I was looking through my tags this winter morning, it is raining buckets and I'm all nice and cosy in front of the radiator and the cat is purring next to me shedding hair on my black track suit pants and sweatshirt.

I was looking through my tags, specifically the spirituality one and I sometimes wonder if I'm right in the head. Well, ha, if you read this post you know I'm a bit wonky when it comes to my brain.

After the Lebanon war I had a crisis of faith, not surprising, I wanted something to believe in. As a teen I had been interested in paganism and even did a few rituals and all that, but comic books and the philosophy of Belief being the basis of Faith and not the other way around kind of ruined me for religion.
( Cut for Length )

I conduct my life as a Jewish Atheist. I love my holidays, they hold no religious significance to me. The history of my people is an interesting and brutal one, the stories in the Bible of my mythology along with the Odyssey and The Sandman.

Were I able to, I'd rather go through my life not needing to explain all this to people and make myself out as an Aggressive Atheist rather than the Apathetic Agnostic that I am.

Religion is used in far too many ways to excuse bad behaviour, from Creationism to Terrorism, from Occupation to Jihad, from Misogyny to Transphobia.

In the words of Eddie Izzard (who paraphrased Martin Luther):
Ein Minuten, Bitte. Ich habe einen kleinen problemo avec diese religione.

Arachne Jericho wrote a series of blog posts titled Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Fiction (Broken into one, two, three and four parts).

It is a really good series. Trauma and the dealing with it can be a deal breaker for me when it comes to fiction.
I happen to have PTSD.
It's not something I talk about often because I'm in a good place in my life.
The latter part of 2006 and the majority of 2007 sucked, sucked, sucked. Most of 2008 was okay and improved as I realised what I needed to do in order to be able to function. I was in therapy from April 2007 'til January 2009.
That's a year and eight months.
I was never on any medication.
In 2006 and 2007 I had a few panic attacks, I've had one full blown flashback once in my entire life - I hope I never ever have one again, but really that's not up to me.

Briefly, for those who were not reading me during 2007 and/or 2008 and joined after Jan 2009, I participated in the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006, the war changed me - I think for the better - and also left a scratch in my brain.
I've been told that I shouldn't make myself out to be a victim, that other soldiers during the war, those who were on the front line and actually fought and didn't just watch the fighting on a big screen and count the rockets as they fell (which is what I did).

Perspective is great. It doesn't lessen my own pain. Making fun of myself and calling myself a whiny self-pitying ass does, though!
My therapist at some point said I use self-deprecation as a way to deflect.

Jericho gives an excellent over-view of what PTSD is and what it isn't and the way it is depicted in fiction - I think there's a unanimous agreement that The West Wing Christmas episode Noel is the best ever on television.

PTSD is a subtle disorder for many, including me. One friend nagged me gently to get help, because she could see that I wasn't "myself".
For a while I was unable to watch the News on teevee for fear that they would show aerial footage from a war plane - those images are still triggers for me and I can get very tense and, ha, stressed. Most war movies have become no-no's, but not good ole' Action films (I'm so glad I didn't lost James Bond).

It took me a while to want to get help, because damn it I'm not weak! Not to mention, in my mind you can't get PTSD by watching a television screen and seeing things blow up! I see that in movies all the time!
Except I was hearing the crackling voices of people telling me co-ordinates of rockets that were being fired from Lebanon.
Trees became targets.
A man who fired one those rockets died on July 26th 2006, it was a Wednesday, he was blown to smithereens.
I saw it happen.
People clapped for a job well done.
That night I broke down and the paradigm of my conciousness was altered - for the better and also with a few hiccups.

PTSD doesn't happen to people who sit in HQ. It also only happen to War Poets, to people who aren't really hurt.

I was told I take things too hard. That I'm too sensitive. That I need "to get over it". Well, I did... that's why I have PTSD and a good year, instead of... something else entirely.

Go read that series of posts and know that PTSD is hard to write, is often not named (I'm not sure it needs to be, every time or all the time) and I'll think about why I love the characters I love and identify with more than I did before the war.

It was amazing.

We were about 5000 people all in all.

I don't have time to report on it all, I may do so tomorrow.

All I can say is that it was awesome, I cried and I got a T-Shirt.

Happy Hannukah!

Hey, did you know that Yesterday was International Human Rights Day?

No?

I'm not surprised.

I mean, Human Rights, those are for people who aren't ME, right?

I'm being facetious but you have to admit that that seems to be the attitude.

Over the past few months The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has been working on, planning and today will finally be executing Israel's first Human Rights March.

I've marched for human rights multiple times over the years, but they always seemed to have a different moniker like: anti-war, anti-poverty, women's rights, LGBTQ rights, anti-occupation, pro-immigrant rights and more.

Today, it's All Of That.

I wonder... is anyone going to care this time as well?

Quoted and copied from Coterest: News, Analysis and Opinion from the Israeli Hebrew print and electronic media:
[Under the cut] is a rush translation of Ha’ir’s ("The City", a local urban mag that covers Tel-Aviv happenings) cover story.
No complicated conspiracy theories. Only a long catalogue of de-legitimization.

So here is one, small ask, do what progressives are the best at. Communicate. Get this story out.

( Anti-Semites:How human rights activists became public enemies )

But in very small amounts.

I was watching the first part of Stephen Fry's documentary HIV and Me (2007).

During this episode he goes to South Africa (which still has the most appalling policy when it comes to HIV/AIDS even though over 25% of the population is infected - the majority of infections pass through unprotected heterosexual sexual encounters. In South Africa this it's not a "Gay Disease" and never was - but the stigma remains.

While there, Stephen Fry meets journalist and AIDS activist Lucky Mazibuko who takes him on an excursion to a school in which he gives an informative lecture to little kids.

On the wall of their class there were two slogans:
Being HIV positive is not a curse.

Being HIV positive is normal

As I watched I felt very moved by the sight of these kids speaking so candidly about safe sex and how you can't HIV/AIDS from touching someone, kissing someone, sharing food with someone, etc.

And then Mr. Mazimbuko brings out a t-shirt that says: I am leading the way to an AIDS free world, referring of course, to these well-informed kids who live the reality of the disease along with Mr. Mazimbuko.

I promptly burst into tears.

How pathetic am I?

You can find the documentary in very good quality on YouTube, link to the first part of the first episode (out of two) here.

Yesterday, I had an on-line discussion about my paranoia about getting pregnant due to the truly woman un-friendly procedures pregnant women have to go through in order to obtain a legal abortion.
STD's were never something I was concerned about because every sexual encounter I ever had been with a condom (if it were with a man) and knowing my partner's history (if I were with a woman - yeah, those were not always as safe as they should be).
Lesbian sex has the lowest risk factor when it comes to contracting HIV/AIDS - that doesn't mean you are safe - especially if you have sores on your genitalia, mouth or a cut on your hands or some such.

Dental dams are not as available as they should be (which is bloody irritating) - and they're not just for Dykes y'all!

Any way. AIDS is a year round issue, not just Documentaries, Movies and Stories. It's an epidemic that is constantly on the rise.

The Israel AIDS Task Force says the number of infected in 2009 is expected to rise - currently there are an estimated 6,275 infected people some of whom are unaware of their status.
Number of people with HIV reaches all-time high in 2009.

On a less preachy note; I remember hearing about AIDS for the first time when I heard that Tom Hanks won the Oscar for his performance in Philadelphia.
That was 1993, I was 8.
I did not understand what AIDS was until I was in the 10th grade (I was 15 and the year was 2000) in which we had a sex-ed class and were were given little notes that has + and - written on them.
We were told to walk around the class in a random way, to keep one note and give out a note to other kids that we randomly encountered.
After that we sat down and the sex-ed educator asked everyone who had a + note to stand up. I and a great many other kids stood up and were told that we were now infected with HIV.

The sex-ed classes were pretty good in explaining how to have safe-sex, that a condom fits everyone and a boy who says the rubber "doesn't fit" is lying - which was hilarious to see all those cocky boys squirm in their seats.
That little experiment left a sour taste in my mouth as it could have been any STD, which is was the educator said, but the example used was AIDS.

In this same class (we had about three, if I recall correctly) there was talk about homosexuality which made me so freakin' uncomfortable. Homophobia was rampant and I was 15 and just realising I was "not like everybody else".
The fact that everyone was saying that AIDS could only occur between two men and all that, which the educator contradicted expertly I must add, but that didn't stop the crass homophobia after class.
It was depressing.

I wish I knew what the state of sex-education in high schools are today - ten years down the line - I can't think it's much changed.

Last night was a big mess when it came to be trying to deflect racism, homophobia and sexism.

I dunno what was in the air, but it was irritating.

I had to tell people to stop codifying Islam with "terrorism". I had to tell people that gay people in the States do not want "special rights" when it comes to same-sex marriage. I had to defend this "assimilationist" strategy - when I personally would like to see marriage abolished - because the "LGBT Community" isn't campaigning for separating the 1000+ rights automatically given with marriage and would rather just reproduce straight ideals - this is all coming from straight people by the way.
I had to tell people to stop using racial slurs when describing a black service person - and then went on to "Politically Correct" the language by instead of using racial slurs to say "African" in a very un-ambiguous way while looking at me in irritation.

Thank you for being an asshole.

Someone tried to convince themselves that going to a strip club wasn't contributing to the sex industry in the same way going to a prostitute.
I was shot down time after time when I tried to explain that the only thing you're doing by not going to a prostitute is not paying for sex with a prostitute. Going to a strip club is still contributing to the industry.

Then I'm told that some women chose to work in the sex industry.

I did not mention anything about who chooses to do what! Honestly, sex-work is real work! Just because I'd rather see it sans exploitation and sans human trafficking doesn't mean I am anti-sex work or anti-sex workers!

I think the main issue isn't the fact that women chose to do sex-work (and should be paid accordingly), but the fact that the sex-industry is so bloody duplicitous when it comes to what is legal and what isn't - more accurately, the law regarding the sex-industry is so duplicitous and because there is such a problem of comprehending the difference between legalisation (which often causes just as many problems as it being illegal) and decriminalisation.

Actual sex workers have better and more info on the subject.

All in all, it was an irritating evening in which my family and friends made me feel like a bloody fuddy-duddy, a Politically Correctness-Fiend and an anti pro-sex advocate!
Arrrgh!
But there's no doubt in anyone's mind that I'm pro-porn (which I am, though I'd rather, like other sections of the sex-industry, had a little more respect for its workers and consumers).

*sigh*

Such is the life of the pro-sex, anti-racist, queer feminist student of Literary Theory and Women's studies, I suppose.

Comic books came to me at a time in which I was searching for belief.

Between the ages of 13 to 15 I was going through a Wiccan/Pagan phase, sad but true, I lived the stereotype. I even have a paper diary in which I wrote down my teenage angst and rage at not being able to be polytheist, not realising I didn't actually believe in any god - because the gods are stories to me.

Mythology, the stories of why we are, who we are; that was what attracted me to the Bible stories, the cosmology of Life after Death in ancient Egypt and incestuous love affairs of ancient Greece.

I can't remember what motivated me to explore religions outside Judaism (I loved the myths before I understood that god was supposed to be more than just a character in a book), possibly because I found and still find, going to shul incredibly boring.
The liturgy can be lovely, but I can't stand the thought of being there just because of (cue the Fiddler) Tradition.

At around that time I was reading Terry Pratchett and found that the philosophy he espouses in Pyramids and Small Gods sat very well with me and my apathetic-yet-literary pursuits.
I also found Good Omens and wasn't that a delight for me, receiving validation in my dislike of religion and being critical of belief at the time¹.
I had no clue who Neil Gaiman was.
I found out.
Enter the Sandman.
It took me four years to collect all ten volumes, as a teen my funds were lacking, of course, so I begged for early birthday presents, loaned money from my brother, just to get my hands on the next Sandman books.
When I realised that Sandman operated in the same world (though a different plain) as DC comics - I began to read Batman again.
Batman, whose villains are so much like himself... he even "dates" them - costume fetish? You bet!

I can now see, looking back and thinking critically upon that very apathetic time of my life, that my need for religion, the search for something bigger than myself - was the search for stories that were bigger than my life... and there ain't nothing bigger than the Endless, the Justice League, the X-Men, V and even the all too fallible Watchmen - post-humanism... oh yes. Now that's transcendent.

I remember reading Season of Mists at 18 and feeling as though my ideas regarding all the gods, faith and world order, laid out in front of me... in vivid colour².

I read "Concerning Mammoths, and Falling Walls" again (the third chapter in Brief Lives) not long after the second Lebanon War and the line Death (our friend, our constant companion in Life) says to the very long-lived man who asks "...I did okay, didn't I?" concerning how long he lived, she says:
"You got a lifetime. No more. No less."

That sentence has been resonating in me for the past three years. It comforts me when I think of my mortality, because we live as long as we do.
And that's it.

Having recently read Gaiman's rendition on the "death of Batman" in Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" that line echoed in my mind.
It echoes all the time.

Though slash fiction were my main source of understanding "alternative" sexuality and the fact that I, myself, was not straight, comics empowered me in being outwardly weird - I like the colours... in comics even black is bright.
The dynamics of gender in comics are far more complex that what people think - sure, it's busty women in skin tight (or barely there) costumes and it's muscled men in skin tight (there are bulges) costumes.
You can learn so much about what is idealised and why by reading these people who still hark from that time of pulp-fiction and illicit magazines.

I'm writing this whole spiel because Blognewsarama (my main comic oriented news site) plugged this website:

The A-Z LGBT Comic Book Character Superlist, which is freakin' awesome! This website Queersupe appears to be that much more extensive, in-depth and analytical.

Works for me! Go and explore.

And just to keep with the theme of this somewhat sombre entry; comic books (along with my search for faith through religion) enabled me to doubt, ask questions about the veracity of the stories we tell ourselves (all are real of course) and the ideals upon which they are supported... helped me learn about myself and the stories that make my world the way it is.

Footnotes
(1) I'd just like y'all to know that it took me a long time to come to the conclusion that agnosto-atheism was the best place for me, I really wanted to have some kind of faith that was bigger than me. But my identification with being Jewish is too strong, though historical, cultural and ethnic - religion is a composite in that, and despite being a complete heretic... I cannot remove it from me entirely.
Back to text.

(2)For a long time Bast and Anubis were my closest companions in my dreams and I even bought two little figurines of them... they sit along with the other statuettes in my room, that I collected over the years. I once used them in a ceremony with a bunch of friends - I was still trying to be of belief, faith and religion, but inwardly I was already gone. A hypocritical portion of my life, without a doubt.
Back to text.

Things I grew tired of hearing a long time ago:

#01 "You're aggressive" - You make me want to rip out your rib cage and wear it like a hat (h/t Spike/Willian the Bloody terrible poet, he was a brilliant word-smith...).

#02 "You're provocative" - I make you uncomfortable, not my problem!

#03 Rape apologia - Even if a woman (or man) is walking around, naked, with a placard stating in neon "Will Fuck Anyone!", no one has the right to violate his/her/hir body. Ever. Rape is a crime, stop punishing and blaming the victims.

#04 The term "self-hating Jew" - the next time I hear this term I'm calling on that person and saying they are an "Antisemitic shit-bag". Jewish self-hatred assumes some kind of essential Jewish trait that us (yeah, I'm one of those people) self-haters reject because we're just that disgusting.
Antisemitic Shit-Baggery!

#05 "You've lost weight, you look great!" - I know I've lost weight. I know I comply with the fashionable female body type. I'd appreciate it if no one comments about my body, it's fucking irritating, I'm not livestock to be commented upon, my my rump, ribs and tits are not in public for your consumption! Unless you've been given permission to do so (you know who you are), do stop!

#06 "You look much better now that your hair in longer. The shaved head didn't look good on you".
DIAF.

#07 "Is this another feminist thing?" - Yeah it is, and you're gonna listen to me annoy the fucking hell out of you!

#08 "You're so sensitive" - Yeah, this is me crying over your dead body.

#09 "You're so loud, why do you have to shout everything. It's all about how you say things you know" - Yeah I do know, I also know a big STFU when I see one. Stop trying to control my fucking tone!

And #10 "Why do you care so much?" - because the world is an ugly, cynical and corrupted blemish in this universe. We have to live on it, it may as well be with a modicum of empathy and dignity.

Those are the Top 10 things this week that made me go *rawr*, *arrgh*, swear under my breath, glare, lose my temper and want to throw things at people's faces.

I cannot wait for the semester to start (which it does this Sunday).

Tell me friends, readers and maybe lurkers, what grinds your gears?

The Yanks are having a Gay Ole' Time!

Sorry, I couldn't resist.
The Interwebs are very US centric, so I know that the 11th of October is National Coming Out Day and that during Obama's address at the Equality March he promised to revoke Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
He didn't specify when, but meh.

I also read a post that resonated in me so much, my eyes stung up as I read it, you should read it too.

Coming out never ends.
You have to do it over and over and over again.

When I came out to my mother I was 15 and she said "Why don't you try the Hetero way, first" and "Don't tell your father".
I didn't tell my dad until I was 20 and he said "Are you in a relationship with a woman?", I wasn't at the time, "Then why are you telling me this now?".

I don't mean to vilify my parents, but this is such an ordinary reaction it's hardly worth mentioning. Because it doesn't matter that I'm Bi and am thus "gay" whoever I'm with, it only matters when the genitalia of the person I'm fucking is the same as mine.
Then, "I'm making my life more difficult".
As I am responsible for the homophobic reactions I'm forced to endure and yeah, those small insignificant questions are "homophobic" and yeah, I will call you on them.
Hiding behind conservatism, or old-fashioned views, or that a double standard is okay because it's social.

I don't mention my siblings, because they're awesome; despite the fact that one of them thought I said I was queer because I was looking for attention (*grrr*), despite the fact that one of them tried to excuse the police assaulting us at Jerusalem Pride, despite the fact that one of them challenged the oppression of queer identity by comparing it a different one.

I don't mean to vilify them either.

My family, I love them dearly and they love me.

But the assumption, assertion and aggressively enforced enables people, no matter who they are, to doubt my identity and this, of course, holds true for the Queer community as well.
This requires that I assert, "advertise" and repeat "I'm gay/queer/bi/the-label-that-fits-best-at-this-time-and-place".

When I was in the IDF, I was out during my training and more than anything, to the group of about 20 young women that lived together for nearly four months, I was a curiosity at first, but because none of us was fucking while we were on base sex was spoken about as something we miss and not something we do.
At my permanent unit I was not out, except to the Lunch Club, which could have been dubbed the "Bunch of Queers having a two-hour Lunch Club".
It was nice.
But none of us were out in our units.
No doubt, everybody knew.
No confession was made. no questions were asked. That was fine, but until actually spoken about, it is assumed that you are straight.
Even if you are the Dykiest Dyke, The Faggiest Fag and the Omniest Bi.

And it sucks. It forces you to be, for large portions of your life,dishonest by default and purposefully.
"It's provocative having two women together at a wedding".
"Do not introduce her as your girlfriend".
So we didn't slow dance, and you'd have to be pretty slow not to figure it (that we're together) out.

To be "out" is to be provocative.
It's a luxury I felt acutely this year, the freedom of it in certain arenas, it's utter deprivation in others.
That my life.

That's all our lives.

I've decided that I'm no longer going to discuss the Occupation or the Israel/Palestine conflict with my family.
Most of the time, it's fine and civil and everybody wants to smack the other upside the head and that's okay, it's even good, it's mean we're affecting each other (even if it is frustrating).

But when the discussion basically comes to the a place in which people are regurgitating (but in different words) "The Palestinians are doing it to themselves" and closing the discussion by saying "Israel made a big mistake in 1967... that we didn't push them all out into the Arab countries and make it all Arab free" (very little paraphrasing on my part).

Cue me being appalled.

"Because if you think they wouldn't have done that [ethnic cleansing] to us if we had lost, you need to educate yourself a little more" were (again paraphrased, this was last night) the parting words and the end of the discussion.

I'll no longer discuss this matter with people who have the ability to make me cry.

It is so retarded that I'm accused, again and again and again, of being brain-washed, of being an absolutist, of being "one-sided", of being naive, when talking about this matter.

It is so backwards that I need to ratify the fact that I think Hamas are fundamentalist whack-jobs with guns, who if they had any interest in actually leading the Palestinian people, their strategy wouldn't include killing people in the strip.
As for the firing Qassam rockets into Israel... you mean those three weeks back in December '08 and January '09 didn't actually help with that.
I'm shocked.
Absolutely... un-surprised.
Should have Hamas used the Disengagement plan in order to try and re-build something in Gaza and perhaps move people out of the slums of Gaza City and into the towns left by the Settlers who left them.
Probably.
Most likely.
Who ever said people had a reasonable response to a unilateral move which was viewed as a victory of terror tactics over Israel... the best way to get more results is to continue terror, obviously.
*sigh*
By the way, as far as we're aware, the trickling of Qassam rockets at the mo' come mainly from break away factions of Islamic Jihad... Hamas can control them to a degree (by killing them), though to the people of the towns surrounding Gaza, it doesn't really matter.
Nor should it.

Same as for Palestinians, an Israeli is an Occupier, even if they get them permits to cross the checkpoints, ambulances, medicine and letters and come to demonstrate against the Fence and Wall.
Being a good ally is knowing that we are a part of the Oppressive forces and not take umbrage when we're regarded as such, because it's not about us.
Though, it is also, because the violence committed in our name, the electricity and water flowing into Gaza (because Egypt doesn't want to deal with the strip, nor do any of the other Arab and/or Muslim nations want to deal with the "Palestinian Problem", because they'd much rather have a scapegoat on which to foist all their problems rather than deal with their own internal conflicts... hmmm, sound familiar... nations, like people, are so bloody similar it'd be funny if it weren't so tragic) in order to keep the population under our control and thumb (Cynical? You bet!).

Asymmetrical warfare brings about different tactics.
Would you say that 18-21 year old kids guarding an illegally constructed barrier are better or worse than 15-25 year old kids who strap on a bomb and walk into a market and blow themselves up.
Both are indiscriminate, though the soldiers have the ability to be more accurate.
Instinctively, I think, one would want to say that the bomber is worse, because of the location and the fanaticism that induces such an action.
I mean, the victims in the market or a pizza parlour were just innocent by standers, minding their own business and day.
They were.
No one plans to go out, hang out with friends and be murdered.

The people of Bil'in are subjected to nightly incursions, arrests, teenagers are taken from their homes, "interrogated" and then sent to prison, where they learn faster and better the art of guerilla fighting from their older and more experienced cousins.
Are those not acts which try and induce terror over a civilian population?

The people of Bil'in, Nia'lin, Jayous, et al, all go to the demos knowing the score (that soldiers shoot indiscriminately), the people sitting in the cafes, markets and Malls, are unsuspecting.
The people of Bil'in, Nia'lin et al can't, really, forget the terror that they're under, it is their daily reality, they are never unsuspecting that they are in danger.
Even during the worst of the bombings (that I remember), in 1996, 2000, 2003, etc we made sure to continue with our normal lives so that they would know that we continue on despite the terror and danger.

I know people who have died in bombings. If I had left my home ten minutes earlier not too many years ago, I wouldn't have just felt the tremors under foot of a bomb going off in the mall. My dad's store front shattered because of a bomb and he was nearly shot at a different time.

I'm not fucking objective.

And that's all I have to say about this at the moment.

For my next post, I may write about this, but after writing all of the above, I dunno if I have the energy.

I will not be fasting this year.

I'll be going to Koll Nidrei, as I do every year. But I won't be fasting.
It took me a long time to figure out why, as a non-believer, as someone who would more often than nor buck tradition than follow it (or at the very least, update it to fit the times and my personal philosophy), I'd felt the need to fast in previous years.

Nostalgia.

Pure and simple, nostalgia.

I go to hear and sing along with everyone Koll Nidrei, because it moves me, I feel the water in my body vibrate along with the congregation that repeats, repeats, repeats the Hazan (Cantor) as he sings and dirges the words of the Book.

I don't think I need to deny myself anything in order to make visible the repentance (that I don't feel).
I have no soul that needs purification.

I've been losing weight and that's been weighing on my mind. I hate that as I get thinner I think more about how fattening things are and I've not even been trying to lose weight.
I was happy where I was.
It's been a tough week, month, year.
It would have caught up with me I suppose.
If I don't see myself fattening up after the Holidays and during Uni I'll go see if there's an actual problem with me.
I am looking pale.
Because I'm tired; I've not caught up on the sleep I've lost over the past couple of days.

I will not be fasting.
With any luck I'll make myself a cup of coffee at a friends house this evening after prayers and catch up on True Blood tomorrow... maybe I'll watch an ep or two of Torchwood.
Or Life on Mars.

Definitely listen to Leonard Cohen... my lovely man.

As promised, more on The Man and the amazing concert last night.

First of all, the getting there. It was very much encouraged that people use public transportation because, well, parking would have been an issue.
The doors to Ramat-Gan stadium (where the concert was performed) opened at half-past five pm, I wanted to be there by at least quarter to seven or seven, since the concert was scheduled to start at quarter to eight.

Suffice to say, that is not what happened. ( Read some more on how we finally arrived to the stadium )
We walked into the stadium at twenty to eight, I hugged Tami and her folks (she was the genius who managed to actually get us tickets the night sales went live, damned lucky as this concert was sold out in a few hours), we found our seats, had two minutes to relax before the lights went out, the stage lights went on and there he was.

The Man and his Hat (Tami was taking pictures the whole time, I hope I get to show them to you).

What a charming stage persona he has, he was skipping! He said it was a honour to be here and that he was dedicating the concert to Bereaved Families for Peace as per my previous post, which got me crying, it was a very clever and non-confrontational way of bringing in the "issue" I suppose. I'm glad he mentioned it at least and didn't ignore the contention of him performing in Israel, because it is a big deal and Cohen is a very big name.

He then began to sing.

Being the dork that I am, I wanted to write down the songs; I always carry a pen, but alas I did not have a notepad so I quickly rummaged around and found a post card - it was this post card, so there was plenty room to write on both sides.
Oh! Before I forget! On the big screens which broadcast his performance, there were Hebrew subtitles to almost all of the songs, because lots of Israeli artists just wanted to be able to sing him in Hebrew so over the years there have been lots of translations.
Having the subtitles was just too great no to mention.

( The Song List with some of my reactions to them )

And then he sang the Passage from the book of Ruth: "Wherever you go..." which was amazing and then he gave another prayer in Hebrew. Amazing to hear that old fashioned Ashkenazi accent, as modern Hebrew accent is Sephardic... I was all very emotional, as is evident by the amount of tears I shed.

Cohen is probably one of the more evocative poets and singers of our time. I can honestly say that he's one of the artists that when I heard for the first time clutched my heart and pulled out my lungs. And it really was So Long, Marianne, because it was the first song of his that I listened to.

It was an amazing night and getting back home was far less dramatic than getting there. My dad I were gushing the whole way and it really was one of the best evenings of my life.

I love Leonard Cohen even more than I did. His gravely and deep voice is the kind of voice I always imagine myself having when I speak about something I'm passionate about, but it's so far from the voice I actually have which is more often than not high and strident... I can never modulate it to the depth that I want.

One other thing, Leonard Cohen has a grand, beautiful and very sharp aquiline nose (I have a nose fetish, really, I'm not kidding) and he's a seriously good looking (to me) man.
I think my dad kind of looks like him.
Yeah, I think my dad is handsome.
I think youngest daughters are supposed to think that, no?

I hope I managed to convey here what a powerful evening it was. That weird and awesome feeling of being intimate with thousands of other people.

I think I need another cup of coffee.

These many thought came about because of my slowly becoming more involved in fandom, developing ideas of my own for writing fan fiction, talking to other fans about these issues and real life events paralleling fandom events too closely in my mind.

About a year ago I wrote a post about why I'm obsessing with Torchwood.

Now I have some new thoughts.

But I think I need to write a little something that will further contextualize what I'm writing.

( A Bit About Buffy, because it's important )

Buffy and I parted ways a few years ago. It's still the best show to ever be on television; writing wise, thematically and just plain awesomeness. I have seven academic books about Buffy.

It changed my life, I'll always be grateful².

All that was a long way of saying, I take my entertainment seriously. Not only that, it takes me seriously as well.

Torchwood changed my life as well, in a vastly different way.

Not too long ago I wrote: I love Torchwood and generally speaking, Torchwood loves me..

It's obvious to me, but I suppose I should disclaim, that I'm well aware that the people on Torchwood , just like every other show, movie and book that I read, are fictional, I will not be able to go to Wales and meet any of them.
And despite a phenomenon like this, they are not real.

Except, that they are.

( Introspective Personal Thought On Texts That I Love )

When it comes down to it, the past year was hard and I really cannot imagine how I would have gotten through it were it not for my girlfriend and Torchwood (it helps that she enjoys the show as well). I had to deal with a real world that didn't go exactly like I expected.

Wake up call.

As most of you know, during July I was still pretty shook up over what happened in Torchwood: Children of Earth, you just need to browse back to see how deeply affected I was. I don't know how my GF stood me. I don't know how anyone stood me.
Then in August the real life tragedy of a Hate Crime against queer youth struck and I was shook up again.
Living in the country that I do exposes me to violence on a scale that at times is just too much.

I felt so disgusted with myself that I took the death of Ianto Jones as hard as I did.

It's gratifying knowing that I'm not alone. That I am validated and can validate others in their love of text and how it affects them.
How we affect it.

I think I'm going to be writing fic very soon.

( Notes )

Yesterday I went to FantasyCon, the one day summer Convention, the theme was Romance and Love in sci-fi and fantasy, seeing as it fell on the week of Tu b'Av, which is basically the Jewish Valentine Day.

I really needed it.

I wore my Torchwood t-shirt (with Jack and Ianto), there was a lecture on sub-textual romance in Doctor Who (pre-Eccleston... 'Ship wars are woe), which was great and I ended up talking a bunch with the lecturer who is writing her PhD (I think) on the Doctor Who.

I love academic geeks... my people.

There was also a really good lecture on Slash and the way it enables us to appropriate characters and content of media that isn't really representative of, well, us.

The atmosphere of the Con, despite the cosplayers and decorations and the baby Dalek on the floor, was quite sombre because of the shooting last Saturday night. There is a huge amount of intersection between the Con-going audience and participants and the LGBT community. One of the reasons I never felt, until I went to Uni, that I needed a queer community was because I had one in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy community.

I finally broke down and cried quite a lot when I spoke to morin, who I've been friends with since I was in the third grade and who is my BFF. We hung out before we went to the different lectures we had planned and eventually we began to talk about how much it sucked here.
Zie and hir partner have been talking about leaving Israel for a while now, but the past few months since Netanyahu took office and last Saturday being the last straw in a lot of ways, hir saying that really brought it home for me.
I can't think of anything that really good here.
And I started crying.
morin, having known me for such a long time (and possibly being a telepath) came prepared and gave me a bunch of tissues.
I got a bunch of hugs after by many people... a crying Mel is a very miserable looking Mel.
avgboojie even gave me a tentacle filled hug, simply because I hijacked her Cthulhu plushy.

[Southern!Girl] is staying over and I spoke to her about how I felt. Really, this is a very visceral feeling, wanting to say "fuck it", get my degree and fucking leave.
I don't know of any place which is that much better, that I can imagine building a new home in.
I've thought about living elsewhere for a while, being a part of a different place at some point, but I always thought that I'd come back here and live here and just be here.

I'm not wanted here.

Israel is basically a unique blend of the USA and Iran and I feel very little hope for that mix.

I don't know how much more I can tolerate not being tolerated. In this place that I can only see as a negation of everything my parents hoped it would be when they chose to leave South Africa.

You may find it tedious, or boring, or even just plain irritating that I'm blogging about the same thing over and over again and basically repeating myself.

Obviously this is something that needs processing and information needs to be disseminated.

As I said in my previous post, I did not know the deceased, but I know people who did, because that's how small our world is.

Those kids, one of whom is in critical condition, all of whom are still in hospital as far as I'm aware, will never be the same again.
Nor will any of us, I'm afraid.
Some of those kids do not have a home to go to because they were outed and their parents and family do not want their children to be "that way".
Can they be cured?
As though the way your body, mind and heart reacts to people is some kind of horrible disfigurement of the soul.
If we even have one.

The reason I keep writing about this (and will probably write more about tomorrow) is because I am in the belief that silence is violence.
That the police do not have the beginning of a clue as to the whereabouts of the murderer and that unless he wants to be found, he will not be found.
Call me cynical, but it's been a while since I've trusted the police with anything that actually amounts to securing me and the people I know.

As for "incitement against the religious", I'll let you read the writing on the wall again.

Thoughts? Questions? Opinions?

Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!".
I will then give you five words that remind me of you.
Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.

These are the words whereisjoy gave me:
( Gender Studies )

( Israel )

( Activism )

( Torchwood )

( Fangirl )
So, yeah.

( Cut for Spoilers of TW: CoE )
Changed the poem, though it's still Thomas, this one is much more apt I think.

Next time on my Torchwood reviews and Meta: the Ladies, why this whole thing was a Bechdel!Win and possibly more talking about the themes I've already mentioned.

( Cut for over all spoilers of Torchwood: CoE )

I think I'll stop now and continue a little later. There are a lot of themes to explore and continue what I started here, but it is still raw and I hope you all forgive me for stopping at such a seemingly random point.

Once again, the brilliant rm writes about the fact that "Eqaulity Isn't a Subject for Debate".

Here is the text, in its entirety:

I live in a country where it is illegal for me to have the same rights as a cisgendered person in a heterosexual relationship. That's what the Defense of Marriage Act and a host of other laws addressing the lives of GBLTQ people mean.

But here's the thing -- and I assume this is preaching to the choir, but one never really knows who is going to stumble on my life journal -- actually all this DoMA and related stuff effects you, the cisgendered straight people too.

Really.

Because you never, ever know what your life is going to look like.

Now, I'm not saying you're going to turn gay all of a sudden, and we certainly don't recruit. (Have you looked at my journal? When would we have time to recruit?) But I think most of us -- that's us humans -- reach a point in our lives, where we look around and we go "wow, this isn't how I thought it was all going to turn out."

Because yeah, I fell in love with a girl when I was nineteen, but I also spent years of my twenties desperately in love with men and wanting baby after baby.

I never thought I would be anything but a journalist. I never thought I would have an abortion. I never thought I'd one day put on a suit that didn't have darts and have it fit me perfectly. I never thought I'd have pets. I never thought I'd live in Harlem. I never thought I'd get diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. I never thought I'd be an athlete. I never thought that my parents would adore my same-sex partner more than any boy I ever brought home.

I never thought.

Most of us don't.

My parents certainly never thought their kid would be gay.

So whoever you are reading this, if you haven't figured it out yet, your life is going to surprise you.

And until a whole bunch of laws change, one day (if it hasn't happened yet, if it doesn't happen all the time), you're going to be sitting in a bar or at brunch or in a friend's living room or in your parents' kitchem and you're going to realize that somehow, for some reason, you and someone else in that room aren't equals under the law. And, whether you come out ahead in that equation or not, if you really take a moment to understand what that means it's going to chill you to the bone.

I live in the United States of America. And it's illegal for me to be treated as equal to some of you.

Now, here's the other thing I want to address -- and that's what I'm doing, addressing this so I don't go into our living room and start ranting at my girl, AGAIN, about DoMA and Obama and how much we've fought for and how much we just haven't won yet, and how we can't wait because it's not fair that people can pass thrugh this world without even knowing the legal semblance of equality and its cultural connotation of respect - and that's that my equality as a human being isn't up for discussion.

Sure, the pundits can talk about it, the churches can preach. Obama can say the country has to move together to an understanding on this issue. I can be made abstract, and I can be told I am impatient or politically immature. Hell, my government can even issue legal arguments that imply I'm a dog-fucking pedophile.

But here's the thing. My equality? Not up for the discussion. Because I am as just as good as you. I am not lesser for my nature, nor simple for the rhetorical necessity of this focus on identity. I possess the same basic animating force as anyone else.

So y'all can debate about it all you want, from morals to timelines of acceptance.

But it doesn't change anything.

Doesn't change me.

Doesn't change the fucking ferocious dignity LGBTQ learn to live with from the moment they recognize they are somehow perceived as other, eventhough, you know, we're not.

We're just like you: mundane, over-worked and forgetting to pick up milk at the grocery store. We're just like you: awed at simple beauty and the various stupid and absurd poignancies of the human condition.


So yeah, debate it all you want. But it doesn't matter. Because it's not that you're wasting our time; it's that you're wasting yours.

So let's get over it and get this shit fixed.

The thing about stuff like DoMA is this: it's embarrassing.

It diminishes us.

And by us I don't mean LGBTQ people, I mean everyone. I mean it makes us look like a nation of frightened children.

And maybe we are.

We all are, sometimes, in the dark. But sometimes the only way to deal with fear is just... to pretend we're not scared and force ourselves to breathe until the morning comes.

We can do that, can't we? The myth of America extends that far, right? Sea to shining sea? Manifest destinay? All that bullshit? Maybe equality can be the new West. Sound like a plan?

Time to get on with it then, because the fear is so deeply unbecoming both our nation and our natures, and I for one expect better than that.

Not just of me. But of you.

My brother sent me an email last night asking me where my review of Star Trek was.
My reply to him was thus:

"I am still squeeing

I need to articulate my thoughts beyond;
OMG Spock!
OMG Kirk!
( Tiny Spoiler )

so... yeah..."

However, I feel that I must first write about my Trek background seeing as it's a huge part of why I so thoroughly enjoyed the movie. In this post I'll give you a quick history - behind a cut so as not to bore you to death - of how Star Trek changed my life no less than Buffy.

Once I have this written down, I'll be able to give you a much better review.

Enjoy the Geekery!

( 'Tis Long! )
And that's that.

It's been two days since the viewing (and now planning on seeing it again) and I think I'm capable of writing the spoilerific review you all deserve to read, including on what was awesome and what really, really wasn't.
Stay tuned!

*Plugging starbase_idic for that reason!