Awkward date, new blog!

That’s right, I have a new blog, over hizere!

 

Was that the correct use of the word hizere?

How sweet!

In follow up to my okcupid messages yesterday, I have received two more today. The best one is below:

“I am willing to have sex with you.”

Willing?  Willing?!

Thank goodness.

 

OkStupid

As a recently single person, (without going into too much horrible detail) I have become bombarded with okcupid messages.

Here are the last five: (All from different people, all received TODAY.)

1) “Hello.”

2) “Hi. I’m greg.”

3) “Do you suck a mean dick?”

4) “you seem funny.  let’s have funny sex.”

5) “Hay wana cuddle?”

 

No, I will not jar the fireflies between us and call it light.

I very rarely reblog, but this line caught my eye:

No, I will not jar the fireflies between us and call it light.

from: http://theserotoninfactory.blogspot.com/2011/03/early-friday-love-poems-elliott-d-smith.html

Verbal Pyrotechnics Reading

For those in the area,

Come see me read for my piece in the launch issue of Verbal Pyrotechnics, an online literary magazine devoted to teen literature and the people who love it. Issue One features work by Molly Gallentine, Seth Graves, Bernard Lumpkin, Emma Komlos-Hrobsky, and more!

(I’m the and more)

Location:
Postmark Cafe- 326 6th St Brooklyn

Time:
7:00-8:30

Date:
March 18th, 2011

After Party:
Park Slope Ale House- 356 6th Ave Brooklyn

http://www.verbalpyrotechnics.com/

corazón

I made my mother cry in public.

While the woman at the next table cut her bagel with cream cheese and tomato with a plastic knife and fork, I made my mother shed big wet, snotty tears in the sandwich shop where we bought deli trays for my father’s memorial.

And my brother told me I did the right thing.
And his girlfriend told me I did the right thing.
And my fiance told me I did the right thing.

And still, as she cried, I felt as if I was speaking the wrong language.

And I thought about all the times that people say, “I don’t know what to say” and “There are no words…”  And maybe it’s not that there aren’t any words but that there aren’t the right words in YOUR language.  Like at that moment, the word “heart” seemed to stop, stiff on my lips, but a broken corazón seemed so sad and wet and bloody, and correct.  And I wanted to tell my mother that I felt the same way, but I didn’t know that she would be able to even hear it if I said it just then.

Because after I told my mother to have faith in my brother and let him fight his own way through this life, she opened.  And when she opened, it wasn’t to say something about my brother, and it wasn’t about his girlfriend and it wasn’t about this moment.  It was about her and her corazón.  And the awful pain, and the way it feels when it seems that your heart is beyond repair.

My mother sobbed, “I will never have someone who I share that history with!”

And we won’t.  But hearing it said aloud, in any language, I think we all felt this huge relief and slow healing start, even if I wasn’t able to say it back.

6 months.

It has been six months today since my father died.  And while I have written lots and lots about it, last night I decided to think about how proud he would be of my family for how well we are doing.

Last night, I wrote this email to my brother, Ben, my mother, Sharon and my uncle, Tony:

Tomorrow marks 6 months since we lost someone who seemed liked someone we couldn’t lose.

And while I know it has been an incredible tumultuous difficult and sometimes horrible journey, it has also been a self-reflective, hard working, loving, amazing one.

I am so, so proud of us all.  I am so often reminded how much Arnie loved us all, and while that also makes it seems impossible to be without him, it also makes feel so lucky to have had him as a father and as a friend.

Tony, he so often would rave about how awesome his brother is.  He would tell me stories all the time in which you were the hero, in which you made him feel like a hero, in which your musical ability took on the likeness of something supernatural.  He thought you were so funny.  He did impressions of your impressions.  He told me how incredible you were at computer games that he couldn’t beat.  He told everyone how amazing it was watching you answer questions at the Jeopardy auditions!  He was so proud of your work as a doctor, of the lovely family you have, and how much you inspired him to have a loving family as well.

Sharon, he loved you so much he couldn’t even put it into words.  You were his special lady, his confidant, his friend.  He thought you were beautiful, and tried to show it by buying you terrible outfits every year   He appreciated the way you took care of him and us and he felt so lucky to have someone in his life that was really an intellectual equal, a partner.  In my talks with him about marriage, he beamed when he remembered your wedding.  He loved that you encouraged everyone to see his band.  He was so happy to have made a family with you, a family filled with so much music.  He would be so proud of the way you have worked with your parents, to give them a life they couldn’t give themselves.  He would be so proud of your ability to switch jobs and make a new place for yourself.  He would be so proud of how you support Ben and Emily.

Ben, you cannot imagine how much he talked about you.  He told me over and over again that your technical abilities were astounding.  He was so very proud that you had surpassed him in computer knowledge.  He told me often how well-spoken you are.  He told me often how much he enjoyed your time together when you went to Wings and Things and watched terrible movies.  He was so proud to see how fast you found a job!  He constantly told me how funny you are and retold me jokes you made.  He would be so proud to see you now, in such a difficult time, working hard to find a job, figure out school, figure out life.  And mom and I are both so proud for him.

It is an unfair thing to have him missing from our lives.  But he would be so proud of the way we have worked through this.  He would be so proud of the family we still have.  He would have laughed at the jokes we’ve made, and he would be so happy that we are still making them.

I love you all.  Thank you for being a part of this continuing journey with me.

Faith

So three months happens.  And the magical easiness I thought would appear, just didn’t.

And I was pissed. In that first week, my mother kept trying to make plans, and I remember, I kept telling her, let’s not think about this on day 1, let’s think about this after three months or so.

So, great, I’d lied to my mother, and life was still incredibly difficult.

I talk to a friend.  I tell him I think that I never ever understood how this worked before.  And I think I mean death but maybe I mean loss.  How it turns out that this is not an intellectual concept.  How the whole thing is just so not doable.  Emotionally.  Like, it’s not an amount of pain that one can handle.  But then, you just have to do it anyway, but then, you just have to do it anyway.  Or what?  I say, kill yourself?

I tell him, I understand now, why people drink after this.

He tells me he thinks he gets it too.

I tell him that I still want to call him all the time.  And sometime I do.  Because the rest of the time I forget because I just have to.  To survive right now.   But then I pick up the phone and my world crumbles suddenly all over again.

In some ways it actually has become easier.  Easier it not really the right word.  But I am able to have more time in a day where losing him is true.  More time that I don’t have to lie to myself to be Okay.

When you study a language, sometimes you are not in class, and you are not studying.  You go to speak in your first language, and the wrong word comes out.  You reach for the word onion and saboya comes out and you are just as shocked as those around you.   Because you didn’t know that you knew it.  But suddenly the truth of saboya is just as valid as the truth of onion.  It’s like that.

It’s interesting, because in some ways it has forced me to let go of a lot.  It has forced me to trust other people and their experiences much more than I used to.  I have to have this ridiculous faith thing.  Clearly they have survived, haven’t they?  Even though it is not provable, nor scientific, I have to have faith that they are surviving.  So, too, shall I.

Punishment

I am not always laughing.

Since the inevitable coming out to my entire extended family, we get questions.  Wedding questions. While almost everything seems to hurt, this hurt the most.  How could I possibly plan a wedding without my father?  It doesn’t at all seem possible for me to celebrate anything, much less an occasion where one is often “given away” by one’s father.

We plan in the smallest of ways.  I think about a place.  A place where I can remember him, and that truly represents us.  An interracial lesbian couple, I think of a restaurant, Honey, in Philadelphia.  It is a hip place that serves Jewish and African-American foods.  It represents both of our families.  It is the last place we were together as a family. It was the last place I saw him.

I call.  They are rude.  Since I live in NY, I am ok with this.  They give me an email address.  It doesn’t work.  I call back again.  They are more rude.  They never respond to my email.

I’ve been taking this as a sign.  Perhaps I am not meant to have a giant party celebrating myself.  Perhaps this is just a small part of the punishment I feel I deserve.  I know this is ridiculous.  That my guilt is all a part of the natural mourning process.  Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do intellectually to avoid it.  I spend hours agonizing over his last birthday.  I got him a present I knew he would enjoy, but wouldn’t he have enjoyed it more if I’d written him a poem?  Wouldn’t he have enjoyed it more if I’d simply been there, shown up, hugged him?

There is absolutely no end for these questions.  I could ask them for days and days and still have a disgusting, dark self-loathing road that I could travel down forever.

I try to celebrate his life.  I know that this is what he would have wanted.  I put up pictures of him making silly faces.  I put up pictures of him holding me as a baby, where he looks nervous and joyous and horrified, like he is holding the world in his hands.

I settle for punishing myself/celebrating him by reading articles/poems he wrote about me when I was a brand new baby and he was a brand new stay at home dad.  I spend time reminding myself that I have lost someone who loved me so much more than words will ever, ever capture.

Going Home

I don’t think I am writing in order.  I’m just writing:

It took me weeks to go back.  And for those weeks, I spent a lot of time worrying, obsessing, crying about the lack of home I had to return to.  And when I got there, in some ways, it was just as bad as I thought it would be.

Usually, when I make the trip from New York to Philadelphia, I take two trains.  The train from New York to Trenton, NJ and the train from Trenton to Philadelphia.  While it takes a few hours, I always look forward to the last hour, when I know that I will be home soon, my brother and father waiting for me at the train station, waving at the top of the stairs.

This time, when the train got to my stop, I wanted to punish myself for the brief hope I felt in my chest.  Exiting the train and climbing those stairs led to such a horrible, disappointing stab, I wished I had never come.

Like many North American Jewish families, we do most of our Chanukah celebrating on Christmas morning.  We don’t have a tree or a wreath, but it is a time when the whole family is free of work and school.

My dad is the host.  He treats each present like a microphone, makes announcements like he’s on a game show, and claims presents are from characters like Mickey Mouse, Mrs. Sandy Claus and Chanukah Harry, a character played by ______ in the 90s of SNL.

I’ve always been proud to bring people to our holiday celebrating.  It’s been a time that my family really shines, we laugh, we only argue a little, my dad embarrasses me in the best of ways.

Last year was one of the best.  I spent an extra long time cutting the bagels, slicing tomatoes and red onions, sticking a clean knife in the cream cheese, and making the lox and garnish platter look all around fabulous.  My fiance joined us in stuffing ourselves full of bagels and lox and letting my dad make us each lattes with his prized cappucino machine, sprinkled with just a little bit of cinnamon.  We all sat in the living room in our pajamas, me barefoot, expecting a new pair of slippers my mom had me pick out two days previous, my brother yawning and rolling his eyes in slightly crooked glasses because we had stayed up much too late watching horror movies.

I was running on the buzz of having wrapped all the presents perfectly, curling ribbon with scissors, and putting funny labels on presents to encourage my dad’s famous MC routine.  Mo sat next to me, and my mother next to her.  My brother sat on the piano bench and my dad sat in the paisley red chair my parents bought when they found out they were going to have me.  My dad wore a cosby-esque black red and white sweater and real pants because he had been up playing guitar for several hours before we had, having fallen asleep halfway through the first horror movie.

My father spent an extra long time picking out the first few gifts, and though they were sure to be socks, books, something smallish so he could build up anticipation for the really good stuff, he made us giggle with the ridiculous announcements he made up on the spot.

“Let’s see, who is this for?  It says from Sandy Claus to…”  He fakes us out, passing the present to my mother.  When she reaches for it, he snatches it back at the last second and throws it toward my brother.  “Benzoil!”

“Good one!” My brother says only slightly sarcastically.  My mom pretends to be offended.
You’ve never seen a bigger deal made of socks.

After all the presents have been opened, and I am making neat piles out of mine, figuring out how I will stuff them all into my backpack, my father sits down at the piano and starts to play Honey Suckle Rose by Fatts Waller.  Usually, I tell him I will sing later, but this time I come up behind him, hum for a moment and then sing along.

“Every Honey Bee
Swoons with Jealousy,
When they see you out with me
Your confection goodness knows
honeysuckle rose…”

When I sing, he is beaming, his shoulders move with the music, and he really makes a show of it.  We go from Fatts to Gershwin, singing five more songs before I decide to call it quits.  That’s when he plays Frosty the snowman.  After a few verses, my mom starts to sing.  Singing is not my mom’s talent, but her outright joy at the whole family being together comes through and the whole thing sounds like a smile.

After singing the correct words, we move on to making up words.  I go first:

Frosty the snowman, didn’t like to wear his pants
His whole damn life,

he embarrassed his wife,

though he did it out of romance.

Everyone chuckles and one at a time, we all make up a verse.

I found recently that a good friend, who happened to be with us last year, has the whole thing on tape.  I told him to wait a year.  Next year, maybe I’ll be ready.

The last block of walking home was the worst.  I literally went from tearing up to having trouble breathing.  I’m walking down a street where people know me, just hyperventilating.  It was terrible.  It was worse than I thought it would be.

When I got to the door, I immediately sat on the couch in the living room, my head in my hands.  The same couch where we eat bagels and lox.  The same couch where we sing and sing.

“It’s just… it’s just so hard.”  I finally got out to my mother.  And I hated myself then.  The writer in me cringed at the lack of words to describe such an intense and awful pain.  So I stopped trying to put it into words, and I just cried.  I sobbed, I choked, I let my sadness run out my eyes and my nose, and still there was more.  I cried for about a half an hour.  And then I got a glass of water and I downed the whole thing.  And then I sat there, eyes dry, sniffling, picturing an ocean.