I told Sarge (Tony) that I am sick of sleeping with his army blanket (or, alternately, his work t-shirt that reeks of calibrating fluid) ... SO, we've decided to throw petrol prices to the wind and spend weekends alternately in Indiana and Michigan. Obviously there will be weekends when this will be impossible, but it sounds like a good deal to me. I have a feeling if I don't give him a good seeing-to pretty soon his brain will explode.

OK, so here's what happened with me and Tony ...

We had been having issues with Tony's bisexuality. Really it was my issue. I couldn't handle the idea that he had a "bigger menu." I know that's stupid, but there you have it. We decided to take a break. I started seeing Simcha, but besides his spectacular beauty, there was nothing there. We came from far too different backgrounds, he from a wealthy Chassidic family in Brooklyn and all. Tony saw nobody. I was cold to Tony, even though he was loving and kind to me throughout. There was also the distance. He is still a 4 hour drive from me. He worked constantly. He originally moved to Indiana to take care of his dying mother. When she died, his father, a seriously overmedicated witness to the My Lai massacre in  Vietnam, was helpless without his wife. Now it was Tony's job to fight with the VA to get him into an assisted living situation. I was furious. I expected Tony and the kids up here once his mother died. Thinking about it now, I would have done the same thing. Were my father, chas v'shalom, helpless, I'd move heaven and earth to get him help. Seeing Tony through his own problems with the VA, I know they move at a glacial pace. I broke it off with Simcha, and began mending fences with Tony. He recently said something to me that clinched it ...

"I love you more  than anything ... and straight, queer, bisexual ... it doesn't matter ... YOU are the only one I want raising my kids."

:::::::melt::::::

You can blame grimmbear for this meme

Getting to know me… getting to know all about me…

First name: Shloma (pronounced SHLOY muh) -- if you want to call me something else scream it into a pillow -- Shloma is my Hebrew name and my name of choice -- call me anything else and you'll get no answer)

Age: 39

Location: Near Detroit (Mt. Clemens to be exact)

Occupation: Before I was on disability I worked at a psych hospital helping patients make rights violation reports

Partner:  Sergeant Mark Anthony _____ US Army

Kids: 2 -- D & K

Brothers/Sisters: 1 sister Margaret

Pets: none

Parents: Margalit bas Penina, may her memory be a blessing, and Avram ben Chaim, shlita

Who are some of your best friends? Bryan, Ian, Nandi, Julia, Morgan, Sarah, Martin, Tony, Foley, George, Adrienne, Alberta, Pete, Rebbbetzin Chana Finman, Kelly, Rowe, Brandon, and so many more

List the 3-5 biggest things going on in your life right now (in no particular order).
1) Building a non-hierarchical Ile Orisha that is a haven for freaks, queers, commies, and anyone else who isn't chasing the mythological American dream
2) Renewing my commitment to Tony, the one true love of my life
3) Sharing time with qilora IRL
4) Building lovely friendships with Morgan and George
5) Getting a fabulous manicure and wearing makeup again

Tony (yes THAT Tony) and I, have reconciled.  We took a short break, during which time I saw a gorgeous Chassidische boy, but the spark just wasn't there.  The whole time I was with him, I missed Tony.  I missed his arms around me in bed.  I missed him walking around the apartment in his boxer shorts.  I missed the magic of raising our children. And, not to be vulgar, but Simcha was in his early twenties, and all the enthusiasm in the world can't replace technique ... *ahem*

I called him and he essentially expressed the same sentiments to me.  We love each other and we didn't give each other enough of a chance to work through our problems.  He's still fighting with the rabbis for his conversion.  There's no earthly reason they shouldn't have done it by now, but all in good time.

We never stopped talking ... even during our "break." I tried to make him jealous with Simcha, and I feel bad about using that sweet. naive boy that way. Tony saw nobody. He just cried a lot. To me.

I love him with all my heart and soul. And I believe he feels the same way about me.  We've always been scrupulously honest with each other, and if it was over we would both know it was over. And it's not over.

You can't run from your bashert.

I want it to go on forever, but for now one day at a time is enough.

So look for more Tony stories. My love life is your literary nightmare. I think first I'll write a treatise on his bathroom habits or lack thereof.

On June 19th, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were murdered by the US government, through a conspiracy of collusion, ex parte communication between the prosecution and the judge and manufactured evidence. 

The Rosenbergs were framed by Ethel's own brother, David Greenglass, and sent to the electric chair at Sing Sing. The authorities deliberately waited for the Jewish Sabbath to kill them.

To the last second, the Rosenbergs were offered a commutation of their sentence, if they would name names of people working against the US government.

They gave their lives rather than implicate others.

I joined with their sons Robby and Michael Meeropol and all other proud relatives of the Rosenbergs, in commemorating this day as a day on which the US government showed its true colours, and its willingness to fabricate evidence and to deny basic justice to its citizens. I also join those who would put their physical safety, even their lives, on the line, rather than subjugate ourselves to a corrupt and oppressive government.

My dad's doing REALLY well. He has his colour back and he's exercising daily in hospital. Talk is he'll be out within the week. Things have been really insane around here despite Tony (yes, THAT Tony) and qilora's efforts to keep me sane. We're having a great time though. I've been totally unavailable for a while, so sorry to you guys who are used to more regular contact. Everything should normalize soon.

Thanks again for keeping us all in your thoughts. And TODA RABA to kmelion for the groovy icon :-)

YOU. GUYS. ROCK!!!!!!!!!!

My dad GOT UP AND WALKED AROUND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He is doing SO WELL!

Thank you so much for your good wishes, prayers, candles, tehillim, and just general menschlekeit and lovingkindness. My heart is so full.

So I went purple ... This is the best purple I've ever had, cause I put it over a peroxide dye in the same palette, rather than just going white then applying the purple. I've had it a month and it's not going ANYWHERE.

... oh ... that lavender and apricot mess behind me is my living room ... and as you can see I put on a little mascara 'cause I had to go to the grocery store.

You know ... sometimes I'm just so fucking fabulous I can't even stand it myself.

Please please please everyone listen up!!!

My father, shlita, has been in intensive care for more than a week. His gall bladder was gangrenous and had to be removed. He has diabetes, a bad heart, problems breathing, and is very overweight ... His situation is VERY dodgy.

I don't care if you worship zebras ... pray, daven, send light, cast a spell, think good thoughts, sacrifice a goat, sacrifice a Republican ... please do whatever it takes. This is a nearly 70 year old man who carries a picture of me kissing my boyfriend in his wallet ... people like that don't come along too often.

For those of you who might say tehillim or put him in your misheberach, his Hebrew name is Avram ben Chaim v' Risa ... his English name is Clayton Keck, Sr. For Santeros, he is a son of Obatala.

Thank you so much. I am sick with worry but keeping a positive outlook. Here's a picture in case you need it ...

 Back from hiatus ... Gut Shabbos!

FUCK ...

nandithebull just did his imitation of me for the first time, friend that he is ...

*drops voice to lowest register* "FUCK YOU BITCH, I WILL NEVER STOP HITTING YOU!"

OK. Fine. I say things like that. Often. But the fucked up thing is that Kevin imitated me about 18 years ago in his lowest register with the exact phrase. Kevin and Nandi have been in the same room twice and exchanged a grand total of about 3 words. Oh wait ... FOUR ("nice to meet you.").

That's it. Case closed. I'm a one-trick pony.

But then Nandi let the worst fart. So I feel better.


minutes later ...

I read the post to him. He launches into another imitation. "FUCK YOU BITCH, YOU DON'T KNOW HOW I LIVE WHEN YOU'RE NOT HERE ... I PUT ON MY WIG AND TELL MEN 'MY NAME IS SUZY. I LIKE BOWLING, AND THE BIBLE, AND DIPPING MY GEORGE FOREMAN GRILL IN THE MIkVEH!'"

Suzy. Well that would be Shoshana. I could live with that for my girly Hebrew name. But I prefer Yehudis, what with my tendency to get guys drunk and cut their heads off when they think I am just about to fight with their zippers.

HAHAHA. Shlomi redeemed.

FUCK. ME.

I forgot about this one ...



BUAHAHAHA!

So go know ... that there picture is yours truly post-upshernish. Where the hell did all that enornous cranium go??? I'm really lucky I don't have Ben Affleck's head! (of course, he doesn't have my height, so ... )

I am not one to keep baby pictures. Why? Did you look up at exhibit A, schmendrick? Oh, I know, I was gorgeous. So much for that. I'm not pretty anymore, but the boys like me ... I'm a certain type.

So I was in the kosher grocery the other day with nandithebull. You would think the community would know me by now, what with the makeup, the swish, the 6'6" ...  besides, everyone knows all the schkutzedik Jews, don't they??? We failures, we get around, especially in communities this size ... So I was in line mit my grape juice, Nandi in tow, and Rebbetzin Shaytl (get it?) was standing in front of me, grabbing looks, nervous (who is that? what is it doing in here???). One of the ten thousand children she was herding dropped his yarmulke. She looked around the cart in dismay at the out of reach kappeleh, failing to notice me picking it up. "Watch your kippah, Tateleh," says I. She does a double take ... HEBREW? YIDDISH? (she can't see the kippah on my head because she is 2 feet tall [as is everyone whom I overtower]). She quickly drinks in my face ... "oh. Oh. OH. OH!!!," says she. "Thank you. Good Shabbos. Good SHABBOS!" Yeah. I know you. You should only say so already.

Well, the verdict is in. The minimally invasive back surgery did something miraculous. I thought it didn't until a little over a week ago. I apparently woke up in the middle of the surgery and thrashed around screaming, but I have no memory of it. They took me out and let me come to complete consciousness, which is when they told me what happened. They took me back into surgery and did it with a local and pretty much a bullet to bite and a nurse holding my death grip hand and coaching me to breathe and not scream or move. For several weeks the pain was pretty much the same as usual, but in the past few days it has rapidly disappeared. It has really been a blessing to have the precious, precious people in my life to walk with me through this whole thing. The past 7 or 8 years has been an incredible process with agonizingly beautiful experiences that were exquisitely painful and I wouldn't trade for anything. Chemical therapy, multiple spinal fractures, a stroke, several seizures, bleeding out and being brought back from the brink of death. a very public and seemingly endless cyclical drug addiction in which there were times I would have spiked rat poison into my veins if I had it, and roller coaster relationship issues that transformed my own attitudes toward fidelity, monogamy, my own gendre and that of pretty much everyone else and blah blah blah blah. I was torn in half and put together backward., thank G-d. I ditched my pain meds days after Bryan's initiation. The bad bits of the withdrawals were rotten but short lived, and I'm still shedding (and probably will for quite a while) the cocoon of a pharmaceutically toxic system. I can handle that. I don't know what happens from here but I know it's going to be an event and it won't be the first 13 years of my life in which every part of my being was brutally violated by others, or the next few in which I invited violation, or the 24-ish in which I practiced a spiritual tradition I have enormous faith in filled with people and institutional and social constructs I have no faith in, or the overlapping 8 I'm coming out of right now that I just wrote an epic about. Four months to 40 and it is a New Fucking Day, baby.

And I DON'T WALK WITH A GODDAMN CANE ANYMORE.

It always happens in the same way ... in commiserating with or offering a hand to or just hearing a loved one (and who isn't a loved one? those people we like to pretend are missing parts of their brains, I guess). It's like dropping acid ... the second or third time, maybe even the first. I think it was my second, of many. You write down all the mind blowing thoughts you have that are so precious and just might slip through your fingers if not meticulously written down. 14 or 24 or 48 hours later when you come down (I was one of those kids that always thought I didn't take enough so I was always tuned in for 2 fucking days) you look at your precious slip of hastily torn chicken scratch and say, "FUCK ME ... I knew all this shit already ... what the hell was I thinking???"

It sucks trying to say something that nearly everyone has said both better and before. I'll go with Leonard Cohen ("the minor call, the major lift ..."), even though I can't help hearing other vocals. I'm not sure he would be grumpy about those who say "Oh, that (insert whatever vocalist) song?" After all, he did say it better, and before.

nandithebull arrives this evening from Portland. Hallelujah.

evamoon sent this to mslashes, who sent it to me. My monitor is covered with chewed-up bagel.

The glaze on the bottom of the pot that I have Yemoja in is fucked up, and I am having the hardest time finding anything to put her in. The garbage that they sell in botanicas is so GD hideous I won't even bother, and I have had it up to my eyes with Asian or faux-Asian temple jars, so I'm really looking for something different. Does anyone know where to get good sized lidded pottery or is anyone a potter (or do you know any potters) out there? I'd love to commission a custom piece ...

 Hi this is bryanmark writing for Shloma.

Shloma has no landline or internet conection at this time, due to lines being down.
If you need to contact Shloma please use his cell phone. 

kind regards
Bryan

Swiped from symwyse who swiped it from blue_sky_48220 ...

1. What is your best friend's name?
That's really hard ...

OK, so I am home, exhausted, and Bryan is safely on his way back to Ireland. Back to real life ... as am I.

Initiating a priest in the Santeria/Lukumi priesthood is fucking EX-HAUS-TING, but Bryan (bryanmark) is such a complete joy that the past month has been worth every minute.

WHY I LOVE BRYAN ... a comedy in one act.

So here is the setup ... it is post-initiation ... Bryan has been a priest for a grand total of about 10 days ... VERY young. We are in another priest's house and there are several people there who have been in the religion for about the same time as I have, so Bryan is supposed to be humble and quiet. That is not going to happen, even though I am supposed to keep him under control (but I rarely do what I am supposed to). I am kvetching about the conservative bullshit and false morality in the religion (as always ... I know, I'm a one-trick pony) ... specifically about how queers, particularly transgendred people, and freaks with tattoos and body mods are treated. Keep in mind that I have pink hair, tattoos covering my exposed flesh, and a bone through my nose at that very moment, not to mention having dickbreath (oh get over it).

AND scene ...

Santera Who Is Close to My Age (who is slovenly posed so everyone can see her Kotex): Well, when you LOOK LIKE THAT what the hell do you expect???

Me: *gobsmacked*

Bryan: (fiercely protective): Well what the hell do you think you look like??? Hump of a woman stuck in a chair with your legs spread from east to west so everyone can see the surfboard you have stuck to your big nanny!

BOOOOOM!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So she hotfoots it out of the room ...

Me: You should have been there when her parents were telling me how they tolerate the religion even though "the coloureds" are behind all the evils of the world.

Bryan: Well she had to get it somewhere. She didn't lick it up off the pavement.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Don't hold anything back ... get right to the denouement and just LEVEL her. I am SO going to have his back when the revolution comes!

I initiated my friend Bryan to the Santeria/Lukumi priesthood. He's one of my favourite people. blue_wheel came down to help out, and we three lamented the absence of  nandithebull :-(   ... but as soon as I get home I'm gonna figure out how to get together with him ASAP.

I'm wiped out. I'll write when I get home.

You guys are on my mind. Wish me a good night's sleep.

Blargh.

Of course, things are absolutely mad around here. Fun houseguests, good friends, ceremonies, food, laughs, movies, driving around endlessly. Looking forward to a road trip very soon, which should be a blast.

I dyed my hair yesterday, patches of this and that. I look like a cross between a calico cat and the Heat Miser. I like it. Some woman passed out in the shop where I was buying the dye and her head hit the ground like a melon. I was cradling it so she wouldn't move, and her pupils were unequal and non-responsive to light. The woman wanted to get up and leave and I was telling the sales people to call 911, while the manager was going "Not yet! Not yet!" and I was like "what the hell does he mean 'not yet'?" so I had to explain to them that she was obviously over-medicated (she was slurring something about physical therapy) and could walk out of the store and say anything happened; that she slipped in something on the floor, that nobody did anything to help and she was perfectly sober, blah blah blah (apparently you have to scare people that they will be sued before they will give a soul a hand), and besides that, SHE FELL AND HIT HER HEAD. Who does somebody have to blow to get some human kindness in the world? The woman behind the counter, who seemed to be the owner-manager's wife, finally looked like she was coming around to the idea of calling, and another customer was calling on their mobile, so I told them not to let her move, not to let her drive, and left. Blah.

It's fun going around with Bryan. I like watching people try to sort out his Irish accent, which is incredibly mild --maybe because he was born in Cambridgeshire (in Wisbech, exact same town as my mother, which nobody has ever heard of so we both think it's incredibly weird that we met) and his mum is English. People in Michigan are SO thick ... I'm surprised they can understand people from Ohio.

Ack. I have a rotten headache, but I wanted to post SOMETHING just so I can feel mildly productive.

See you in the funny papers.

I just got a big giant super-duper spongy Tempurpedic bed.

I feel like an astronaut. They are going to have to pull me out of this thing with a tow truck.

Now I have to get back to rolling around in ridiculous comfort.

BABY!!!

My friend Yaqi and her guy, my godson Bennett, have just made a baby!!! Here's pics: