Public Health Notice of the Day

Despite public health authorities trying to get the word out, they have somehow failed miserably.

MYTH: Dead bodies cause disease.

FACT: Diseases die along with dead bodies and are overgrown quite quickly with microorganisms that are responsible for decomposition. These microorganisms are not capable of causing disease in humans!

The major health epidemic that occurs after a natural disaster, such as the ones in Myanmar and China, are as a result of contaminated water, food, famine and especially poor sanitation. Drinking water that has been contaminated with feces being the primary issue.

When people start getting diarrheal disease due to drinking contaminated water, the whole thing becomes more and more cyclical.

Unfortunately, the misperception that bodies need to be buried quickly or cremated or covered in disinfectant causes unnecessary waste of time and money while clean water would be a better use of precious resources.

That is your public health notice of the day.

Day 4 - Enduring love

Not the creepy Ian McEwan novel.

But honestly, my mind isn't on today's meditation. It's not on love or how long it lasts, or doesn't last, how to make it last. My mind is focused elsewhere.

Getting around to a meditative practice is HARD WORK!

I work all day, I want to go to Stitch n' Bitch tonight. I have about 30 errands to run and I am desperately trying to figure out how to have free clean dirt (about 18 cubic yards worth) delivered to my backyard. Not to mention 480 square feet of sod for cheap. Then I am looking forward to baking 2 gigantic cakes for this weekend and a panel I'm on next Thursday at Cal State, Northridge.

I'm definitely not concentrating on love and the endurance it takes to maintain it. But I guess that's the whole point, isn't it?

Then again, isn't part of this about loving myself?

I have a pretty hard time with that whole concept. It seems so crunchy. Yet, everyone in my recovery seems to focus on learning to love myself. Learning how to treat myself with kindness, and not just when I've done something that I can be proud of, but -- and maybe especially -- when I've made a mess of things, or haven't quite stuck to my good intentions.

So today, I'm focusing on loving myself, despite my mistakes. Which is a good thing, since I'm having quite a day.

Compassion - Omer Day 3

Today's meditation is about compassion in love.

Baruch Spinoza said, "I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand."

I live my life by this ethic and yet every day, I am challenged.

• I am challenged by the driver in front of me in the morning going 25 miles per hour in a 40 mph zone.
• I am challenged by the system in which I work that sends endless criticism for which I have very little recourse.
• I am challenged by people I know and love who want to be more but choose not to be.
• I am challenged by my own inability to fight off demons that have haunted me for nearly a lifetime.

I try, every day, to be compassionate. To remember that the driver in front of me may have very precious cargo. To remember that the system is doing its best for people who are in vulnerable positions. To remember that the people I love are trying their best, and even when they aren't, there is a reason. To remember that I wake up every day and try to do my best, even when I don't quite make it.

Day 2 of the Omer

Today's meditation is about justice and discipline in loving.

Loving Michael has not taken any discipline but I often get questions about how our relationship works in reality. One of the greatest things I have learned from my relationship in the last 8 years (or 15 - really who's counting?) is about respecting each other's personal space.

At the beginning, I'm not sure that this was so obvious -- and I'm not sure how good a job I did at respecting his personal space...further, I'm not so sure how good he was at respecting mine. I will say though, that 16 years later (has it really been that long?!), we're really good at it. We spend plenty of time together, but we also spend plenty of time apart, engaged in what makes us happy. Here's a little sampling of our 16 years.

So far.
So good.

OM-er

The Omer is the 7 weeks (49 days) between Pesach and Shavuot. Among other things, the Omer is a time of inner reflection and growth. Each day is a meditation on being a better human being. Today is the first day of the Omer.

My goal this year, though I did write about it a bit last year, is to write every day of the Omer. It's like NaBloPoMo, but it's 49 days instead!!!

In Judaism, there are 7 seven emotional attributes in the human psyche:

1. Chesed - Loving kindness
2. Gevurah - Justice and discipline
3. Tiferet - Balance and compassion
4. Netzach - Endurance and efficiency
5. Hod - Humility
6. Yesod - Bonding and intimacy
7. Malchut - Leadership

Each week of the omer one should focus on this aspect of the psyche and then each day of each week one should focus on that part. So, for instance on Week 2 day 4 of the omer, one would meditate on Justice in Endurance (netzach she b'gvurah). Lev reads this meditation as the Eternity of Strength.

Today, as the first day is the meditation on loving kindness in loving kindness (chesed she'b'chesed). Meaningful Life (a Jewish meditation site) guides today's meditation asking:

What is my capacity to love another person? Do I have problems with giving? Am I afraid of my vulnerability?

Yep. You know what - I'm terrified. One of the most interesting things I learned as my friend's sons are growing up is that I wanted so badly to treat them appropriately. I didn't want to baby them and yet, I couldn't quite connect, because I wasn't letting them lead the way. So, I would try this and that - hoping that I wouldn't insult them...even when they were 2 and 4 years old!!! I was so self-conscious that I wasn't just loving with them.

Seeing my niece with her mommy is incredible. Both of them are so open to loving. Both of them seem to know what the other needs.

I am awed and inspired.

Happy Pesach

Good morning and welcome to another edition where an Atheist Queer Jewess named Faith explains it all!

Our topic this morning is cleaning for Pesach, which starts Saturday night, (not the cleaning, the holiday). Why am I concerned with cleaning for Pesach? Well, in Jewish communities, it's a big deal. The reason for the cleaning is called bedikat chametz which literally translates to search for chametz. What is chametz? That all depends on who you ask.

Wheat, barley, spelt, rye or oats are the 5 prohibited grains during Passover. Once these come in contact with water = chametz. That's the technical side. It gets a lot more complicated from there. I’m not even going to go into it…it would be like the longest blog post in history. Back to cleaning. You thought your grandmother did spring cleaning?

Cleaning for Passover involves making sure there is no chametz in your home. Any crumb of old food in any corner of your home that might have touched chametz and still be edible is considered chametz. In my home, we would throw out all of the bread and crackers, cookies and cereal. Anything that had a carby ring to it was gone. Clean out the pantry, refrigerator, freezer, oven, microwave, appliances and check every crack and crevice for edible chametz. And that’s just the beginning.

According to an article in the New York Times, some families start a month ahead of time with a wash of every Lego that may have a crust of chametzy saliva.

Don’t forget to copy all the recipes from your cookbooks that you may need during the 8 days because if a cookbook full of cookie crumbs gets loose, all is lost. Lest you think you are done – go out to the garage and get your specially made Formica countertops to sit atop your regular everyday countertops for fear that you have chametz permeating the pores in your Corian.

Put all of your starched shirts in storage, for fear you may get water on them, lick your shirt and get a little chametz that way. Finally after getting out your candle and feather, searching for the last crumbs, burning them and nullifying all the chametz that may have inadvertently been left behind, then you can get out the Passover dishes.

“WTF?” You may be thinking.

Well, as nothing in Judaism is just as it is, chametz is more than just the little crumbs of carboliciousness that are prohibited during these 8 days. Chametz is said to symbolize the egocentricity that threatens to eclipse our essential selves. It is also seen as a symbol of the yetzer hara (our inclination toward evil). We spend this time searching for the parts of ourselves that are not ourselves. Those things that we hang onto because our mother wanted us to marry well, because our peers thought would make us more popular, more fun or just more interesting, but we couldn’t have cared less about.

This weekend, I am going to do a little inventory of my internal chametz. Then, I might just do a little burning.

What are the things that you are holding on to that you might need to clean out of the nooks and crannies of your home?

Bah!

Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg says that whomever wins the election this November, "at least we'll have an adult in office who can lead and can accomplish something."

I'm not a fan of McCain, I'm hella pissed at the way the Dems are behaving but I've got to say, Thank you, Mayor B. I mean really.

I know he's a shrub but did he HAVE to tell his Popeness "Awesome speech."? He might as well have fucking brought his bong on the dais with him.

I think Jon Stewart summed it up best this week noting that:

"Not only do I want an elite president, I want someone who's embarrassingly superior to me."

Me too Jon. Me too.

Guess what?

Food poisoning SUCKS!!!!

However, there is so much more fun to talk about .

For instance, you absolutely must check out the vintage condom wrappers at Ethan Persoff. My favorite is the Pousse L'Amour condom. I mean, seriously people, you think they didn't get the joke in the 30's?

They did.
H/T Swissmiss

Also, a new outstandingly fabulous website I have happened upon comes to us from the Planet Fabulon. Where everything is absolutely delicious.

Seriously. Scrumptious.

I want you to find a day where you have nothing better to do. No children to look after, no work to do, no errands to run, no dinner to fix and start the day with a steaming mug of cocoa topped with whipped cream flavored with your liqueur of choice and chocolate shavings, put on your lucite heeled mink slippers and your cashmere robe. Light a single ylang ylang scented candle and go to:




I'm going to get back to work now.