A Year in the Life

As I reach the first anniversary of my moving to New Jersey, I feel compelled to look back and examine what has happened in my life during the past year. It’s a Jewish thing. However, this being a blog and not a Hebrew school class, I’ve decided to focus my reflective post on some of the high(low)lights of my recent dating past. All dates have received nicknames to protect their innocence, though sometimes I don’t know why.

August 2006: Three dates in one week, and I whittle the field down to Jersey Guy. Nice enough, balding a bit, but he owns a condo and seems to dig me. Things progress along over the next few weeks, I meet his friends, we hit the shore, celebrate his birthday. Then, he drives me to the train station. As a “When Harry Met Sally” devotee, I should have known better. But, I am dumb and so I’m not terribly surprised by an awkward email breakup message in my inbox that Tuesday.

October 2006: Best date EVER with Graphic Designer Guy who lives in Brooklyn, digs Ethiopian food, is well read, has a great relationship with his parents, is employed and artistic. After another, more lukewarm date 5 weeks later, I never hear from him again.

December 2006: My date with Homophobe Guy is over before it even starts. We have plans for Friday and Thursday night we are chatting on IM. I excuse myself to go watch TV, telling him, “I’m going to go watch the gayest show on television.” This is a direct quote from me. He never asks what show and I don’t volunteer the information. The next day (i.e. the day we are scheduled to go out) he sends me an email saying he doesn’t want to meet because he “doesn’t like how I used the word gay.” Little does he know the show in question was “Queer as Folk.”

January 2007: A new year, a new resolve to “get out there.” My initiative is cruelly rewarded with a date that has ever since been referred to as The Rabbit Guy. No, not the rabbit made famous by Sex and the City. These were actual rabbits. Two of them. And they roamed freely in the basement of this guy’s grandmother’s house. Oh, and he slept on the hide-a-bed similarly located below ground. That afternoon, I suffered through lunch at a steakhouse (I don’t eat non-kosher meat) and awkward drink at a coffee shop. He calls the next week to ask me out, and luckily I get his voice mail when I tell him I never want to see him again.

March 2007: Tattooed and Jew’d Guy is sensitive (his tattoo says “strength” in Hebrew) and according to a co-worker he’s a really nice guy. Though we meet on JDate and he now lives in Central Jersey, he’s from the area so I figure the reference speaks well for him. Two awesome dates, including one where he brings his dog over to my place, and I never hear from him again. Detecting a pattern?

The next few months play host to a cast of characters that rivals the best chick flick montage. There’s Beige Guy, Indian Guy, Doorman Guy, McJewy, and my personal favorite Overly Flirtatious Orthodox Brotha Man Guy.

As I head into Summer 2007, a few prospects are lingering on the horizon. In a rare feat of optimism, I’m going to refrain from mentioning them here… for now. Maybe one of these guys will want to stick around and I will actually want him to. Or maybe he’ll have some bizarre aversion to the color yellow. You never know.

Going green

I'm a little late for Earth Day, but I saw this article today and it put me in an environmentally conscious mood... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19415446/.
Apparently, those good ol' liberals in San Francisco have decided to ban bottled water (even in water coolers) from all municipal buildings because of the amount of waste created when people throw away water bottles AND because of the gallons of oil it takes to truck in the bottles.
With everyone in the US lately waking up the environmental disaster we've engendered in the last several decades, I figured I would offer my own little ecoconscious tip sheet. Nothing too "off the grid," or radical, I hope. Please feel free to add your own suggestions.

1. Recycle. Yeah, we've been hearing it since grade school, but here are some easy ways to do it. Use a mug for your morning joe at work instead of a styrofoam cup. Reuse your plastic bags at the grocery store. Hell, Whole Foods will give you cash back for bringing in your own bags.

2. Reduce that carbon footprint. Netflix saves you from driving to the store. Put your car in park when you're waiting (say in an another stupid jughandle). OK, carpooling can be a pain in the ass. At the same time, so is 100 degrees in April. If you can't manage to plan with a friend, then live closer to work, use public transit or WALK.

3. Drive with the windows down instead of using the AC. It does save on gas, as does keeping your tire pressure in check. Mythbusters has proven this one, thought I don't recommend it for my Arizona friends.

4. Damnit if those funny-looking lightbulbs don't work! They are actually worth the investment because they last forever and I swear my electric bill has gone down.

Health Update

Thank you everyone for all your kind thoughts and prayers these last few days. My grandmother is still in the hospital but she is recovering well from her surgery. Hopefully in the next few weeks she will achieve a full recovery.

Say a little prayer

Over the next few days, please keep my grandmother (Liba bat Rivka/Susan Schaffer) in your thoughts and prayers. She is having back surgery on Thursday to hopefully correct a sciatica problem that is causing her significant pain.
While I don't plan to make this blog so personal in the long term, I am extremely close with my grandmother and figure she can use all the positive energy she can get. Thank you!

Let's Talk about Sex

Get out your law books, go to "miscarriage of justice," and you're likely to find this story.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19228185/
To summarize the story - a 15-year-old girl gives a 17-year-old boy a consensual blow job at a party that is caught on videotape. Both teens are black and the act occurs in Georgia, not exactly a state known for its progressive policies on sex or anything else. In hyperinflated response to a new law on aggravated child molestation, the 17-year-old honor student and athlete is given a mandatory 10-year sentence. To date, he has served two years and Georgia passed a new "Romeo and Juliet" law that would exonerate the young man but the Attorney General in Georgia has appealed his release.
You can get caught up on where the story is at by clicking on the link above, but here's some musings on the whole balagan. ...
What if they hadn't videotaped it?... What if they were white?... What if he was black but the girl was white?... Why, if the state has admitted there are problems with the conviction to the extent of enacting a law that would free the young man, have they not released him?... Where is our nation headed in terms of sexual politics, sexual expression, sexual aggression?... Are we too oversexed or are we still Puritans who merely allow sex into certain regulated areas?... Why do we market shockingly sexual lyrics and lingerie to teens (see Victoria's Secret Pink line if you don't believe me) and then act so surprised when they choose to have sex?!... What might come next?

My cousin rocks!

I think this is as close as any family member of mine will make it to being on Page 6.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/12/AR2007061201723_2.html?referrer=emailarticle
If you go to the second page and scroll all the way down to the last item, you can read about my Cousin Phillip and his wife Solveig who are currently working in Iraq. Those who've known me for a while might remember these relatives from their bout in Budapest where their accomodations were quite nicer and there was no irrational, unjustified war going on.
I'm not going to launch into some anti-war rhetoric, since if you're reading this blog, you probably hate the war too. All I ask is that you keep my family and all the other soldiers, government personnel, clergy members, volunteers, journalists, contractors and peaceful citizens of Iraq in your thoughts and prayers.

Welcome to my blog!

I'm a Southwestern girl trying to make it on the East Coast. A white girl testing the boundaries of race and identity. A wannabe iconoclast working within the establishment. A Jewish woman negotiating between modernity and tradition. And meanwhile looking for "someone to love," in the immortal words of Freddie Mercury.

Hopefully you and three other readers I have will identify with something I've written and my rantings and life events will touch a nerve somewhere in the blogosphere. Enjoy!