Tag Archives: Friendships

To have a voice in this chaotic world

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I often wonder why I wanted to start a blog. Probably because in this loud, crowded world I wanted to carve out a space for my voice. Today was a weird day for me. We are a gay family — two women with a young boy.  Our synagogue sent a general email burst to tell us that a religious hate group — the same group that celebrates every death in Iraq and picketed at Matthew Shepard’s funeral — were coming to protest at our synagogue this morning. Now, let’s think about that. We are a family and members of a synagogue, and today we were having a birthday party for our son. Imagine, the Cleavers (only not so much) with the Beav — we work, we pay our taxes, we are good neighbors, we have the grandparents and aunts and uncles to dinner every Sunday night, we do and give charity, we try to balance career with family, our son’s education and health comes first and his job in life, among others, is to do more for the next generation than we did for him. Why again is anyone protesting my life? My loving family somehow undermines the lives and futures of a poverty-level family without health care and without job training? If I were Republican I could see how my political, social and economic views would undermine that family. But I am a Democrat, willing to pay extra in taxes for universal health care, for prenatal care, for job retraining. And I assure you that amount I pay in taxes every year would shock that family. So, I am a tax-paying (and willing to pay more), synagogue going, hard-working, family woman who loves her partner and her son more than anything in the world. Oh, I am a lesbian. Ahhhhh, THAT’s it. Whaaaaaat?

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A Family Pilgrimage

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So, we needed to go to Uncle B’s unveiling one recent Sunday. The previous Thursday, I received a call from cousin B. who wanted a ride because he and his wife want to see Uncle B. I wasn’t sure whether he remembered that Uncle B wasn’t going to be there.

So, on Sunday during the first hour of the trip, my sister and I tried to ascertain whether cousin B was going to freak out that no one told him Uncle B was dead, whether he actually knew but was using shorthand or whether he would start forgetting why he was there. Imagine, my sister’s and my asking questions in that way that people in the Saturday Night Live “Pat” skits tried to ascertain Pat’s gender. (He remembered.) But I digress.

My sister and I spent the day before bracing ourselves for my dad and Cousin B in the same car. Why, you ask? Because Cousin B talks about the intricacies of his bodily functions in such exquisite detail that it is a little disturbing and my father spontaneously breaks into “When Johnny comes marching home again”. No joke. No idea why.

My sister and I devised a counting system: my sister would get a point every time cousin B referred to prune juice as an elixir which he discovered, or how he is sledding downhill on a fast sled on an iced-over mountain. I would get a point every time Dad spontaneously broke into When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again, or The Chicken in the Army. What we need to include next time is cousin B’s constant complaining — I ruined his good knee because there was not enough leg room — and Dad’s need to read every sign on the highway and, for fun, putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble. Total travel time, 3.5 hours each way plus a few hours at Uncle B’s son’s house for the obligatory food orgy.

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The soon-to-be-in-law

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So, I met my over-40 sister’s boyfriend.

Ok, the Jewish view: blond goy with no advanced degree and he draws pictures of pigeons (“birds”, whatever). Excuse me while I put my head in the oven.

Now, the normal view: He is lovely. He held his own in a rough crowd: (i) me, (ii) my partner, (iii) our child, (iv) my partner’s curmudgeon father, (v) our weekend sitter, and (vi) her girlfriend. AND, he knew that I thought he could be a serial killer. He draws beautifully and is really smart. A little too much information in his stories, but when the family is in full swing, no one will let him talk. He is wonderful to my sister and they complement each other in a wonderful way. Clinically speaking, he is not looking for fertile ovaries and since we don’t have to worry about the religion of the progeny, Jewish or non-Jewish is like tomAYto, tomAHto.

So, forgive me, Grandma, but he’s a keeper

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Happy Birthday to me

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I am 45. Wow. My inner child however shines brightly through my outward middle age appearance. I ran (almost) five miles on Friday just to prove I still “had it in me” and then I realized that I am the only one who cares about this nonsense birthday ritual and the only thing I prove is that it takes longer and longer for my body to recover. So I learned another thing: the preservation of one’s inner child does not mean that perfectly good analytical brain cells don’t die unused. Had I those dead cells, I might have thought better of my ritual as well as these ramblings. Well no use crying over gray matter. If I don’t have analytical skills at least I have my memory. If I don’t have analytical skills at least I have my memory. If I don’t have analytical skills at least I have my memory. But I digress.

So we had the family over for dinner on Friday. We ordered in and my sister delegated to my aging father the responsibility of getting the cake — chocolate, because I love chocolate. Dad exercised independent judgment — I thought he was more scared of my sister otherwise he would not have — and got a whipped cream fruit tart that he bought with Skymiles. He thought that more people would like it even though I am the birthday girl and I am graying and middle-aged and all I wanted was a little chocolate on my birthday because well, I am gray, middle aged and too stupid to know better than to run (almost) five miles and if my mom is dead and she can’t look at me with adoring eyes and retell the story of my birth, then those of my siblings, then give me a damn piece of chocolate cake. But that’s my problem. Excuse me while I lie on the couch and pretend you all are high-priced shrinks who charge by the “hmmm”. Ok. Ok. Ok. Ok. Back to well-adjusted me who doesn’t need to play out her childish (I meant childlike) needs on her birthday.

I promise I will become less depressing as time goes on.

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