Search This Blog

Saturday, September 1, 2007

About This Time Every Year


Around this time of year, New Yorkers, at least this New Yorker, gets a little anxious. We remember 9/11. NY has been in the orange zone since that time.
I was in my office meeting with a client. My office was a cubicle at the time, so I could hear an unusual amount of buzzing, more than usual, so I excused myself from my client and went out to find out what the noise was about. An airplane had hit the World Trade Center. How could that happen? It's so huge, any pilot could see it! Then a second plane-this was no accident. My client had traveled from Ellenville; NY-about 2 hours away-to meet with me. I had to arrange for her safe travel or lodging, I went immediately into emergency mode. I called her treatment program, which had a branch in the city. They said send her over. I sent her away. We-the employees all gathered around a 5" television that the receptionist had. I knew that my cousin’s wife worked in WTC II. I went into my ADOM (assistant district office manager) office. She was kneeling with her head on her desk, overwhelmed.
Last night I was walking home from the subway and I got to the final block away from my house, 8th Ave and 23rd St. It was completely blocked off and there were fire trucks, police cars and all sorts of emergency vehicles. I asked someone what happened. Suspicious package. Apparently it had been blocked off all day.
My cousin’s wife died. The first funeral was with an empty coffin, the second with a leg bone they finally found. She was 32 and had 2 small children. My cousin is still picking up the pieces of his life.

Announcement


Special Date for Catholic Lesbians!
First Friday of the Month, September 7, 7:00 pm
Interfaith Visit with Congregation Beth Simcat Torah,
the Gay and Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Synagogue
at Church of the Holy Apostles
9th Avenue between W. 26th St. and W. 28th St.
(It’s W. 27th St., but 27th doesn’t go through.)

The Catholic Lesbians group will visit CBST before Rosh Hashanah with our very own member Joanna and her partner CBST member Sue, who will be one of the many sponsors of the kiddush. The occasion is a reconstructionist Jewish service, this one with the installation of David Berger, the new cantor. So there will be lots of music and the full choir! This event will be well-attended, so if we want sit together, please arrive by 6:30 pm to save a group of seats. Shalom!

Friday, August 31, 2007

Friday Five



(Picture of Children in Washington Square Park, The Village, NYC)

Friday Five: Seasons Change... NO, NO, NO!

It's Labor Day weekend here in the United States, also known as Summer's Last Hurrah. So let's say goodbye to summer and hello to the autumn. (arghhhh!)

1. Share a highlight from this summer. (If you please, don't just say "our vacation to the Canadian Rockies." Give us a little detail or image. Help us live vicariously through you!):
Spending time with my little godchild-the grown women who just moved to New York, either going to my beach on 42nd St, or exploring Chinatown and having dim sum or enjoying the Shake Shack http://www.shakeshacknyc.com/ on 23rd having Cheeseburgers and frozen custard made with Valrohna Chocolate, yumm.


2. Are you glad to see this summer end? Why or why not?:
OK, so I’m not in school anymore and summer in my calendar doesn’t end till September 22, dammit and I refuse to believe otherwise!

3. Name one or two things you're looking forward to this fall.:
Wearing tweed? Being depressed by shorter days. Worrying about not having my Holiday-Hanukah-MB's birthday, Christmas. shopping done. Haloween candy is already in the stores!

4. Do you have any special preparations or activities to mark the transition from one season to another? (Cleaning of house, putting away summer clothes, one last trip to the beach):
Celebrating the Jewish Holidays.

5. I'll know that fall is really here:
When the days get shorter and I leave home in the dark and get home in the dark…so depressing. Can you tell I’m not looking forward to it. Well I am looking forward to new episodes of House and Grays Anatomy.

Can you tell I'm not looking forward to fall as a harbinger of the long winter ahead?

How Normal am I

At One Time I Would Have Found This Comforting- now I find it just strange hmmmmm. I've become NORMAL in my advancing age. Yikes!



You Are 70% Normal



Otherwise known as the normal amount of normal

You're like most people most of the time

But you've got those quirks that make you endearing

You're unique, yes... but not frighteningly so!

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Ten Reasons Gay Marriage is Un-American


Ten Reasons Gay Marriage is Un-American

I saw this posted on a BBS -- there was no attribution. (Ummmborrowed from Jan-Thanks!)

1.Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2.Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3.Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because
a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4.Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5.Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6.Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

7.Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8.Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

9.Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10 .Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

That's the truth and I'm stickin to it!

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

We know I have some feelings about Republicans




You Are Not Prejudiced



Not only are you color blind, but you're also ethnicity blind, gender blind, and sexual orientation blind.

You don't judge someone until you truly know them. And even then, you're probably reluctant to judge.

You try to treat everyone equally. Everyone has a fair chance with you.

Good job - there's not a prejudiced bone in your body.

In Case You Haven't Heard...


Senator, Arrested at Airport, Pleads Guilty

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 — Senator Larry E. Craig, Republican of Idaho, was arrested in June by an undercover police officer in a men’s bathroom at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, and pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in the case three weeks ago.

Mr. Craig, 62, was fined more than $500 and placed on unsupervised probation for a year. A 10-day jail sentence was suspended, according to a copy of a court document in the case. A second charge, interference with privacy, was dismissed.

According to a police report obtained by the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, which disclosed the episode and the guilty plea Monday, a plainclothes police officer investigating complaints of sexual activity in the bathroom arrested the senator on June 11 after what the officer described as sexual advances made by Mr. Craig from an adjoining stall.

By Roll Call’s account, the officer said Mr. Craig had tapped his foot, in what the officer called a known signal to engage in lewd conduct, and had also brushed his foot against the investigator’s and waved his hand under the stall divider several times before the officer showed him his badge. After the arrest the senator denied any sexual intent, and in a statement issued Monday afternoon he attributed the matter to a misunderstanding.

“At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions,” Mr. Craig said in the statement. “I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct.

“I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously.”

Mr. Craig also severed ties Monday with the Republican presidential campaign of Mitt Romney, in which he had been serving as a co-liaison to the Senate with Senator Robert F. Bennett of Utah. The Romney campaign issued a statement that said: “Senator Craig has stepped down from his role with the campaign. He did not want to be a distraction, and we accept his decision.”

Mr. Craig, whose seat is up for election next year, is the second senator in recent weeks to find his personal behavior under scrutiny. Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, was implicated in a separate case in the Washington area when his phone number turned up in the records of an escort service that the authorities have described as a prostitution ring. Mr. Vitter made a public apology for what he called “a very serious sin in my past,” but he has not been charged with any crime.

Mr. Craig, who is married and has three children, publicly rejected accusations by a gay rights activist last year that he had engaged in homosexual conduct. He called the accusations “completely ridiculous"
__________________________________________________

I wonder, if if were completely normal-and legal- to be lesbian or gay in the world, would these things ever happen. Would men need to seek sex they crave in public bathrooms-the rooms I barely want to use for the purpose stated? And why does it keep happening to republicans (I don't know a lot about that strange breed.) I remember visiting my parents in Ohio, shortly after moving to NYC (1973-74?) and going to a small gay bar-all men-in Warren, OH-with my friend Manny. At one point, the police came in and started asking for id from all the patrons. I was scared to death-was I going to be arrested? Were my parents going to find out? As it turned out, nothing happened except I suspect some payoff from the bar owner-a little old lady named Anne.