love

ive always said that its better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. i still believe this. it just really sucks when things don't turn out like one would have liked them to. i hate the old adage "everything happens for a reason" , but being the eternal realist, i believe this to be accurate in affairs of the heart. there is a reason things may not work out , but we may not know immediately why this is. for me this is the hardest part. unfortunately sometimes i have found out later reasons why it was VERY good things had not worked out . how i had been saved from a life i would not have wanted. i would not have guessed it at the time.... but it turned out to be the best thing for me even though i had cried my eyes out at the time of the break up. so now is the time to stay strong ,ride the wave and have faith that someone better is just around the corner.....

when does it happen?

i often look at the undesirable males at singles events and i wonder how it is they turned out this way. i mean really, you look at babies. babies are so cute. when did that change occur? when and how did that adorable infant turn into that annoying clod im trying so hard to escape at a singles event?
sometimes there is a rage that builds up in a guy and makes him turn into that guy everyone runs from. it is also quite sad . if this rage hadn't compounded so much he might have remained normal.
on occasion i can identify emergence of the clod gene. some guys start to get it in their mid-thirties. its scary because you see it coming but there is nothing you can do about it. you see that rage building up within him coupled with rejection and you just know its coming. too many girls have done him wrong he says. probably he straddles the edge between cool and nerdy . he's just cool enough that the rejection of the cool girls really gets to him. this is his downfall. by the time he turns forty it is all over. he's not just a super geek he's a loser. he's mad at the world, especially at women. and now he's at the point of no return. the creepdom has taken over any sign of coolness he had ever had and he is now a bonafide loser .
im not sure that this is the reason some shadchanim think that some guys really need to get married, but if you ask me it is. if these guys would get married before the rage overtakes them they would not be the losers i encounter at singles events.

notes on the hannukah song

december 3,1994 adam sandler debuted the original hannukah song on saturday night live. i watched in it in awe and part disbelief. it was hysterically funny and unmistakably jewish. while i was watching it i had no idea it would become such a cult classic and the only hannukah song played on the radio amidst of all of the x-mas carols every december.
the hannukah song is really a very silly song. it lists all the jewish celebrities who may or may not actually celebrate hannukah so all of us lonley jewish kids dont feel like we are all alone lighting a menorah each december. it also is sung by adam sandler in one of his childishly annoying voices. no matter. somehow this silly song caught on.
its too bad a song more like al hanisim or even the dreidel song do not reach the public air waves each december. but they do not. so im glad that the hannukah song does. at least it reminds the unaffiliated that there is a hannukah and that some hip celebrity wrote a song that they might be able to relate to.
i dont think that adam sandler had any idea he was creating a cult phenomenon when he was cooking up his hannukah song. he probably was just trying to write some kooky hannukah song for a saturday night live skit. dumb luck turned it into a holiday classic. and yes i do think that this is ultimately good for the jews.

20,000 hits!!!

i passed the 20,000 hit mark yesterday!! what's really cool is that it took me a year and four months to get to 10,000 hits. its taken nine more months to get to 20,000! thank you all for reading!!!

would you rather?

would you rather have cancer than aids? would you rather be single than divorced with 3 special needs children? would you rather get married at forty and be childless and happily married for fifty years or marry at twenty, have four kids but be widowed at fifty? would you rather have psoriasis and no wrinkles or clear skin and wrinkles? would you rather have noisy neighbors and live in a safe neighborhood or would you rather live on a farm in new mexico? would your rather be single than married to tiger woods?
i really don't know the answers to any of these questions, nor do i want to. these are the types of incoherent things people like to ask singles when they kvetch about being single. when i kvetch i don't want a would you rather diatribe, id like someone to suggest someone appropriate for me to go out with or just just listen and not say anything. i would rather not be asked would i rather.

divorced is better???

often people will try to fix me up with a guy who is divorced and they will try to plug it by saying "hey at least he could make a commitment!" well, im still not convinced that its better to go out with a divorced guy than a never married guy.
alot of times the divorced guy has a truckload of baggage because he has kids. ive heard so many divorce stories that my head is spinning. i don't really know who to believe when i hear them. there is his side, her side and the truth. and of course you have to be hashem to know the truth.
my favorite divorce story is the one where the ex-wife was crazy. while this might be true, it also might not be. maybe he made her act nuts. who knows. i also love how the guys think that withholding a get is okay because a rabbi told them to. whatever. alot of the rabbis are anti-woman anyway. what do they care? meanwhile loverboy who is withholding the get is having a grand old time dating . but the rabbis said it was okay. good grief.
granted , single , never married men have their share of problems as well. they still think a scarlett johannson look alike is going to marry them even though they look like jack black. or they are fifty plus and think someone under thirty five will want to marry them.

al hanisim v'al haniflaot ! aka - a real hannukah miracle!!

a real hannukah miracle happened to me today. i had situation in my apartment that needed attending to and by the miracle of hannukah it was able to be fixed by the super today. laugh if you must, but this truly was a hannukah gift. within the first few days that i had moved into my apartment i had true tsuris. i flushed the toilet that fateful evening and the toilet flushed for eight hours straight. it was loud , it splashed and the super was nowhere to be found. it took weeks to get the super to install a new flushometer. this is why today my friends i consider it a hannukah miracle that my apartment ailment was so promptly attended to . not only has it been fixed , but i wont be spending my free moments leaving messages for the super or calling 311. i bh will be able to enjoy the rest of the holiday in my repaired abode.
happy hannukah!!

bragger beware!!

i absolutely hate braggers!!! i don't like drawing attention to myself even when goodness finds me. i don't like to make others feel envious of me. it really irks me that some people love bragging. they just think they are sooo special. what self confidence! what conceit! to me bragging is the worst midah one can possess. why make others who don't have what you have feel bad for what they are lacking?

HAPPY HANNUKAH!!

i always like it when hannukah does not correspond with x-mas, so it does not get completely overshadowed by that other holiday. then again, alot of secular jews might not give a thought to hannukah if not for the fact that it falls so close to x-mas.
being a closet pyromaniac i really love lighting the menorah. i love the look of the fire and watching the candles burn. for shabbos i always use the olive oil menorah, but somehow the olive oil menorah doesn't have as much sparkle to me. i know that there is a bigger mitzvah to use the olive oil, but it doesn't seem more mehudar to me.
lately the sufganiot have gained popularity, but i was never a fan of jelly donuts. weiss's bakery has caramel filled ones which are good, but i would rather have a greasy latke any day over whatever filled donut that is on the hannukah market.
whatever you light or eat, have a very happy hannukah!

the hannukah stamp.

well here we are again. its december. its happy hannukah time. though i love e-cards, i always send out traditional snail mail cards. i have an aresenal of hannukah stamps. apparently i still have some of the first hannukah stamp which was 32 cents!!! i had bought a bunch of them because i was so excited they actually had a jewish stamp and i was afraid they wouldn't make them again the next year. well they did and they even made a dreidel one which i have the 37 cent, 41 cent and 42 cent version of. since ive been buying the forever stamp for the past few years i never remember how much a stamp is , so i looked it up online. turns out there is an updated menorah stamp that was made in 2008 that's actually 44 cents (which turns is still how much a stamp is in 2009) i have some now. i only bought 20 of them this time.

ready, set , go!!

when i was in my early twenties i remember a shadchan becoming impatient with me after i had gone out with a guy three times. " what do you mean you arent sure about bochur x after three dates? some people get engaged after 10 dates!!! what is with you?" apparently this shadchan hasn't gone shopping with me. when i go to a clothing store i check out everything that is there , try on all of the maybes and then make a decision as to which i would like to buy. when i go to a jewelery booth at a holiday market i take stock of everything and sometimes wait until the next day until i choose a trinket. i eventually make a purchase , but not without much thought and consideration. apparently shadchanim do not understand this, which i find quite odd. isn't that the point of shidduch dating? one is supposed to choose a mate through logical deliberation, not gut lust?
i do agree that dating someone for too long doesn't bode well in a relationship if one is serious about getting married, its just the timeline that i have my own feelings about. if someone is a very open person then a shorter dating period can be ok, but if one isn't then ten dates before engagement spells trouble. i have also found that time in itself is helpful in the shidduch process. at first everyone is on his/her best behavior, but as time passes one starts to be more ones self. the other thing is that over time life happens. tempers flare , one gets to learn the others spending habits and one gets to see the others true religious level. these are things that happen over time. one can only see what the other person's debating tactics are if one is in an actual argument with them. at first a guy may be very generous, but over time it may prove that he is quite miserly. or the opposite. a guy could extravagant and be a million dollars in debt. one might proclaim to be a certain level of frumkeit, but over time one can see if the other lives up to his/her appointed level. these issues are the tip of the iceberg. one cannot know everything about a person before one commits but it does pay to make the effort. some people do well being pushed into things. i do not . the more one pushes me the more i will say no way, especially when the stakes are so high.

art

art is not a handicraft. it is a transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.-tolstoy. or at least according to some poster i saw yesterday , these words are tolstoys! no matter. i believe its true. art is definitely self expression to the max. the more one has experienced the richer ones art . this applies to writing , painting, crochet , photography, jewelery making , etc. its not just a matter of slapping some words together or following a pattern. its a matter of transmitting one's being via creativity.

food issues

i must have the most interesting grocery cart in midwood. whenever im at the checkout at glatt mart someone decides to pick up one of my food items on the checkout counters and ask me about it. its the biggest pain in the you know what. another favorite is those who decide to tell me how expensive the item they are groping is and is it really worth the money. even if i went shopping with my own mother she wouldn't ask me this. i cant stand this brooklyn-jewish invasion of privacy. i don't appreciate someone beside the check out person handling my grocery items either, but i figure anyone could have fondled the food package before i put it on the check out counter, so i usually try to just suck it up. i think that i should look into a new career as a personal grocery shopper. if my new clients dont actually like how their food items taste at least they will find them intriguing.

horrorscopes

i picked up the new york post at duncan donuts today and read my horoscope. welcome to the world of great comedy. my sign is virgo and this was my horrorscope for today: Too many of the people you have dealings with today will talk and talk some more without actually telling you much of what you need to know. In which case you might as well plug in your ear phones and blank out their chatter.
welcome to my world. except in real life this is my horrroscope everyday!!