of it, I forgot to even take my vitamins.) I was running late, though, because I spent a lot of time cleaning Tycho's litter and petting him. However, forget grabbing my coat and hat, because I could not bring myself to put on pants. The thought of getting dressed for real was incapacitating. Probably I could have handled throwing on a pair of jeans and a ratty t-shirt, but it would not be appropriate to show up for my consulting gig that way.

So I did the next best thing. I decided to work from home in my Krispy Kreme t-shirt that is longer than most dresses I see women wearing these days. I read plans and had conference calls. I wrote something for BlogHer on how Fox rejected a new Trojan ad because it was about preventing unwanted pregnancies, which they do not consider a health-related issue. I revised my poorly written memoir piece to share with my writing group tonight. All this was accomplished without wearing any pants.

Deep Sea Spear Fishing and Other Metaphoric Overkill

Where to even begin? Setting aside the idea that "no one wants to eat a bearded clam," let's focus on the realities of this fine ad sent to me by the hilarious SJ of I, Asshole. I am impressed that between the "before" and "after" shots of the clam, it loudly proclaims "RARIIP." To me, that says, "This is going to hurt like a mad motherfucker," and that is true. (Thanks to the one accidental bikini wax I had, I know this for a fact.) Hence, the hairless clam in the "after" shot is "singing" like a suspect being tortured during interrogation.

As for the statement that "no one wants to eat a bearded clam," I have to disagree. There are plenty of people in the world – male and female – who can deal with the fact that grown women have pubic hair, and some of us happen to not want to hear/experience "RARIIP" anywhere near our pooties. (Even thinking about it makes me cross my legs.) I realize that not all women agree with me when it comes to cooch style, and that's fine. But don't be insisting that every single potential clam eater finds naturally hairy clams gross. It is a lie, propaganda from the beauty industry. There's something for everyone. We don't all need to be the same neatly smooth Venus to get action or love.

However, this did get me thinking: if no one likes a bearded clam, is it not also true that no one likes a mustached gherkin? Shouldn't the beauty industry begin targeting men to remind them that their curlies also get in the way? I once had a debate with a total moron on someone else's blog in which he suggested that women who don't wax/shave don't deserve his services. I asked him if he waxed/shaved his pubic hair, and he indignantly insisted that he didn't need to because no one's mouth would be near his bush. I dropped the subject then because it is clear that this man has only received very bad blow jobs for his entire life and has no idea that more than the tip of a dick can be involved. (As I write this, his other completely insane insistence – that circumcised men never experience sexual pleasure, which he based entirely on his own experience, which he somehow compared to that of non-circumcised men – makes a lot of sense. The man obviously has no concept.)

No more beating around the bush (har dee har har)! If bearded clams are gross, so are mustached gherkins. What's good for the goose is also good for the gander, who, to completely kill the metaphor, should both be plucked free, although that probably would not be good for either goose or gander, as they need their downy coats. Just like me.

I Brake for Long Weekends

Tiredness consumed me yesterday. Possibly because I didn't get to sleep until 4 am the previous "night," but I did wind up sleeping until 10:30, so that's a good 6.5 hours. I don't know. Ultimately, my evening consisted of eating dinner, waiting for Husband to return from his week-long business trip, then greeting him when he got home at 7:45. Both of us were passed out by 9 amPM (thanks, Des). I slept so long that my watch even stopped. Good times.

Now I just need to make it through today, and a long weekend with Husband and friends awaits me. Unfortunately, making it through today means that I will need to sit through a meeting with a person that I have diagnosed as having Aspberger's. Basically, the man cannot think conceptually about anything. Every single step of a process must be spelled out in detail, or he spazzes and derails the meeting. It is extremely painful to sit through, and when I decided that he must have Aspberger's, it was a mercy to him on my behalf. Because if he was just an asshole instead of a man with a disability, I would wrap my small hands around his pompous, smug fat neck and kill him. I am just not cut out for prison.

Insolence

After my dad picked me up from the airport this morning, we ran an errand and then headed to my bubby's swank apartment in senior citizen housing. It is on the 12th floor and overlooks Lake Michigan. If it were a condo, it would undoubtedly cost several hundred thousand buckeroos. Instead, it is highly subsidized by us taxpayers. I think she pays about $400 a month for a decent-size one bedroom with a million dollar view. I'm only slightly jealous.

For the first 30 minutes we were there, she stuffed our faces and talked to us. Then her pals arrived and she held court at her dining table in Russian. I speak better Hindi than I do Russian (reminder: I know about 14 Hindi words), so needless to say, I felt neglected, although also relieved. As long as she was being rude, I figured it would be OK to be rude right back and read my book. ("Nature Girl" by Carl Hiaason. I love Hiaason, but this was definitely not among his best work. It did nicely pass the time, however.) Damn, I am a surly little bitch.

Later, I had dinner with my parents and Rachel and her partner and kid. Their kid is so fucking adorable. Especially with ice cream all over her face. (Hey, I don't have to wash her clothes later, so it is easy to laugh. Her folks are good peeps and didn't seem to perterbed either.) Rachel told us an amusing story about chaperoning the prom last spring. The principal's wife was relating a disaster that unfolded at her sister's wedding on a hot day. It seems that the icing on the cake melted, and the sister freaked out. The prinicpal's wife (doesn't that sound like a character in Canterbury Tales?) told her sister to calm down because the day was not about icing. It was about dick. Dick as in "Dick, the man her sister was marrying," but as she repeated the line over and over again, all the teachers sitting at the table turned red from the effort to not laugh outloud. Rachel even had to kick someone under the table to stop him from giggling.

Maybe my bubby tells hilarious stories like this when she sits around and guffaws with her friends in Russian.

Mmmm... Delicious

Nothing tastier than a Jelly Belly booger.

Enjoy your Friday.

PS - Because I am a bad person sometimes, I used this picture for an online analysis of my puss to see what celebs I most resemble. Sadly, Natalie Merchant, Tori Amos, Raoul Bova (I have no idea who this is), Anita Mui, Julie Andrews, Diana Rigg, Alessandra Ambrosio (nope, not her either), and Tom Sizemore (!) all look like me with a yellow Jelly Belly in my nose. Ha ha ha. It hurts to laugh so much.

More Criticism

Today’s letter to Metro New York confirms my fear about the column: that I didn’t do a good job expressing my view, which is sort of unforgivable given that it is an op-ed piece (regardless of yesterday’s letter writer’s opinion):

Columnist Suzanne Reisman compares the egregious treatment of Native Americans in the 19th center to that of Palestinians in Israel-Palestine, asking us to reflect a bit more about our own collective complicity in the ongoing wrongs committed against Native Americans.” Is she really asking us to lower our moral standards to the level of those who wiped out the Native American race? She may as well tell us to ignore Darfur, or condone the past the genocide in Bosnia, all because our distant ancestors committed worse crimes. When defending Israel, about the worst card one can play is to compare Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to our founding fathers; genocide of Native Americans. I doubt Israelis would be flattered by the comparison. – Justin Samra

Actually, now that I reread his letter while I typed it, I realize that it is not as good as I first thought, although clearly better than my friend Nicky.

Either way, my problem is this: my goal was not to compare Israel to the founding fathers, but rather to call out the hypocrisy of Americans who call for Israelis to abandon their country under the pretenses of illegal occupation when those same Americans are likely living on land obtained illegally. Why should Americans not live up to the high standards they are setting for Israelis? These people should be fighting for land restitution to Native Americans if they are so upset about illegal occupation of land. I certainly am not justifying past actions or unfair actions, but saying that if you call out one group, you need to take a close look at what your life is like. Clearly, I failed to convey that point, so that sucks. I do have to say that my original closing line, which was cut, was, “The end to illegal occupation begins at home.” Maybe that would have helped get my point across? I don’t know, but it is not there, so it doesn’t matter. Wah.

When the Cat's Away...

Squeak, squeak.

Husband is in California this week, which means two things:
1. I miss him; and
2. I keep crazy hours.

This happens every time he goes away. My insomnia is extra outrageous. I’m not even bothering to fight it this time. In fact, I decided to use it to my advantage. Since I knew I’d never fall asleep at a normal time tonight, I slept in this morning, fooled around for most of the day, and then cracked down to work this evening. Maybe it is not a great idea to work on complicated Excel formulas at 11 pm, but I fucked the worksheet up pretty badly on Friday afternoon (I was tired from an irritating meeting and not paying enough attention, thus did not notice when I sorted the data that it only sorted one column and not the whole damn thing), so why not try it in the middle of the night? I won’t mention that I was also on the phone with my sister as I did some data entry or with Steph at the end when I was formatting shit….

On a related note, is it even possible to while away a day and not spend money? I managed to spend:

- $35 on alterations on a suit jacket that I bought back in January
- $2 on a subway ride to meet someone for Haven business
- $6 for lunch during the Haven meeting
- $2.11 for a book for my bookclub (after I returned another book)
- $35 for alterations on the stunning punjabi that I bought in India
- $1.50 for kulfi, which is a nutty ice cream

Just as I was feeling guilty about the fact that Husband was off working while I gallivanted about and spent all his hard earned money, I made an important discovery. For no real reason, I grabbed a copy of Metro New York to see if they decided to run an article I wrote about Israel and submitted back in February. I opened right to the op-ed page, and noticed a picture of an extremely butch-looking dyke in a black long sleeve shirt, pink corduroy pants, and pink boots. Yeah, it was me. I was quite pleased that they ran the article. (As soon as it is online, I’ll put up a link in case you are dying to know how Americans and Israelis are alike when it comes to “illegal occupation.”) I earned some money and had a new article published, so I felt better about the whole spend-a-thon I engaged in earlier, and thus decided to ask a friend to dinner and drop another $16. (And of course I have my little consulting gig, so it’s not like I’m not working at all, but that’s another story.) Thrifty I am not.

Next: catching up on a month’s worth of recorded CSI:Miami episodes. Good times!

Living La Virtual Vida Barbie? Loca!

As I recently confessed, I was not always an unshaved, misanthropic feminist. Nope. Back in the day, I was a fat nerd hiding from the onset of puberty and playing with my Barbies while the other 4th graders at my school experimented with dating and read stolen copies of their dads' Playboy magazines. Sure, my Barbies were horny gals out for some action with my one Ken doll, but isn't that more innocent than me being a horny 10 year old looking for ass? I think so. The point is, I loved Barbie.

Hence it is ironic that I was sent by Bugaboo magazine yesterday to cover the global launch of Mattel's new Barbie product, Barbie girls. I admit that I was eager to see what sort of sexist stew they had concocted to feed our kids. I wasn't disappointed, at least in the sense that they lived up to my lowest expectations. From the press release (which I am pleased to note they distributed on USB ports):

NEW YORK CITY (April 26, 2007) –Today, Mattel unveiled the next generation of fashion doll play with Barbie Girls™, an unparalleled, hybrid play experience that blends fashion, music and an online virtual world. Representing the true evolution of what today’s girl loves and opening the door to how tomorrow’s girl will play, Barbie Girls™ fuses the best of virtual and real life for a fresh, new experience. At launch this week, Barbie Girls™ first comes to life via www.BarbieGirls.com, the first global, virtual online world designed exclusively for girls. At BarbieGirls.com girls can create their own virtual character, design their own “room,” shop at the mall, play games, hang out and chat live with other girls. In July, Barbie Girls™ will take shape in the real world with a sleek, handheld, 4 ½ -inch portable device that serves as a music player and fashion statement-in-one, while also unlocking new content within BarbieGirls.com.

According to the Chief Barbie Girl's presentation at the launch, girls today love music, shopping, and being online. A group of hired minions – er, I mean "real girls" – stood around shouting out their agreement at this statement, and as Chief Barbie Girl walked us through the virtual world that is supposed to represent tomorrow's girl, they kept whooping their approval at all the "cute outfits and cute accessories and cute pets" that a girl can virtually acquire by watching "movies" (aka commercials) on the Pepto pink site. (OK, I probably shouldn't criticize the color, but CUSS's Pepto is irony, damn it!) The games offered on the site, which also help a girl earn virtual dollars which she can then spend on clothes and furniture, involve painting digital fingernails and giving Ken a makeover. I detected nothing game-like in this.

The point of all this is that Mattel either believes that girls only care about shopping, fashion, and looking good while hanging out with friends online, or they are reminding girls that obviously this is what they should care about. Even the virtual park is for hanging out, not for playing soccer or running or anything sporty. Need I mention that the Barbie girl avatars look like Bratz, but without the thongs? Oy. As for the Barbie girls MP3 player, well, Barbie's finally an official 'Pod person. (Ha! I kill me.)

Of course, I will write a nice little blurb about the product in Bugaboo. My interviews with minions – er, I mean "real girls" – (ages 10 and 11) will appear at BlogHer in early May. (They made me want to poke my eyes out in despair for the future.) At least they don't spell "girls" with a "z," right? Also, they had some great fucking food at the launch. Not that real Barbie girls eat mini sandwiches with cheese (the horror!), but I put the Barbie-as-surrogate-Suzanne away a long time ago, so I stuffed my face most unceremoniously.

Another Deep, Dark Suzanne Secret

I loved Barbies when I was a kid. I played with them until I was 10 or 11, when other girls in my school had given up on dolls already and gone on to dating. I was in no way, shape, or form ready to handle real relations with boys, so I retreated into my little Barbie world. They put on pretty clothes and dated and had sex with Ken. In retrospect, it was sort of a proto-Bachelor situation, since there was only one guy and lots of ladies clamoring for him. I personally continued being a nerd. Life was good.

Ironically, although I loved gussying Barbie up and pimping her out, when it came to my life, I realized quickly that I hated heels, tight clothes, and makeup. I also was one of those no-sex-until-marriage types (shocking, I know) until I was 16 or 17. I left high school still a virgin. And I'm a hairy legged feminist to this day. In fact, as I leave for Florida for my writing retreat, I am gleeful that Minnie long ago suggested that I wear board shorts over my bathing suit so that I needn't worry about shaving the old bikini line. (I am not into shaving snatch, but I am also not into pubes hanging out of bathing suits. It's the worst damned if you do, damned if you don't situation a curmudgeonly vacationer faces...)

The Last of My Indian Adventure in Pictures: Two Weeks Ago Today, I Did Not Go to a Crappy Meeting

Thanks for bearing with me as I relive my glorious trip to India. Today is the last day for which I have pictures, which saddens me, but hey, all good things must come to an end and all that shit.

The first stop I made two weeks ago today was to Hawa Mahal, the Palace of Wind. It was built in 1799 and according to the cousin of the "dead guide" (the dead guide is the Lonely Planet book I took to India with me, then returned to the library; its cousin is a Frommer's guide), it has 593 windows so that the ladies of the palace could watch the city and not be seen. I found that this type of attitude about women persisted in India today, although there was a better presence of women out and about in Jaipur than in Agra. There was even a billboard advertising motor scooters to women in Jaipur, which impressed me because I'd seen no women drivers the entire time I was there. (And the women passengers wore no helmets. Ever.)

The Hawa Mahal is more or less a façade, so we took our pictures and moved on to Amber Fort. According to both "dead guides," Amber Fort is actually pronounced without the "B," although Fearless Leader, our incompetent live guide, called it AmBer, so whatever. We took an elephant up to the Fort.

"Take your hat off," the driver requested as he slowed the racing elephant down and used my camera to take a picture. I figured that he just wanted to get my face better, so I complied. Suddenly, his sweaty turban was on my head before I could politely decline. That, by the way, is a very painful smile.

My sweaty surprise turban experience was as colorful as some of the elephants. The "dead guide" mentioned something about the tradition of painting elephants and we arrived in Jaipur right after a festival for elephants ended, but I don't know much more because neither the dead guide's cousin nor our live guide mention this. I love elephants (ever since my mom read Babar to me as a wee one), and the designs were lovely. These regal beasts have hard lives, which the dead guide also mentioned, but most living things in India seem to really work to survive. It's one of the saddest aspects of India to me.

A few animals that didn't seem to have it too bad were the monkeys hanging out in Amber Fort, displaying their asses to the world without a care. (I'm curious what kinds of hits I'll get know that I have "monkey ass" on my blog…)

After the Fort, we were shanghaied at a tourist trap that specialized in carpets. I am not inclined to buy a carpet, starting at $450, so after mindless wandering through the trap's other crafts offerings, I went outside and sat in some shade and ate my granola bar lunch. That's when Malikit, the bus driver's helper, came by and we chatted. Then the bus driver joined us, and I enjoyed talking to them immensely. Then it was on to the fancy jewelry store, where I finally lost it completely and disrespectfully sat on one of the carved marble elephants in front of the shop. In that arch in the background is where the jewel cutters worked. The shop sold the stones they cut. They are paid a pittance and have to work outside in the heat, partly so that the shop owners can show their skills off to clueless tourists. We hated being forced to be part of it, and a lot of us hung back, but went to talk to the guys afterward. I shit you not, one of the men gave a very cool woman in our group an uncut ruby because she was so nice to him.

Following that, we went to an amazing park of sun dials, Jantar Mantar. This is world's largest sundial, and it is accurate to something like five seconds. The complex of sundials was built in 1728 and also includes astrological elements. (It's a good thing we no longer rely on sun dials because it is so fucking rainy here in NYC – and will be for the foreseeable future, ugh – that we'd just be wandering around cluelessly and I would miss the 12:00 meeting that I don't want to go to anyway and will be late for anyway if I don't stop blogging and get dressed.)

And now we get to the last picture that I will subject you to. There is still a maharaja who lives in the City Palace of Jaipur. (He plays polo with Prince Charles according to the "dead guide.") His palace is closed to the public, but other buildings in his palatial complex have been turned into a museum. This peacock door (you'll probably need to click on it to see the gorgeous details) was one of several sumptuously colored and decorated doors in the main courtyard. These maharajas really live beautifully, and again it is one of the contrasts of extremes that stand out so vividly. Of course, we have serious and growing income gaps here in the US, but we hide our poverty so much more efficiently. Not that that is a good thing, but I think things stand out more there. You would never have a palace here with a tent city in front of it. Cops would be sure to shoo homeless people away. Even in Manhattan, I rarely see homeless people in front of the zillion dollar co-op apartments on Park Ave., for example. But I am digressing….

So that's my trip to India in a nutshell. Thanks for sticking through it with me. The whole experience deeply affected me, and I am thinking of taking Hindi lessons. (Keep in mind that when I returned from Israel in August 2005, another trip that touched me at my core, I seriously considered taking Hebrew lessons. Needless to say, it didn't happen.) Regardless of whether I ever progress beyond the 14 or so Hindi words I learned on the trip, I am committed to going back and exploring more of this country of contradictions that made me feel more alive than I have in the past several years.