The Next Action — the ATM Password

Posted on June 28, 2010 by Neil

There was this girl who was a classmate of mine from first grade through senior year in high school. She had an unusual, but beautiful first name. We were friendly, but we didn’t anything socially outside of the classroom. Our relationship was based on the activities between the brick walls of the school building.

She was very important to me. She was my class competitor.

During math class, if I didn’t raise my hand up in time to answer a question, she would get there first. We competed for awards. We each won numerous “Citizen of the Month,” citations. We always compared test scores, secretly wishing the other to flounder. We tried to outdo the other in the number of books we read per year. When I was picked to make the commencement speech at graduation in elementary school, she became the class president in junior high. We were both the literary editors of the high school yearbook. At the end of the senior year of high school, the school “ranked” all the seniors according to their grade point average. I beat her by one point; it was a very satisfying victory.

My parents were never the pushy parents who told me to succeed at any cost. I just enjoyed school. It was this girl, ambitious and super-focused, who forced me to step up my game.

We lost touch the minute we attended college. I hadn’t heard from her for years, until, well, no surprise — Facebook. I was excited, and nervous, to reconnect with her. We had a polite exchange of messages, but nothing very intimate. I think we were both too shy to have any real conversation. For all I know, she may not have give me a second’s thought during all these years.

But I have a little secret about her. This girl has been a part of my life for decades, in a very unusual way. I wanted to tell her about it, but when I mentioned it to Sophia, she told me not to tell her. It would make me look weird.

I’ll let you decide.

So what is this mystery I keep on talking about? How has this girl (now a woman) been an integral part of my life since high school?

On my first day of college at Columbia in New York, I went with my mother to open a bank account at Citibank. There was a branch a few blocks on Broadway. After depositing some money, I received my very first ever personal ATM card. I needed a password. Using my street name or middle name was too obvious. I wanted something personal, but obscure enough for a thief to never figure it out. So, I chose the first name of this girl from school, this girl with the unusual, but beautiful name. My competitor.

Since that time, years passed, and I have moved and changed banks numerous times. Citibank, Marine Midland, HSBC, Pacific Security, Wells Fargo, Bank of America — each receiving an ATM card with the exact same password — my classmate’s first name. As you can tell, I don’t change things easily.

This girl is now a woman, but I still can picture her raising her hand a second before mine in the fourth grade, and reciting the correct equation in math. She has become an iconic image in my mind. Her name, because of her association with my ATM card, has been forever connected to matters such as ambition, success… and my bank account. Has it worked out for me? Well…

Of course, by telling this story, it is also the end of an era. Once she finds out (if I choose to tell her) , I will need to change the password to my bank ATM for the first time in decades.

First, my blog template changes, now my ATM password will have to change. Again, it might seem like very small changes, but these items have symbolism, and symbolism is the most powerful God of all.

But maybe it is time to change the password on my ATM card. It is 2010, and my hair is graying. It is time to move beyond a life revolving around a competition with a girl from elementary school. This was never an effective and mature way to deal with existence beyond the 12th grade. Time to finally graduate from school — psychologically — and find my inspiration in the present.

Time for a new ATM password.

Posted in Life in General | Tagged , , , , | 21 Comments

Action

Posted on June 27, 2010 by Neil

You might not think it is a big deal that I changed my template today, but those who know me, know the truth. I am neurotic about stuff like this. I created my last template and header on March 7, 2005, my first day of blogging, and it has remained the same ever since. I know this design isn’t the greatest, and I might fiddle with it some more, or even change it completely. But I acted. I am very slow to change, to take action.

I was on my back for three days. Stress had knocked me out. Today was turning into another lousy day. My iphone died. Sophia’s laptop got a virus. The aide staying with Sophia’s FIL is quitting (our second!), leaving us having to find another person we can trust. When I finally stood up from the bed and stretched my back, I felt a lot better, but creaky, like the Tin Man. But no Wizard of Oz for me. I wanted to take action, on my own. I wasn’t sure in what way. I thought of deleting Twitter. But that would be a cop-out — a negative action, not one about change, tinged with the flames of creativity, dusted with the grains of confidence.

“I’m gonna fucking change my blog template today after five years of looking at that same header!” I said.

Now onto the next thing.

Posted in Life in General | Tagged , , | 58 Comments

Get Back

Posted on June 25, 2010 by Neil

If you were flat on your back on the living room couch since yesterday, after the terrible stress of the last few months finally got to you, and your back gave out during gardening, and you were in a lot of pain, dressed only in a t-shirt and underwear, on vicodin, but getting bored and impatient, and the easiest way to entertain yourself while your separated wife and your mother ate breakfast in the dining room, was to go on Twitter to kvetch and gain some sympathy from strangers, until you came across a link from @jewles that took you to a ridiculous photo of a naked woman in a empty field wearing orange boots and leg warmers –

– and as you sat there, looking at that photo, you started to get a boner, because you never know with these things, and at that exact moment, your separated wife and your mother were coming into the living room to give you breakfast, so out of embarassment, you reached for the blanket on the other side of the couch, but you couldn’t reach it, even when stretching, and when you tried to move, the pain shot from you back both down to the leg and up to the brain, so the only alternative was to throw yourself off the couch and onto the floor in desperation, onto your already inflamed back, so you screamed in pain, and then rolled over onto your stomach, smashing the boner against the wood floor, so you screamed in pain a second time, just as your wife and mother rushed in, wondering what was going on, but giving you time to use the distraction to grab the blanket, wrap it around your waist and fall back down on your hurting back, would you post about it?

“My god, can I help you to the couch?” your mother would ask.

“No, just leave me where I am. I’m comfortable,” you would answer.

(written on the iPhone while on my back)

Posted in Life in General | Tagged , | 19 Comments

Fanya’s Funeral

Posted on June 20, 2010 by Neil

Sophia asked me to speak at her mother’s funeral instead of her. It was intimidating because most of the attendees at the service only spoke Russian, so as I spoke my eulogy, it was as if I was speaking to Sophia directly. I compared Sophia to her late mother, Fanya. I said that they both showed the same passion for life — for singing, for dancing,for loving, for family, and even for fighting. In the past, telling Sophia that she was acting “like her mother,” would have put me sleeping on the living room couch, but I think this time, it pleased Sophia to hear her being called her mother’s daughter. Sophia misses her mother. Their relationship was very intense. They spoke several times a day.

+++

The rabbi, a Russian-speaking Orthodox Jewish rabbi, knew Fanya from the senior center. He spoke about Fanya before I did, telling everyone how she single-handedly started up an on-site library at the center. I’m surprised that he didn’t immediately understand that Sophia and Fanya were cut from the same strong-willed cloth, because it wasn’t long before Sophia and the rabbi were butting heads. It is a tradition for a close family member to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish memorial prayer, during the burial. To the Orthodox, the most conservative branch of Judaism, this means the closest MALE family member.

“I want to do the Kaddish,” said Sophia. Not only did Sophia know the prayer, she understood the Hebrew, having spent years living in Israel.

“Only men can say the Kaddish at the cemetery,” said the bearded rabbi with the black hat.

“That’s because you’re Orthodox. I’m not.”

“But I’M THE RABBI!”

“That’s true. But this is MY MOTHER.”

That ended the conversation. Sophia read the Kaddish. The rabbi bit his lip. That said, he was a cool guy who had a beautiful singing voice, and said very nice things about Fanya.

+++

The day before the funeral was painful. Although Vartan was in the bedroom when the ambulance arrived for Fanya two days earlier, he still did not know that his wife had passed away. It was time to tell him. Sophia entered the room and pulled a chair next to the bed. Vartan was going in and out of reality, so Sophia had to repeat his name several times before he snapped to attention. Once he heard and understood the news about his wife, the woman who was his everything, who had cared for him day and night for the last six months, he wailed with sorrow, like his soul was stabbed. He was very distraught that he couldn’t attend the funeral. Sophia asked a friend to videotape the funeral for Vartan. I thought it was a bad idea to have him watch the video, but Sophia thought it might give him closure.

After the funeral, we all met in the senior center’s recreation room for food, since no Jewish event is complete without bagels and lox, even during death. Then we went upstairs to see Vartan, thinking of showing him the video. But it was clear that he had returned to daydreaming. He asked her where Fanya was, as if he didn’t remember the earlier conversation, and Sophia didn’t have the heart to tell him again. Sophia told Vartan that she was out shopping.

+++

Sophia has more supernatural leanings than I do. l believe it was a total coincidence that my mother had a flight to visit Los Angeles on the day of the funeral, even though she made the reservations two months ago. Sophia thinks it was fated that she would come to Los Angeles, where her presence was needed. That is difficult for me to accept. Did I attend that zen meditation retreat two weeks ago in order to learn to breath mindfully during stressful situations in preparation for a stressful situation? Did I go on Twitter immediately after learning about Sophia’s mother passing to just happen to find @redneckmommy online, the ideal person to give me advice about keeping a cool head, having dealt with her own family dramas? Does it mean anything that the birthday of my late father was yesterday, reminding me of everything Sophia did for me when my father passed away in 2005? Are Sophia and I supposed to be learning something about the grieving process?

“Do you believe in heaven?” I asked Sophia.

“Not sure,” she answered.

“If there is a heaven, do you think your mother and my father are meeting today?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe they’ll hit it off and make out. It is heaven after all. Free love.”

“My mother would never make out with your father.”

+++

Fanya and I had the perfect son-in-law/mother-in-law relationship. Why? Because we could hardly speak with each other. Her English and my Russian were rudimentary at best. That said, I spent A LOT of time with her, and we learned to communicate in different ways. We pointed, we gestured, we mimed, we faked words that we both agreed upon, a hodgepodge of English, Russian, and Yiddish. Much of our interaction revolved around food — buying food, cooking food, and eating food. The only time I was able to get into serious conversations with Fanya was when Sophia was present to translate. That doesn’t mean I don’t know a lot about her life. I heard many stories about Fanya from Sophia, some I will need to get permission to retell. Let’s just say Sophia’s mother was not afraid of telling her daughter about her sex life. As Vartan got older and sicker, he told his wife to take lovers because he knew how important sex was to her, and was sad that he couldn’t please her anymore. We’re talking about a woman over 75!

I felt a true bond with Fanya, because we had to work so hard to connect, like two deaf or blind people overcompensating with one sense over another. I know this will sound strange, considering we couldn’t speak, but we knew how to make each other laugh. She especially enjoyed my jumbling, mispronunciation of Russian words, such as when I mistakenly asked for “a pair of tits” rather than “two sausages.”

This post from 2006, “The Quest for the Toilet Seat,” is my favorite blog post involving Fanya.

Posted in Life with Sophia | Tagged , | 45 Comments

Sophia’s Mom

Posted on June 17, 2010 by Neil


Sophia’s mother passed away on Tuesday. Today is the funeral. It was unexpected, since it was her husband who was bedridden.

Fanya had an interesting and adventurous life, which took her from the horrors of war-torn Soviet Union to present-day Los Angeles, in order to be close to her only child, Sophia. Fanya was so proud when she became an American citizen.

The love of her life was her husband, Vartan. She met him in Odessa, Ukraine, where he was her doctor. They had a long and passionate relationship. Fanya and Vartan were inseparable. When Vartan grew ill six months ago, everyone thought it best to put Vartan in a convalescence home. We told her that it would require too much work. She refused to discuss the issue. Despite having an aide, and the help of her family, Fanya was her husband’s primary caregiver, dealing with all the physical strain and lack of sleep. Even as we saw her weakening from the stress, she refused to leave her husband’s side.

Yesterday, Sophia told Vartan the news of his wife’s passing. He is very distraught, especially about being too ill to attend the funeral.

Out of a total coincidence, my mother had a flight coming to visit us today in LA, so she will be attending as well.

Fanya was a bigger-than-life woman. She was tough in spirit, but also extremely caring to others, and will be very very missed.

If you want to send a message to Sophia, you can do it here or send me an email.

Posted in Life with Sophia | Tagged , | 54 Comments

Blog Post I Might Have Written When I Was Thirteen

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Neil

This is the greatest song ever written. It speaks so many truths. When the revolution comes, and it will, we must be careful who we follow because the new boss will be the same as the old boss. Question authority. Even when the authority is against the established authority. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” This is why we need a free press. And rock music. And writers and artists who speak their mind. Only those who question will be able to tell the truth. Don’t listen to the lies of the government OR the revolutionaries, whether they be followers of socialism or robots that we have built with our own hands, and now want to be our masters. We must not get fooled again!

Posted in Life in General | Tagged | 8 Comments

Fat Acceptance Gone Too Far

Posted on June 13, 2010 by Neil

Lately there have been several posts in which the writers were outraged at this new Fat Acceptance movement.  Really, how dare anyone tell those overweight people that they can be happy with their bodies?

At first, I was defending the right of others to do as they please, but an incident occurred recently that punched me right in the gut, and finally woke me up to the dangers of this ideology.

Last week, I was very excited to attend this meditation retreat at this zen center.  It was a beginner’s class, and I didn’t know much about the discipline.  I met the wonderful instructor and the other eager students.  We were all ready to learn as much as possible.  We climbed the stairs to the upstairs studio, and that’s when I saw him.

He wasn’t just fat.  He was morbidly obese!  It was clear that he rarely exercised, and mostly sat around like a lazy bum.  I’m not sure he even had a job, ever.  Perhaps the worst part of this experience was that the instructor looked up to this dude, as if this fatso with his gut hanging over his pants had any “wisdom” to offer.  The students even bowed to him.   There was a bowl of fruit sitting in front of this blimp of a man, as if that was what he mostly meditated on — his next meal.   Now, I think it’s OK for the overweight to visit Walmart, or even visit the beach WITH a t-shirt on, but when this “Fat Acceptance” starts to infiltrate our world religions, it has gone too far.

Posted in News and Politics | Tagged | 25 Comments

Zen 101

Posted on June 8, 2010 by Neil

Yesterday, I went to a full day zen meditation retreat for beginners.  It was fascinating, and I will write more about it later in the week.  But today (this was written on Monday), I want to get this specific thought out of my head, putting it into words because I completely forget what I wanted to say, or even more likely, embarrassed to bring it up tomorrow.  I enjoy this type of “fleeting moment” writing, although it can also be scary, because people tend to see your writing as written in stone, as if each post was a manifesto, and not a mere daydream.  If I decide tomorrow morning to say that my life dream is to run with the bulls in Pamplona, please don’t run out and buy me airplane tickets just yet.   By the afternoon, I might have done a little research, or watched the utter chaos on a YouTube video, and completely changed my mind, and decided to go to Hawaii instead.  So, be aware that I spent most of the Sunday staring at a blank wall in silence, so this post reflects that unique (or crazed) state of being.  Today I might be all zen.  That doesn’t mean that tomorrow, I won’t go back to writing sex jokes.

Over the last few years, I have introduced you to my mind.  To my heart.  You have even met my talkative, and overly friendly, penis, who has written some blog posts himself.  But I usually keep my soul locked in the basement, like a crazy, dangerous, uncle.  I pride myself on my rationality and adherence to a scientific approach, and dismiss anything that smacks of the supernatural.  Even when I write about Jewish issues, it tends to be about cultural issues, more bagels than morning prayer.

Every once in a blue moon, I hear my uncle screaming in the basement, and I try to listen to his gibberish.  As much as I try to ignore the rantings of a madman, I do hear him, and his voice intrigues me.  How many wondrous stories have I read in the past where it is the madman who is the one with the most knowledge and awareness?

I was IM-ing with Schmutzie this morning, telling her about the retreat.  She said she was surprised that I would go to a zen meditation retreat.

“It doesn’t sound like you AT ALL.  What made you go to it?”

I was taken aback because I had no coherent story.  I didn’t have a real reason for going other than curiosity.  It just fell into my lap.  Sure, I read Herman Hesse’s “Siddhartha” when I was in ninth grade, but I have never had an overwhelming desire to meditate.  I don’t read books about zen meditation.  I’m not even that attracted to Buddhism as a way of life.  I find the concept of karma a little creepy.  My “path,” if there is one, that brought me there  was completely random, rather mundane, and involves the most un-zen-like of all modern tools — Twitter.

One evening, several weeks ago, Sophia and I were arguing about the dishes.  I’m not embarrassed to mention this, because I assume that this is a common in every modern married household throughout the world.   Sadly, in my home, I am the one usually stuck with the chore.

After cleaning the kitchen, I took my angst out on whoever happened to be sitting on Twitter at 8PM on a Tuesday.

“I hate doing the dishes,” I wrote to whoever was there.  “Is there anyone who really LIKES doing the dishes?”

Another blogger chimed in and replied that I should read a book by Karen Maezen Miller.   She  wrote a book about viewing the mundane household chores from a Buddhist perspective.   I didn’t think much of this, but I noticed that Karen Maezen Miller also happened to be on Twitter.   So, I followed her, mostly as a lark.  I like talking with a weird assortment of folk.

I followed her and soon  I was “chatting” with her on Twitter, mostly making fun of her mellow spirit, as if I was playfully interacting with The Redneck Mommy rather than a zen priest.   And I was surprised that she always had a funny response.  Zen priests are not supposed to be clever, or even “get” movie references to the Karate Kid!

Curious who this woman was, I looked at her website, and discovered that she teaches at an LA zen center, and — just that weekend — was offering an infrequently-held beginner’s retreat!   So, I signed up.

Let me make it clear.  This is not a plug for her book, which I have not read.  This is an actual story of how an argument with Sophia over the dishes brought me to a place where I was facing the wall all day!

Without getting all LOST on you, I think you see where this is going.  The mystery.

At the end of the retreat, Karen Maezen Miller thanked the students, and said some “Mister Miyagi” type statements that you would expect from a zen priest.  She said that  she learned as much from us and we did from her.

What made my ears perk up was this — our meeting was not as random as it seemed.  We were brought together.

It was fairly odd that I was sitting there.  A random tweet.  A random comment.  A random encounter.  A random geographical commonality.

I wanted to fight what was bubbling in my head with every fiber of my being.   It seems so wrong for so many reasons.  Is it possible that everyone we encounter is part of a learning experience that is presented to us on purpose?  I’ve written about THE SECRET before, and HOW MUCH I HATE WHAT IT REPRESENTS.  How do you explain all the bad shit that happens to people?   Karma?  I hate that crap.  I even have a broken friendship over that stupid book.

But why we meet certain people and not others?   Of the millions of people who use the internet, why do I interact with YOU?  Is it all just random, or do we really get what we need, even if we don’t realize it?

OK, sorry.  I will try to be normal again tomorrow.

More later.

Posted in Life in General, Los Angeles | Tagged , , | 28 Comments

Fight or Flight?

Posted on June 3, 2010 by Neil

My junior high school was an anonymous brown brick school, built in the 1960′s just when Queens was growing as a borough. The schoolyard was enclosed by a metal fence, like a prison, and considering that that 1/4 of the students at the time were dealing in some sort of illegal drugs, the yard was symbolic of where many of these youngsters would eventually find a permanent home.

At 3PM, we would play basketball in the school yard — four Jewish kids, one Italian kid, and one black kid. We were all in the “gifted program” class, which was a desperate attempt for this particular New York City public school to plug the leaky hole caused by fearful parents and their kids pouring out of the city school and into the safer private religious schools. Without some action on the school’s part to keep the brainier kids, the neighborhood junior high would be known as a place where students were more likely to get stabbed than learn algebra.

There were three basketball courts in this schoolyard. We played on the half court the furthest away from the crowds, near the water fountain. All six of us were shitty players. I was tall, so I was good at blocking the ball. Unfortunately, I couldn’t dribble or shoot. I stood around with my hands up, trying to block the shots. Luckily, no one else could shoot the ball either.

Depending on the day of the week, between fifteen minutes to an hour into our game, it would always happen. Six tough-looking dudes would show up, the tallest doing tricks with his ball, and tell us to leave. He was not a polite guy. If I remember correctly, he tended to use the term “fucking white faggots,” at five of us, and then torment the one black guy in our group for being an “oreo.”

This might seem quite dramatic to you, even traumatic, but at the time, it didn’t seem so, even when we physically chased off the court, shown a knife, or forced to give them money. We would run away and make fun of these idiots, laughing at our crazy adventure that we would never dare tell our parents.

I’ve hardly thought about these incidents in years. It was the power politics of the schoolyard. During the day, we were safely roped off in our “gifted program.” What else was there to do?

But how has this affected me today? Or has it? I still tend to cave in during a conflict, although I have gotten much better about standing my own ground. I am the antithesis of the Israeli army and Hamas in the schoolyard of the Middle East, or the U.S. and Soviet Union of the cold war years, where neither gives an inch because that would convey weakness, and enemies always take advantages of weaknesses.   Sadly, history does not have many examples of the weak writing the history books!

We all know the movie/TV version of this schoolyard story. There would be a moment of transformation. At some point, I would have had enough with being pushed around, and I would become a leader.

“We need to stop those bullies. We need to keep our ground,” I would tell my friends.

Of course, just as the bullies arrive, telling us to leave the court, all my friends would wimp out, running off, leaving me alone, having to face the six toughs alone. I would nervously “put up my dukes,” like in some John Wayne Western, and promptly get the shit beaten out of me.

Yet, and this is a BIG yet — the bullies would have learned to respect me. I took it like a man. We would negotiate. We would compromise, taking turns using the court. We would even learn to play together, in mixed teams. The guy who did tricks with the basketball like a Harlem Globetrotter would show me how to play ball like a pro. I would teach him algebra. I would grow up and play center for the New York Knicks. He would become a Harvard Professor, a Nobel Prize winner in Mathematics.

I love Hollywood. Maybe the weak can’t write the history books, but they can rewrite history in screenplays!

OK, you’re a parent. Your son comes to you and tells you what is going on at the schoolyard. What do you tell him to do? Fight or flight?

Posted in Life in General, New York City | Tagged , , | 29 Comments

5:40 AM

Posted on May 31, 2010 by Neil

Sometimes I feel like I’m wounded, and the only doctor available is myself, and I never went to medical school.

5:40 Monday. IPhone. (sorry Mom for the depressing thought. It’s only a blog. Don’t worry.)

7:36 Monday. Now I feel fine. Do I delete this post or keep it as a record of 5:40? That’s the danger of a personal blog. You can say something that will become part of your online identity when it may just be a moment in time. Does everything said here have to be a statement of fact or a strongly held opinion? Can I be unsure? Or intentionally wrong and playful with my own words because I like it, or because a person might hit on the truth more easily with the throwing of the darts method?

7:47 That update made me melancholy again.

Posted in Life in General | Tagged | 11 Comments