Married Jewish female
seeks one person
who knows how to love country
without hating its inhabitants
who knows how to cradle
both extremes while standing
astride the middle.
Married Jewish female
whose marriage is only legal
in five states, who feels
as uncomfortable with
the Orthodox of her own kin
as she does with orthodox Christians
orthodox Muslims
orthodox capitalists
and orthodox secularists.
Married Jewish female
seeks a country
where the borders don’t feel like prisons
where the talking heads
on the television
don’t preach hatred
and mistrust.
Married Jewish female
seeks love.
It’s hard enough
some days
to remain
a married Jewish female
without feeling the urge to
“fuck and run”
from arguments over whose turn it is
to take out the garbage
from arguments over which part
of the population deserves more funding
from attack ads and bitter political debates
from a whole world.
Married Jewish female
seeks a home
Not a condominium or
a house or a mortgage
Not a rented space
from year to year
But a home
a place where my soul
can rest.

The recent vote to make Maine a slave state again in what is rapidly becoming a sort of gay apartheid in this country again reminded me of the problem with religion. Just like in California where the Mormon church flooded the state with money and hate ads to codify discrimination there, in Maine the Catholic church flooded the state with money and hate ads.

I say this as a religious person. I am too attached – pathologically attached, perhaps, since I am attached with deep ambivalence – to Judaism to let it go. And I belong to a liberal, progressive, affirming congregation which is part of a large Jewish subgroup (Reform Judaism) which has a long history of being politically progressive.

But I am still aligning myself with Orthodox Jews who endorse the same Biblical fear and intolerance for same-sex unions. And no matter how many liberal progressive congregations there are, it can’t change the fact that throughout history religion has been primarily, perhaps almost exclusively, an instrument of hate and hurt.

There is something primal about affirming “this is my G-d” and “these are my rules” and in doing so you are saying “that is not my god” or “those are not my rules.” How can this primal instinct ever be reconciled in a world with different people, all saying the same primal things?

Hence, my deep and pathological ambivalence about being a religious person.

Here are the rules of this award:
1. Thank the person who nominated you.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who nominated you.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might not know.
5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.

Thank you to Leigh for bestowing this honor on me. In keeping with the rules of this award, here are 7 things you might not know about me.

1. I have hiked the northern border of Israel, according to the pre-1967 borders. That is to say, from the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) to the Mediterranean. It took 3 days.
2. I like snakes. I think they’re cool.
3. I recently got to direct a 10 minute play I wrote and see it performed on stage.
4. I directed a production of Burn This by Lanford Wilson in high school. I still think it’s one of the most amazing plays ever written.
5. I have been making up stories since I was 6 years old. I used to write them down in little handwritten “books” and give them to my family.
6. When I was a child I had 3 imaginary siblings. They had very WASP-y names.
7. I really don’t like to cook.

Now, I nominate my beloved, Boombababy, A Melody on the Rock, Rabbi David, Songwriter Unfolded, Shanamadele, and Rolling Seance.

Queer manifesto
(c) 2009 by Realsupergirl

I identify as queer. I am not a lesbian. I am, technically, bisexual, but more often than not I choose to identify as queer.

Queer is not just about who you are fucking or who you are married to. Queer is a way of seeing the world, an assertion of what your values are.

I am queer because I believe people should have equal rights, regardless of whether they fuck men, fuck women, like kinky sex, polyamorous relationships, or don’t fit into the rigid gender binary.

I am queer because I believe capitalism needs to be regulated and economic class determines our place in the world and affects our political perspective more than just about anything else.

I am queer because I believe it is important to work with people who don’t always agree with me in order to protect other people’s rights and to protect the environment.

I am queer because I reject politics of rigid absolutes. I am queer because I don’t want to live in a world with rigid absolutes.

I am queer because I believe love is the defining force in the universe, in both its presence and its absence.

So we’ve been working our way through America’s Best Dance Crew, which I as I have said before is the gayest show ever. And yet, the judges are guilty of some of the most ignorant, rigidly gendered comments I’ve ever heard.

Many people have called Lil Mama out on her transphobic comments toward Leomie, the frontwoman for the Season 4 crew Vogue Evolution. Basically, she told Leomie she was really a man and if she wanted to be a woman she should “act like a lady.” This was in response to Leomie becoming emotional and a bit of a pill at a recent rehearsal. Her remarks were oozing sexism on all sides, and her “apology” made it clear she just doesn’t get it and why what she said was so offensive.

In Season 2, judge Shane Sparks, told the effeminate men of the fabulous crew Fanny Pak that he wanted to see them “dance like men.” The third judge JC Chasez is much less explicit in his sexism, but certainly when it came to Vogue Evolution he made a few veiled comments which indicated his discomfort.

The thing is, this is a dance show. There are so many dancers on ABDC that are so obviously not straight it’s ridiculous. Yet Vogue Evolution is hailed as being “the first openly gay” crew, two seasons after Fanny Pak, and other only slightly less obviously gay crews.

So what gives? You’d think in this environment – and I am quite sure JC, Shane, and Lil Mama have all worked with openly queer dancers before – there would be less discomfort. And as we can expect, a certain amount of lesbionic content in some of the dance routines (both We Are Heroes and Fanny Pak have incorporated girl-on-girl kissing) is tolerated, but host Mario Lopez looked rather uncomfortable with the poster of himself Fanny Pak hung in the locker they incorporated into their “Bring the Beat” routine.

What is so threatening about an effeminate man? I love that ABDC crews show over and over again that you can be no less athletic and talented regardless of where you fall on the gender spectrum. We Are Heroes rocks because they are not stereotypically feminine, so many of the men have shown that you can be effeminate and still strong. I wish the judges — and America as well– could break this association of feminine=weak and masculine=strong.

Wrote this in response to a poetry contest over at got poetry? for which I may or may not even wind up submitting. But I kind of like the poem anyway. Let me know what you think, please.

Her garden

She comes to me
so anxious she is
unable to finish her sentences
scared by the official looking letters
she cannot read
from the IRS, Social Security,
lawyers, Mass Health. She is not
stupid. Thanks to NPR
she is better informed
about the world
than most Americans.
She makes less
than seven thousand
a year and works a little
on the side
even though her body
cannot really take the work
she does, and she
is too ashamed
to let her children know
she cannot read
and too proud
to seek help. She would rather
muddle along
in her perpetual confusion
and fear
than admit what
many have already figured out.
This world is not friendly
for those
who will never know
this poem.
“A book is like a garden
carried in the pocket,”
or so the Chinese proverb goes
but her pocket
is already full
and her garden is full of weeds
which don’t need watering.

I realized something this evening in reading some of the comments on a self-identified conservative Catholic person on my Facebook friends (she’s someone I knew in junior high): There’s a whole lot of distrust amongst the conservatives in our country. Like, they really believe Obama’s gonna kill their grandmothers or steal their jobs or something. It’s sort of shocking. Yet, then I recalled how I felt just a year ago, how I’ve felt for most of the eight years up until January 2009 when Obama took office. I was just as mistrustful of Bush and really believe he (or perhaps more accurately Cheney) had ill intentions toward me and people I care about.

Has our country always been this polarized? It feels like it’s gotten a lot more so just in my life time, but then again, I have only been really politically aware since about 1991, at the earliest.

And with our country this deeply, deeply divided – we can’t even trust “the other side” on the most basic human level – how can we continue to be one nation? Can we ever heal the divide?

It seems I never blog anymore.

But let me take a few minutes to tell you about this new show we have been watching – on the internet, mind you, because we don’t have cable. We discovered it randomly on our Jet Blue flight to Portland. It’s about the gayest, most fun show I have ever seen on television. Vogue Evolution is supposedly the first “openly gay” crew – and they even boast an openly-identified transwoman. But there is so much gayness oozing out of the crews, it rocks my world.

I have fallen in love with a crew from Season 1, Jabbawockeez, and with Vogue Evolution and Afro Borike from Season 4. The Boston crew Status Quo in Season 1 fills me with local pride, especially when I read that they do anti-gang violence work now. If only we could get the rest of the country krumping instead of shooting and shouting, this world would be a better place.

I can’t believe it’s been 11 months since Pam Webb left this earth. Seeing her beautiful monument unveiled was a surreal experience, because I can’t really comprehend that she’d not around. Except that when I am in her house now, it is only filled with all the people who she touched, not her. It’s like sensing traces of her, but never being able to find the source.

I can’t believe Corrie Lazar is dead. It hasn’t really become any less unthinkable. As Fawn said this evening, “The mind has no way to comprehend the loss of a child.”

I realized that the last time I saw Pam was 11 months ago, with my aunt and uncle. I had never, ever, seen them all together before but it seemed strangely fitting – though completely unplanned – since it was through my aunt and uncle that I met Pam in 1991.

Meanwhile, there is life, and there is joy. They make death just a little bit palatable. Watching Zenna eat (even when she’d tired and cranky!), watching Asher arrange the stones on Pam’s grave carefully, watching Isaac enjoy his juice box with such intensity, watching Ezra soak up life one step at a time – this is good.

Still processing, I suppose…

Two Car Crashes

On Tuesday, a woman hits
a man loading his child
into a car seat
she starts to drive off
until witnesses tail her
force her to stop.
She was scared – she knew
she was in trouble
before she knew the man would later die.
She knew she had a problem
with driving
which had nothing to do with drugs
or alcohol, but something
much more human: Stress.
If we are always in a rush
this kind of thing
is bound to happen.
Killing someone
seems to be the only way
to get us to slow down
take a look at ourselves
and realize what we’re rushing for
isn’t worth it. But then
on the next Tuesday
a 21 year old girl
someone you’ve known
since she was eight
is struck dead
by a man who was drunk
and already crashing
but unable to contain the damage.
In a span of a week
four lives are damaged
or destroyed -
more if you think of
the man’s wife, other son
in Guatemala, the girl’s parents,
two sisters, and
so many more -
and what’s more
you have seen
both sides
of a tragedy.
And in true tragic form
everyone comes out hurting
in the end.