being thankful

this week heralds in the secular american holiday of thanksgiving. my family, being modern orthodox, always celebrated thanksgiving. ive always enjoyed watching the parade on tv and getting together for a big family meal that was able to include guests who were not necessarily in walking distance.

i am thankful to be in this country. my family arrived in the united states not long after a major pogrom in kishinev and not without one of my grandmothers getting shot in the face as an eleven-year-old during a pogrom. im grateful, that b"h , bli eyin harah, i have never had to experience such horrors. america is not the promised land, but it has been a haven for many jews as well as many other beleaguered individuals. i believe in having hakaras hatov.

im going away for thanksgiving starting tomorrow, so i probably wont have time to blog until next week. until then, have a happy and healthy thanksgiving for those who are celebrating.

cool jews

there's a new book out called cool jew by lisa klug. i find the title kind of funny because though i love being jewish , i dont think being jewish equals cool. i guess that was the idea of the book. to make jewish people feel they too are cool.

though i have only flipped through the book, i dont find the book to be all that original. there are several kitschy jewish books around like judaikitsch by jennifer and victoria traig and jewish holiday fun by barbara rushkoff. lisa klug is the only orthodox jew who has written this type of book.

thursday there was a book reading of cool jew at the jcc, which included several performance artists lisa klug knew. though the author read excerpts from the book, i think that these kitschy concepts are more fun to read on paper, than heard .

the musical performances and comedy acts were quite special. the book reading / artist showcase lasted about 2hrs. and it was FREE. very cool.

the most standout singers at the event were michelle citrin and chana rothman. both are dynamic and have excellent voices. yisroel campbell , comedian and convert to judaism was hysterically funny.

its always fun to check out who attends a jewish event. there was a mix of religious and non-religous jews as well as a mix of ages. i suspect many of the performers friends populated the audience.

post elections

now that obama's pr superstars have achieved their goals, maybe they would like to be my advocates. they must have alot of time on their hands now. if only i had a pr team like that to help me find a husband....
anyhow... a girl can dream...

keep it real

since im originally from outside of the new york area i am always fascinated by new yorkers who say what they love about new yorkers is that they are so "real" . and real usually means that they bypass being polite and thus "tell it like it is" whatever that means.
i can tell you one thing, working in a job that is very customer service oriented i appreciate it when people put up the facade of being friendly . sometimes it makes all of the difference. believe me , i dont want these people to act like their real selves . their real selves suck.
speaking without thinking isnt keeping it real, its just being foolish.
alot of the time new yorkers are suspicious of ulterior motives when non-new yorkers are nice because they think that this is the only reason anyone would be nice instead of the status quo bitchy.
i think that the world would be a better place if people would just try to be friendly to each other even if thats not their true nature. if one pretends to be friendly long enough, it might eventually become genuine.

dangerous liasons???

over the years ive been a guest at many shabbos meals. one thing that i have found quite curious is how often the husbands are much friendlier than the wives. and i NEVER flirt with married men, so this is not why the married women arent as friendly. i always find this phenomenon quite odd. these wives were definitely schooled in the bais yaakov cosmetology program, so they definitely outdo me in the makeup application department. besides, im not interested in married men.
i live in an apartment building with many couples. often the men are friendlier than the wives. are married women threatened by single women? or is it that the married men enjoy the safety of chatting up a single woman while they are married, but the wives have no reason to chat with a single woman?
there is no purpose to flirting with a married man. ive got enough tzuris, i dont need more. id rather get that positive feedback from the usual cute , much younger singleton. it might be a dead end prospect as well, but no one else is being hurt in the process.

the joys of blogging

i enjoy blogging because ive always enjoyed creative writing. blogging is creative writing with a twist. you get to write your thoughts and get published, and get instant feedback.
its interesting to write as well as read other people's blogs. its great to see the readership grow via my sitemeter, but its also nice to just be writing. whoever reads my blog reads my blog and hopefully enjoys it.
i also know that it takes awhile for people to find a blog. some bloggers start blogging and immediately have a huge readership and for others it takes longer to catch on. whatever. its not like there's a fee to keep this blog up. so whoever reads it reads it whoever doesnt its their loss. i enjoy sharing my views with whoever is willing to listen. i enjoy reading the comments.
have a great shabbos!

chance

i normally like men who are in my general age range . i dont usually date men ten years older . well , tonight , against my better judgement, i had a date with a guy ten years older. my friend who set me up with him looks young , and she had dated him , so i thought he couldnt be that bad. well ... it wasnt that great either. he was an interesting chap, but the age thing really bothered me.
after the date, i thought i was going to burst in to tears. dates like these are really depressing. they make me feel like im never going to get married. like this is all thats out there and the joke's on me.
better luck next time.