Month: June 2007

Queer Jews and Karate

2007 SF Gay Pride Parade

A couple of weeks ago, I was wondering when my life would be back to normal. This past weekend, it bulldozed past normal and entered into surreality. Friday night I was still my regular self. Karen went to the dyke march and then out dancing at Mango with Lorena and Tess, and I stayed home because I didn’t want to be around so many people.

On Sunday, the day of the pride parade, I decided that I wanted to go. Not just go. I wanted to MARCH IN THE PARADE with our temple (or at least what might be our temple if we ever get around to checking it out more). I had a good time. It is actually less crowded in the parade than watching it from the sidelines. There was this Jewish youth group in front of us that were all wearing bright orange shirts. Fresh squeezed orange jews. Sorry, I tried not to write that, but I couldn’t resist. Every time the parade stopped, they would perform a same sex jewish wedding under a rainbow flag chuppah, smash a plastic cup wrapped in a napkin, and then run around in circles singing. Made me happy.

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Back In Business

I have finally updated my business site! I last updated it in 2004 and it was so out of date that I had to unpublish half of the pages because the information was no longer accurate. The focus of my business has changed over the years. When I first started out, I made mostly static …

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Back To Normal?

For the past couple of weeks, I have been feeling much better than I have in at least a year. My new meds are finally working pretty good, even great in comparison to the last 2 horribly failed experiments. I can breathe. My body is not completely taken over in every way possible. I can work. I can leave the house.

Still, things do not feel completely normal yet. This weekend, me and K went to a party to celebrate one of my Sensei’s promotion from Godan (5th degree black belt) to Rokudan (6th degree black belt, Master) and a bunch of other promotions too. Rokudan is a pretty huge deal in Cuong Nhu. There are only 5 in total and only one woman (my Sensei). I wasn’t sure I would make it, but I really wanted to go. It was a great reason to celebrate and I miss my dojo very much.

It occurred to me that the thing that would make my life feel “normal” again would be going back to class. Besides from loving martial arts, going to class was the only regular contact I had with other people. A dojo is a special place and I have been very lucky to find such a great school with the most amazing teachers I could ever imagine and a bunch of nice people in general. I have been a student there for 10 years.

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Pod People

iPod nanoI am now one of them. I have resisted getting an ipod for years, mostly because I find it kind of crazy that there is no way to input data without transferring files from a computer.

I have been tempted repeatedly, mostly by the shiny black video ipods and nanos. The screen size of the video ipods seem a little small for watching videos. Better to wait for the iPhone. 🙂 The nanos are harder to resist. I don’t need one. I have a palm pilot that does everything a nano can do and more. Still, I see them in the store and want one every time. Marketing genius.

It is likely that I will eventually get an iPhone. I will try to wait for version 2.0 when the initial bugs and annoyances have been worked out. The iPhone screen is a better size for video, not to mention the million other things it does. But it is crazy expensive, not even including whatever monthly fee there will be to use all of its features.

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