It Was A Tuesday

No one slept very well that night. It was hard to, given the acrid stench of anxiety hanging in the air while little gnomes came in and out to quietly replace pieces of our hearts with stones.

It was a Tuesday. And I recall thinking about how ordinary it was. I remember considering the fact that what was happening to us happens everywhere, every day and to everyone. I remember telling myself that it’s a vital part of the course of life.

And I remember thinking how none of my coaxing made it any easier to stuff into my heart. Because the thing about death is; it never matters that the time has come. There is no right time to lose someone you love.

But who could stop the angel of death?

We couldn’t. We just stood around him, watching the heart monitor like it was G-d, speaking to him like he could hear. I think we were talking to ourselves. Consoling ourselves. Reminding ourselves of the completion and virtue his life held. We spoke to our own fears, when we spoke about the years gone by. Memories too big to fit in the spaces between words. Those, we kept silent. Left them in our hearts, so we’d have something to keep us warm when he was gone.

I kept my fingers by my pulsing neck much of the time. I think it was my subconscious way of reminding myself of life’s evanescence. To stop taking my beating heart for granted. Because as of 8 something that night, his no longer was. And who was I to throw mine all away?

“He’s gone…,” I whispered, when it finally happened.

“He passed away…

“He isn’t here.”

I thought that maybe if I said it out loud it might register. But it never did.

Each word I muttered ate a little at my heart as I walked up and down the hospital parking lot, my legs like jelly beneath me. And then with my skull lodged in my heart and a profound guilt belted in my passenger seat, I jammed my foot on the accelerator and drove into the night. The knife driving deeper and deeper into my conscience. But the facts still standing like a chicken on the diving board, refusing to sink in.

Seduction

It is the stepping stone to internal victory. Or the path to inner failure. Surrendering to its power is to weaken even the strongest. But to overcome it, that is to break all boundaries. It is expensive. And it is free. Frivolous yet incredibly profound. Of it’s virtue, do we exist, but, if misused, it's the reason we’ll be destroyed. It’s the heart of who we are. And the thing that breaks us from who we should be. It is irresistible and yet resistible.

It is temptation.

Enter, Adam. And Eve. The two most pure of all man kind. The very first people to walk this earth. For G-d sake. But we all know, all it took, was one arrogant talking snake on two legs to bring them to their knees, slaves to its every will. And throughout the ages, the faces of desire has been reinvented, revolutionized and gone under the knife but the demon behind has forever remained the same. The world has continued to idolize, worship and roll out the red carpet for…”Desire.”

Can’t you hear it? Creeping up in the flush on your cheeks. It’s the danger crawling through you, warming your veins, tickling every bone in your body until you’re trembling with desire, utterly consumed in want.

Curtsied to Desire myself, I have to wonder: Where we are in all of this? Who are we, thousands of years and millions of degrees later, to overcome that which the first of human kind could not? To flirt with flying snakes. Be tempted with poisonous apples. To not only not be enticed by it’s glittery lights, but furthermore, to take the potentially sinful apple, keep its innocence in tact and then make it glow?

Who could have possibly deemed us strong enough to conquer that which thousands have failed to before us? What is it that we possess that could allow us to climb the, arguably, steepest mountain of all eternity?

The question remains, are we strong enough to dance with seduction?

The Price For Meaning

“Are we rich, Ta?” I remember asking my father as a little girl. He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye, a great big smile leaking across his lips. “Sure,” he said. My eyes grew wide.

“…in nachas".

My face fell.

If he would tell me that now, my eyes would light up like a million candles on Xmas eve. But it wasn't now; it was then. And then, “nachas” had the appeal equivalent to a mushy banana.

The truth was we weren’t rich. Not in any sense of the word. But mistake me not, I was spoiled. In every sense of that word.

I grew up with a privilege. One most children aren’t lucky enough to have. Born to parents, most children aren’t lucky enough to be born to. There wasn’t a question they couldn’t answer. Not a thing they wouldn’t do. They were the heroes of my community. They changed people’s lives. Did I notice it then? Barely. Sure, I opened the door to hundreds of desperate faces, hungry souls, and when we escorted them out, they left different people.

But did I realize who’d changed them? Never.

I always wondered, though. Wondered about these people. Why they came. What did we have that they didn’t? What possessed these doctors, these lawyers, and business executives to come sit in a tent on our porch in the dead of October?

They’d gather around our table with talk of “meaning” on their lips. And go on about the lengths they’d gone to find it. I’d shiver in my skin and wonder what could possibly be so thrilling about a journey that landed them on our claustrophobic deck in below freezing weather. But they’d continue to speak, as if wind or snow couldn't stop them. They spoke with such excitement. Such enthusiasm. Electricity.

“Meaning,” I’d muse; the amateur cynic. “Is it a person?… A drug?… A place?”

“Meaning”, they told me, was not a person, or a drug. But a place.

“Show me.” I challenged.

But they couldn’t. So they didn’t. All they did was point to the left side of their chests and say, “‘Meaning’ is not a tangible place. Not a place you go to, rather a place you find.”

I laughed.

A mistake, perhaps, since I could already begin to see sparks of, oh I don’t know, envy combined with horror, crawling in their eyes. They were stunned. Astonished by my wild disregard. Here they were, killing themselves, turning over their very lives just to obtain something I already had and was throwing away. Why, they couldn’t at all understand, did I not appreciate the things they fought so hard to find?

Spoiled.

Several few weeks ago I found myself in the Old City of Jerusalem, absolutely awestruck by the holiness, when a bunch of children ran past me. “Can you imagine growing up here?” I marveled, jealous almost. “These kids don’t even realize how lucky they are…”

As soon as those words left my lips, I regretted them.

I am them. The kid who grew up in the Old City. Skinned her knees on cobblestones and never noticed the magnitude of it. The girl who was born on a mountain, oblivious to the climb one must endure to get there. So, here, now, I'd been given a chance to see a glimpse through the eyes I watched for so many years. The eyes I saw get wider and wider and with time more astonished and bewildered. The questions that filled those eyes, without them even uttering a word. How can you not appreciate blatant holiness? How can you not see G-d when He’s staring you in the face? This time I saw it, if only for a moment. This time I got to discover what I once considered trite and feigned. But this time it was different. Because this time it was “meaning”. Just like it was for them.

I realize now, it wasn’t that I resented “truth” or “meaning“ or whatever it was that made these people so crazy; it was that I never got the opportunity to know it. To appreciate it by my own will. It wasn’t that I mocked their journey; it was that I envied it. All I ever really wanted was the chance to make my way of life something I chose rather than going along for the ride of something that had chosen me.

And all through my quest I found something: You won’t meet “truth” at a social, you can’t buy it off a thug on the street and no matter which train you take you’ll never just arrive at destination “meaning”. And truth be told, Truth could be raining all around you, in your bedroom, in your coffee, in your hair, but if you don’t reach out, pick it up and internalize it, it means little, if anything at all.

You have to search for it. Under your bed, in your heart and in your soul. You have to want to find it. No matter the cost. You have to earn it. And then earn it again. And again.

My Psalms Scream

I fear not my flaws. I fear not my end of days.
It’s of my incredible strength, that I am most afraid.

I’m in love with my angels. With my evils and foes.
Could I fall head over heels with the person they created. I think so.

But it’s also something else. My heart soars. My Psalms scream.
It’s not the things that bind me to this earth; it’s my ability to dream.

I fear not my flaws. I fear not my end of days.
It’s of my incredible strength, that I am most afraid.

Some have greatness inborn, for some it’s fate.
But it’s of my belief, that we are all great.

If Today Was Your Last Day

“Live each day like it would be your last.” Nickelback had it right. They all did. And if someone would’ve told me today was my last, I might have done things a tad differently.

First off, I’d probably have gone to Mrs. K’s class, I’d probably have finished the ice cream in my freezer, made my bed, and told my family and friends I loved them.

If someone told me, today was my last day, I’d do it all. I’d go skydiving. Write my last poem. And dance in the street. I’d try on every dress in my closet. Wear the most outrageous, over-the-top hat. And paint a rainbow on my face.

I’d say I was sorry for all the things I’ve done and forgive all the people who wronged me. I’d trip an Arab. And ninja kick Obama. I’d eat a five star dinner and order everything on the menu. I’d drive a motorcycle, ride a rollercoaster and swim with Dolphins. I’d do everything I’ve always wanted to do and all the things I was too scared to want…And I’d probably whisper a prayer or two.

I guess that’s the difference between what I think I would do and what I should do.

Would I like to skydive? Sure. But when it comes down to it, when I truly think about the last breaths I want to take, am I jumping from a plane, in 27 dresses and a big furry hat? Will it really matter what my last poem was about, or that I got to confront my emotional fears? Are there fashion police in Heaven? Will I be met by poetry critics and psychologists? Will anyone care that I dared to drive a motorcycle or that I could dance in public? Will I remember the thrill of riding The Superman? Will the taste of chocolate soufflé linger on my tongue? Will any of it matter in the world to come?

What does it really mean to live like you’re dying?

It means, differentiating between the temporary and the eternal. The fleeting and the everlasting. It means, holding on to the things that matter and letting go of the things that don’t have enough substance to carry on into the next world. To really live life like it’s your last day, means giving up the transience of the material world, to revel in the G-dliness found only in the physical world we call, “home”.

Crazy To Believe

They say it’s over. They've turned out the lights and drunk themselves to bed.
They say she’s crazy to believe. That she should anticipate the end instead.

She doesn’t. It’s wild. In her heart. She still believes.
She still holds the lifeless hand of her friend who’s still asleep.

They say the lives that were taken, were just a casualty of war.
They turn tears to dust, turning their faces from the horror.

He lives in a war zone, his bravery is written in the creases on his face.
His windows bare witness, to the demons he’s chased away.

They say redemption is absurd, they claim we’ve been forsaken.
They call themselves indifferent, when deep inside they’re aching.

They are aching. Aren’t they. Don’t they ache for something real.
Don’t their words feel cold, even for people who don't feel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTM3lRbdZUk

Screw You Hippies

You know how people warn you before you go places? Like especially before Israel.

“Don’t go to Crack Square.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Don’t hitch with Arabs.”

“I’ll kill you if you become a hippie.”

The tone kind of shifts at the last one.

The thing about floaty-ness is that no one buys it. No one believes you actually feel God the way you think you do. No one thinks that even if u do, a shower-strike is the thing to take you higher. No one likes people who trip on God.


Why?

Because we don’t believe you. It’s nothing personal. It’s just that we think you’re a liar. Because liars lie.

If you claim you feel G-d, don’t, because we don’t believe you, we can’t imagine what its like, so we don’t think it’s true. And if it is, we envy you. That’s why we don’t like you.

Also. Take a shower.

A Little Thing Called Divine Providence

It's nearly two years since Elana's accident...and she's still in a coma. Not a day goes by that her name doesn't go through my mind, or rush down my spine. I miss you, Elana.

http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/38625

If G-d Had Eyes

In memory of the heroes who stared G-d straight in the eye.

If G-d had eyes.

What would He see.

Would He see goodness in blood.

Or darkness like me.

If G-d had lips.

Would He cry with His sons.

If His daughters could see Him.

Would He let His tears come.

If G-d had a head.

Would He hang it in shame.

Would He regret what He’s done.

Or would He call it a game.

If G-d had ears.

I’d give voice to my angst.

Even my silence would scream.

And the Heavens would shake.

If G-d had a face.

I’d do nothing but glare.

If truth spilled from evil.

I’d believe He was there.

If G-d has a heart.

Let it be aching.

If thousands have shook.

Trust His is breaking.

My Israel Escapades ;)))))

http://thisiswhyiloveisrael.blogspot.com/

Gods of Self-Deception

Maybe you’re invisible. Maybe your vanishing act was caste.
Maybe you’re a ghost in your own home, a stranger moving by too fast.

Maybe every torch you’ve lit extinguished. And maybe no one’s ever cared.
Maybe you’ve disappeared in the eyes of the world. Maybe you were never even there.

No. Each breath you take is given. Each move you make is watched.
The slightest contraction of the chest is whispered, granted to beat and permitted to throb.

So maybe you’ve got holes. Vibrant flaws that scream and sear.
Maybe the condescending whistles really are, the only things you hear.

Maybe you’ve been begging. But no one’s let you in.
Maybe you’ve been playing this game forever. But He’s never let you win.

Still every fall is measured. Every scar you’ve razorred, mapped.
Every hurt has been determined. Every tear that's fallen, kept.

Every smile is carved and painted. Each cry you sound, composed. Every
lump in your throat, created. And the gun in your hand exposed.

So maybe you really are just as small as you imagine. Become a servant to perfection.
Maybe you’re really nothing but you’re image. Fallen to the gods of self-deception.

No. Every tear you’ve shed’s been counted. Every word you uttered, framed. Every thought you’ve thought is written. For, every moment G-d repeats your name.

To Kill a Scorpion

To kill a scorpion,
Might thaw the venom in your veins.
And maybe revive the desire to play,
With the God we caste away.

First revel in the chase.
Then the comedown from the high.
Lace your fingers in the clouds.
And peel down the sky.

The culmination of the world,
Is jumping off the edge.
You’re never high enough,
If you’re still clutching on the ledge.

So first revel in the chase.
Then the comedown from the high.
Lace your fingers in the clouds.
And peel down the sky.

***

Cheshvan’s astronomical sign is Scorpio. Scorpions are cold-blooded, and symbolize indifference. Apathy. The challenge of Cheshvan is to revive our desire to serve G-d. To soar the G-dly skies.

The very purpose for soaring is, contrast to popular belief, the comedown afterwards. To drag the G-dliness from your trip down with you as you fall back down.

If you’ve been soaring and are still looking for a spiritual high, you are not high enough; you need to fly some more.

The sign that you’ve achieved G-d is that you’re ready to fall again.

***

If you don't truly understand the above...I hardly do either.

Fearing Fear

This is going to confuse you. I'm roughly certain that it will since, it confuses me. Fear confuses me in general. I hate fear. I fear fear. Throughout my life I’ve found fear to be the most powerful, motivating emotion to ever kiss me.

At one time, I feared the worst, because the worst kept proving its existence. Now, oddly, I fear that it will never go back to the way it was.

The way it was, wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She wasn’t supposed to get hit by a car or fall into two year long coma. I wasn’t supposed to tweak things in my life that didn’t want tweaking or become the teenage equivalent of Manis Freedman (forgive me if I am totally flattering myself).

But she did. And I did.

Now its been two years. And its gone. The inspiration. The horrible metaphors. The ridiculously clichéd manner in which my thoughts involuntarily formed into the words I swore to God I’d never say.

And now I am actually jealous of myself. Jealous of the way I once let myself think. Of the things I once let myself do. I now covet the days when I actually believed hard enough to let sound like that. And the times that I didn’t care how trite or preachy I came off.

I once feared the days that fear found me. Now I fear, I’ll never find those days again.

This is what I wrote almost two years back.



Ps. Israel is awesome. I just can't sleep. Therefore I started thinking about weird things like fear.

Are You There Internet...It's Me, Mushka

An article i wrote for a teen mag a while back.

I can’t help but laugh when I reminisce of the days when internet was a sacred luxury. When those fifteen minutes on CompuServe were simply the greatest fifteen moments of my life. Correction- greatest ten and a half moments. Since I had to deduct the four and a half minutes it took for the computer to suffer a seizure, while emitting nightmarish sounds I could only assume to be aliens invading cyberspace.

It’s safe to say we’ve evolved a great deal since then. Our computers have been cured of the convulsions, we’re getting our full fifteen minutes of Tetris and we’re Skyping with people across the country. We can fold the entire world wide freaking web into the back pocket of our jeans. For God's sake.

But we’re not impressed. We’re not wowed or enchanted. This is life as we know it. We can’t imagine the world any other way. No, we won't imagine the world any other way. We’ve been shocked into a syndrome where if it’s not nano, it’s colossal, and if it’s not high speed, it’s painstakingly slow. Email is the new letter, text is the new phone call and writing on the wall is the new Hallmark card.

We’re all so wrapped up in cyberspace that we’ve actually built ourselves a home inside it. I live at 212 Exeter Rd but you’ll reach me far sooner if you go to my address in Cyberspace; My Name @ Facebook.com. Leave me a message in my inbox, send me a virtual holiday card, graffiti my wall. You’re invited to my home any old time you’d like sans the polite knock. Flip through my photo albums for your entertainment and should you still feel bored, my journal is available for midday reading. It’s labeled “Notes” if you’d like to leave your comments on the intimate details of my life.

Pull down the Info. tab and you’ll learn that my hobbies are shopping, dancing, and riding rollercoasters. I have green eyes and black hair.

That’s me.

But the more I think about it, the more I have to wonder, is that really me? Is that all? One picture frozen in time, that stares at my 312 friends and begs them to confirm my existence? Are we all so truly single faceted that we can condense all eighteen or so years of our lives into two paragraphs titled, “About Me”?

Has life really become a competition to see who has more Facebook friends or whose life out-parties the rest? Have we all become Snow White’s evil stepmother, peering into our computer screen demanding, “Is my profile the fairest of them all?” Has it come to the point where we actually need the confirmation of our peers to tell us we’re good enough?

Living in an alternate universe where our birthday gifts can be copied and pasted, an irritating friend can be deleted with just a swift click of the mouse, and our knowledge of current events comes from a place called “News Feed”, begs the question:

Are we, in the innocent name of socializing, ultimately losing touch with what really makes us click?

It’s almost as if we’ve built the past few years of our lives on something that we can fit into our purse. We’ve stored away feelings in folders, friends in web pages, and memories in boxes. We’ve forgotten that our identities are not marked by the way others see us but by the way we see ourselves. We’ve forgotten that the person who looks back at us from the bright LCD monitor is not the real us but a pretense that parades around with our face. And we’ve forgotten that Cyberspace is a galaxy far from Reality.

Oh sure we’ve been warned about sites like Facebook. Of the stalkers and predators and gross old creeps. Yes, the dangers of Facebook have been relayed to tops of heads and eyes rolled so far backward, they’re counting the cells in their brains. These alarms have been playing in our heads for so long that we’ve never contemplated the possibility of a more profound variety of danger. A type of danger that threatens that part of us that no Norton or firewall can protect. And if we’d take the time to consider the parts of ourselves we’ve sacrificed in the name of “socializing”, we’d come to appreciate the real danger in association with cyberspace’s parallel universe; the predators that steal our souls without us so much as noticing.

So notice this: When stalking your colleagues, chatting with friends, and posting your Israel pics, bear in mind: Comments are just comments. Pictures don’t have mouths. And you don’t get to keep the virtual gifts you get for your birthday. Facebook is not real life. And really any place where you can throw a sheep at someone ought not to be taken too seriously.

Log out, click back to reality.

***

Taste of Forbidden

***

They said, rebellion’s in our blood. The lure for forbidden pumping through our veins.
Its breath so close, you can hear it breathe. Only a whisper away.

I swore I could unlock my soul at anytime. I swore it didn’t matter.
I swore selling myself wasn’t a crime. I believed I was too strong to shatter.

They taught me the art of hurting, the people I loved most.
I learned to silence the guilt with a smile and a toast.

But the taste was ever recurrent. I could always taste it on my tongue.
I could taste the difference between good and bad. The flavor between right and wrong.

Every year I’d promise. And every year I’d break.
Every year I’d bow to sin and then call those sins mistakes.

Now I have to wonder. As I pray. And the shadows run by fast.
If I put a finger to my lips, could I fool the demons of the past.

And still waters run so deep; could I ever really forget.
Could I erase the memories, one by one, numb them with regret

When it’s all over, I won’t ask, will my sins be lost and snuffed.
When the dust settles. The question will be: will forgiveness be enough.

.

Sundaes & Rock

I like ice cream sundaes
And nighttime in the park
I like cherry slurpees
And rooftops after dark

I love speeding on side streets
And cranking up the bass
I like Britney Spears
And bands like 3 Days Grace

I'm the type of girl
Who wears boots even when it's hot
All those things you think I am
Are all the things I'm not

My favorite song
Is The Little Bird Is Calling
Secretly I'm in love
With the initial sense of falling

I love karaoke
Even though I can't sing
I love running in circles
Redbull gives me wings

I love being a kid
I dream of Never-Never
If I could, I totally would
I'd be seventeen forever

Sin & Prejudice

We look at people, at their smile, the crease of their forehead, the look in their eyes, and decide we know them. We arrange strangers by class, hanging labels over the people we meet just moments after meeting them. We converse with them momentarily, watching their lips move, measuring up their fashion sense and sizing up their intelligence all in the same time that we sort them into categories and damn them there forever. Or at least until they prove us wrong. We separate people into leagues, by size, ego and beauty.

And then we wonder why people do it to us.

The greatest injustice, by far, is the unfairness of being charged with a crime you didn’t commit. The prejudiced scorns cut the deepest. Searing like a knife to a chest that bears a heart that was misunderstood.

In simple, it sucks, a whole lot, to be misunderstood. Taken for a person you never were and never plan to be. It sucks when people have drawn boundaries for you, whispering out loud the things you’d do and the things they suppose you’ve done, who you are and who you ought to be. Determining, by the bat of an eye lash, or the raise of a brow, what you’re like, and what you certainly aren’t.

It’s so easy, but so foolish to guess who people are based on the superficial facades they cast.

We are too complicated to be read only by our faces. Far too intricate to be sorted by the first thing that escapes our lips. Nervous giggles don’t tell you what makes a person laugh and tearless eyes can’t say what makes them cry. Pictures aren’t worth a thousand words and words aren’t worth a thing. The only way to know a person is to get to know them. To touch them. To speak to their heart, like it isn’t the most cliché thing to say or do. To look into their eyes, and not see a shape or a color, just a person who is greater than their outer walls project.

Sam I Am

Names are kind of crazy things. The unfortunate thing about a name is that you don’t get to chose yours and are left at the mercy of two people as clueless as your parents. You are at an advantage when your parents pick one of those plain names, like Sarah or Rachel, a small one, but a certain advantage none the less. Because then there are parents who will name you just about anything, as long as it has a special meaning. Like Devash- honey. Okay, its okay to call your child honey, but its definitely not alright to call them Honey. You know what else is not alright- naming your kids after a food you like. For instance Cookie, or Muffin, or Corn Dog. Those names make me sad.

It’s safe to assume that children with names such as Sun, Moon and Imagination, if not the offspring of a famous and hot celebrity, will be smushed against lockers at school. And honestly even if you are Madonna, you're still kind of running a serious jeopardy by naming your kid Imagination. Like what if he’s just dull?

And then there’s my name. Mushka. Not the cutest of names, but then again I didn’t choose to be named after a Russian race horse. And past fifth grade its kind of lame to detest your name. Especially when half of the Crown Heights community shares it. Plus I love how people repeat my name tentatively, scared they’re going to say it wrong, like if they do, something bad will happen. It’s also horribly fun to have to spell out your name and say it real slow every time you want to put something on hold at Barneys. But I like it. It’s different-if you’re out of the tri-state area and black people can’t get enough of it.

Anyway, my point is lots of people’s names suck but still, it’s pretty cruel and fruitless to tease someone about their name because we all know they had no say in this decision and given input, surely, they’d have chosen differently.

I only have an issue with a few names. One I have a particularly hard time with is… Sam. As in the balding old man from the epic game of Guess Who? Or the lovable Dr. Suess creature who refused to eat green eggs and ham. At one time, those were the only Sams I’d ever heard of. Those were simpler days. Now when I call out Sam (note, the “a” is to be stressed and dragged when pronounced) on Kingston, a pack of too-cool-for-school, metro Crown Heights bochurs stop to think for a moment (because of course they were hardly named Sam but Shmuel) and then look up.

If you’re up for it, try walking over to a bunch of skinny jeans and asking for their name. Even if you’re really only talking to the one on the left, they’ll all chorus, “Sam” and just shrug like it’s the most natural thing ever. Even though you know they stood in front of the mirror that morning practicing their new name until it had the effect of someone who that name actually belonged to. If you really look out for it though, the fear of getting caught in the act is unmistakable. Like a 15 year old who stole someone’s ID to get into a bar. Apparently for them, it’s a risk worth taking. The only thing I have yet to discern is, why do they want their names to be Sam in the first place?

See my problem with the name Sam is not that it’s gross. It’s that its self elected and intended to sound sexy. It is anything but sexy. I will give you $100 if you show me one hot guy named Sam- besides Sam Ronson.

Another self-selected name: Sean. It always starts off as their “work name” -because apparently Shalom is just too hard to pronounce-- and they subtly work their way to having their friends call them that. And finally when they’re brave enough, they come straight out of the closet and introduce themselves as “…Sean”. You look at them kind of serious and go “Who named you Sean?…Is your Dad Kevin Federline?” They shift kind of awkward in their place and mumble something like, “I like it…” and shuffle away.

I don’t mean to appear acerbic or judgmental and really this is all just a little fun, but mostly my point is if you’re smart, stick to the name your Mama gave ya, because choosing your own name is just too enormous a responsibility, and really it’s the one thing your parents get the blame for. Stick with it.

Peace, Love & Weed

“No harm, just harmony,” was a little line I had deftly come up with as I was reversing out of my parking spot at the Harmony Festival. I must have swallowed too much illegally polluted air because the car kind of jerked out, nearly killing a few hippies in the interim. But no harm done; they just sort of shook out their dreads and shot me a sideways smile, thanks to a few things called peace, love and weed.

The Harmony Festival is essentially the kinus hashluchim for stoners, complete with perpetual music, RV’s and tents. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that many hippies flying in one space, lending so much inhibition to the wind, and it kind of made me want to hug a tree.

I can’t openly endorse the act of smoking, although Nancy Botwin does so impeccably, but I have to admit, those hemp clad free birds taught me some stuff about life.

Bob Marley, the ultimate chossid, advocated one of the most fundamental concepts in chassidus. He named it ‘don’t worry, be happy…’ Which isn’t the simplest of task if you’re earthbound but definitely something worth pursuing.

Upon entering an alternate universe teeming with peace and love, for a day kind, I was reminded, if its real, happiness really is the finest drug.

So now I’m high. I’m high off the energy I reaped from people who took the short long road to tranquility. I’m high off all the jumping and dancing I did, with my hands up high, bass in my chest and my heart in the sky. I’m high off the idea that if I let myself I can break free of the right inhibitions, I can fly without leaving the ground. I’m high off the things I learned from life without having to open a single book.

High.

High as a kite.

Me, Hoovs, Smoosh, Noams and Sheins @ The Harmony Festival in San Fran.
June 2009

Candy Hearts

I'm not very good at beginnings. I'm kind of indecisive. Title of my blog is dangerously random. In fact, the whole idea of blogs are kinda awkward. Yet here I am, at 5:08 am- although its not so much 5:08 am as it is 2:08 am- (see I'm in Cali but I'm still on NY time- I have been for the past 2 months, and I will continue to be until I am back on the east coast) my fingers raining on the keyboard, like I know how to type. I don't. I guess I'm not really the blogger type. At least I'd like to think I'm not. Blogs are kind of brainy, or hipster, or starving artist with a Mac at Starbucks. I'm not really any of those things. Not ridiculously artsy and I haven't a crazy GPA. Or actually any GPA at all. I haven't had a decent English class since the emotionally sadistic Mrs. Efron in the sixth grade and I'm really more of a PC kind of gal. Besides, cyber desperation was never really my thing because the thing is, I like to keep my secrets, well....secret.

Still the blogging thing was bound to happen sooner or later.

This was just one more obsession I vowed never to fall for, along with the slimy MySpace, generic Facebook and for some reason....Snapfish, but later gave into. I can sometimes see Twitter, with a dumb look in its eyes, teasing me from afar. I can't only hope I'm strong enough to contain the temptation that must be building just inside my wings.

So why'd I fall for the cyberglitter surrounding societies' ridiculous time-drinkers in the first place?

Good question.

Well it all started with AIM. 10 years old. miks6. I think I had a grand total of 2 buddies for about three years before I climbed the social rungs in cyberspace. But I'd still sign on in hopes that some random uberhottie would somehow stumble upon my geniusly adorable SN and take me to cyber bliss. Oh, SN. That was just the start of the awesome abbrv. which soon evolved to OMG, wth and brb. I didn't know of any others, but as far as I was concerned I'd snagged the classics. I absolutely loathed only LOL, and LMAO, because they were clearly the cyber version of a nervous giggle. I've since succumbed to LOL, but I'm cool with that only because sometimes I really do laugh at loud and who can write 'laugh out loud' every time they want to express laughter, or the thought of laughter. No one, which is why I've okay'd it. I've yet to have laughed so hard that I started shedding important limbs, but I'm open to anything so I haven't yet damned LMAO to cyber hell. ROtFL, on the other hand, is unacceptable. I'm not even quite sure I know what that means. It sounds dirty.

Anyway the buddies came in seventh grade, (btw, do you know anyone who refers to their friends as 'buddies'? Because if you do, I suggest you de-friend them immediately) when I went to overnight camp and befriended some computer savvy campers. Jewish Heritage Day School didn't seem to brand people with internet skills. But Camp Emunah, now that was a whole other ball game. I was sure I'd arrived at internet paradise, when I found those little girls with SNs to tote. And at one time I thought it was my final cyber-destination.

But no. At 15 I discovered MySpace. And it was then that I took the oath to never ever have one. Super lame. It didn't impress me. I didn't think the 13 yr olds who, in their words, liked to,
"...bikeride, take trips to the beach and post naked pics..." were very cute at all. But soon, I found myself logging on to see certain people's pages and after a while of the site subtly recommending that I register onto MySpace to continue the rest of my stalking, I had to submit to a power much greater than I. Plus, all my friends had it and I kind of wanted to talk to them but didn't necessarily want to see them. And since AIM was getting kind of so eight grade this was my only option. Plus I sort of liked the idea of having the liberty to embed any crap on my page and force other people to listen to Hey Mickey You're So Fine, every time they clicked on my profile. Also I'd finally discovered a hairstraightener and a way to pout in pics so that my braces didn't show. I thought the rest of the online community should profit from this metamorphosis. And they did. Until halfway through 10th grade when Facebook winked my way. I controlled myself for a while, mocking the replacement of something that was perfect in my eyes. Granted, MySpace was a little cheesy, the slut of websites, and a tad dizzing, nonetheless, it seemed to me a harmless (unless you count the minor abductions and murders) diversion and a fantastic way to market ones fabulous self.

But soon I fell servant to Facebook. It was the poking that reeled me in, I believe. And the fact that my big sister told me it was for college students. Ubersophisticated. The transformation was kind of rough. Transferring all my albums. Deciding which photos were too juvi for Facebook. Learning to navigate through pages that seemed uninspiring and naked in the shadow of the pimped out pages at MySpace. But time told. People started writing on my wall. My friends were piling and I'd come to appreciate the fact that people actually had to write their full name instead of some idiot nickname or something. This seemed to help curb some of the stalkers. It's also tremendously fulfilling to live life vicariously through the exciting lives of the people who post on FB. But after a while, we all had to admit that there's something kind of dull about Facebook.

Which brings me to this blog...Writing is to me what crack is to you. Makes me feel like I'm flying. I'm not a hipster off Haight but I love the idea of immortalizing myself, kind of Elvis, whatever that means. (Btw, is he really still alive? Plus why doesn't anyone argue about that) I am getting way off track. I was talking about Candy Hearts. Isn't that what we all have? Hearts that fall too fast, break too hard, shattering in a fine powdered sugar?

Don't we take our hearts waay too seriously? Seriously, if our hearts really broke every time we recorded it in our poetry we'd pretty much be dead, wouldn't we? How many times can you put a fragile Humpty Dumpty organ back together? Honestly.

But obviously we love being melodramatic. It's super fun. It does get old every once in a while, though, so maybe we should just keep in mind; it's just a candy heart...