Friday, September 2, 2011

I fear not my flaws. I fear not my end of days.

It’s of this strength inside me, that I am most afraid.

I’m in love with my angels. My demons. Their foes.

Could I fall in love with the person they created. I think so.

But it's a different kind of fear. Makes my heart soar. My psalms scream.

It’s not binding me to earth; it's urging me to dream.

I fear not my flaws. I fear not my end of days.

It’s of the strength inside me, that I am most afraid. 

Some have greatness inborn, some will grow with fate.

But it’s of my belief, that we are all great.

Anoop Kumar Must Die

I met Mr. Kumar at the JFK airport. Two short hours later it was clear as day: Anoop Kumar had to die.

When I first met him he was nothing but a gentleman. He asked me how my day was, kindly took my heavy suitcase from me, lifted it into his yellow cab and opened the door for me. Very chivalrous, he was, that Anoop. Very kind. That is, until he wasn’t. And then he wasn’t at all. Especially when he was calling the cops on me…That was the especially mean part.

I don’t want to go on, so I’ll tell you this: Anoop tried to take me for a ride. Literally. And metaphorically. And instead of taking me the regular route from the airport to Ch, he took a longer one resulting in a meter totaling fifty five bucks. And in all my years of taking cabs to and from JFK I’d never paid more than forty. So I’d only brought $40 with me. When he heard that little piece of news is when he called the cops. And when I heard that he was doing that I called the cops to let them know he was holding my suitcase hostage and not letting me leave.

Prior to the name and cop calling, our dialogue went a little something like this:

Anoop: You pay me now!

Me: I’m sorry (sniff) I don’t have any more money.

Anoop: You not leave until you pay me.

Me: (bawling) I can give you forty. That’s all I have. Please let me go.

Anoop: No way.

Me: LET ME OUT NOWWWWWW!

Anoop: I’m calling the cops.

Me: Then I guess I’m calling the cops too. Take that, stupididiotjerk.

To make a long, tearful story short, the cops came. And there we were on President and Albany; Me, Anoop, five NYPD, and half of the President Street residents. Guess what? After all that, making me cry and like a good half hour of keeping me hostage he agreed to taking $40. Like what else was he supposed to do. Well, on the condition that I don’t complain to his boss.

And that, my friends, is how I came to the conclusion that Anoop Kumar had to die.

Rabbi Mushka :)

My article appeared on the Aish website several weeks ago. I’d written it in my journal after my first encounter with the Kotel. I wrote about what prayer means to me. And what it was supposed to mean. A lot of people picked on the line “Is God our BFF?” Either because they were upset that I’d used an abbreviation that they were unfamiliar with or because they were perturbed that I’d insinuated God was nothing more than a girlfriend I take out to ice cream.

Out of all the comments, this one is by far the awesomest one. Mostly because I’ve basically wanted to be a rabbi all my life, and no one would let me. I think I may start having my friends call me Rabbi Mushka.

Are You There God? It's Me, Mushka.

(22) Anonymous, May 6, 2010

Is God our BFF?

Rabbi, with all due respect, you make G_d sound like a "prayer ATM" machine. G_d didn't creat us to just "ask" for things, he created us to fellowship with Him...when we kneel before Him, or stand at a wall, it isn't the "wall" experience we're looking for, it's the relationship that our ancestors had with Him that we strive for. Prayer is about RELATIONSHIP..if He gives us the desires of our hearts (see Psalms 37:3-7) it's because we are now in rigthteous standing with the L_ord. He's a "friend", like He was to Father Abraham. G_d is not some cosmic mystery...He has always desired a personal relationship with us, you as a Rabbi should know this. That woman you described is a person I can relate to (except for all the dramatics-but, we all express ourselves differently)..I have been very moved to tears, when in prayer (fellowship) with G_d, and I feel His presence each and every day..He answers my prayers, and often He does not answer my foolish ones or ones He deems that are not His will at that particular time. Rabbi, "Prayer" in its "purest form" is fellowship with the Most High of Israel, and in return for that fellowship, yes, He can be your "BFF", and His gift for allowing Him into your life, is PEACE, beyond human understanding. :)

chick lit is great literature

I hate reading. It’s not so much that I hate words, per se, as much as I hate reading them. Especially those really small words that they crowd on tiny pages. I mean, I get the whole "saving trees" thing, but come on...I also really don’t appreciate books that have over 100 pages. Like, seriously, Harry Potter…Twilight…dictionaries, you need to stop.

I don’t know what it is; I just don't like doing it. I mean, I try. I go to the library and take out those books, the ones I’m supposed to be reading. Shakespeare. O'Henry. Blah. Blah. Blah. But I take one look at the first page and want to die. So then I do what any sane person would do. I stop. And read Wayside School Is Getting Stranger instead.

Okay, okay, I’m totally exaggerating. I read. All the time. I mean, I read Glamour. Gossip girl. Jodi Picoult novels- totally fun since all end in a death or an illness, which is nice. But at the end of the day, I guess I read a lot more than I give myself credit for. Who says Gossip Girl isn't literature? And that Louis Sacher isn't the greatest literary giant of our time?

So here goes, my muses include and are limited to...Carrie Bradshaw- ingenious, Joel Stein- hilarious, Louis Sachar- dangerously amusing and, uh… the woman who wrote the Sweet Valley High series.

When I was little

I was a quirky kind of kid when I was little. And also, I was, well, I was pathological. In lying, that is. Although I didn’t think of it so much as “lying” as much as I considered it, “making the truth more interesting.”

In my efforts to make the world a more fascinating place, one fib at a time, I told the new kids who had just moved to Buffalo that the Olsen twins lived down the block from me. I don't know why. But I figured it was a good lie to tell.

I also tried to convince my little sister that there was a family living in the waterhole in our backyard. There was. A family of eight. Field mice. But it was a lot more interesting if they were human. So I led her to believe that they were. We’d knock and knock on the waterhole and when no one answered, I’d shrug and say “Oh I guess they’re out of town.” When the underground family never answered their door Ita grew suspicious. I sensed it. And it didn’t sit well with me. “Do you believe me?” I’d demand, hands on my hips. Silence. “Do you?” She shook her head. Now don’t get me wrong, I was a nice girl if you did things my way. But suggesting that I was a liar did not bode well for little Ita. So after a while of subtle manipulation and bullying, I finally got her to say she believed me. Which was all I really needed out of her.

I had an imaginary husband too. His name was Moshe. His last name was Kooboo, on account of I had to think super fast when my big sisters asked me what his last name was. Kooboo was all on could come up with on such short notice. And the sad thing is, I truly thought they believed me. So I continued to tell them about the beautiful wedding ceremony we had on Hunters Lane at 6 am. Hunters Lane was the street right next to ours, on which I had attended a block party just a week prior to my marriage. Yes, we had a block party wedding. It was invisible, chic and fabulous.

Arielle, my classmate brought a brand new Cinderella watch to school one day. A fantastic, blue watch with a picture of Cinderalla on it. I didn’t know why I wanted it so badly or how I would get it but I knew I needed that watch. And I needed it immediately. So I tapped her on the shoulder and asked in my sweetest, most polite voice, if I could perhaps borrow the beautiful thing. Unfortunately for me, she said no. Fortunately for me, I was not about to let a little “no” get in my way of attaining what I wanted. So I tapped her again and said, “Hey, guess what? Did you hear of a little thing called, if you give me the watch now, I’ll give it back to you before dinner?”

“How?” she asked, curious as to how I would get to her house which was across town, before dinner time. So I did what I had to and told her I could drop the watch in a slot in the phone and send it to her via phone technology. Her eyes widened in amazement. Apparently she had never heard of this kind of technology before. She obliged. Happily, I watched her slip off her watch and hand it to me, not before she reminded me to send it back to her through the phone. I promised. Later that night I got a phone call from Arielle, who had looked and looked in that slot for a certain Cinderella watch that had not yet come. Oops! I had not been prepared for her to actually go through with it.

So I went with the mature approach: complete and utter denial.

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...