Note to Self

Note to self... she's just not that into you, so start thinking of something else. I know you've tried this before. It's becoming so very necessary. Think!

Note to self: focusing on Hebrew is not easy. Try lubing up the grey matter with a little grain alcohol next time.

Self of note: You get taller every time you work out at the gym. And those oblique exercises make your cramps feel like they're going all the way around your gut. Does that mean they're working?

Note to self: Stop farting around and do something. Waiting sucks.

Selfish note: Must find snuggling. Stat.

Status Update: COLLIDER ROCKS

The title "status update" should be read in a loud British accent. And you know, like "stay-tus", British-like.

Okay fine. Don't.

It's Thursday, not quite but it will be soon. All day I've been thinking it was Thursday. I've wanted it desperately to be Thursday. I really want time to pass. Weird, and not.

I was asked tonight "Are you okay?" Like, yeah dude, I'm okay. Life is rough and this is the inside of my head. I still am who I am on the outside, even when that's a little rough too. This is how I operate. You see me on the outside. You know me on the inside. It's not so incredibly incongruous.

Like my Vespa and my Rover. Yes. I can do both. I can do extremely fucked in the head and mostly put together in real life. I can do excessively weepy and then do my best bad ass. Survival.

Doesn't mean that my lows don't get low. I think it freaks people out a little. Until they get used to it. Maybe. Sometimes even I am not used to it.

******

So I'm up. Yea me! It's not hard when I have awesome friends. I do. You all rock. And there's stuff, there's life, things to do. People to see. There's tons of stuff I should do that I don't. (Hello homework!)

It's not hard when the music FUCKING ROCKS.

Okay, so here's the skinny on Collider and why I think they are so fabulous:
Rocking beat, hard core sound, with an edge of funkiness. Awesome lead voice. Incredible bass guitar artist with a five string bass (one string is lower than standard). And the songs are not predictable. Listening to and knowing the songs in their complexity makes the live shows incredibly seductive as you are pulled into the whipping crescendos and hairpin turns. It's beach music meets punk meets Led Zepplin. It's nutty and multilayered. It's FUN and COMPLICATED. Just like I like 'em.

******

So I had a blast tonight. Great music. Just enough beer. Danced 'til my kippah was sweaty under my hat. A rush, a soul song, a lift. Lovely. Thank you.

The Great Ship

I can't imagine being on Noah's Ark. I read the exact dimensions every year, and I marvel at a G-d that understands the need for a multi-level, extra water-proofed vessel. I marvel at the direction communication that breaks down instructions like an IKEA manual.

I can imagine being on a giant ship... all of the people on it being subject to the same tides and waves. I imagine this great ship with all my friends, all the people I care about. Sometimes I'm right there next to them, as they're blowing chunks over the side of the boat. Sometimes they're in the front and I'm in the back and we're all being tossed around, just dealing with the deck furniture flying around.

I talk to my friends, all the time. I think that living alone may have exacerbated this situation. I know I used to do it before, sometimes actually speaking out loud, in a sudden burst of emotion and startling myself back to reality. When I was perpetually partnered, I would crave time alone just so I could have these sort of internal conversations (that occassionally crept external). Now I have the time I want, and I relish it. And, I talk outloud sometimes.

The perspective from the outside of my life looks way more fantastic than it is. I guess that's normal. What to me is wandering aimlessly on my Vespa is to someone else a mini-adventure. So what if I'm freezing or frustrated by my inability to get to class on time, I'm still cruising around on Awesome... and I'm free.

I am critical of my relative success. Watching and re-meeting my friends on Facebook makes me a little nutty about success. I want to be speaking Hebrew. I want to be beautifully, ridiculously skinny and gorgeous. I want to be nicer, and not scare people away with my fire. Calculations of my success look something like this: (workout*2) + martial arts(3-1) + late night eating+95% - no Hebrew*18 + socializing*1 + services*2 + purring cat. It really doesn't look that much worse from the inside... The truth is, my life is good. I've got money stress, and work stress, and I could use some physical affection, but I don't want to give up my life or my freedoms. The truth is, love and affection is too important to be tossing it around randomly around people I care about. Maybe this is why gay men just cruise and screw anonymously. I don't want to break anyone's heart, and I don't want to get involved. I just want to smell and kiss a beautiful woman. Periodically. Potentially randomly.

Maybe I could run into her on the lower deck, after the ship has stopped rolling around in the storm.

Destiny vs Free Will

One of the starkest differences between Orthodox and Reform Judiasm is the difference between believing that G-d has a plan and everything is predetermined, opposed to the idea that we all have free will, regardless. Now, I don't know if the Orthodox view also includes free will, and just deals with the tension between the two opposing options as part of the mystery of life or what. I do know that by and large Reform Jews don't believe in our lives as being predestined.

Rabbi Lustig retold an older story (imagine that) about a man -- Zussman, I think -- who upon entering heaven was asked why he was not more like Zussman. Not why was he not more like Jacob, or more like Moses. But why was he not more himself.

These actually are connected. If we believe that all is in the hands of G-d, then what will spur us to act? We must act. We must take action first, and then perhaps Divine intervention will take us the rest of the way... perhaps. We must be ourselves fully; to understand oneself, and allow all of it to become real, alive, full, vibrant. Each of us with our own gift, with our own uniqueness, has a responsibility to ourselves and everyone around us, to be ourselves. To be real.

I know, I'm spinning in circles. Hang in there with me. Think of the things you've done in your life. Think of what could've happened if you hadn't done some of those things. Sixty thousand dollars in debt, but two beautiful children. Increased rent and additional sneezing but a beautiful home and a loving, fuzzy cat. Hormone therapy and the horrible side-effects, but a child nonetheless. Money stress but the knowledge that studying continues, and the path shortens a step each day.

The future is wobbly and uncertain. We fear. Still, steps must be taken. Maybe believing it's all predestined makes it easier to step. Maybe wishing for a Big Papa in the Sky will ease our concerns, soothe our fears. It's hard to take the idea that we are all alone, whether we are childless or not, single or not, loneliness creeps in through the cracks. People pull us together, eventually. The magic of friendship and love connects us to a life line. And there we find G-d. Time passes, and a heavy heart becomes lighter. Crazy thoughts subside and clarity breezes into the brain. Everything changes: up and down. Rollercoaster rides are macrocosms of our internal self-sitting, how we view ourselves as we respond to the turning of time. Sometimes we steer, sometimes we just hang on for dear life.

At some point, though, you must try to steer. Overcome, overwhelmed, overtaxed, overburdened. Sure. And this too, like even happy times, will pass. Space to breathe? Time to think. Plan. Think. Act! If not now, when? The next time we can come up for air? Sure, except there's no itenerary for when that will happen again.

You know, I say these things, but there is nothing saying I can do it myself. I am coaching myself, as much as anyone, believe me. Myself, I get scared and I hide. Very good at hiding. I can duck and cover like no one else. And it's only me saying to myself: Get up! Get up! The sun in shining and you are alive and breathing. So many times -- how many times -- I thought that would not happen again. Amazing.