New Year, Mutherf*cka

And it's time to shake off the dust. Time to get your afram up and going. Ladies and gentlemen I'd like to welcome you to two-thousand and eleven and please note: there is no getting off this train. We're all on it together and yes indeedy we are hurtling down the track at breakneck speed. Now if you'd all just mind your step, I'm sure we'll be fine.

I know, I'm too late to jump on board with some schlocky 2010 retro-perspective. I'm really too late to make any sordid predictions about 2011. Mostly I'm just oddly happy about being able to say "eleven" a lot. And randomly insert "this one goes to eleven" as a non-sequitur. I'm pretty sure 11 will be an awesome year, if only because 12 is supposed to suck so bad. End of the world and all.

Here are my two second recommendations for living life at 11:
-- sing
-- dance
-- fall in love, without jumping off a cliff
-- dance, more

O that I could tell you to FEEL. This feeling thing, this mind-wrecking plummet, somersault, upswing and crash landing. Feel before and after keeping your feet in close proximity with the Earth. Feel those feet, your feet, and you. Dance, the weight of you in the middle. Focus, baby. You're a fucking rockstar and you can do whatever you imagine. Rocking back and forth and you know how that goes: listen Shlomi, all is one and one is all; everything is beautiful, and amazing. It's all in how you look at it.

The Occassional Dread of Being Awake

I'm having a hard time going to work recently. In part it's because me and my team have been getting hammered with criticism, relentlessly since last fall. That's bound to wear on a Bear.

Part of it is the weather. Blazing hot temps that peel the sticky hooks off my wall and drop my shit to the ground while I'm at work. I come home to stretched and torn latex paint, and my frame drum looking at me from the floor like, "What?"

Most of it, I fear, is the love thing. I don't gotta love thing. Or rather, I've got bad case of the fucked up blues. Lauren's birthday just passed. Not that I noticed. It's been (counting... on fingers first and then on the calendar)... years. Three apartments and two girlfriends ago. Three if you count the one month stint.

That's how I mark time. Ages of my life have names. The Heidi Period, when I went on tour one summer, following around the remnants of the Grateful Dead and driving my ass off. The Lou Period, which is a lot like college. The Lauren period, when I lived richly. The Gena Period, when everyone thought I was crazy, including me, and I loved her like crazy.

That's the recent one, the one I'm stuck on. She called me after she emailed, proving that she really "demanded" a response. The non-response was not acceptable. She tried to keep the crazy out of her voice, like she had done so well in the email, but I heard it. And I was even more sure of not responding. Then another email: "Why won't you respond?"

So I'll answer her here: Because I don't trust you. You know I care about you and you'll use that to the best of your abilities, which are vast. You know I still love you, and so seeing your face or hearing your full voice (not through the digitation of the phone) or (God forbid) touching your skin would be the end of my resolve. Because I miss you so much it keeps me on my knees and hiding in my house, even while I know what I really miss is just part of my imagination. It is the image you want to project that I was happy to buy into. But you can't keep up the charade. And the results when it crumbles is disasterous. And in the end I give everything away, and you consume the life of me.

And the truth is: I don't know how to not give everything away when I fall in love. That's what I do. And so later, when I come to, and we're moved in and everything is in it's perfect locked down place, I will need room to grow, and move, and change, and expand.

Mental Blocks, building with colors

I stop myself from writing here all the time. I think: That's not enough. Not meaty enough. Not long enough. Half the time I've got just a few more characters than 140, so it just seems like a Monster Tweet.

Alas, I create my own roadblocks. So. I hereby commit to stop fucking myself in the head and just let it go. Let it go so easily that I don't think about some schmuck reading it and shaking her head at my poor word choice or self-inflicted passive voice.

I promise to relay and relate every flinch and flicker... okay maybe not everyone but the ones I'm instantly motivated to share. Because, if I wait, I might change my mind.

Folks tell me they love the honesty, etc. That's because I don't think twice. Ima Jack Kerouac that shit. Pound it out and hit publish.

Fearless writing. So there.

Splitting Silently

What's weird is not talking. I have the urge to call, but I don't. I fear what the conversation will turn into. Conversations over the phone have, in the recent past, turned into shouting matches, which then turn into me trying to get away and eventually just hanging up. Hanging up, mid-speech. I've never hung up on anybody before, but I started here, and I found eventually that I couldn't stop.

One of many signs of things gone bad.

So yes, I'm sad and lonely, but that comes and goes, like weather I can't control. Sometimes I want nothing to do with the rest of humanity. And then I remember, I have a commitment to make things better, and that generally means I can't live in a cave.

What I do have is a nice cave, high in the house, with a window for my cat. She gets out sometimes to scout out the rest of the house, with an old black cat waiting to chase her back to home base. I have one place where I lay down every night. I have one set of keys in my pocket. This I like.

Facinating sadness, this one

It comes on like a sneeze
Of great length
Seizing my face up in an instant
The shame of it,
I think
Forehead in hand
Only a few tears eek out
But the sharpness of the pain is worth buckets
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Dear Help Desk, Please Put the Gun Down

It's probably unethical or something for me to work on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday (observed). I came to work anyway, knowing that the office would be largely empty. I didn't know that the main source of my work-related consternation would be here, serving up shitty emails and sauntering into my office to blinkety-blink at me as they stuttered their discombombulated concerns.

I just want you to know that I just ate, so I should be less cranky, by a factor of at least five, and much less likely to begin to cry. But there's nothing really like a good frustrated cry.

Dear Help Desk, reads an email from a friend... someone I actually like and enjoy talking to... could you please change the wording of this fake official email that I keep getting from some spammer? Dear friend, I know it looks like it's our email system sending you email but we don't use the mailer-daemon for our email, so it's not us. And, yes, we've told you this at least four different times in five different ways, but I'll tell you again, patiently, because I like you. But I swear to G-d, if you ask me again about this crap I might just scream. P.S. You're still coming to the dinner-ish party I'm hosting, right?

Other topics, from people I really can't stand, or those who just annoy me intermittantly are:
"Why won't my computer knead and bake my bread for me? It is a computer after all. It can do anything, even if I have every application known to man open and running complex regression analyses."

"I've been having this recurring problem but I always call the emergency Help Desk phone number instead of documenting it in an email to Help Desk so that people can follow up on it. It gave me an error and I wrote it down, in crayon, on this napkin. I can't read this, can you?"

For the record, I disabled part of your email system because you abuse it so badly the rest of your programs won't work. And I refuse to even talk to you, even as you toddle around in my office on this quiet vacation-like day, when I was trying to get other stuff done that actually requires concentration.

Also, when I was working on your computer I took a screen shot of your desktop because you think that's where all your files should go. I share it with my co-workers and we laugh at you relentlessly because it is a great illustration of how far up your ass your head is.

(this image deleted, as requested)

Rabbi in training... or so I'd to think.

Hi Peeps! How ya doing? Howzitgoing?

Me? Aw, I'm just getting ready for ANOTHER attempt at leading services at my synagogue tonight. I did it for the first time several weeks ago, for the parasha "Lech Lecha" which is Genesis 12:1-17:27, when God tells Abram to go, and leave his home.

I'm good at the actual prayer leading, but the sermonizing was a new thing to me. I felt like my sermon was too bookish, too studied, too much reference to other Rabbis and not enough me or now. It's interesting, for sure, but I think I put some people who really don't care that much to sleep.

This time I was more inspired and a little less hard on myself as I was writing it, and I think it turned out better. I'll post tonight's dvar Torah after I give it. Until then, here's my overstudious one on Lech Lecha:

Hi everyone. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Shel West. Shel is short for Shelly, which in turn is short for Rachelle. Just don’t call me Anna, even though that’s my first name. I’ve never gone by Anna, only Shelly. Anna Rachelle West. It’s a pretty name and it is mine, but I rarely use the whole thing. Names are funny things. They define us as much as we define them. I never felt like an Anna, maybe because I was never called that. It was only in recent years that I started to call myself Shel. I wanted to be more grown up, more adult, without the sing-song E at the end of my name. It only sort of stuck.

It was hard to try and change my name. Almost as hard to change myself, my habits and behaviors. Sometimes, you have to change your location to change yourself, as we’re about to find out.

We’re at the beginning of the beginning of the Torah still, only the third Parasha in as we read Lech Lecha. The famous line heads the portion, it’s a well known song, and it commands Moses to move. Go, from your land, your birthplace, your house – successively smaller ideas of home, larger to smaller – and I (God) will make of you a great nation (with lots of descendents) and I will bless you (with wealth, says the Rashi footnotes) and I will make your name great (by adding letters to it, in fact). It is during this portion that Abram becomes Abraham, and Sarai becomes Sarah. According to Rashi it is when God takes Abram out of his tent later in 15:5 and instructs him to count the stars that God really explains that Abram must step out of where he is and what he has predicted for his own life, to grasp the concept that even in his nineties he will be the father of a nation. Rashi says that Abram relied on astrology and the science of the stars to predetermine what his future would be. God’s message to Abram is that if you go outside of what you know, and put your trust in God, the blessings will come.

There is a lot that happens in this Parasha. Abram and Sarai travel to Egypt during a famine in the land. This will happen again later. They tell everyone they are siblings so that Abram will receive gifts and wealth as the Pharaoh take Sarai into his palace. The Pharaoh and his household are afflicted with plagues. This will also happen again. Rashi says that Sarai’s word causes the tzaras to appear – she says “strike!” and an angel of God strikes them with the plague. Pharaoh arranges an escort to take them out of Egypt. This, not so much doesn’t happen again.

Abram, with his nephew Lot, take all the wealth they have amassed and go back to southern Israel, to the Negev. Abram and Lot split up because their livestock are too many and Lot’s suspicious herdsmen can’t get along with Abram’s. Lot moves to Sodom, which will be later destroyed in the next Parasha, and his choice of surroundings is intended to make us suspicious of him, and by proxy, his shepherds.

Sodom and Gommorah are besieged by kings waging war. The battle of Four Kings against Five is waged and Lot is taken captive. The names of the kings and the names of their kingdoms all make various references to their character, generally negative. Genesis says “The Fugitive” tells Abram about the fate of his nephew. According to Rashi the fugitive is Og, the last of the Rephaim who both escaped from the fighting but also who escaped from the flood. Abram here is described as “Abram the Ivri” which the modern translation renders as “the Hebrew.” The Rashi edition, however, says this means he “came from across the river” and therefore had the courage to fight against the odds. Abram gathers up his servants and this small band go and rescue Lot and defeat the kings’ armies. At the end of this odd story King Melchizedek – sounds a lot like Melech Tzedek, doesn’t it? – brings out bread and wine, because – it says – he is a priest of God Most High. That must be the same God Abram’s always talking to, right? He blesses Abram and they share bread and wine. Could this be the first blessing of bread and wine? This will happen again, every week, as we celebrate Shabbat, until the end of time.

Melchizedek is said to be Shem, a descendent of Noah. He is the king of Salem. Rashi explains that this is the same city that Abraham will later call Yirei. This city is eventually named Yerushalem, by God, who wishes to honor both Shem and Abraham’s name for the same place.

It is at this point that Abram begins to worry that his luck has run out, according to Rashi, which is why he has another conversation with God. “How will I know?” asks Abram, how will I know I will have an heir? How will I know that I will possess this land? God reassures Abram repeatedly, explaining that his descendents will outnumber the stars, and asking for an elaborate offering. This offering is special because Abram is instructed to split the cows, goat and ram. Rashi says that the smoke and flame between the pieces of meat is the sign that God is there. God tells Abram, “I am a shield for you; your reward will be great.” God tells more about the future, about the enslavement and oppression of his children, and of their return to the land.

Then we get the story of Hagar, who is supposedly Pharaoh’s daughter. Another royal Egyptian daughter will figure prominently later. Hagar conceives and begins to take her position as servant lightly, to Sarai’s displeasure. Hagar runs away but is told by God to return and submit to Sarai’s authority. Hagar calls God “El-roi” meaning “God of Seeing” and returns to bear a son to Abram, Ishmael (“God heeds”).

Just a few verses later God self identifies as El Shaddai. Rashi explains that this is a contraction of she-yesh dai: “that there is enough”. It is at this moment that God renames Abram to Abraham and instructs him in the ways of circumcision. This will mark the covenant in the flesh and shall be done throughout the generations.

God renames Sarai to Sarah. Sarai means “my governor” and Sarah means “governor of all”… clearly a promotion in rank. Abraham falls on his face and laughs, and thus God deems Sarah’s son will be named Issac, Yitzchak, or “laugh”.

Names have great importantance, whether it’s the king Melech Tzedek, Jerusalem, Sarah, Abraham, El-roi or El Shaddai. The entity or person is the same, but the names highlight different pieces of the individual mosaic. We get used to the name-changing from here out in Genesis. Jacob will eventually become Israel, also to show a change in the person.

This parashat gives us some method to our ongoing desire for improvement. Move from where you are. Get out of your rut. Step out of your tent. Change who you are. Change your name. May we all have the courage to step outside of our norms, to have a little faith, and make of ourselves a great people.