Put It In Park And Step Into My Office

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

We all know you can’t judge a book by its cover, but can you judge a driver based on the way he or she is parked?  I think that in some cases the answer is yes.  What do we think of the person who parks their car smack in the middle of two parking spots?  Selfish?  Check.  A false sense of self-importance?  Check.  Based on my own anecdotal evidence, it seems that the vehicles most frequently parked in this manner are Hummers or some other crazy ass suburban assault vehicles.  Then there is the driver who parks diagonally across two spaces.  Same as above, but even more arrogant.

A car that is sticking well out into the aisle even though the driver had plenty of room to pull in further?  I’m going to say that is typically a man, who has overestimated the size of his, umm, car.  A car parked right up against the line of another space may just be the victim of another car that was also parked over the line so they had no choice.  But someone started it, right?  To me that reads passive-aggressive.  A car that is perfectly parked, equidistant from the front, back and sides of the space is either an engineer or someone fairly neurotic, or both.  How about the car that is diagonal but still only taking up one space? Harried, lack of depth perception, or both.

There are parkers who can parallel park in a space that is perhaps 1” longer than their car; confident over-achievers?  Drivers who have attempted to parallel park but are still sticking way out from the curb are surely people who think their cars have side-wheel drive and can do some kind of crab maneuver to fit in the space properly.  Delusional about their power, or just unclear about the way wheels work?  The person parked in a no parking zone when there are lots of other spaces available?  Busier and more important than mere mortals.  On the other hand, drivers parked in a no parking zone because there is nowhere else to park could be considered pragmatic.

And as I learned the hard way, a parker who pulls up to a valet line just for a minute may be a parker with no car.  This happened when I was with my gay husband (NOT Dan) in Hawaii.  We pulled up to the front of the hotel to get something from the front desk, and when we turned back 30 seconds later the car was gone.  Vamoose.  Apparently the valet attendant was very efficient.  We laughed at ourselves while we waited for him to bring the car back.  We jumped in the car and parked it (in a super normal fashion) and reached in the back for our packages to find that it was not our rental car at all.  Just another rental in the exact make/model/color.  So we unparked (it’s not technically a word, but it has potential) and went up for a second round.  By then I had become BFFs with the valet and took a picture.  Mahalo.

If someone is interested in offering me a research grant, I would happily conduct long-term research into the correlation between the way a driver is parked and his or her particular personality traits.  In the meanwhile, it’s a lot of fun to guess.

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It’s a Little Corny

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

I know right now all the hype is about baseball and football, but those aren’t the only sports that dominate this country.  Think about the rugged sport of Cornhole, for example.

Last summer my friend was regaling me with a story of how she spent most of her day dealing with a cornhole tournament at her office.  First of all, I didn’t know what cornhole was.  She explained the boards and the sandbags and the whole deal.  It’s pretty complicated so I found this diagram helpful:

As I recall, her firm typically played on the roof of their building, but that week they needed an indoor venue.  High priced partners spent the day deliberating about just the right spot.  A hallway?  Conference room?  Library? There were phone calls and emails and discussions, and of course my friend had to be in the middle of all of it.  As her good friend, I comforted her by laughing in her face.  That is one thing about my firm, we are just not a cornhole playin’ kind of crowd.  Sure I felt bad for her, but the important thing was that it wasn’t happening to me.

But karma was waiting to pounce.  The next morning I was chatting with my managing partner and told her how crazy my friend’s firm was and how glad I was we weren’t that kind of place.  I should have kept my damn mouth shut because the next thing I know I’m online trying to find a cornhole set for the office.  Crap.

If you ever search the internet for cornhole, you may be surprised at what you find.  I kid you not; there are “professional” cornhole players.  They are in peak physical condition and refer to cornhole as a sport.

I discovered the American Cornhole Association www.playcornhole.org

“The ACA was established by a small group of dedicated cornholers from the west side of Cincinnati, Ohio. We have grown over the years and, to the best of our knowledge, we now represent the largest organized corn toss association in the United States with over 30,000 members.

Our mission is (1) to introduce our friends and neighbors to the game of Cornhole, (2) to establish more standardized guidelines for equipment and tournament play, (3) to educate and share information about Cornhole, (4) to rank our members based on the results of ACA tournament play around the country, and (5) to promote and grow the game of Cornhole.”

30,000 members?  It’s amazing.  Not to be outdone, there is the American Cornhole Organization, the official governing body of the “sport” www.americancornhole.org

“As the governing body of the sport of cornhole, ACO is dedicated to providing programs and services to set cornhole standards, ensure its integrity, preserve its future and enhance the cornhole experience. ACO strives to achieve this mission by offering exclusive benefits to its members.”

How I admire the hearty souls who pioneered this noble game.  I finally chose what I felt was a very fine cornhole set, and ordered it for rush delivery.  It came just in time for our monthly happy hour, where I was just sure everyone would be eager to play.  Look, I tried to sell the thing.  Using a tone I usually reserve for toddlers I asked  “Who wants to play a game?  It is such a fun game!  Everyone loves this game!”  A few people played a halfhearted game, but that was about it.

We let it gather dust for a year but I decided to give it another try at the end of this summer.  No takers at all.  We are just not a cornhole playing kind of crowd.  And don’t worry-wanting to avoid injury I never went near the boards or sandbags.

If you’re interested in a great deal on a barely used cornhole set, give me a call.

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Justin The Wise

Posted on October 13, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Our friends had us over for a very nice dinner tonight.  They have two kids whom are both very sweet and polite and all in all are much more presentable to guests than I ever was as a kid.  Their son Justin who is 11 (or 12?) and I have a little bit of a mutual fan club.  He thinks I’m very funny, and faithfully reads my blog, so I’m going to go ahead and put him in my will until/unless my niece and nephews start sucking up a little more and working for the money.  I think he is very funny and a good kid.

Last time I saw Justin we discussed his school’s student government; you cannot believe how poorly Montgomery County is treating these kids.  I let him know about civil disobedience and his right to protest unfair policies and lousy food in the cafeteria by staging a strike, but I don’t think his parents were 100% grateful for my advice.

Justin is a renaissance man who can discuss a wide range of topics.  This evening he got me up to speed on the presidential and vice-presidential debates, his take on politics, and other world affairs.  He cannot believe that the politicians believe what comes out of their own mouths because it’s all a pack of lies.  Romney’s “economic plan”?  Complete hogwash.  His dad courageously undertook explaining trickle down economics, and we questioned its validity as we’ve been waiting for money to trickle down since Reagan was in office in the 80s.

We revisited the issues with his school’s student government, which as it turns out is a complete sham because the adults don’t listen to the kids at all.  The kids come in with all kinds of energy and great ideas, but ultimately they can’t pull off anything.  The adults even ruin Spirit Day, which should unequivocally be in the hands of the kids.

We went on to discuss a topic near and dear to my heart, food.  Justin’s mom sometimes packs a donut in his lunchbox as an extra treat, but the chocolate icing all comes off on the plastic bag and he gets chocolate all over his arm and it’s kind of a disaster.  We weighed the pros and cons of licking the frosting off the plastic bag and decided ultimately it’s not worth the social stigma.

Justin had a hypothetical question about the M&M diet that I wrote about a while back.  Could the M&Ms be consumed in different formats?  Like drinking melted M&Ms or making cookies out of M&Ms?  After some thought I advised that as long as everything is made entirely of M&Ms, it would pass muster.

We discussed various TV shows; everything from iCarly to I Love Lucy.  We discussed the High Holidays and weighed the wisdom of being bad all year since you can always atone at the end of the year.  We talked about world religion, and how girls have cooties.  We talked about how many cookies Santa and his reindeer could eat in one evening and still manage to fly all over the place.  We discussed whether it might be a good idea to leave out beer and pork rinds for Santa rather than milk and cookies, to give Santa a little variety.  All of this was hypothetical of course, because Justin doesn’t believe in Santa.

We covered a lot of ground, but there is still so much to discuss.  Hope to see you again soon Justin, and we can discuss the horrible, oppressive conditions under which you must live because of your completely unreasonable parents.  I feel your pain.

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And Jill Came Tumbling After

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

My clumsiness knows no bounds, so I may end up with more postings about that than about cats. I shall do my best to cover both compelling topics.  As humiliating as it is, the story of The Golf Cart Incident must be told.

Several years ago I was cheerfully blowing off a golf tournament as I do every year (can you imagine the damage I would do with a club and a ball?) when I was not-so-gently reminded that attending was one of my responsibilities that year.  So I sucked it up and agreed to go, but put my foot down on actually playing golf.  No problem, I was assured, all you have to do is sit at the hole-in-one hole all day so there is a witness if someone actually gets it.

Driving the golf cart would have been my first big hurdle, but luckily two of us were assigned to hole-in-one duties, and the person I was with drove.  We parked in a nice spot up on a hill and decided the most comfortable place to sit was right there in the golf cart.  It was pretty boring, so I figured I’d check email.  I leaned down to get my purse from the floor of the cart, ugh, just out of reach, lean over just a tad more and…you know what happened then.  I hardly have to mention that I fell, hard, out of the cart.

What you may not have guessed is that because we were on a hill, when I tried to get up I was off balance (in so many ways) and fell again, this time rolling down the hill a bit.  I had met the person I was with just that morning when we climbed in the golf cart together, so I was a little extra mortified, but I was relieved to see that while he had run down the hill to check on me, there was not another soul in sight.  He kindly helped me to my feet and we walked back to the cart.

Okey dokey then, back in the cart and I surely wasn’t going to pull that stunt again.  So an hour or so later, I started to get out of the cart so I could safely grab my purse without leaning out of the cart.  Safety 1st!  It would have been an awesome move had my foot not been tangled in my purse strap.  I went to move but my foot didn’t come with me, so I was sort of launched out of the side of the cart where I once again rolled down the hill a bit before I could catch myself.

My new acquaintance once again came down to check on me, but this time when I looked up there were perhaps a half dozen golfers on the other side looking on in interest.  There were shouts of “Are you OK?” and I gave a half wave, half flail sort of thing and shouted that I was fine.  I shrugged and nodded my head in disgust at myself, and I got a polite golf clap (literally) when I managed to get to my feet without falling again.

After that I sat on the grass instead of in the cart, and there were no further tumbles.  At the end of the day we drove back to the clubhouse for a dinner.  My companion was definitely concerned that there were not seatbelts in the cart, but I promised I would hold on tight as we drove at the breakneck speed of 2 mph.  When we got back I freshened up as best as I could, but ultimately I still had scratches, scrapes, bruises, grass stains and a pretty disheveled look as I pulled the last of the twigs out of my hair.

No problem.  I meant to do that.

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Animal Control

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

I hope you agree that it’s time for an update on the cats.  Specifically, Cat Containment.  We live each day trying to get in and out of the house while avoiding any desperate kitty escape attempts.  It’s pretty important to keep them in because we have those adorable foxes and precious raccoons in the backyard and the first thing one of our cats would do is bound down to the woods to meet their friends.  The problem is, they’re tricky; 3 of them can go from 0 to 60 in one split second, and Helen can waddle along at a decent clip if she’s determined.  So when we brought them home last year we implemented an airlock system; we go from the house to the garage but don’t open the outside garage door until we close the inside door without incident.  We go through the same routine when we get home.

Unfortunately the little beasts are wily and it’s not always easy to shove them back from the door.  So Dan “repurposed” the top of a plastic hamper and it became The Shield, our supplemental security measure.  It’s like a riot shield; the perfect way to shove them back in the house without having to shoot into the crowd.  When we leave the house, we have to back out the door while holding The Shield down to their level, and when we get home we have to hold it until we open the door and get inside.  We are not of an age where our backs and knees can always take this.  Now, just for a challenge, throw on a heavy purse and take a cup of coffee in your hand and then start working The Shield without harming yourself or others.  Given the fact that I can’t sit upright in an inner tube for more than 5 seconds, this is my equivalent of the Olympics.

Every other Tuesday morning we escalate to our highest security level, the double airlock, so that Roxana can get in and out.  We close the little mud room right inside the door, and she can bring her stuff in under the first airlock while keeping the cats safely scratching and howling on the other side of the door.  She of course exits the same way, and we just hope that all goes well.  There are issues with inside doors as well, particularly with our clothes closets.  The kittens find it terribly amusing to leap as best they can onto whatever is hanging in the closet, and then claw the rest of the way to the top of a garment.  Once sitting precariously on a hanger, they take a little stroll across the top of the clothes with no worry, because if they start to fall they can easily just sink their claws into a silk blouse or suit jacket or whatever.  So we have signs on the closet doors reminding Roxana not to open them.  It’s not easy for her.  The cats we had before this batch (who had the good sense to keep their butts well inside the house) each spent some inadvertent  “me time” in the pantry or linen closet, so our original mantra was don’t close anything except the front door when you leave.  Now we have a series of doors that must be closed at all times.

Given the consequences of a cat closet invasion, I not only have to back myself out of the house every day, I also have to back myself into my closet(s) every day.  When I come out of the closet (mom, please don’t panic, I mean this literally) I have to crack the door just a sliver and assess conditions.  Given recent breaches in closet security, we may need another Shield.

We’ve learned to live with all of this because they trained us to respond to the heartbreaking and melodramatic silent howl.  What are we going to do, take them back to the shelter?  I mean, have you seen a first rate silent howl?  Look, I’m not saying this is the ideal way to live, I’m just saying it’s the reality of how we live.

Come visit soon and meet all the kitties–you will love the ambiance of the garage waiting area.

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A Quiet Dinner with Farrell

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Farrell and I met when I was attending a conference in Orlando last year.  Within 10 minutes of meeting him I was in absolute awe of his refreshing attitude.

I’ll never forget his magical first words, “Hi, I’m Farrell, I’ll be your server tonight.”  A couple of my friends and I had just settled in to enjoy dinner at a highly recommended local restaurant, and by mere intuition I knew that Farrell and I were simpatico.  He took an unusually keen interest in our drink and appetizer order.  I for example, ordered a Diet Coke.  Farrell squinted at me.  I told him Diet Pepsi was fine too, but Farrell wasn’t happy with that either.  “You do know that we brew our own tea, right?”  I told him I may not have known that but now I did, and was still looking forward to my soda.  My friends ordered their drinks, and judging by Farrell’s eye roll and heavy sighs, a gin and tonic and a glass of red wine were hardly what he considered the right choices.

I told Farrell I’d like a salad as well, and at that point he put his pad down on the table, his hands on his hips, and asked if I was kidding.  He proceeded to tell me that I was at one of Orlando’s finest seafood restaurants and the only thing anyone with half a brain would order as an appetizer was a stone crab claw.  I got what he was saying, but the crab claw was $58 (for one claw) and the salad was like $8.95.  We asked if he could give us a moment (oh, he loved that) and the three of us decided the crab must be amazing and maybe we could all just split a claw.  I mean, who were we to question Farrell’s wisdom?

So the crab claw arrives, just a claw thrown on a plate with no apparent way to open it, and all of us from blue crab country.  We stared at it for a minute trying to figure out a plan of attack, and Farrell became visibly agitated.  He came over and snatched the plate back up without saying a word.  We weren’t sure if we had lost our stone crab privileges or what, but a minute later he set a big plate of delicious crab meat in front of us with a flourish.  He’d dissected it for us, but cautioned this was a one-time deal because obviously he doesn’t just go around cutting up people’s food for them.  We fell over each other with gratitude.  For what it’s worth, the stone crab was really tasty and I completely forgot the whole central nervous system, they feel pain thing.

Farrell then deigned to take our entrée order, and we proceeded with caution.  I found that I was suddenly ending every sentence in a question mark, and I said I’ll have the scallops?  It was another hands on the hips moment as he spoke to me very slowly, using small words, and told me that what I really wanted was the halibut.  Suddenly I hear my own voice pleading with Farrell to let me have the scallops.  He sneered at me in contempt but eventually wrote down scallops.  In an interesting twist, both my friends decided they would have the halibut, and he got extra smug.

So Farrell comes out and lovingly, gently puts down the two plates of halibut, and then just plops the scallops down in disgust, muttering that some people just don’t know when to listen.  I can’t really explain why, but I was loving Farrell’s technique.  It was just so bold and out there.  You always know where Farrell stands on an issue.  As we were finishing up our entrées, one of the owners of the restaurant came by and introduced himself.  We told him were enjoying a great meal, and he cautiously asked who our server was for the evening.  I said that we could not be happier with our server Farrell and we loved his devil-may-care attitude.  He said that Farrell had worked there a long time, and people either found him fascinating or immediately asked for another server, but somehow it all worked out.

About that time I was wondering if Farrell would approve of me ordering coffee, and the super indulgent chocolate dessert.  Well, he was OK with the coffee, but absolutely put his foot down on the dessert.  I got another lecture that the place was world renowned for its key lime pie, and did I realize I was in Florida?  I stared him straight in the eye and said I wanted the damn chocolate dessert.  In a final spectacular move, Farrell folded his arms and said that if we weren’t ordering the key lime pie he wasn’t serving dessert.  He told us there was a fudge and ice cream shop around the corner and if we wanted something other than key lime pie we should go there.  But this was a serious dessert, so  I stared him down and said I would go back to the kitchen and order it myself if necessary, but I was indeed going to get the dessert of my choice.

We had a brief staring match and then he stormed off to the kitchen to place the order.  I think it was at that moment that he gained a little respect for me and realized he wasn’t dealing with some wimp. What I certainly did not do was thank Farrell profusely for allowing me to have a chocolate dessert and apologize about the Key Lime Pie Incident.  Or maybe I did, who can remember these things?

Next time you make your way down to Orlando, be sure to check in with my buddy Farrell.  Order an iced tea, stone crab, halibut and key lime pie, and he won’t give you a moment’s trouble.

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Here’s To Us!

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Dan and I were married on October 9, 1988.  Hard to believe it’s been 24 years since we said I do.  Of course technically I’m not sure either of us said that—the Rabbi read all of our vows in Hebrew and then coached us on our answers so we could have promised each other anything standing under that ostrich feather chuppah.  I guess it doesn’t really matter at this point because things seem to be working out for us.

Dan woke me up this morning by sweetly whispering in my ear that I needed to get up early, because Roxana was coming!  I agree with him that this piece of news was much more urgent than Happy Anniversary.  Roxana is the sweet and lovely cleaning woman who comes to our house every other week and performs miracles.  We adore her but there is one little downside…she likes to put things away.  To be more specific, she likes to put things away in completely unexpected places.  On one occasion we found a missing frying pan in our china cabinet (hint-this is not where we usually keep our pans), my contact lens case might migrate from my bathroom sink to the dresser in the guest room, and here and there she might have put something away so well we don’t ever find it.  So every other Tuesday, we batten down the hatches.

After we ran around putting stuff away we actually stopped and wished each other a happy anniversary.  Dan lamented that he’d forgotten to pull out the card.  Yes, the card.  We hate wasting trees and we’re not that big on cards so we have a single card for each celebration-anniversary, birthday, valentine’s day, etc. and just whip it out as needed.  It’s the thought that counts, right?

We’ve at least enjoyed a romantic evening.  I worked until 9 and when I got home I enjoyed a bowl cereal for dinner (but with really, really fresh almond milk for the occasion) and Dan is settling down to read for a bit while I watch trashy TV.  After that we’ll reminisce, go through those old wedding photos, talk about old times.  Or maybe not.  To be honest, it’s become somewhat painful to flip through the wedding photos because we were 24 years younger and things are looking a little different nowadays.  I take solace in the fact that at least a few of the people who were in our wedding read this blog, and are right now thinking “Can it have been 24 years?  Not possible!” because they look the same and only Dan and I have aged.  Wrong!  You just haven’t seen the pictures in a while.

I need to take a break from funny for a moment to say how much I miss my cousin Andrea, who was taken from us way too soon.  She is the beautiful woman sitting to Dan’s left and I can’t tell you how much I adored her.  She will always have a special place in my heart.  And in perspective, I’m so grateful all the rest of us have had a chance to age.  OK, back to funny as Andrea would want.

As you can see in the picture, I must sincerely apologize to my bridesmaids for the pink (we called it mauve back then) and silver taffeta and lamé dresses that you see above.  So much time has passed, can’t we all go with the fiction that they were the height of fashion at the time?  And I know that at least my friend Lesley got a second wear out of it…when she covered it in fake blood and dressed up as Carrie for Halloween.  She looked fabulous in that dress, no matter how resentful she may have been at the time.  My OGH Michael was a groomsman, but he would have killed for that sparkly dress.  Just sayin’

And after all these years, I will once again apologize to my brothers (for the umpteenth time) and our other wedding guests for having the audacity to get married on a day the Redskins were playing the Cowboys.  There’s been a lot of drama and pain around that, and we’ve all said things in anger we didn’t mean.  It’s time to let it go.  I’ll also extend an olive branch and forgive my entire family for pulling Dan aside on our special day and asking if he really, seriously wanted to marry me.  I believe my brother Barry actually offered him a getaway car.  Warm fuzzy, right?  I pledge tonight to give up my anger and bitterness towards Dan’s brother for getting the ring stuck on his finger for an uncomfortable amount of time.  As of now I will choose something else to be angry and bitter about.  Can we finally let the healing begin and be a real family again?

So much more to say, but writing is interfering with my trash TV time.  Happy Anniversary to us!

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My Gays: Retraction

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

I received a devastating call from my brother CJ this evening.  Imagine my shock and horror when he told me Dan was gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that).  Honestly, he’s been hiding it pretty well for quite some time.  I guess somewhere along the way, I chose an “Alternative Lifestyle.”   I am in fact a lesbian and Dan and I have been “beards” for each other.  I know, so many one liners on that alone…

But wait, could it be that Dan is straight and I am straight and someone else was very, very confused?  Yes, I believe that’s it.  When I wrote the other day about my gay husband, I assumed that my readers would understand that is not a literal term, but rather, a term of endearment and sincere commitment, as life goes.  Many of my friends and family know that my Gay Prince Charming swept into my life in 2001, and through a series of twists and turns ended up living at my house for about 5 years, before he moved back to Germany where he insisted on dating a man.  That is a long story that deserves its own series of blog postings.

Oh boy, this could be confusing again.  Just to be clear, while my IGH (international gay husband, because I also have domestic and local gay husbands as my emergency back-ups) lived with us for 5 years, he slept in the guest room.  Alone.  Well most of the time alone, except for one fateful evening when my original gay husband (OGH) somehow accidentally fell asleep, fully clothed I’m certain, in my IGH’s bedroom. Funny story on that too—I came downstairs in the morning to find Dan flipping pancakes and making breakfast for both my GHs.  To be clear, he did not show any kind of flamboyant little flick of the wrist while flipping pancakes.  They were very manly flips.  Just Dan being Dan, making breakfast for our friends.

What is 110% true is that Dan and Andre never spent the night together, in anyone’s bedroom.  What is also 110% true is that I slept with my IGH numerous times; we even honeymooned together for 10 days in Hawaii.  And no, I don’t mean “slept” as a euphemism for sex.  I mean shared a bed so I could have an all-expense paid trip to Hawaii while he was there on business.  Sweet, right?  While my IGH and I are madly, passionately in love, there remain the pesky details that he is gay and I am married to my real legal (heterosexual) husband, and it’s just a bit too complicated.

At any rate, who could this very confused person be that misunderstood what I was saying?  Who pray tell would believe such a thing?  Apparently, my very own mother.  My mother who knows nearly all my gays and especially my IGH rather well.  When CJ read my blog he was quite clear that I was referring to my IGH, not that he ever understood our very special relationship.  He once asked if I was keeping him as a pet, or what?  My response?  Sort of.  Yet when my mom called him, frantic to know if Dan was gay, he reassured her by saying “I absolutely do not think so.  But maybe.” 

Just in case I was missing something, I walked down the hall and asked one of my colleagues if she knew I had a gay husband.  She said absolutely, the guy in Germany.  She has known me approximately 1 year and never, ever met my IGH, but she was pretty clear on things.  As a word of caution, you may not want to discuss these sorts of things with anyone at the office, it is an HR no-no that even Catbert would find offensive (and Mimi, I hang my head in part shame, part giggle).

Anyway, I wish I could let this go and not make fun of my poor mom, but seriously, why would I let her off the hook on this one?  I can only guess that she has been frantically painting her nails and reapplying lipstick to try and quiet her angst.  Mom, I know you threw me a big honking wedding and have known Dan for nearly as long as I have, but I can see where you might be confused.  Nah, just kidding, I don’t see it at all.  What are you thinking?  Are you taking those “little nips of sherry” again?  I do want to sincerely thank my mom for giving me a much needed blog topic tonight.

Mom, I know in the back of your mind you feel that this will eventually be forgotten.  But let me ask you this—has anyone forgotten about being stuffed, like a cow, into the little boats?  Tee hee ha ha funny, how I love that old chestnut.  Perhaps there’s room for a negotiation of some sort, eh?  Have your straight people call my straight people.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Retraction #2

As far as I know my mom does not typically nip at sherry.  Keep in mind I don’t know much.

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Theoretically Speaking

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Let’s call him Ralph because I certainly can’t use his real name.  He is someone who never fails to shock, horrify and amuse me all at the same time.  Ralph is a few years older than me.  When I met him years ago I was talking about giving some young adults a little slack.  I said that I would never want to be held responsible for something I said or did when I was 23.  Ralph looked confused.  I had known him just a short time, but I felt like I had his number.  Without skipping a beat I said “but I guess you were never 23, really” and he burst out laughing.  He did indeed come out of the womb a stressed out adult.

He was amazed that I read him so well; praised my intuition.  Frankly, I don’t think it was all that challenging.  A Serious Person, a Driven Person, an Intense Person.  And a mostly Likeable Person who can laugh at himself, which to me is everything.  Most of the time I enjoy talking to him, but sometimes I think he’s just plain nuts.  I think that’s an image he cultivates.

I think of myself as a glass half-full person; Ralph is a glass half empty with cigarette ashes in it sort of thinker.

When he told me he had figured out the Unified Theory of the Universe, or something like that, I listened eagerly.  Ralph has come to the conclusion that there is a finite amount of happiness in the world.  Therefore, if I am happy, it is at the expense of someone else’s happiness.  How’s that to knock your socks off?  In one fell swoop Ralph has decided that not only are unhappy people completely helpless but that happy people are actually thieves, sneaking around in the night and slurping up happiness from other people.

I have a lot of questions about this concept.  Let’s say I see a laughing child on a playground, while I myself am feeling sort of blue.  I can take the kid easy and steal her happiness, but will it be enough?

Or do I need to steal happiness from 3 children in order to get enough for one adult?  And if their mom managed to hang on to her happiness, will she persist in being happy with 3 miserable kids on her hands?

How about if someone is sleeping; if I steal their happiness will they start having bad dreams?  Because I’m thinking it would be OK to borrow their happiness for just a few hours and get it back to them before they wake.  Also, can one bequeath happiness to be sure no one outside the family gets it?  If so, does it pass through tax-free?

Are there people in prison who are happy?  Shouldn’t they be stripped of their happiness immediately upon entering the justice system?  I don’t want to get carried away; misdemeanors don’t count, only convicted felons.

Ralph rolls his eyes at me when I ask these questions.  He tells me I don’t understand.  I tell him it’s OK, I don’t mind, because ignorance is bliss.

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My Gays

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Way before it was in fashion, I fell in love with gay men.  It started out with my high school boyfriend.  He wasn’t gay when we were dating.  Well, that’s not entirely accurate, because I guess he was, but he certainly seemed very, very interested in girls.  We still dated on and off when I moved away to college, but to be honest, there were a lot of boys at college and I got a little distracted by them.  Turns out so did he.  A couple of years later I was at a party and someone mentioned he was gay.

I laughed out loud—he wasn’t gay!  I mean, he was happy and fun and all, but not gay.  But then it seemed as if everyone else in the room knew this and it got kind of awkward and then it got worse because out of nowhere I burst into tears.  I was actually dating Dan at this point and he kept asking me what was wrong and I wailed “my boyfriend is gay!” and then he looked kind of confused because he was my boyfriend.  “Not you-my other boyfriend!”  That didn’t exactly reassure him but in classic Dan fashion he shrugged it off.  He already knew I was a little whack-a-doodle.

Ultimately my gay ex-boyfriend and I became BFFs and he introduced me to a whole new world of fabulous gay men.  I was dazzled by the glam life of gay bars and drag shows.  I became a proper old school fruit fly.  I’ve continued to worm my way in to gay men’s hearts over the years.  Then one day, I met THE ONE; my true soul mate, my lifelong companion, my gay husband. Our story, meeting, falling in love, making that final big commitment, is worthy of its own posting, so I won’t elaborate here.  The point is, I loved gay men before it was cool.

Nowadays, a posse of gay men is part of a woman’s standard composition of friends; young women collect them like beanie babies and parade them around at parties.  Obviously gay men serve as a stand-in for any occasion in which a woman is date-less.  They go to a lot of weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.  And of course every female celebrity or wanna be must also have a fan base of “My gays!” in order to get anywhere in show biz.  Frankly, no one wants to leave home without one.

Gay men are also ideal pity party guests, so women call them when they’ve had a bad break-up.  They will pick up gallons of ice cream and bottles of wine and although the damsel in distress is still in the pajamas she’s worn for the last 3 days, surrounded by piles of used tissues and playing R.E.M.’s Everybody Hurts on an endless loop, they will sit right next to her and hold her hand.  That is real friendship right there.

So now everyone has discovered fabulosity and gay men are constantly in demand.  It’s heartwarming.   Just remember, I called dibs first.

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