Oh my, how festive!

I have been wondering who will be the next big name designer to do a small cheap line for Target. Well, this was announced back in July, so I obvioulsy haven't been thinking about it THAT long. But I am really excited that it is none other than Behnaz Sarafpour! This is fabulous news. I have long admired her lady-like facades and beautiful fabrics. It is entirely appropriate that her designs for Target's GO! line will be mostly Holiday looks. Her clothes are universally festive and beautiful. She is focusing a lot on utilizing lace these days, which is lovely. I think The collection is fabulous. Here are a couple sneak-peaks for you.

We really are part of the animal kingdom...

It's one of everyone's favorite things to giggle about. Watching the nature chanel or going to the zoo and seeing the mating rituals of the animal kingdom. Some have colored feathers they flaunt, some have changes in skin color, some do little dances. These rituals seem come more from a natural progression of age and reproductive necessity than of a desire for pleasure in most species. We human beings always thought we were more evolved. Well, as it happens, human women are prone to this type of behavior as well, and we don't even know it.

Kicking the Habit

They say that heroin is the toughest addiction to overcome. It’s brutal; personal. They say that once you get a taste you feel better than you ever have before. And that every time you do it you need a little more to try to match that original high. It’s never enough, and as you continue to need more the experience dulls so that you have actually moved further apart before colliding back together again. They say that even when you try to give it up it finds you, begging for one last chance to have fun together before you really say goodbye. And you can’t ever say no. It never makes sense. There’s always a reason to do it again. And next time you can avoid it or turn it down, but this time will be the final farewell. You just can’t bring yourself to deny the one true pleasure. The experience that enables you to forget everything and feel things you can only do so together. Even if it isn’t as good as it was it still feels better than going without.

I am not a heroin addict, I am addicted to you. It is a significant difference, and perhaps I am being too dramatic. My 12-year-old crush died of a heroin overdose last year. He just couldn’t kick the habit. But I can’t get myself over you.

You are the bad boy with the good heart who makes me tingle in ways and places never possible with other men. You say things sometimes that I swear were pulled out of my own brain and then re-worded to sound more like you. You are also the non-Jewish, tattooed, self-proclaimed "Asshole," who had early success in the film industry only to crack under pressure, drop out of school, work a dead-end job and spend the last few years promising me you're trying to get your shit together. You disappear and keep coming back to find me when I am in some kind of weakened state and desperate for the greatest touch, kiss, look. When I am craving to re-connect with you, be with you, even if all I get is an abridged rendezvous or 3am phone call. Regardless of how much it pains me afterwards, I always let you back in. Convincing myself that it is all worth it for the few hours of pleasure and connection I collect.

The thing is, like the heroin addict’s drug experience weakens every time, my occasions with you aren’t getting any better. They are more spread out, more detached, more erratic. But being with you still feels better than any other attempt at intimacy with any one else. And those moments feel infinitely better than being alone.

I am wearing a flattering dress today. Men keep looking at me and commenting. And it’s not just the construction workers and other stereotypes on the street. Business men in suits, college students with backpacks, even a couple women. Perhaps today is the day I can finally kick my habit. If I don’t learn to say no, you will keep coming back. You always come back. I asked you a year and a half ago to never call me again and you obliged for a year, but then you came back. You can’t manage to stay away from me indefinitely. You are more than willing to disappear when some more important project comes along, but you weasel your way back to me. You will always keep trying. Part of me is flattered. But most of me is willing to start listening to my friends who have been begging me to give you up for what seems like forever. I realize now that if I don’t push you out of my life you will always be lurking in the background. And that that is not necessarily a good thing.

It really is not fair. It is hard enough to find someone who you like who likes you too. How can it be that your best efforts and my lowest expectations are still worlds apart? My left breast is aching today. I started a new pill this month, so it could somehow be related to that, but I think it is my heart having been cracked ever so slightly. Not broken, just cracked enough to know that there is a flaw. Because I have known for days that it is time for me to start my withdrawal. And it is painful. And last time didn’t feel good enough to be the official “last time.” It never does…

Rumblings

First of all, very exciting new values found to be held by marijuana.

Next, it seems that there is a new book all the rage in child-rearing called “The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children,” by a Los Angeles clinical psychologist named Wendy Mogel. There is a very legnthy feature in the New York times magazine here or you can just look at some excerpts from your favorite online bookseller.

In other news, I've been trying to find something to push me over the edge and start talking about how the fashion world is up in arms about model sizes. It all started a few weeks ago when Milan banned models with an officially unhealthy body mass index from appearing in the Spring 2007 fashion week. In the recent weeks that have followed everyone seems to have weighed in on the "size 0 debate." They are going in circles and nobody in New York or Paris or anywhere else has really committed themselves to making an impact in one direction or another. However it is intersting to see Jean-Paul Gaultier's take on the matter. It's kind of a "fuck-you" to the whole thing regardless of who's side you're on. In his 30th anniversary collection just a couple days ago he featured this model.



A Chorus Line is back on Broadway, and apparantly there are pretty much no changes to the entire show except for the cast. I find it very interesting that this revival is actually a revival and not a revisal as has been the trend. It opened to mixed reviews. I might be inclined to see it. But first on the list is Sondheim's COMPANY revival starring Raul Esparza.


And finally, earlier in the week I found an article I was planning on releasing sometime this week. It's something I wrote for the Koach (Conservative Judaism on Campus!) national newsletter sometime in the fall of 1999. R. Elyse Winnick, one of my favorite teachers, asked me to write something about Sukkot - a Chag I never felt particularly connected to. But, not being one to let down a teacher (nor decline an offer to see my name in print) I obliged and you can read what I came up with below. -I am going to pretend that I did not recieve an email from Salome within the last hour in which she passed on a beautiful dvar torah from a friend of hers in Israel who is much better educated and significantly more eloquent than I was 7 years ago.

Coming to Terms With Sukkot

When I sit and think about Chag HaSukkot, there are a few words and images that automatically come to mind. Obviously "Sukkah" is one of them, as well as your standard: lulav, etrog, big meals, family and friends gathering, and all the rest of the usual Jewish holiday accomodations. When I really think about it though, I'm torn. Sure, I love that medeival scholar Moses Maimonides tells me to buy a new dress for the occasion (no joke! check out the Mishnah Torah, book 3, chapter 6, paragraph 18). I enjoy looking up at the stars and watching all the fruits and veggies hangin' from the walls of the Sukkah go bad. But I also feel somewhat disconnected. Sukkot is the one holiday that I could blow off or forget about. It just doesn't have that connection for me that the rest of the Jewish holidays do. You know what I mean. I can't build my own Sukkah because I live in an apartment building (and there's a pool in the courtyard, so trust me, there's no space). Also, quite frankly, the idea of a bunch of people marching around on Hoshannah Rabbah shaking a lulav and etrog while chanting the word "HoShannah" over and over again in different intonations freaks me out every time! It seems so cultish, so primitave. And I'd just as well sing the song "Hosanah" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar. That's when it hits me. Instead of singing, "Hey J.C., J.C. you're alright by me," instead of giving into the religion of the masses that we are all surrounded by in America, I was born into and have come to love this other religion. One rich with customs and traditions older than everything else I have come to accept as a norm in my life. So, I go to shul on Sukkot! I wave the lulav and etrog all around me and remember that God is everywhere. I visit the Sukkah on campus, and at my synagogue, and I go to friends' and family's houses, and I sit in their Sukkot. It's a pretty special thing, you know? So maybe I'm not a farmer, and don't feel an important need to pray for rain this year, or a good harvest. Maybe I don't have the space to build my own personal Sukkah. But one day I will. I'll want my children to help me come up with a theme for the interior decoration of it. I'll watch them explain to my grandchildren how many years people have built Sukkot. And hey, look at that! I'll be fulfilling the obligation from God written in Leviticus 23; 42-43 that says, "You shall live in booths ...in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt..." Maybe you will too. Chag Sameach.

Sleepy time

Here's some important news about sleep and sleeping pills
My favorite part is when they say that people who sleep 6 or 7 hours a night have a lower death rate than those who sleep 8. and becaus of this I am inspired to sing "nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah..."