Days of future past...

The other night I was out at a bar with one of my friends and a few of her friends. When a couple of her friends showed up with an attractive, albeit less than brilliant, girl, I took the opportunity to practice my flirting skills. I knew that it wasn't going anywhere, but figured that it was as good a way to pass the time as anything else that evening. And that belief was confirmed when I learned this girl was more than a decade my junior.

My friend was rather merciless in her later criticism since I had spent so much time talking to a girl who, as she said, "has no more than three brain cells that are constantly at war with one another." Certainly, this girl wasn't a genius by any means, and one of the most attractive qualities I find in a woman is a sharp intellect.

However, as I talked to this girl, I was fascinated by something about her, although I couldn't figure out what it was at the time. Only later did it occur to me that what I found so intriguing about talking to this girl was that in a very real way, this girl had her entire life ahead of her.

As a young adult, who has chosen my career path and likely will stay in the same profession or something related to it for the rest of my life, I take that part of my life for granted. I'm always going to either practice law or engage in some related profession. I'm always going to have things related to work and I'm always going to have to travel on vacations.

However, this girl hadn't made that choice yet. She wasn't tied down by her job, her professional development, and, most importantly, her bills. She has all these hopes and dreams and plans that she was---or at least believed she was---on the cusp of fulfilling. She had places she wanted to see, things she wanted to do, concepts she wanted to learn, people she wanted to meet.

And for someone who sometimes feels they spend each morning heading to the salt mines, in many ways, this was refreshing. Listening to this girl's anticipation and joy when considering her life ahead was a feeling I had forgotten and her excitement was almost contagious.

So, while this flirtatious conversation may have made me the butt of my friend's jokes, I really didn't care. This conversation was worthwhile, even if it was just the pleasantness of seeing a part of myself I've lost in someone else, and even it was in someone I'll probably never speak to again.

A quiet new year...

I awoke on January 1st of this year to my first of a number of phone calls. The first sounded something like this:

Friend A: "Dude! You awake?"

Me: "Uh....yeah, yeah, I think so."

Friend A: "Oh my G-d! What a crazy night!"

Me: "Oh yeah?"

Friend A: "Yeah, I got totally hammered and you're never going to believe who I woke up with this morning!"

Me: "Uh, your girlfriend?"

Friend A: "Try again..."

Me: "Whoa."

Then I got this call:

Friend B: "I wasn't very good last night."

Me: "I think I just had this conversation."

Friend B: "I don't know what you mean."

Me: "Never mind. Go on. You were being bad..."

Friend B: "Yeah, guess who I didn't have sex with last night."

Me: "Well, you aren't in the same city as me, so I'm pretty sure I'm not on that list."

Friend B: "No smartass! Guess who I almost had sex with, but didn't."

Me: "Um...maybe you should just tell me the story..."

Then this call:

Friend C: "Geez..."

Me: "Geez what?"

Friend C: "I thought she'd never leave."

Me: "So, you had a good time with the New Year's date, eh?"

Friend C: "Yeah, until this morning and she decided to monopolize my bathroom."

Me: "Did everyone have oysters at their New Year's parties or something?"

It seemed that I was the only person on the planet who didn't get lucky on New Year's Eve.

I've spent a lot of New Year's Eve's out, but, perhaps because, as a teen, my parents never let me leave the house because they were concerned that the unnamed, unfaced drinkers were taking the opportunity to use a holiday to get smashed and hop behind the wheel, I was used to staying home. And this New Year's, when it became evident most of my friends were partying out of town, I decided to revert to my old ways. I figured it would be a quiet night at home, lying in bed, reading a book I had promised I would finish. I didn't think my phone would ring.

And I certainly didn't expect that it would be Alecia.

For Alecia, New Year's Eve isn't about renewal and resolutions. It's haunting. And it's painful. Two years ago, Alecia's mother and her mother's boyfriend were viciously and savagely attacked by a drug addict, beaten within an inch of their lives.

And, from her window, Alecia saw it all. Her body frozen as her eyes were unable to comprehend the sheer horror she was witnessing.

So, for her, New Year's isn't a time where she looks forward. It's a time where she's forced to look back.

And it's not something anyone would want to see.

Knowing this and knowing that she had spent the evening with her family, when Alecia called, I didn't know what to expect.

"I just left my family. When I left, my mom hugged me. For a really long time. And then she said, 'I love you' in a different way then she usually does."

"Yeah, I can understand that."

Alecia had just gotten home and decided that she just wanted to get ready for bed and wake up in the new year.

But with this beginning to our conversation, I thought we'd start talking about two years ago, but we didn't. We just talked. Talked like we had so many times before, two friends just talking and laughing. She was lying in her bed. I was lying in mine. She was dishing out her sass. I was responding in kind with my incendiary irreverence. We were thousands of miles away from one another, but here we were, having pillow talk. Even though we couldn't see one another, we knew we were both smiling.

And, in a strange way, it felt like I was there with her. Just there. If she needed me.

Honestly, it was one of the most memorable New Year's Eves I had ever had.

I guess I was pretty lucky after all.

I'd be merry, but I'm Hebrew...

Is that what he meant by Super Ego?

I was chatting with my good friend, Alecia, who is quite the blogger/letter-writer in her own right. Lately, we've been discussing her social life issues, since they are so much more exciting in a don't-want-to-look-but-can't-turn-away-from-the-twenty-car-pileup sort of way than anything going on in my life. So, in an attempt at cultural humor and to let her know that I understood the layers that make up a woman's deepest thoughts, I attempted to reference a sometimes-quoted line from Titanic. I meant to say, "A woman's heart is like a deep ocean..."

Here's what I actually said:

ba: modern day philosopher, the old lady from titanic once said ...

ba: "a woman's heart is like a dead ocean"

ba: "deep"

ba: whoa...that was WAY too freudian

alecia: yikes

ba: yeah, you can see what my social life has been like lately

Sometimes a cigar...

Is Mistletoe a Christmas olive branch?

I woke up earlier this Sunday morning than I should have and started catching up on my blog-reading. When I came across this post from Neil's blog, which is always entertaining (no talking penis this time, but entertaining nonetheless), I read this line, "It DOES bother me that most of the complainers about the 'War on Christmas' come from conservative commentators such as Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson." Add CNN's Lou Dobbs to that list of the profoundly stupid...

First of all, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we have a real war going on? And doesn't it diminish that little conflict in Iraq to use the retarded phrase, "War on Christmas?" It's not like people are laying roadside bombs because someone said "Happy Holidays."

And the more I think about this "War on Christmas" thing, the more I begin to feel like it's really thinly veiled Antisemitism. These aren't people who are pissed off about "political correctness" for Kwanzaa or some Islamic holiday (since there isn't really one right now) or because a Hindu doesn't have anything exciting to do this season. These are people who don't want to have to accommodate their speech because it may not be respectful of Jews, who are celebrating an entirely different holiday at this time.

And these "news commentators" aim to create stupid issues like this to drive wedges between people, to make people--not only different--but disrespectful of those differences. As though, because someone is different, it's an assault on who they are, and, therefore, by saying Happy Holidays, someone is not being respectful, but rather is giving up who they are for who I am.

And, none of that is even remotely true.

When someone says, "Happy Holidays" to me or "Happy Hanukkah," I appreciate it. When I see one of those screens they flash on TV with "Happy Hanukkah," I'm touched that they thought enough about my holidays, even though I'm in the considerable minority, to say something nice like that.

But, I'm not an idiot. I know me and "my peeps" are just 2% of the population. So, when I get a "Merry Christmas," I don't get bent out of shape. I just smile and say, "You too."

"Oh, and, you can pack those Hanukkah candles in a plastic bag."