Toss The Baby Shower Out With The Bathwater - Part 1

Have you ever been to a Babies 'R Us store? It's a cavernous place, sort of like a Costco with an inventory made up entirely of tiny pastel colored items. And then there's the totally robotic staff who accosted me the moment I stepped through the doors and immediately led me to a seat in front of an enormous desk in the shape of a half circle (a uterus, perhaps?). There I was greeted by a Stepford Shopping Assistant who insisted I needed a tour of the store.

I was looking for a shower gift and all I wanted was the list of gifts on my friend Laura's daughter's registry, but Miss Perky Promoter of Procreation wanted me to know everything about every teeny, tiny package of cuteness they sold. I just kept repeating my mantra of "no thanks, I just want the list."

Finally, once she'd figured out how to send the document from her computer to the printer, I was given a thick stack of pale yellow paper. Quickly scanning the first couple of pages, I pointed to something that didn't require a translation and said, "please show me where I can find this."

Meanwhile, the store was filling with mommies holding screaming infants and whining toddlers. I grabbed the gift from the shelf (a rather adorable snuggly), listened to the chirpy pre-programmed shpiel from the checkout robot, and ran for the parking lot.

Nine years ago when my GYN doc told me I needed a hysterectomy, I understood it would be very painful at the time, but once I was healed I'd be provided with unlimited rewards. Now I know exactly what she meant.

ESL For Spammers

As a sanderson
By tudor do marjoram
Go aurora on sanicle
Or by subsitent
Go cartwheel he atone
Go shattuck by uppercut

Nope, this is not remedial haiku or some sort of interplanetary greeting. These are actual examples of message headers I found in my inbox this morning from spammers. What are these people trying to tell me?

Should I record them, play them backwards and figure out if Paul is dead?

Okay spammers, it's time to learn English if you want to get anywhere in the land of sleazy email scams. Maybe I should offer an online course in ESL for these poor fools. I mean, if they want to get the coveted 2% repsonse, at least their message headers should make sense.

And to boost enrollment I could throw in a Rolex or a few Cialis tablets as an incentive.

The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Homos

Finally, someone has found the link between music and homosexuality! Donnie Davis, leader of Love God's Way, an ex-gay ministry, has posted a list on his website of bands that make you gay. And it's a damn long list. Apparently all kinds of music can drag an innocent teen into the shame and debauchery of the homosexual lifestyle.

Okay, I get that bands like Queen and the Pet Shop Boys are on the list, but Cole Porter? Ravi Shankar? The Grateful Dead? And where are our favorites like Babs Streisand and Judy Garland? In fact, big lezzies like The Murmurs (featuring the very, very hot Leisha Hailey), Yer Girlfriend, and Cris Williamson are nowhere to be found, either.

Elton John has the warning "really gay" after his name. I didn't know there were varying degrees of gayness. And then there are Eminem, Jay-Z, and Ted Nugent. Apparently Nugent's on the list because he wore a loincloth at one (or more) of his appearances. And everyone knows that loincloths are de rigeur in the homo wardrobe.

So, thanks to Donnie's insight, I'm adding every Elton John album to my iPod. I want to know what it feels like to be "really gay."

But I Have a Question. . .

I don't mean to get all Politcally Incorrect on your asses, but I'm getting sick and tired of the ever-growing acronym that's used to describe our homo community these days. Back when I was walking five miles to school during a snowstorm, we were called lesbian or gay. Then the bi-sexuals joined our cozy little Brownie troop. And then, more recently, the trannies.

Okay, so at that point we were LGBT. Kind of sounds like something on the menu at Carnegie Deli to me.

And then we became LGBTQ. I thought, "queer," hmmm. Isn't that a little redundant? But the Q is for "questioning." Okay, if you're questioning your decision to pick L,G, B or T, then you're simply labeling yourself to ponder your future label, right? It seems a little over-categorized to me. And unnecessary.

Heck, I must be questioning too, because I ask myself questions all the time. Is it cold enough for a jacket? Should I make a right or a left? Where the hell are the car keys?

Look, I don't mean to belittle a group of people who are unsure about their sexual orientations, but I gotta say, I'm dog tired of trying to spit out an acronym that feels more like a mouthful of alphabet soup than a description of a community.

Birds of a Feather

Can I just say that as a very ticklish person, this would be my worst nightmare.

But if it tickles your fancy you can visit artist Sandro Porcu's creation, called "The Bed," at the Alexia Goethe Gallery in the Mayfair section of London. In fact, you can even give it a try.

Kind of gives "going down" a whole new meaning.

Burn Baby Burn

I'm one of those people who's required to give the local fire department a heads up every time I attempt to cook. Years ago, when my mother tried to get me interested in cooking, I blew her off to shoot baskets in the backyard. At that age, I considered cooking to be about as useful as algebra.

Although lately I'm hard pressed to find a time when I've had to figure out the solution to (x2 + 2xy) + y2, I probably could have used a cooking lesson or two. Take today, for instance. I had a craving for a grilled cheese sandwhich so I went online to find a good recipe. I know, grilled cheese isn't exactly the Pythagorean Theorum, but if I'm going to turn on the stove, I want explicit directions.

The Kraft website made it sound so easy: all I needed were two slices of white bread, two slices of American cheese, and some butter. I improvised with whole wheat bread and brie. Following their directions to the letter, I buttered the outside of the bread, put one slice butter side down in the skillet, added the cheese, and then added the other slice of bread.

How hard could this be?

And the moment the bread hit the pan (at medium heat per directions) it burned like a red-headed kid on a July day, and stuck to the skillet preventing me from gracefully flipping the sandwich like in the photo on the website. The skillet required surgery to remove all the burned bread, and I'm back to shooting baskets and using the microwave.

New Year, New Kvetch

I know, I know. I haven't blogged since last year. It's not that I've been lazy. Well, maybe a little lazy, but I've also been busy. I recently ended a long relationship, and I'm living in a small apartment with an air mattress, one comfortable chair, a folding table and two folding chairs.

Let's face it - I'm camping. And we all know that Jews don't camp.

I do have indoor plumbing, and it's not like I have to rub two sticks together to cook or anything because I don't cook, unless you count microwave popcorn and whatever can be thrown into a Toast R Oven. But for all intents and purposes, this is camping. My life is in boxes, my furniture is in another city, and sleeping on the floor makes me feel a little off kilter. But my ability to kvetch? Sharp as a tack.

No wonder it took us 40 years to cross the desert.

Latkes Roasting On An Open Fire

It's time again for the annual Christmas vs. Hanukkah Debate. I can't tell you how many of my Gentile friends think we Jews threw together a December holiday just to compete with Christmas.

First of all, there is no competing with Christmas.

It's not as if you're ever going to find yourself standing on line at Wal Mart listening to an endless loop of "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel" playing from the PA system. There are no menorah flags hanging from lamp posts, no Stars of David attached to car grills, and you'll never squeeze into a crowd to watch a Hanukkah parade go by. Not even in Miami.

It's not like I have a problem with Christmas. Every year I have a Pavlovian reaction to Starbucks' red holiday cups because that means it's the season for eggnog lattes. And I love to visit my non-Jewish friends' homes in December just to inhale the piney smell of a Douglas fir.

But let's face it, Christmas takes over from September through December. While we Heebs are hunting around in every Judaica store for the right size Hanukkah candles that don't have to be hammered into Grandma's menorah, the rest of the country is swathed in red and green.

And, no matter how much we hope and dream, it's unlikely we'll ever see latkes popping up on the menu at Appleby's nor will we ever get the chance to win big playing dreidel at an Indian casino.

Hail Mary (and Heather)

Mary Cheney, lesbian daughter of sharpshooter Vice President Dick Cheney, is pregnant. She and Heather Poe, her partner of 15 years, are expecting this spring. And wouldn't you know it, the Christian Right is all fatootzed about it. There hasn't been this much excitement about somebody named Mary having a baby without playing hide the salami in, I dunno, 2,000 years or so.

Carrie Gordon Earll, spokesperson for those geniuses at Focus on the Family said, “Mary Cheney’s pregnancy raises the question of what’s best for children. Just because it’s possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father doesn’t mean it’s the best for the child.”

Okay, Carrie, here's the thing about gays and kids. A drunken one night stand between two homos will not result in someone getting knocked up. When we queers get pregnant it's because we really want to have a kid, and that lucky child will most likely be swaddled in the love of two people who've probably spent a lot of time planning for parenthood.

But hey, I guess if you're part of the Christian Right, what's love got to do, got to do with it?

From The "WTF Were You Thinking?" Files

Yo, OJ. Years ago you were one of the most amazing running backs in the history of football. Then you tried your hand at a little acting. From there you went to wifebeating and finally became a crazy-ass murderer. So what makes you think you can write? And that title - "If I Did It" - come on, dawg, we know you did it. You can do better than that.

How about "Okay, I Did It. I'd Rather Go to Prison Than Face Another Rejection on Match.com."

From dumb to dumber. A guy in Arkansas tried to steal a guitar from a music store by sticking it into his pants. The store owner noticed a suspicious bulge in the would-be robber's clothing and managed to retrieve the instrument before anyone had to listen to any badly played Woody Guthrie tunes.

Come Together. Right Now. Over Me.

John and Yoko had the right idea. Stay in bed for a week to call attention to the need for world peace. But Donna Sheehan and Paul Reffel have gone a step further; They've asked everyone in the world to have an orgasm (or more) on Winter Solstice (December 22nd).

Apparently after orgasm your mind is totally relaxed, and Sheehan and Reffel believe that if enough people think about world peace in a meditative state, positive change is possible.

Like we need an altruistic excuse.

Thanksgiving - The Secular Passover

My two favorite holidays are Passover and Thanksgiving. When you think about it, they're very similar. At Passover we Heebs celebrate our escape from years of slavery in Egypt. We give thanks for our freedom and our control over the entertainment industry.

Similarly, Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on all the good things in life and realize that, no matter what's going on, things could always be a lot worse. Kinehora.

What I love about each holiday is that they're both about sharing a meal with members of my chosen family. Now if I could only figure out a way to make pumpkin pie kosher for Passover.

Ring! Ring! Pick Up The Fertility Phone

When one of my eggs steps on to its ovarian launching pad in preparation for a journey into the unknown, I feel a little twinge in my abdomen that lets me know that even though my uterus and I parted ways years ago, those frisky ovaries are still taking target practice.

But if your body doesn't send you subtle messages that it's time to procreate, now your cellphone can.

DoCoMo, Japan's largest cellphone manufacturer, recently debuted the FOMA D702iF mobile phone designed to keep us girls appraised of what's going on with our female plumbing. Shaped like a packet of birth control pills, and available in several attractive pastel colors, the new phone offers members of the fairer sex these fabulous feminine features:

* A "biorhythm memo" that will alert you three days before ovulation
* A database for storing recipes
* A fake ringtone to thwart off advances from unwanted suitors

I'm guessing they're working on the pregnancy test for next year's model.

Stay The Course

A man in Rudolstadt, Germany so diligently followed the directions of his car's on board navigation system that he drove on to a building site, up a flight of stairs and smack into a toilet hut, which must be the German equivalent of an outhaus.

The system commanded "Turn right now!" and this guy did exactly as he was told, even though there was no road to turn on to.

This story strikes me as a metaphor for the decisions The Almighty Decider has made about Iraq. When the automated on board navigation system that seems to be running this country said, "Stay the course" that's what W's lemmings did. In fact, for the past six years they've been following the commands of some mysterious automated voice, and running into more than a few toilet huts, creating a nasty stench in the process.

Today we hear that our fearless leader will no longer use the phrase "Stay the course" when talking about the situation in Iraq. Apparently things aren't looking so good over there, and staying the course might not be the best idea.

"Turn left now!"

P.S. Your Cat Is Gay

The Christian Right can't seem to leave us poor homos alone. Now it seems there's a big brouhaha about an exhibit at the Oslo Museum of Natural History called "Against Nature" that depicts (gasp!) homosexual behavior in the animal kingdom. One photo shows two giant erect whale penises rubbing together, while another exposes two male giraffes doing the horizontal, or I guess vertical in this case, hula.

In another part of the exhibit, two stuffed female swans are shown sitting on a nest of eggs. One is reading a copy of "Off Our Backs."

And, of course, this is all part of a plan spelled out in section 130-A of the voluminous Gay Agenda that explains how to recruit children on school field trips into the Gay Lifestyle. Those kooky conservatives are accusing exhibit organizer, Geir Soeli, of displaying pornography, and one of the angry pastors said that the museum directors should burn in hell.

Soeli retorted with, "Sexual urge is strong in all animals. It's a part of life; it's fun to have sex." In fact, he added, homosexual behavior has been observed in over 1,500 animal species.

And, just like your dog makes a conscious choice to chase your neighbor's cat, every queer animal in each one of those 1,500 species has made a conscious choice to indulge in a life of homosexual iniquity.

Mrs. Kravitz is My Homegirl

Why is it so damn hard for people to pick up after their dogs? It's getting to the point where I almost wish each dog's excrement had its own unique identifyer so I could match the poop to the pup and then chew out the owner.

I do have one prime suspect, however. There's a woman on my block who marches up and down the street every morning with a cup of coffee, a cigarette, and her low rider Corgie follows behind her leaving his bidness wherever and whenever he feels the urge, which often ends up being my front lawn. Does she carry poop bags? Nope. That would mean giving up either the smoke or the caffeine. She knows I know, but she doesn't give a crap, so to speak.

And I don't buy that theory that animal defecation is better than Miracle Grow. Hell, if that were the case, I'd invite a few pandas over just to try to have a shot at the local garden club award. Pandas can poop as often as 40 times a day - go ahead, look it up.

Rack-and-Pinion Steering Could Save Your Life

If you're considering breast implants, think big. You could save your life, not to mention a few bucks on car insurance. A Bulgarian woman with size 40DD breast implants managed to avoid serious injury (and possibly death) when her car was involved in a head-on collision.

Apparently, when the steering wheel crushed her on impact, her enormous silicone bazooms protected her vital organs and ribcage - just like an airbag. Unfortunately, both breasts exploded (ouch), which means her career as an exotic race car driver will have to be put on hold for a few weeks.

I'm Becoming a Corporate Speak Geek

So I'm writing a case study for a high-tech company and I just finished interviewing the VP of Field Delivery.

For all I know the guy I just spoke to moves farmland around because after the first 10 minutes of the interview, I felt like I was waist deep in cow pies. I heard all about best practices and business elements that define world-class performance levels. I learned that this company is striving to be the best in their market-space, and looking to impove their metrics in customer satisfaction.

And their website is even better. These guys provide ECM and BCM solutions to help manage mission critical content. They also deliver processes to better manage highly scalable enterprise content and process management platforms using the full spectrum of connectivity by automating and streamlining critical tasks.

Right.

It's not that I don't know what they're saying, I just wish that I could write for them using easily understood language that doesn't make everything sound like a conversation between Captain Kirk and Bill Gates.

L'Shana Tova

I just wanted to wish all my Heeb brothers and sisters a very sweet and happy New Year.

I always go into a very thinky state during The Ten Days of Awe (the period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur). It's the time of year when I reflect on my strengths and weaknesses, look at my accomplishments and mistakes, and try to figure out how to make the new year a better year for me and all the people I love.

So, if you're being a thinky Heeb like I am, L'Shana Tova Tika Tevu. If not, at least it's football season.

Snacks On A Plane

Can I just say how annoying it is that airlines don't feel the need to offer us even the tiniest bag of pretzels anymore? And half of what I might want to bring on board as a nosh is now considered bomb making material. No water (that's just plain fucked up), no matzo ball soup, no tapioca pudding, no peanut butter, and no borscht.

Okay, I probably wouldn't want to bring borscht.

So now I'm packing a bunch of snacks that will be horribly dehydrating, and I'll have to chase the flight attendants all over the plane just to get enough water to fill an eye dropper. And, even though it'll feel like I'm flying on Air Sahara, I won't even consider drinking that sludge that comes through the lavatory sink. I think they recycle that from you-know-where.

This is one of the few times I wish I were retaining water.