"Gay and Jewish"

My wife Melissa sent this out to a few of her friends and I just couldn't resist passing it along. Enjoy!




My wonderful son Gabriel. I just have to share…

Gabriel is in third grade and we are the “new family” at school. Please note that this elementary school is in a small village in rural Rhode Island – there are 230 kids total Kindergarten through 5th grade. Small is an understatement. We LOVE it! Both boys are thriving there. Gabriel’s class is 15 students and he’s doing very well.

A few weeks back I had the pleasure of attending the Parent/Teacher conferences for both boys. It’s such a pleasure to sit there and have the teachers gush over how well they are doing, adjusting, making friends, etc. I sit there and just beam with ultimate pride. When I got to Gabriel’s conference, the teacher Ms. P (yes she’s pregnant but that’s not what the “P” is for…) started off with all the usual – Gabriel is so wonderful to have in class, blah, blah, blah… I sat there with the biggest smile plastered on my face. Then I heard the dreaded words, “I need to talk to you about something…” What? What on Earth could be wrong? She continued that Gabriel had shared with her something he wrote in his journal and she didn’t know how to respond to it. She then retrieved the journal so that she “wouldn’t misquote him.” She then showed me that he had been writing about Hanukkah and then showed me: “We are having Hanukkah at my house. That’s where we celebrate the GAYS! They are free from slavery because they went north!” She just looked at me and didn’t know what to say. After a moment, I told her that I think he’s got a few concepts mixed together and is excited about the holiday. I told her that our family is extremely open and supportive of Gay Rights and Gay Marriage and I think the slavery thing has to do with the story of Passover… She smiled and said that she’s so happy that we are at the school and that we provide “diversity.” Please tell me you are laughing at this point! Us – diversity…? Well, for rural Rhode Island we are as diverse as they come. I’m truly thankful for that.

That night after the kids were in bed I told Alex about Gabriel’s journal entry and we both had a good giggle. The next night (4th night of Hanukkah) we asked Gabriel with Hanukkah is all about and he just shrugged and said, “I dunno.” So, Alex told him about the Scottish Jews – the Maccabees – and how magically the oil lasted for eight nights. (Okay, he offered way more detail – I promise Dad.)

So, two nights after Hanukkah, Gabriel and I went to the store together in the evening. We are loving New England, but one thing to note – sunset is at 4:00 p.m. during the winter months. It’s truly lovely here and everyone decorates their homes to the hilt. Lots of Christmas lights, decorations, etc. Gabriel and I were driving home after sundown and really enjoying all the amazing lights. With both of us looking out the windshield, Gabriel says to me, “Mommy, we don’t decorate for Christmas do we?” I told him that yes we do, but Hanukkah just ended and our budget is tight right now. Then he said, “No, it’s because we are gay and Jewish!” I said, “Gabriel, what does being gay mean?” He then says, “Gay means you love EVERYBODY.” Can you feel the amazing smile that crept up my face? I said, “Gabriel, remember your friend Katie who has two mommies, and your friends Liam and Natalie who have two daddies? Gay means you love who you love. YOU have a mommy and a daddy, but some kids have two mommies and two daddies...” Gabriel stopped me right there and said: “That’s right, Mommy, it means you love EVERYBODY.” To that I just sat back and said, “Yes, Gabriel. We are gay and Jewish.”

Happy Holidays!

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The new shit

Success! I’ve done it again! Who’s going to be the first to congratulate me? I have once again successfully succeeded in confusing every doctor within a one hundred mile radius! None of them can tell me what happened to me! Ha Ha Ha! Take THAT motherfuckers!!! Don’t mess with the man! The myth! The most famous guy typing on this laptop right now! Ungh! Yeah!

And I am celebrating now because…?

So the other night I had an “event”. I call it an “event” in quotation marks because that’s how all the doctors seem to be referring to it. Basically without getting into too much detail, I took my medicine, had a super bad hot flash, chest pain, dizziness, sat down, drank some water, couldn’t speak, limped to the edge of the bathtub, almost passed out, turned pale, blue lips, generally freaked out my wife, thought I was dying, called the paramedics and went to the hospital. All this among some other more disgusting happenings which will not be discussed in front of the children.

Now this could have been a relapse of my M.S. in the form of a seizure, and it could have been an uncommon but accepted side effect of the medicine I take to prevent my M.S. from getting worse. Of course there is no way to determine which it was, so that’s a bag full of fun right there. The good thing is the doctors could find no permanent damage, other than to my psyche of course.

The paramedics, a surprisingly jaunty and friendly bunch took me to the hospital in my very first ambulance ride. Just to give you a glimpse of my ten months here in New England, I have seen one beach, I have not been to Massachusetts, I do not know the names of more than five streets in the town where we live, but I have seen the inside of four hospitals. Oh yeah! And I got to go on one ambulance ride too! (Though it’s not as fun as you might think when you see them screaming by on your way to McDonalds.) Success! A sight seeing dream!

Of course this particular hospital was a teaching hospital. It was a lot like the show E.R. but with far less glamorous looking doctors. The nurses were about the same to tell you the truth. The best part I guess was the lack of commercials. The first doctor came to check on me and ran down a litany of questions that took close to half an hour to get through. I certainly don’t mind being thorough in that particular situation, but keep in mind this was a teaching hospital. Apparently that meant I had to teach the following twelve doctors who came to see me in rapid succession after the first one left my bedside.

All of them asked the exact same questions in the exact same order. They even started to sound alike. I couldn’t tell the girls apart from the boys after a while. And they were girls and boys. I think one of them had just nicked himself shaving for the first time and lazy Uncle Jimbo hadn’t gotten around to teaching him to be more careful with a razor when it crosses over the top of a fresh pimple.

The greatest moment came when I was being transferred by one doctor to a gurney taking me to have an EEG. He was reciting the same list of questions as another doctor came up and began to repeat the exact same questions to my wife. They were almost in stereo. It felt like I was listening to Pink Floyd while watching The Wizard of Oz! Then a third doctor with freckles and wearing a pair of what looked like Transformers glasses came up and stood there taping his foot impatiently waiting for his turn to begin the questioning. As he cleared his throat, my gurney doctor turned to him, flailing his arms like the Scarecrow and told him to wait until I had returned from my test. They almost came to blows. I actually clicked my heels three times. It was awesome!

I don’t mind teaching hospitals. I really don’t. Most important medical discoveries are made there. Many of the best physicians in the world teach and help create the next generation of great medicinal practices in those facilities. That’s where all the good new shit comes from. I do have one question though… Why am I always the new shit?

It’s great to be cutting edge and all. I like that I get to be there for all of my friends and experience a lot of these procedures and tests while I’m still at a relatively young age so I can give advice to you guys who aren’t going to need this stuff for a few years. Need to have this blood screen or that MRI? Been there. Done that. Don’t eat a cheeseburger first. Trust me. Just stay away from the chili fries for a day or two beforehand.

I would just like to say that enough is enough already. Somebody please use that expensive diploma from Harvard or Yale or USC even and figure a few of these things out ok? The dance of the seven veils is sexy because it keeps the mystery. It’s fun to try to figure out if it was Professor Plumb in the kitchen with a cocktail napkin or Miss Scarlet in the boudoir with a dildo. Just for once it would be nice to have a little bit of the mystery taken out of things for me. Just once have a doctor say he knows what the problem is and this is the way to fix it.

That would be real success in my book. And something worth a real celebration.

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