Sarah Siegel Stories

What Will We Do When We're No Longer Outsiders?

2012-01-08T18:52:00.005-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Death and Art Propel Big Questions This Weekend

At the funeral of our neighbor Megan of blessed memory earlier today, bookmarks-as-mementos sat next to the guestbook. One of them featured a girlhood photo of Megan and a quote: "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." -- Wayne Dyer

The quotation reminded me of some insights shared with me earlier this weekend, and how I might change the way I look at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) identity.

Last night, with our friends David & Gerard, I attended a lecture by Jonathan Katz, the co-curator of Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. Most of the works he featured in his slideshow included metaphors and symbols and codes that were dense and tense and rich for eyes that could recognize the homosexual subtext of them; in a number of cases, Jonathan Katz decoded them for us, as a number of them were subtle.

As I watched and listened, I was touched by the artists' ability to make visible to any degree a segment of society that between 1898 and 1991, and even still, today, depending on where in the world we live, typically was marginalized, stigmatized or at the very least, in the shadows.

During the Q&A afterward, I asked, "What happens when LGBT artists are no longer outsiders?"

Jonathan Katz said, "Other differences will emerge....It will not be central to their themes."

I was shaken by this answer. And I told David and Gerard so after walking through the exhibit together.

Gerard: "He was saying something hopeful, I thought, like that even heterosexual artists might include us as subjects and we'd just be more visible."

Me: "Maybe I'm too literal, but I don't ever want to be lesbian just incidentally. It's part of my core identity."

David: "I'm literal, too, but maybe assimilation's not so bad. I mean, isn't it nice being married now?" (He meant, he to Gerard and me, to Pat.)

"Yes, *so* nice. Your use of the word 'assimilation' helps me a bit because it reminds me of some alarmist Jews in my community who say that Jews will disappear if we assimilate too much, and yet, we've been here for 3,000+ years. I don't really think we're gonna disappear, since we've hung on for this long."

Dance? No, Lurk Around the Margins.

We said goodbye, since I was ready to go home, while they wanted to linger at the exhibit a bit longer. Making my way toward the exit, I found a free dance party on the third floor of the museum.

Oh, the music was so good with Rhianna's voice bouncing off the paintings in the nice and dim, cavernous room. I was nearly ready to enter the dance floor and move alone among the crowd, which likely would have been fine had I not been too shy.

I wished that Pat were with me, so that I'd have a partner. It struck me that no one would even notice us; in fact, we might stand out more so for being older than most of the crowd, rather than for being a same-sex couple -- to Jonathan Katz's earlier point. After "Sweet Dreams" by the Eurythmics played, I slunk away to my car in the parking lot. When that song was first popular, I was most of the dancers' ages, and I just owned a bicycle and a subway pass, and a radio/tape-deck I got as a premium for opening a bank account.

Driving home, I thought, Oh, no! Have I become like the lesbian separatists who used to alienate me when I was first getting involved in the gay community in the late-'80s? Who thought that "womyn"-only spaces were supreme while I thought they were unappealing and even obsolete as a group due to their insularity?

There's an analogy, right? AIDS and other societal realities made lesbian separatism untenable back then, just like today, staunchly gay, lesbian, bi or transpeople were misguided whenever we ghetto-ized ourselves, smothering ourselves with an insecurity blanket; more and more polls showed that younger people weren't half as discriminatory as previous generations, so why did any of us hang on so fiercely to separateness and outsider status?

Still, the chip on my shoulder had become comfy after all these years of hauling it and the prospect of heeding Wayne Dyer's/Megan's advice to change my thinking was scary. Earlier today, I spoke with a heterosexual relative, to tell her of my new confusion around my identity, and of my fear of losing my minority status and as usual, she had great on-the-spot wisdom in response:

Sarah, you don't have to be ghetto-ized or Marrano-like anymore [in this area of the world]. And compared to Jews, I think there's less of a chance of LGBT assimilation causing the end of LGBT people, since you won't intermarry.... And in any case, don't worry that you'll lose your identity when people stop being hateful, as there will always be hateful people; there are persistent taboos in every stripe, like unwed mothers. There's always someone who will make sex dirty.... Sex is the engine for intrigue and betrayal and murder and art and politics.... Your sort of desire won't disappear just because it's more so accepted. It will simply be less underground, which should be good, right?

We Are All Outsiders.

In 1998, two years after Pat & I moved in to our neighborhood, Megan, Steve and their young son Ben moved in three houses down from us. I never brought them a house-warming gift, or any food or drink. Never invited them over. Promptly forgot their names as soon as Megan introduced her family and herself to us one day in the street. Thereafter, Megan would drive by us while we were raking leaves or gardening and would always wave. Whenever she had her car-window down, she'd address us by name, and I always felt bad that I had to try to stretch "Hi" into a multi-syllable word, since I was too embarrassed to ask Megan to tell me her name again.

Every time she passed us, she smiled whole-heartedly at us, but after all, what did we have in common with a woman who had a husband and a young kid? So why bother to be friendlier and learn more about her by talking with her? When other neighbors with whom we've been friendly since we've moved in, called to tell us of Megan's sudden death from a massive heart attack the other night, first, I was relieved and ashamed finally to know her name, but then realized that I'd lost the chance of ever being friendlier with her.

What did we have in common? Through loving eulogies from her husband, son, brother and best friends, I learned what I never bothered to find out from her while she was alive: One of only two other families in the neighborhood (that I know of), Megan's family and she were Jewishly-affiliated, attending High Holiday services and bar mitzah'ing their son, who was now 18 -- our nephew and niece's age...like Pat & me, originally, Meg & Steve spotted each other across a room...like part of Pat's heritage, Meg's was French-Canadian...and volunteered from the early days, helping PWA's (People with AIDS), and so likely saw a number of friends die over the early years, like we did. And probably, we'll never discover how much more we might have had in common. It's just ironic, and tragic, how I was so busy, being shy of a stereotypically nuclear family, that I didn't stop to consider that Megan and her family felt like outsiders in the neighborhood initially, which we could have softened by being friendlier.

The other bookmark-as-memento that sat next to Megan's funeral-guestbook had an adult photo of Megan, smiling the smile I recognized, and the quote associated with it came from the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke: "This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess."

Happy 5772, 2012 and Soon, Year of the Dragon!

2012-01-01T14:03:00.002-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

This is My 600th Blog Entry, Which Is a Cause for Hope in Itself

I've been at this -- blogging -- since Passover, 5768/2007, or for nearly five years. Granted, whereas for the first two+ years, I managed to blog at least three times a week and lately, I'm lucky if once a month, it's still a friend to me and I use it when I need it.

My blog has been a friend when I'm wondering, inspired, sick, lonely, celebratory, suffering from indignities, sad, mournful, grateful, hopeful, what-if'ing in positive or catastrophic directions. On the yawning first day of every new year, I find myself what-if'ing in hopeful directions, though not usually aloud/publicly, as I'm superstitious. What if, in 2012, the rest of 5772 and the upcoming Year of the Dragon, what if I weren't superstitious? And what if:

The Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl again
Pat's and my trip to Israel in June was life-changing and wonderful
My thyroid challenge turned out to be only temporary, i.e., just subacute thyroiditis
I collaborated with colleagues to design and deliver more first-of-a-kind social learning activities for new internal clients
Traveled to a new city or country for work
Exercised at least three times a week and was nice and fit
Earned my Masters in Organization & Leadership with a specialization in Adult Learning and Leadership
Studied and regained some Hebrew fluency
Celebrated my mom's 87th birthday and Pat's mom's 89th
Saw real progress in marriage equality for same-sex couples
Found time to do more fun things with friends, more learning or volunteer work.

Reflections on Ek Naukrani Ki Diary & The Help

2011-12-27T09:12:00.000-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

We Are Not Essentially All the Same

...And the trick is not to be afraid of our differences while we're searching for common ground -- and not all ground needs to, nor should, be common. A light-brown-skinned Indian friend of mine recommended that I read *The Help* more than a year ago. At that point, I was in the thick of my part-time Masters program and wanted only to read books that I had found, since so little of my discretionary time was available for reading anything other than journal articles and textbook chapters.

A couple of months ago, I reached the point where I had much more time available and finally read first a fiction recommendation by my mom, *Cutting for Stone*, about twin boys raised in Ethiopia and much more, which was superb. When I picked up *The Help* directly afterward, I was jarred by the dialect and thought it was predictable initially, and put it down for more than a month. In its place, I picked up *The Stranger's Child*, the writing of which was beautiful, but the plot of which did not compel me the way the author's prior novel, *The Line of Beauty* had.

And then suddenly, Pat and many of her Facebook friends were reading *The Help* and loving it, and that was almost the nail in its coffin, since Pat and I rarely have the same taste in books. Still, I picked it back up and went ahead.

What I Related To:

Now that I'm done with the novel, which turns out to have borrowed from the author's experience -- and doesn't all fiction? -- I do appreciate it and feel enriched for having read it. *Ek Naukrani Ki diary*/*The Diary of a Maidservant*, which I found and read while we were living in India in 2007, was written by a well-educated man and translated by a well-educated woman, rather than having been written by an actual maid in India, and yet, I heard the maid's voice, just as I heard the voices of the maids in *The Help*, which was written by a well-educated White woman.

For six months in 2007, we benefited from the cleaning services of a daily maid. That was the first and last time in our lives, and the whole time I was reading the book, I was feeling like I needed to keep it out of sight of our maid, who spoke good English, and I was also feeling guilty, that is, there but for the grace of God or whomever go I. With *The Help*, a lot went through my head about my own Whiteness and the memory of recognizing it best when we lived in India. The same Indian friend who recommended *The Help* once said to me, "If I were in a wheelchair and you and I entered a restaurant, you would be attended to first [because of the color of your skin]."

In the United States, I always felt not quite White, since as a Jew, I was on the Ku Klux Klan's list along with Black people. I'm pretty sure I've written about this here before. And yet I also recall my dad's stories about growing up in Washington, DC in the '30s and early-40s and how discriminatory it was there for Black people, and also how during his U.S. Navy experience on the USS Alabama, he said that all of the Black sailors were waiters and they lived at the bottom of the ship.

Both books -- the Indian and the U.S. one -- were about abused workers who wanted a vehicle/voice to express the abuse, but who were not historically entitled to express it or protest it. How can I relate to them? Can I?

My second semester at Michigan, I needed more work-study hours and signed up to mop the cafeteria floors. They paired us up -- two per half -- and the cafeteria spanned the width of the super-wide dorm. As moppers, we were invisible, cleaning the floors pre-meals and then disappearing. It was the closest I ever got to being a maid or janitor and it didn't feel great. The difference was that when my shift ended, I could go study, or to class, or to play badminton with my friend Gerald or go eat in the cafeteria, and the janitorial identity was just temporary -- a means to help pay for my terrific education.

Wait, when I stretch back further, I recall a relative who treated my sisters and me like maids. Often, this relative lay in bed watching TV. Routinely, she would ring a cow-bell and one of us had to come running. "Get me an orange and a knife," she'd command. We'd run and get it. "You forgot a napkin!" she'd say with frustration and we'd go running again. She also paid us 50 cents an hour to clean her home. Back then, that felt like a good wage because we were eight and 13, though it wasn't minimum wage...and I don't think we even knew about the concept of minimum wage.

Still, ultimately, that was all temporary. Why was I born White, with education-oriented parents, in the 20th century? Many Indians would respond that it's the effects of karma, but it's mysterious to me. Still, through their maid characters, both authors did a detailed job of enabling the maids to observe the pain of their employers, of being anyone who's alive -- whether privileged or not. The jealousies and heartbreaks and pettiness-es and desires and shame -- they are the common ground.

Like the Jewish Cartoonists Who Invented Superheroes

2011-11-23T22:59:00.001-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Feeling Part of the American Family Once Removed

Every year around this time, I begin to feel un-American. U.S. Thanksgiving is the gateway to the Christmas season that many now inclusively refer to as the holiday season, but I always feel like many Americans really are still thinking of Christmas.

Thank God, this year, "a first look at life's newest solutions:"

This patented "menorahment" reminds me of a similar impulse I learned of five years ago with Pat and our friends Judy & Jim at the Milwaukee Art Museum. While there, we saw a terrific show on comic book artists. Through it, I learned that many of the most famous American superheroes were created by Jewish artists who were realizing their deepest fantasies of what it would be like to be ultra-American, which at that time, was a contrast to how they felt as Jews, i.e., to be loved/admired/respected by the whole community, and to be able to protect it from evil-doers. Somehow, this tree-topper seems born of similar wishes -- to be a star that is part of, yet in parallel apart from, the rest of the earth-bound ornament community. This item was featured in "Skymall" magazine, just in time for the holidays.

Who Am I Kidding?

When I am with people from beyond the United States, I'm reminded that compared to them, I'm as ultra-American as any comic book character, to the point albeit unwittingly of caricature occasionally. For example, with a Dutch friend who lives in Paris, I'm visible from a mile away when we're in Milan on business, in my bright red raincoat; Europeans do not wear such bright colors in their rainwear. Or I'm silly for taking a series of vitamins daily with my breakfast. But here, in the United States, I sometimes feel like a foreigner during this season compared to most of my fellow countrypeople. Perhaps it's the impossibly challenging combo of being a Jew who would never have need for a menorahment along with the challenge of staying engaged in the series of football games that populate our Green Bay branch of our family's home all day on Thanksgiving (and every Sunday and Monday night during the long season).

This year, though, I came to think about this outsider sensation in a new way, since I'm fresh from finishing my Masters thesis on cultural intelligence. Yesterday, I even tweeted about it: "In one way, surely, I'm culturally intelligent: I try to dress like the locals when in Green Bay; today, I'm wearing Packer-logo'ed pants." In the case of my thesis, cultural intelligence referred to being able to work effectively with colleagues and clients from other countries, but in my own life, currently, I've come to realize that there can be a domestic version as well. In addition to aligning my sartorial choices with those of the townspeople, when in Green Bay, Wisconsin, I need to be able to "talk cheese." Or at least, I need to be able to comprehend it when Pat and random strangers engage in it.

At breakfast today, the hotel cook chatted with us during his break and Pat and he went on endlessly with what I've always thought of as small-talk. I've never seen a conversation like this anywhere in the Northeast, where I grew up. Here, it's common. I first learned about it during -20 degree Fahrenheit weather, when Pat was pumping gas in Green Bay during one of our annual visits 18 years ago. "Where were you?" I asked Pat when she finally returned from paying the gas jockey.

"Oh, we were talkin' cheese," she answered simply.

Somehow, no matter how American I seem to my European friend, with my multivitamins and red raincoat, when we head into Football Season, into the Christmas gateway of Thanksgiving and into Green Bay, Wisconsin, I feel like one of these things is not like the other, to borrow a phrase from the American kids' show, "Sesame Street."

My Blog as Confidante

2011-11-14T20:21:00.000-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

You're Not Going to Blog About This, Are You?

My thyroid's messed up. A few weeks ago, my mom and Pat & I did not yet know why I had lost 12 pounds in a month without any reduction in my food intake. It was pure scariness then. Total mystery. Blind anxiety.

When we first discussed my health a few weeks ago, "Please tell me you haven't blogged about this," my mother said.

"No, Mom, I haven't yet."

"Yet?"

"I may want to at some point."

How can I explain that even though up to a couple dozen people stop by daily and I have some followers, my blog feels most of all like a friend in whom I confide.

Today, I went to the endocrinologist and she said that I have some form of hyperthyroidism and she's sending me for a bunch more tests to determine precisely which kind.

I will not be done with the tests until the 29th of November, my middle sister's birthday. On the up-side, the doctor complimented me on my fitness, which never happened before. My blood pressure was 105/70 and my resting heart-rate was 68 beats/minute, which for someone who hasn't done much exercise in the past month, and who is 46, we didn't think was bad at all.

God, I must count my blessings, rather than being babyish and anxious with fear. Next step might be to tweet about it and see who's willing to share any experience s/he has w/hyperthyroidism. As with most life-situations, I'm sure I'm not alone.

Wishing to Realize a Fantasy

2011-09-18T17:23:00.005-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

If We Visited My Parents' Friends, Then My Father (z"l) Was Not Dead

It was my fantasy. If my mother and I drove three hours plus, we could reach a place, where my father of blessed memory (z"l) was still alive. A place with lots of leaves and people who seemed part of their land, rather than guests of it. A place where I could hear my father's voice, which is only faint to me now. A place, where my father and I were relative giants once I was no longer little, and which was full of pleasant surprises. A place, where perhaps no one remembered me well because I was the youngest and the younger ones always remember the older ones more than vice versa.

The Gently Painful Reality

Yesterday, the station wagon arrived at the white-clapboard house with its stone-slab steps. My mother was in the passenger seat as usual. My father (z"l) wasn't driving it, though, and his daughters weren't clambering restlessly around the back-seat and the way-back. It was just my mother and me.

Maybe my dad would be there already.

Last time we visited, I didn't even have a driver's license.

"Station Road. You just passed it," my mother said.

"Potter Road is what the GPS is telling me, not Station."

"I remember it was Station."

My mother remembered everything, too.

We got out of the car and saw that the party was down a mini nature-trail, in a clearing in the distance. My mom looked hopeless. "I can't make it down there [with my walker and bad back]."

"We'll ask the Gaineses to come up here."

"We can't expect them to leave the party they're hosting, Sarah."

"Well, let's at least go to the bathroom now."

I got my mother's walker out of the way-back, and she looked up at the house in despair. "I can't make it up there."

I had been the father, driving us to the Gaineses, and now, I was the mother. All I came for was to be the kid again, with two parents.

"I'm sorry, Mom, but I've gotta go," I said without making eye-contact.

A new, pleasant surprise: Two young boys appeared and said they would help us. I asked the older one to lead me to the bathroom inside the house.

"Here's the downstairs one," he told me, and as I walked toward it, I saw three horses in stone or cement relief on the wall and remembered them from when I was a kid. Nothing else other than the layout of the house was familiar.

When I emerged, I saw my mom sitting in the foyer, like magic; she had gotten herself up the steps -- or had the boys helped her?

And then more magic: My mom rolled slowly down to the clearing in the woods. My parents' friends, their youngest daughter and her musical husband -- who were the parents of the two sweet boys -- and several other friends were there, but my father wasn't...and my mother was, thank God.

B'nai Mitzvah, Turtlebacks, Moonbeams and the Jets

2011-09-11T21:49:00.001-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

"No, they won't have a moment of silence at one o'clock, Sarah; they want people to order food and drinks, not lose their appetite." Pat told me this on the way to the restaurant, where we met our friends Felice & Stacy. Pat was right, as usual.

While waiting for our food, we talked of where we were that day. Me: in Manhattan, at 590 Madison Ave., till my Boca-Raton-based manager at the time sent me an instant message, telling me to leave the building immediately, as he worried that whoever had destroyed the World Trade Center would keep going after U.S. landmarks, and even if they didn't want to blow up our IBM building, we were next to the Trump Tower, which he thought could become a target. I talked of how I saw the dark cloud in my rear-view mirror the whole way up Madison Ave., and how parents were rushing across my path at red lights, holding their kids' hands -- the kids who they went to get from their schools -- and how it seemed that all of us made eye-contact....

In May, I posted a collection of several years' worth of commemorative blog-entries, but never did gain the energy to post screenshots of 2002-2006 entries. And I'm not going to re-read any of the entries today.

Living in Metro-NY, we've had a ton of coverage, and even our twin nephews' bar mitzvah remarks referred to 9/11, since they became b'nai mitzvah (plural of bar mitzvah) on 9/10/yesterday. They were just three years old when the Towers went down, but the tragedy touched their special day in any case.

On the way home from the celebration, heading toward the Midtown Tunnel, Pat & I saw a number of commemorative billboards, including this one:

Tonight, it's a full moon and I'm glad I can see moonbeams, but no longer the twin-beams from NYC, since the backyard trees have grown fuller over the past 10 years. Today, I was determined to have a life-affirming time, which we did by going to the zoo with Stacy & Felice after lunch. Here I am on a lizard sculpture:

Even so, I made sure to take my cellphone with me today, just in case, and found myself extremely anxious as I watched the start of the Jets-Cowboys game, where the whole crowd was chanting, "USA! USA! USA!..." Please, don't provoke them, I said to myself and then turned to Pat and said, "You know that I've always thought that if terrorists wanted to do further monumental damage, they'd blow up a football stadium full of top teams and fans. God forbid!" It hasn't happened, and God willing, it won't. Pat & I swam this morning, spent time with friends and animals, watched football, and now, we're tired. Please, God, keep this 10th anniversary of 9/11 safe.

Same As It Ever Was

2011-09-01T11:46:00.029-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

...Only More Satisfying

Last week, while Pat & I were vacationing in Alaska, our niece Zoe started her first year of college. In these days of Black Eyed Peas, Katy Perry and Fountains of Wayne, may she find life-long friends and suffer minimal turbulence while living apart from her parents and brothers for the first, real time. Zoe's milestone vividly takes me back to the days of Talking Heads, Madonna, Al Jarreau and Laurie Anderson, i.e., my freshman year, especially because Pat & I ended our trip with a couple of days of vacationing in Vancouver with two of the first friends I made in college.

Lisa, Marni and Sarah at the Vancouver Public Library

When I began college 28 years ago, I couldn't imagine affording an Alaskan vacation, nor that I would wed a woman. Still, as extraordinary as both events would have been to my 18-year-old mind, not so much about me has changed since then, other than seeming more relaxed. Lisa and Marni confirmed this for me. They're right. I am more at ease, since revealing a number of secrets.

The review of Wendy Wasserstein's biography that I read in last Sunday's "New York Times" reminded me of openness vs. secrets. As a sophomore, during a Women's Studies course, I read Wendy Wasserstein's play, "Uncommon Women and Others." The play focused on a post-college reunion by a group of female college friends.

As I read it, I found it comforting to see their post-grad development combined with effectively muscle-memory conversations with one another, as though they had never parted company. When I read the NYT review, the critic honed in on how, for all her wide-open writing, Wendy Wasserstein was a pretty secretive person when it came to her own life, e.g., not telling people that she was dying, plus some other earlier family secrets.

Don't many of us try to keep secrets? In college, mine were that I was more attracted to women than men; had an eating disorder, where I binged whenever I could; and also a number of family secrets that were my family's to tell, not mine. It never occurred to me that my friends probably had their respective collections of secrets as well.

Who knows what Zoe's secrets are? Or her friends'. I just pray that she can have the same warm, funny, challenging, healing, fun, earnest, sad, buoyant, hopeful time as Wendy Wasserstein's characters, Marni, Lisa and I had when she reunites with friends post-college.

Playing Outside

2011-08-13T21:03:00.003-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Weeding While Singing

Pat cajoled me; she got me to do major weeding this afternoon, and she helped, which made it bearable. What if I were Jain? Seems sad to uproot any living thing, but Pat tells me that the weeds choke the flowers -- the gladioli, the roses, the lamb's ear, the irises and dahlias -- so....

While weeding with my iPod on, I sang along loudly to Bobby Caldwell's "What You Won't Do for Love" and Scritti Politti's "A Perfect Way." The first song came out when I was 13 and the second when I was 20. The first song put me in a romantic mood when I was a new teen and the second one made me smile, imagining that *I* "...knew a perfect way to make the girls go crazy."

Finding a Scooter Buddy

When we got done, I saw the little kid next door, playing on her driveway, with her foot-powered scooter lying on its side at the top of the driveway. Either she moved in a month ago, or was staying with her grandmother for the summer. She couldn't have been more than six or seven. I went into our garage and took my Razor off its hook; Pat had given it to me for my 35th birthday, when Razors were especially popular, and to make my commute to NYC more streamlined. I unfolded it and pulled its neck to its full length, then walked out of the garage and called over to the girl, "Guess what I have?"

She did a double-take and then ran up her driveway to get hers. I scootered down our driveway into the street and to the foot of her driveway and asked, "May I come onto your driveway?"

She nodded. I seemed to be at least twice her height and width.

"I'm Sarah. What's your name?"

"Eva."

"That's a cool name --"

"My mom found it in a baby book."

She was fast. I followed her to the top of her driveway. "Look," I said, pointing to the foam on the handlebars and to the wheels, all of which were orange. "Orange is my favorite color," I said.

"Black is my favorite color," she answered, and I saw that her Razor's trim was classic-black, and then, "Look at this," and she shut her eyes and rolled in a big circle.

"That's great. Your eyes were closed," I said, when she stopped. "I'd be too afraid to do that."

"I just pretend that my mother is holding the handlebars as I do it."

Sweet. "That's great. Have you told your mom that?"

"Yes. It's my sisters' birthday today. They're twins."

"Happy birthday to them." When's the party? Why is she alone, playing outside? How come I've never seen them? How much younger are they?

"I thought they were boys when they were born because they had no hair."

"Did you have hair when you were born?"

"I just had a curl on the top here," she said, pointing to the center of the top of her scalp, which now, was covered with cutely arranged, long, dark, fuzzy corn-rows.

"I had thick, black hair, I'm told, but no eyebrows. My sisters prayed for them to grow and they did, but you can see that they're still not that thick." She didn't look.

"I didn't have eyebrows either." Hmm. Do I believe her? No.

"My mom had a baby yesterday."

"Is that really true?"

"Yes, a boy."

"What's his name?"

"Brian. It's my father's name."

"Congratulations!"

Eva scootered over to a patch of dirt next to the driveway and talked about some vegetables that they had planted unsuccessfully.

"Well, we planted tomatoes on our deck and guess what happened to them?"

She looked at me, wanting to know.

"There's a squirrel who's been eating them."

"We put garbage bags over ours with a hole at the top for the water and then the animals just think they're garbage."

"That's clever." And the plants don't suffocate?

We do some more scootering and I spot a smooth, small, light-purple, semi-faceted chunk of plastic in the middle of the driveway. "Hey Eva, come here! Look, this matches your dress."

"Oh, that's from my collection of diamonds. Come here, I'll show you," she says, scootering down to nearly the foot of the driveway and letting her scooter fall over into the grass. She crouches over a pile of them and keeps unearthing them from under the mulch near a Bonsai-ish pine tree. "They used to be around this tree, as decoration."

"How neat," I said, and felt like it was the most magic I'd seen in a long time -- these sleek, purple, plastic jewel-pebbles, being pluckable from the black mulch. I felt sweat trickling down my temples from the heat and the weeding and scootering, and didn't know what to do with my awe and childhood-reminiscent thrill. "I'm sweaty and I have to go inside now," I said a bit abruptly.

She nodded without looking up at me. "Nice meeting you, Eva." She nodded again. I scootered down her driveway and back up mine, pressed the code to open one of the garage doors and looked over and saw her watching me. When she saw me see her, she looked back down at the purple pile.

A couple hours later, Pat & I were on our deck, sitting in our double-rocker and hearing party-noise next-door. Pat: "Yeah, they've got 'Happy Birthday' balloons out front."

Maybe Brian does exist. Why not, if there can be purple diamonds?

Have You Been Here Before?

2011-07-23T15:17:00.004-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Yes, Five Years Ago

I push this new friend's shoulder playfully and say, "Don't wait another five years to come back!"

"Well, I'm from Berlin," she says and I feel silly.

"Ah, well...."

Pat & I are headed out of Shabbat services last night when I see a woman, standing by herself near the exit. Is she an older version of a young woman I knew when I lived in Jerusalem? I look at her like she looks familiar, but then realize she's not. She's not at all old enough to be that friend.

She has thick, nearly black hair to just above her shoulders; dark, twinkling eyes; is almost slight in physique at a quick glance; and is a few inches shorter, and many years younger, than I.

"Lots of young Israeli lesbians are coming to Berlin..." she says when I ask her how big the community is where she's from. I'm trying to act casual about her homeland, but it's still wild to me to meet a young, Jewish person, let alone a young, Jewish lesbian, from Germany -- it's just the generation I'm from, I guess, but I'm still stuck in a Holocaust time-warp when I least expect it.

"I was in Hamburg once, but just overnight for a focus group, for business," I say, and she becomes excited that I've been to Germany. "I've been told that when I go back, I really need to see Berlin."

"Yes, definitely, you should," she says, looking at both of us.

Pat recalls that a congregant's family is from Germany and that he gave a Torah from the family to the local, re-built synagogue in the town they were from.

I bring him over to meet her. Pat & I want to leave in any case, as that's how we spotted the woman at the exit in the first place, but we don't like to ignore strangers.

Once the woman and he begin speaking in German, I excuse us. The woman looks anxious and I say, "Are you on Facebook?"

"No, I've not wanted to be, but I can see that I'm going to need to be before long....Let's exchange e-mail addresses, in case you come to Berlin."

"Sure." I write down Pat's and mine and she writes hers -- her name spelled backwards.

Wow, a young, Jewish lesbian, living in Berlin today....Humanity hosts so many stories.

Do You Remember Minky's Bike Shop?

2011-07-17T13:25:00.031-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Rabbi Weiss' Mother Nods, Yes

Instantly, I'm 21 and reliving the Summer of '87. I'm in the storefront-shop, near the corner of Devon & Mozart, in the Jewish and Indian neighborhood of Chicago. Could Rabbi Weiss' mother and I be contemporaries, since her mother remembers Minky's?
Rabbi Weiss' age is a bit of a mystery, except I'm sure she's younger than I.

It's comforting to make a quick connection with the rabbi's mother, since Rabbi Weiss met mine when she officiated at our wedding, and since the Rabbi's name appears with our families' and ours in "The New York Times" announcement. The rabbi's mom and I know Minky's!

When I Was a Struggling Magazine Intern in West Rogers Park...

Minky's was tiny, and messily full of -- in my memory, anyhow -- mostly used bikes. I bought one of them for $25 from Minky himself; he was a white-haired, older guy with a sweet face and thick, bike-grease-painted hands. I'm pretty sure he, too, was Jewish, though not observant enough to wear a kippah. I bought the bike just days after moving three blocks away from the bike shop, into a tiny room on the top floor of a blond-brick three-flat, 6137 N. Mozart. I joined two female roommates, who needed a third. One had a fiancé, earning an MBA at Northwestern.

Even in 1987, $25 was cheap for a used bike; it was a cheerful blue, similar to the blue of the "Preview" button in blogger.com, where this blog is made, only a bit less powdery, and brighter. It was the color that appealed to me. I don't think it had any speeds/gears to shift. During the first couple of weekends, I rode it down to the Rocks at Belmont Ave. and the Lake, and I'd sit with it among my people, but would not speak to anyone. And there was no way I was going to go to services at Or Chadash, the gay synagogue, where I would have found more of my people -- and where, three and a half years later, I found Pat -- because I was in a Judaism-has-no-room-for-me-as-a-lesbian phase and I was intent on proving myself right.

Through reading the gay newspapers, which I picked up for free at The Closet, a lesbian-owned bar near that part of the Lakefront, I learned where the gay and lesbian people hung out on the Lake. What I wanted to know culturally, I read, rather than speaking with anyone; they were just a bunch of strangers who made me feel lonelier in their friends-clusters and boyfriends and girlfriends-pairings.

My own girlfriend at the time was finishing her English Master's that summer in Ann Arbor, which was where we met at the start of my senior year of undergrad. She visited me just once that summer prior to our moving in to an apartment together in the fall...which we should not have done, as we weren't suited to each other, but I have digressed.

What I have digressed from: naming the experience of living in a brand new city, effectively alone, at 21, and the loneliness and insecurity that it inspired.

Fewer than 10 days after the purchase, my blue bike was stolen from the the three-flat's basement. The only other luxury I bought myself that summer was a cassette-tape-playing Walkman, which I would play during the six-block walk back and forth from my summer internship at "Inside Chicago" magazine.

Amy Feldman was the journalist who supervised me directly and tried to help me learn to write for the magazine. I must contact her. Probably, she was just a year or two older than I, and kind, but I was closeted, i.e., never declared myself; probably, she knew and simply was gentle with me. Our editor was Debbie Loeser, who was fun and generous, too.

How unfortunate that I couldn't let myself be myself; if I had, they might have gotten more than my little travel-piece on Ann Arbor, including much more useful help with the Dr. Lauren Berlant interview. Oh, boy, what a great article that could have been -- a U. of Chicago English professor, who chose to meet with me at the Randolph Street McDonald's, and who spoke for much of the time on Rap music as poetry. Sadly, I was so guarded and so full of pound-bags of nearby, gas-station-convenience-store cookies and Fluky's hotdogs that whole summer -- I ate to tranquilize myself in the face of my aloneness -- that I couldn't produce any more than I did.

I've written about this Devon Avenue moment a number of times, but during that lonely summer, it seemed all too apt when I passed a doorway in the Indian part of the neighborhood that was still wet with new paint and over which the painter had hung a sign: "FRESH PAIN."

Meanwhile, a Quarter of a Century Later...

On Friday night, in New York City, during the Summer of '11, my partner of 19 years -- and wife of 15 days -- and I find our favorite spot at services, right in the middle of the second row. A minute later, Rabbi Weiss brings over an attractive woman, who is closer to my age than Pat's, to sit in front of us and then the rabbi returns to the pulpit, where she prepares to begin the service a few minutes later. I wonder if the woman is her mom and after she has settled into her chair, I say, "Shabbat shalom," and introduce myself and Pat, and she responds, "I'm Marcie, the rabbi's mother."

When we establish that we had lived just two blocks away from each other in Chicago -- even though probably during different periods -- I time-travel to the neighborhood where Rabbi Weiss' mother grew up and where I spent my first summer out of college and become that lonely, young woman again. Pat brings me back when she tells Rabbi Weiss' mother how special our mother/mother-in-law, and we, think her daughter is, and how stellar Rabbi Weiss was as our officiant.

"I should have recognized you. You two were in Facebook; I saw it!" she says, perhaps because I had tagged Rabbi Weiss when I posted the NYT announcement-link in my profile. The rabbi's mother also acknowledges our kudos, saying that it's a special pleasure to visit our synagogue, to hear all of the nice things congregants say about her daughter.

The next day, while driving from Pat's & my house in Montclair to my mother's house in Stamford -- the same house, where I grew up -- I think of Rabbi Weiss' mother's role in healing my life; she gave birth to, and helped raise, the rabbi who sanctified Pat's & my long-time relationship.

In my car-ride-length fantasy, I imagine a five- or 10-year-old version of Rabbi Weiss, running around her neighborhood at the same time that I, during my 22nd summer (I turned 22 in mid-July), am learning how to live in the world [of West Rogers Park], as a college-grad without much else to claim. During my trip back to Stamford, where Pat & I also were married two weeks prior, I enjoy thinking that the rabbi's parents start out with her in West Rogers Park and then move to Evanston later, after the Summer of 1987.

In creating this blog-entry, I check my reality by researching Rabbi Weiss a bit and see that she is 11 years younger than I and a native of Evanston. In that case, Rabbi Weiss would have been 10 during my first summer in Chicago, and instead, was playing several miles north-east of West Rogers Park at the time. That's all right. It still was real that Rabbi Weiss' mom grew up just two blocks from where I got my post-college start, and still, I could feel healed, knowing that a girl from that mostly-Orthodox Jewish (and Indian) neighborhood gave birth to Rabbi Weiss, who gave birth to Pat's & my legal marriage.

Long-time-coming Contentment

2011-07-03T17:38:00.007-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Relief Rollercoaster

Rabbi Rachel Weiss, smiling a beautiful, broad smile, as she has done practically throughout the relatively short and very sweet ceremony: "Now, if anyone would like to say a word -- not a sentence or paragraph -- about what they're feeling right now, please go ahead."

Pat, Rabbi Weiss, and me

Oh, no, I think silently, but loudly, this is the pressure-part for everyone. What if no one says anything? An otherwise surprisingly relaxing ceremony feels suddenly tense for me.

My mother begins, "I don't want to give away either of you because you're both too precious to me."

My tension drains. How perfect. Unsolicitedly, my mom has taken up the mantle, serving as the proxy for Pat's mom, who, at 87, is too frail to travel from Green Bay for the wedding, and for both of our dead fathers (z"l). My mom is all of our parents for the day, and also, finally -- genuinely -- Pat is her daughter-in-law.

"OK, 'precious.' Who else?" asks the rabbi.

"L'chaim!" says my brother-in-law Gary, coming into view behind the rabbi.

"Mazel tov!" says our friend of 18 years, Carol Vericker, who's holding one of the chuppah poles.

"B'hatzlichah!" says David Chase, our friend of 17 years, and another chuppah-pole holder.

"To your success [or good luck]!" the rabbi translates.

I reward David with a big smile. David, who's an athiest, is the most respectful person I know when it comes to others' religious and cultural traditions. I don't recall when he found out that "B'hatzlichah!" was an appropriate phrase to use with Jewish friends, just that it was prior to our occasion, for another pair of friends.

I don't say a word then, but if I had done so, I could have chosen from, "finally [after 19 years]" or "relief" or "joy" or "buoyancy" or "phew!" These words remind me that we were invited by the nytimes.com team to create a 3-minute-or-less-in-length video of how we met and got together, and we did so. In addition, we submitted an announcement, which was published today.

Directly prior to the wedding, my words would have been, "awed," "self-conscious," "on-display" and "torn."

Our niece Zoe, her grandmother -- my mom -- Sam & Max, Zoe's brothers, at the High Line

"Awed" because I was feeling that it was practically too good to be true that my immediate family and four dear friends-as-family were gathered for an occasion that was in honor particularly of Pat & me. That feeling stayed with me all day, including at lunch afterward as I looked at everyone around the table; at the High Line prior to Shabbat services; and then again at shul, during services.

The only other time I had ever had a special moment(s) with a rabbi prior to a ceremony that involved me was for my dad's (z"l) funeral when I was a year younger than Zoe (and our other nephew Zach), at 17....I don't even recall a rabbi at my bat mitzvah, which I celebrated with my family at Camp Ramah...and that was not my finest hour, as I had been too busy, having a vivid sleep-away camp experience, rather than practicing my Torah reading, and so I was a tentative performer; I guess I'm trying not to remember that occasion.

"Self-conscious" and "on-display" because I was wearing the most beautiful, most classically feminine, most cadet-blue dress I had ever had on in my life, including open-toed dress-sandals with lavender-painted nails and I felt as vulnerable as I predicted I would. I was convinced to wear what I did by a heterosexual friend who had said to me some weeks ago, "Well, doesn't everyone feel vulnerable on wedding days in any case?" By "vulnerable," both of us meant, super-public, rather than private, and in various senses, almost naked, rather than armored, no matter what we're wearing.

Another two, lesbian friends were influential, too, as both of them had chosen to wear a dress for their weddings in Massachusetts because, they agreed, it was an ultra-special occasion. One of them and I also share a love of using virtual worlds for learning and I said, "And besides, you're familiar with that Stanford research that says that thin avatars influence their obese creators to lose weight? Well, as you know, my Second Life avatar is super-femme and I think she's influencing my real-life choice of outfit."

My friend understood, and I think our avatars would have been proud of me.

"Torn" because three of my relatives hit traffic and were late, and the ceremony already should have been in progress. While waiting for them, I experienced a bonus-dilemma: I ran into a friend I had met through another friend and our affiliation with a national organization that advocated against gender-stereotyping. I didn't realize that she worked in Stamford's Government Center, where we held the ceremony, outside of the cafeteria on the 4th floor, in a space that resembled a city-park.

She was with a colleague and I was happy for the coincidence, but anxious about our late-start, and our conversation was holding up the proceedings further. Pat walked over and I said, "This is Pat, my...fiancée."

"Yes, hi. I think we've met," she said -- and I recalled Pat, being with me at a benefit or two for the organization. Since my friend lived in Stamford and my mother still did, too, I had brought her to my mom's house to meet my mother some years ago. Pat's presence by my side reminded me of the occasion and snapped me back into the present.

In a split-second, I decided, no, I won't invite her to join us; this is going to go as planned, as much as possible. We are having just my immediate family -- my mom, two sisters, brothers-in-law and collectively, their four kids, plus four friends to serve as Pat's proxy-family, and who we chose because they were the first two couples to befriend us as we were moving to New Jersey from Illinois more than 15 years ago.

"I hope you'll understand, it's just a small, family wedding," I told my friend.

She nodded, of course, and I hugged her and walked back over to Pat and the rabbi. Oy! I wish I had been more flexible and just said, "Please join us."

After the ceremony, which was brief by design -- about 20 minutes in length total -- I saw that she was still at the picnic table, where she had been prior, though her colleague was gone. I approached her.

She said, "I like to work outside when the weather's nice. Guess who sends her best wishes?" She had called our mutual friend to let her know that Pat & I were marrying. I felt like a jerk for not including her, since I'm supposedly so committed to inclusion everywhere, all the time; oy! Pat came over again, which helped wash away my guilt for a moment, as I was happier than guilty in saying, "And here's my wife."

My friend smiled and Pat made a nice comment about the friend this friend had called, and then walked back to the rest of our family. My guilt returned. I looked at my friend sheepishly and she switched topics, "You know, I still have those tefillin for you," she said.

"I *know*. Every time I'm in Stamford, it seems I'm here with my mom and then gone and back to see my mom and then gone, but yes, we have to figure out a time."

This friend is a transwoman and while she recognizes that women, who are not Orthodox Jews, are welcome to wear tefillin, they remind her of the years, where she had to present herself as a boy and man, which wasn't true to herself.

I wonder what she was thinking as I walked away. I hope she forgave me.

Bonus Reflections By My Mom and Me

Two days later, as I write this, above all, I'm happy to be Pat's wife, finally, after nearly two decades. It reminds me of a shirt that our friend Gerard changed into for the evening, which featured a great photo of David and read, "Married to David in 2003" above the photo, and below it, "His fiancé for 16 years."

As I pressed, "Publish post" just now, my mom called me. "You said that Pat told you I looked contemplative during the ceremony?" my mom asked.

"Yes, 'contemplative.'"

"I was. I was thinking, Thank God I lived to see this day."

Our Wedding Day

2011-07-01T06:39:00.003-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Feeling Like the Translation of My Name

"Sarah" is the Hebrew word for "princess." And I do feel essentially female and lovely, and even regal today. Please, God, let it last. Other than wishing I had had 90 minutes more of sleep each night for the past couple of weeks, I feel fresh and excited.

All these years, I've felt sort of in limbo societally -- more fish and fowl than human, as I had gotten to age 45 without experiencing either of two classic milestones of human adulthood: being married and having children. Today, I'm declaring my humanity ultimately through marrying Pat. The up-side of having to wait so long is that our lovely niece and nephews can participate in our wedding in more substantial ways, e.g., Zoe's gonna take candid photos.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, Pat," I asked as we woke up this morning, "How worried are you?"

"10. Just kidding. I'm not worried at all," she said. Fundamentally, I believe Pat, which is another reason for marrying her.

Please, God, let today go spiritually. May we do Your will. Amen.

Note added on Saturday, post-wedding: My oldest sister Deb's toast to Pat & me included her assessment that paradoxically, I'm the most conventional of the three sisters/daughters, i.e., we were the first to buy a house, we live in a suburb...and so if the reference above to "classic milestones of adulthood" sounds ultra-conventional, I guess I gotta admit to having conventional taste in a number of areas.

Why Get Married? Why Get Married Now?

2011-06-23T21:29:00.000-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Why Marry Pat?

Rabbi Rachel Weiss, our congregation's assistant rabbi, and the rabbi who is officiating at our wedding, asked us to meet with her today with the answers to these questions written down. We were to read them aloud to each other...which we did. Here were my responses:

• Why get married:

For a sense of security, and to solidify and legitimate and assert the value of a love-relationship. Because I grew up, expecting to marry. Because it’s societally normative and I crave feeling normative. Because lots of people can relate to my being married better than to my being in a domestic partnership. Because we’ll be able to switch our Facebook statuses to “Married.” Because I celebrated my sisters’ marriages and it’s my turn.

• Why get married now?

Because we can legally in Connecticut and it will be recognized in various places worldwide, including Canada and Israel, where we’ll be this year and next on vacation, God willing. And because our mothers are 85 and 87 and we don’t know for how much longer they’ll be with us. Because it’s time, i.e., I’ve worked on my internalized homophobia and finally feel readier than I ever have.

• Why marry Pat?

Because I love her. Why do I love her? Because Pat is kind, loyal, honest, funny, pretty and handsome, graceful, smart, dignified, silly, takes care of me and our household, loves me and is attracted to me, believes in me and is on my side. She’s a safe haven to come home to and she relaxes me – helps me feel less anxious. Because she supports me and because I enjoy no one’s company better than Pat’s. I’m never bored with Pat. She entertains me. I’m her best, of many, fans.

I also want to marry Pat per se because we share core-values, even though our taste differs in books and art. Our values include that we’re Jewish and not just culturally; we enjoy being affiliated with a congregation and with CBST specifically; we’re more gullible and innocent than cynical; humor matters and so does kindness, as well as doing service and demonstrating leadership; we’re both out and stand up to indignities publicly, even when no one else does.

No Dad to "Give Me Away"

2011-06-19T15:42:00.007-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Nor Cousin Alfred...

By the time this high school yearbook photo was taken, my father of blessed memory/(z"l) already was dead. There was no other photo of me over my lifetime that looked as sad to me as this one looked. Back then, I did not yet know that I would have lasting love and be a bride of someone with whom I was in love; an excellent, restored relationship with my mom; great higher education; a stimulating job that included my being sent on assignment to India for six months; additional, terrific higher education; lovely niece and nephews; and impressive physical and mental health (k'ayn ayin ha'rah/as long as the evil eye stays away).

My dad (z"l) died in 1982, at 56. I was 17.

As he lay on his death-bed during the summer of '82, I told him that my high school boyfriend, who had broken up with me when we were 15, had written to me from college, saying that he wanted to get back together. "What should I do, Dad?"

"Buy a wedding dress," he said.

Out of fear of losing my father's love, I did not also say that into my decision, I needed to factor my secret girlfriend -- secret to him, but not ultimately to my mother, who found out just weeks after my dad's demise.

Here's a picture of his grave that I snapped while visiting it this past Wednesday in the late afternoon. You can see that the right half is empty; it will feature my mom's name in Hebrew and the dates of her birth and death, too. Since his funeral on November 2nd, 1982, I've visited my father's grave just a handful of times. My fiancée Pat and I will not be permitted to be buried with a joint-headstone in that cemetery, since it's affiliated with an Orthodox synagogue. We will be buried in our synagogue's cemetery instead. How would my dad have received the news that I'm marrying a woman and not a man?

My father (z"l) is not here corporeally to give me away and neither is my cousin Alfred of blessed memory, who walked both of my sisters down their wedding aisles. Pat's father passed away years ago, too. As Rabbi Rachel Weiss from our congregation officiates, we will give ourselves away to each other. Pat reminds me of my dad: She is tall and carries herself with dignity, and has a great sense of humor, and indulges me. In the car with either one, for example, I'd plead, "Don't turn the radio station! It's my favorite song!"

"Which favorite song is this, Sarah?" my father would ask, smiling -- and Pat has learned to ask as well -- but then neither would touch the dial.

Leaving the cemetery on Wednesday, I washed my hands ritually to cleanse myself of the old and new deaths around me and then added my own ritual: I blasted the radio as I pulled out of the driveway. The song at that very moment was one of my all-time favorites from 1982 -- the year of his death(!) At that point, I felt like my dad was with me, whether or not he'd have relished giving me away to a woman (or enjoyed listening to that particular song). Maybe he was telling me that just as he always let me listen to the pop music I loved, he would support my marrying the person I loved....

When my beloved dad was dying, the song really spoke to me, particularly its refrain, "Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge; I'm trying not to lose my head huh huh huh huh huh...."

My father was with me again, I think, when my mom and I headed to dinner the following evening. On Thursday nights during the summer, Stamford's Bedford Street features live bands. As we were crossing the street toward the restaurant, my mom started dancing along as she rolled by with her walker. A police officer smiled at us. Turns out, it was a cover of J. Giels Band's biggest hit. We sat down to dinner and my mom laughed when I told her the story that the song tells. While blogging just now, I looked up the year that the song became a hit: 1982!

Historic Moment

2011-06-16T17:00:00.003-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Re-posted from My Internal, IBM Blog, "Learning to Lead"

In the ladies room earlier, I ran into a colleague who has been with IBM for nearly half of its history. In my case, my service counts for 21 years in July, though I joined IBM in July of 1996, from a joint-venture at the time called Advantis.

I was telling my colleague that I'm in awe of her, and also proud of my own lasting-power (knock on wood!), to have service-credit that adds up to a fifth of IBM's history. She was generous in acknowledging my tenure and I know why she's lasted so long; she's intellectually curious, rather than complacent:

Recently, she asked me for my perspective on how Cloud Computing will be profitable for IBM long-term. I wasn't sure of the answer, but knew who to ask...and I think that's one of the secrets of why I've lasted as long as I have (k'ayn ayin hara/Yiddish for Banish the evil eye [which would stop my tenure, God forbid]!) -- I know how to ask for help from smart colleagues. Another secret -- not that anyone asked but I'm marveling and also reflecting on my service -- is that historically, I've been great with change. (I might appear inflexible occasionally in day-to-day work --hope not, but I know I can feel inflexible sometimes, whether or not I express it aloud -- but when a huge change comes down the line, historically, I've morphed along with it.)

IBM's 100 Icons of progress, especially e-business and Building an equal opportunity workforce are fun memory-joggers, but none of them precisely reflects the career moment I'm proudest of so far; at CHQ's Centennial celebration, we were invited to reflect on the hugest moment we could recall in our careers or that we've witnessed at IBM. I wrote about the marvelous experience of being sent on a six-month assignment to India to co-design & co-facilitate accelerated leadership development offerings and in parallel, helping plant the seeds for IBM's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) diversity network group in India.

So many wondrous accomplishments have happened in IBM's 100-year history, and that's the power of as many as 427,000 brains applied to many missions within a single, ever-more globally-integrated enterprise. Similarly, in a fifth of that time, I still marvel at how much good has happened in my career and life, primarily fueled by a much smaller pool of brains and love. God willing I will be married on July 1st and then, again, God willing, I will earn my Master's in Adult Learning and Leadership by no later than May, 2012. Neither of these events was a given, and better late than never in my case. I have so much to be grateful for.

This morning, I posted a notice in the Connections Community for the organization I'm part of, the Center for Advanced Learning, stating:

Smarm alert: As we celebrate IBM's centennial, I'm honored be to where I am in my IBM career. Besides feeling that I'm in the right mission, I love the colleagues of my team & our CAL organization because you're smart & menschlich (Yiddish for humane). This notice will expire on the 17th by design.
Posted on 16 Jun 2011 at 10:56 by Sarah Siegel

The notice will expire by the 17th, just as IBM's actual 100-year birthday will end at the end of today, but my gratitude for all that I have is endless.

Lesbian Life Underground in Milan

2011-06-12T12:06:00.006-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Literally...

Four young women, standing on the Milan metro platform at 11ish pm. One is tall with a mohawk hairstyle and a tender face. The rest wear their long hair gathered up in loose buns at the tops of their youthful heads. One of the blond ones, in cargo pants and chic glasses, hugs the brunette one who's just her size. Are they consoling each other? Or just drunk? What are they doing out so late (what am *I* doing out so late?...It's my last night in Milan and I'm on my own, coming back from the Navigli canal area, where I took myself to dinner at El Brellin).

They're not drunk. They're perfectly alert and they see me, and the men, watching them. They begin kissing ardently, as though they're alone, or as though they're showing off for an easy audience.

Am I under the influence of alcohol? No, I don't drink. Am I seeing a mirage? I flash back to another business trip: Miami, early-July, 2001, when a gorgeous couple of young women emerge from the ocean, naked, holding hands and walking gracefully past me up the beach. No one comments. Most try to pretend they don't notice. Both times, in Miami and in Milan, I express a little smile, of gratitude for their gorgeous display of affection, of desire, of rueful longing for the days when I was similarly youthful, of love and affiliation.

When the Milan subway-train arrives, I enter their car. In their continual, contrasting, chaste-ness, the mohawk-sporter and the other blond-bunned woman sit across from the couple, ignoring their behavior like indulgent, ennui-filled parent-figures. At first, the woman in glasses stands in front of the other one, doing a little dance with their knees. When she sits down, her girlfriend leans into her and they begin kissing again, but just briefly. This time, again, most seem not to notice, other than me, who is further delighted and trying not to be too baldly voyeuristic, and an older woman at the far end of the subway-car. Her expression is angry, disgusted and transforms into one of dissatisfaction when she catches my eye and I do not mirror her apparent revulsion.

My stop, the Duomo, is next. We arrive, and I hate to get off the train. As I exit, I force myself not to turn around for one more look at the bold young women.

Lady Gaga & a Leadership Development Conference

2011-06-12T11:15:00.005-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Re-posted from my IBM internal "Learning to Lead" Blog

I snapped this photo at the Galleria's Massimo Dutti store, by the Duomo; to me, they looked like a couple.

"Dio errori non ne fa." / "God makes no mistakes." This was among the only statements translated into English in Francesca Giuliani's article on p. 53 of the June 7th edition of Italy's newspaper, "la Repubblica;" it seemed to be a reference to Lady Gaga's new song, "Born This Way," and her planned appearance at yesterday's festival associated with Rome's Europride celebration for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people. How apt to read that statement as I flew from Newark to Milan to help facilitate the GLBT Leadership Development Conference that I co-designed for 30 IBM senior, but not yet executive, GLBT leaders from across Europe....

As a result of the conference, a delegate in a critical role pledged that he would not accept a lucrative offer that was on the table from [a competitor]; another decided that pursuing a promotion was worth the effort after all, though prior to the Conference, he had convinced himself not to try; another recruited six other delegates for half a year's worth of monthly programs in the podcast series he calls "Radio Eyrie," which is designed to be a collection of informal learning on what selected gay, lesbian, bi and trans IBM leaders know about their parts of the IBM business and can explain to any IBMer who wants to listen; hope they add a link from it to IBM's Informal Learning Exchange (ILX).

In addition to the delegates' commitments to further developing business, GLBT Community initiatives and themselves as leaders, I found the following moments of the conference to be among the most profound:

Delegates' arrival; hadn't been a host of what felt like such a warm reception line since my Bat Mitzvah at 13; everyone seemed so pleased to be there, and I was, too
Lucio Toninelli, HR VP, Italy, talking about how Italy as a country has some distance yet to go in becoming GLBT-friendly: "You don't change a culture of centuries overnight, but you don't give up"
A delegate's:
- Enthusiastic reaction to the cost-of-thinking-twice flowchart that openly-lesbian IBM Managing Director Claudia Woody adapted from IBM alumnus John Martin
- Gratitude for being helped to expand his career vista simply by being asked in plenary, "Is a future IBM CEO in this room today?"
- Self-reminder that she needs to shut down negative self-talk that says, I'll never fit in and so never will reach my potential
- Plea for more decision-making power/empowerment as a manager in response to another delegate's experience that anything is possible...if one is willing to go through however many necessary checks and balances, i.e., so many checks and balances should be unnecessary, he felt, if we are serious about Our Value of Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships
- Conclusion about external speaker, Andrea Notarnicola's, quote from author Martha Nussbaum's message, "...disgust is not an appropriate guide for decision-making;" the delegate realized that just as she hopes that non-GLBT leaders heed the message when they assess GLBT employees, she needs to heed it as well, regarding anyone with whom she is not natively comfortable
Delegates' selected, early experiences of first recognizing themselves as leaders, including:
- Being put into the officers' stream of the Royal Air Force and accepting the role (and then being discharged for homosexual activity)
- After 5 or 6 months as a first-line manager, being introduced as "my boss" by one of his direct reports; he realized then that he needed to rise to the occasion and demonstrate real leadership
- Becoming the Head Boy in a South African boarding school, after speaking no English just four years prior, and managing 15 Prefects, and then being a people manager for his entire career so far
- Not seeing self as a leader, but:
  - Rather, as a thought leader, e.g., being asked for a rationale on why Database Marketing & Market Intelligence should merge, and this was 10 years prior to the industry doing the same
  - Having it thrust on him, since first serving as a Prefect at 16 and then always managing teams in his career.
- Helping advance GLBT inclusion among:
  - The UK's Sea Cadets
  - A major, national Lutheran youth organization.
- In the movie theater, where he worked at 15, suggesting to his management that he could do the best job as the manager and having his management listen and appoint him...and he *did*
- When he was a kid, having all of the other kids always looking to him for what they would play every day and now, fast-forward to his volunteer-work, leading a national association for Gay and Lesbian people in Denmark.
My reminder that IBMers have lived/worked/done business in many countries other than their own, and so even though everyone currently lived in Europe, a substantial number had lived/worked/done business everywhere from Indonesia, to Malaysia, to Mozambique, to Thailand, to the United States, to Zimbabwe and others
External speaker, Andrea's, smart-phone metaphor about the 21st century and gay, lesbian, bi & transpeople's leadership opportunities: Our lives are in our hands....I agree!

One Month from Today...

2011-06-01T18:10:00.001-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Pat & I Will Be Married

July 1st is the day. I found what I'll wear the other day online -- we'll see if it fits when it comes. Pat never reads this blog, so I'll tell you that it's a floor-length, silk-cotton dress with a cowl neck in front and back, in cadet blue. She'll see it for the first time on our wedding-day. Pat knows only that it's a dress and told me today that she's surprised that I'm choosing to wear a dress.

"Do you not want me to?"

Pat didn't answer.

"I just think it's a special day," I said, but I know what she means, since I've worn a dress just twice the whole time we've been together, to two formal gala events. Well, this is not formal, not a gala, but it is a major milestone, so I think I wanna do so. It'll depend on whether or not it fits. I'm too self-conscious to shop for it live, so if the online route fails, I might not do it. We'll see.

The nightmare I blogged about previously reflects my vulnerability around wearing something other than pants to our wedding. So it's easier to talk about what I'll wear than what it means that I'll be married 30 days from now. Today, I read a "New York Times" article on how it's easy to like technology, but how hard to love people in all the complexity that love requires.

People are complex. It will mean more when we're married than it means now, even though we've been together for nearly 19 years. It is a big deal. I'll need to blog more about it over this next month. Gonna go back to Pat's & my Florida vacation w/our friends now. More later....

Last Night I Dreamt I Wore a Mini-skirt to Work...

2011-05-29T15:28:00.000-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

...and Stood in Front of a Breezy, Full Classroom Sans Underpants

Perhaps it will take some time to decompress from work-mode, but this blog-entry's heading and sub-heading sum up the anxiety that comes with three good problems: my being on vacation; thinking about an upcoming trip, where I need to stand in front of a classroom and be effective, so that the participants can be effective; and day-dreaming about my upcoming marriage to Pat.

I left my ThinkPad at home while we're in Florida and so cannot look at work e-mail even if I wanted to do so; was thinking that I should have brought my modules with me to practice for the trip; and am puzzling over what to wear when Pat and I get married on in July. In reaction to my clothing dilemma, a new friend said the other day, "I think that as humans, we need to be feeling some struggle at all times, and another friend said more practically, "Sometimes, it's more about the color and the fabric...."

The dream, I guess, was trying to tell me to spend time, preparing for the class I'll facilitate, and that no matter what I choose to wear to get married to Pat, be sure the outfit includes underwear.

What a Difference a Week Makes!

2011-05-15T13:04:00.001-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Allowing Contentment, and Even Excitement

"You haven't changed. You're a worrier," said a mentor emeritus; he retired in 2006. We were at a party to celebrate two other colleagues who retired this year and we were talking about my self-questioning nature -- to put it tactfully.

The declaration, "You're a worrier," was both upsetting and a relief. On the one hand, who wants to be recognized as anxious, rather than resolutely confident, and on the other hand, it was a healthy dismissal of the things I was saying as nothing more than free-floating anxiety, rather than as reality.

...which reminded me of how I had been thinking of Pat's and my upcoming marriage a week ago: tons of questions with a big helping of internalized homophobia. How different I feel just a week later. Here's why:

Pat & I met with our rabbi to discuss how she'll officiate and it sounded beautiful, and she acknowledged, and did not dwell on my internalized homophobia, but rather spoke in practically, purely positive terms
I told more people our news, all of whom were happy for us and encouraging
Pat & I bought rings yesterday, which are beautiful and which we'll give each other during the rabbi's service; we also liked how the seller spoke of his company's early granting of domestic partner benefits
I told another couple -- women who've been together for 23 years -- of our plan and they were persuaded to consider marrying in a country or state, where it's legal, too; like us, they did not realize how relatively simple it now was to transform themselves into a legally-married couple.

The rabbi wants to meet with us again and wants us to bring written answers to the following questions that we'll share with each other and her at the same time, at that meeting:

Why marry?
Why marry now?
Why marry each other?

The request is so appealing to me, but so unappealing to Pat. In her typical irreverence, she said to me as we drove home from meeting with the rabbi, "Would you do my answers, too?"

Getting Married This Summer

2011-05-07T15:26:00.004-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Why Doesn't It Feel Paradisal?

Note: This blog-entry is being published with Pat's readily-granted approval...which is another of the many reasons I want to marry her.

I have a therapist and I have friends, and yet my blog also comforts me by being a tireless host for my reflections.

This blog has about eight followers a day, so there is only a small chance of most people I know (or don't know), seeing this news. Perhaps, I'm being weird about it and yet not as weird as some; otherwise, the term elopement wouldn't exist. I'm being weird, so far, because I've announced Pat's & my news only to my mom and siblings; Pat's mother and sibling -- both of our fathers died years ago; four friends; our rabbi; and my manager, with whom I wanted to negotiate the honeymoon-week for next year, after my Master's is done. Why haven't I told my all of my friends, or teammates at work?

Perhaps that's not the weirdest part. Perhaps it's weirder that Pat & I just want our family with us. Well, again, that's where elopement comes in, i.e., so far, we haven't done *that*, so I suppose we could be even weirder.

Questions that Prevent Me from Feeling Pure Euphoria

Why didn't this happen for me in my twenties?
Why couldn't I have been attracted to a man and marry a man?
Why fix something that's not broken; after all, we've been together for nearly 19 years?
What should we wear?
Why are some of my family trying to make me feel guilty about who I want to include?
Will we have any pictures or will we be too shy?
Will I be uplifted by the experience itself [because so far, there have been some less-than-delightful administrative moments]?
Will our mothers be able to be visibly happy for us? (Both were lovely in their response to our news, but what will their faces look like in the moment, or is that just my own, internalized homophobia that might wear a scowl?)
How will I feel, standing there -- peaceful finally or still a range of emotions?
What would it be like if we could get each other big rocks for our fingers and if money were no object?
Why do I feel so vulnerable and raw, so out of control whenever I tell the few people I've told so far?
Why do I care what anyone thinks of me?
Will I feel less bitter about same-gender marriage still being outlawed federally if Pat & I marry legally, where it *is* possible?
What's the heterosexual version of this sort of suffering around getting married?
Not to flatter myself, but if anyone of my Facebook friends stumbles on this entry, is it fair to ask them not to post publicly on my wall with their reaction, but rather to send me a private message?
Why, in contrast to my wish re: Facebook above, do I hope that someone/anyone adds a public comment to my blog-entry here?
Why do I wish we could marry now, rather than waiting another minute?
What if the blurb we submit doesn't get included in "The New York Times?"
Why don't Pat & I plan to do anything beyond:
1. Being married by our rabbi in a Connecticut city hall
2. Having lunch afterward with our family and the rabbi
3. Going to synagogue that night with our mothers, siblings and their families and sponsoring the simple kiddush (reception)
Do I wish I could just wake up married?

Memories of 9/11, 2010-2007 & 2001

2011-05-02T20:08:00.003-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

News from 11ish pm (ET), 1 May 2011, Reminds Me...

There is no rejoicing, just remembrance:

http://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/2010/09/beautiful-riddance-of-sin.html
http://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/2009/09/yesterday.html
http://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/2008/09/live-from-austin.html
http://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/2007/09/today.html
http://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/2001/09/todays-events.html

I have 2002-2006 entries as well, but have to add them as multiple screenshots as time allows in the coming day(s). The entry from 2008 makes no mention of the 2001 events and I like that. Hope that September 11th can go back to its former non-significance from now on...but this September will be the 10-year anniversary, so we'll see.

One Last Nap Before Waking

2011-04-10T14:43:00.000-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Shhh; Mostly, Buds Are Still Nestled Under Their Covers

Pat and I went for a walk last weekend, after the winter storm watch stopped. We drove to Pound Ridge, New York & Bedford, New York and here is some of what we saw:

This is the Morgenthau Preserve in Pound Ridge, New York, about 20 minutes from where I grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, and so the terrain -- rocks, trees, stonewalls, native plants -- is the same. Just a few steps into the trail, a huge, fluffy, white dog with muddy paws burst toward us from up the hill. There's a sign at the front of the preserve that reads, "No pets," so we figured it was from a neighboring house. A moment later, a woman walked by above us, acting nonchalant and not calling to the dog. Otherwise, it was the peaceful sort of place to walk around with another person, but both of us have seen too many crime-shows and agreed we'd never walk around there alone, sadly.

By contrast to these woodsy photos, I'm listening to fun R&B as I write the narrative for this entry, and Kashif's "Help Yourself to My Love" is playing on last.fm. Probably, this was among the songs that played on my FM radio headphones (pre-Walkman days) as I rollerskated up and down Hickory Road, across the street from my childhood house. Hickory Road featured a stonewall like this one all the way down one side of it. Pat liked the lichen all over these stones.

It's hard to tell, but if you know skunk cabbage, you can see the center of some in the middle of this photo. My neighborhood-friends, Didi, Helene and HoneyB and I used to pull out these cores and toss them at each other to be funny. Skunk cabbage is called skunk cabbage for a reason. Didi grew up to be a Pan Am flight attendant and then a jeweler and her little sister Helene is a luxury travel agent based in London; HoneyB also lives in a London suburb...but there we were as little kids, tromping around in the sometimes swampy Connecticut woods among stonewalls, vines and skunk cabbage.

Here's the sign Pat and I found at the start of our hiking adventure in Bedford, New York, which is next to Pound Ridge. As we walked, we felt like we were in a scene from a PBC Masterpiece Mysteries show, which usually happen in the English countryside. It was a cloudy afternoon and chilly. Again, had we been alone, a pastoral day in the woods and fields would have felt creepy, I'm sure.

I figured it was a Dogwood tree -- hard for me to tell without flowers -- but Pat, who's taken a class on tree-identification more recently than I (last year for her vs. 35 years ago, for me, when I was 10) assured me that it was a Magnolia. I would not have thought of Magnolias as being native to the Northeast; I always think of them as a Southern tree -- maybe due to that movie, "Steel Magnolias." I liked their peach-fuzzy buds. The bad news was that almost nothing was in bloom yet during our visit. The good news was that we had the sense that everything was taking a final nap prior to waking up for the season, and the other plus was that we had the garden and fields to ourselves.

Inside the box labeled, "Bedford Audubon Society," were charcoal pencils for sketching and stickers of birds. I felt like a kid again and wished I had paper with me to do some drawing, but settled for photographing what I saw with my Droid phone instead. It's interesting that when I was a kid, the closest thing to my cellphone camera would have been a Polaroid camera, but while the photos likewise would have been instant, they would not have been instantly, globally distributable. Miki Howard is doing her version of Boz Skagg's "Lowdown" now on last.fm -- the original version also is from my early years.

It's easy to see where they found the stones to build this house. When we moved from Illinois to New Jersey 15 years ago, Pat was sad about our soil. She was used to rich, black dirt in Illinois. Northeastern soil is full of rocks. And in my case, I found Illinois soil disorienting in its purity.

When Pat and I lived in Bengaluru/Bangalore, India for six months in 2007, one of our favorite leisure-moments was a guided tour of the Lal Bagh by a local botanist. Lal Bagh is the city's park and botanical garden. It featured so many tree-varieties, including a gigantic Banyan tree, the tall roots of which accommodated a large Muslim family or group of friends as a natural sofa. This little American Beech couldn't have been more different than the Banyan. Many of the trees in the woods in Bedford had been labeled, including a Sugar Maple, White and Black Oaks and even Witch Hazel. I didn't even know there was such a tree. I just thought that Witch Hazel was an astringent that came in a bottle. Now, I know where the medicine comes from.

Probably, my life-long love of rocks and minerals began as I played outside as a child. There are so many interesting geologic formations in the part of the world, where I grew up. Most common was mirror-like, silvery, layered mica, orange-pink feldspar and gneiss. And while our soil was challenging for gardeners, the land hosted giant boulders that always made me think of ancient times, when they first must have emerged. Here's one that Pat has walked past: a big bunch of gneiss.

Finally, here's another natural toy we played with as kids: Milkweed. This photo shows how the pod already has burst open and the wispy, silky seeds are beginning to fly out on their own. When we were young, milkweed was a miracle. A bunch used to grow on the left side of our driveway and the neighborhood kids, including my sisters and I, would split open the pods and if they weren't yet ready to release their seeds, the inside was milky. We'd pull out the seeds with their feathery tails in any case and toss them around. The whole area should have been full of milkweeds, considering our yearly campaign. Sometimes, by myself, I'd open a pod and rub the silky parts against my cheek and would feel soothed, less lonely.

Now, on last.fm, the Brothers Johnson are urging everyone to "Stomp." How can I be blogging about tender childhood moments while listening to R&B music on last.fm in parallel? The answer might be found in this excellent article by Virgina Heffernan. She talks about how the Internet is no more an addiction than other, "...classier pastimes..." e.g., reading fiction or listening to operas. So why not be writing, posting photos and listening to songs from my youth concurrently?...I think I know why: It's likely that I could have focused and made a more poignant product if I had just been blogging around the photos, without the additional musical stimulation. Or perhaps not. Maybe a different creative product emerges with pluses as well as minuses.

Poems Inspired by a Book

2011-04-03T15:28:00.008-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Where My Sisters and I Are

Where are the sisters who read *Hiawatha* to me?
Who gave me magic-mask shampoos and rides on the
soles of their upturned feet?

Where are the sisters who played Chess with me and
Serata and taught me to bike-ride? Who made
whirlpools to gather leaves in our tree-canopied
pool and skinny-dipped with me on summer-nights?

Where are the sisters who taught me how to sing
"Ma Nishtana" at the Passover Seder? Who watched
forbidden TV with me when our parents were out?

Where are the sisters who mothered me and helped
me defy our mother in parallel? Who spent time
with me when our mother was too tired and who
baked Scotch Shortbread when our mother was out,
since she almost never brought sugary snacks
into our home?

Where are the sisters who taught me "The Facts of
Life" at the school bus-stop, when I was seven? Who
endured the aftermath of my eating an entire box of
Sunsweet(TM) prunes during an eight-hour ride, as our
father (not yet of blessed memory then) drove us up to
Rochester for my mother's mother's -- our nana's --
funeral when I was eight?

Where are the sisters who celebrated my first birthday
as a teen by taking me to a Pointer Sisters concert in
Central Park? Who hosted me in Tel Aviv and at
Columbia University during two special weekends, also
in my teen-years?

Where are the sisters who left their record collections
behind when they left the house, enabling me to play
Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Steeleye Span, Leonard
Cohen and Aqualung albums, which reminded me of them,
even as I preferred groups like the Pointer Sisters?

Where are the sisters who left me, feeling effectively
like an only-child day-to-day, since I was the only
daughter left in the house from ages 11-18? Who helped
me dress for my father's (z"l) funeral at 17, selecting
a red, paisley, wool scarf to wear over black, and then
cutting the scarf for me while I was wearing it, as a
sign of mourning?

Where are the sisters who bailed me out in Chicago, when
I needed an urgent, $200-loan? Who made me feel hopeful
during low periods? Who sacrificed a good chunk of their
childhoods to be second and third mothers to me?

They are parenting their own children now, making life-
histories with their husbands and helping me keep our
aging mother company.

Where am I? Still providing companionship for my mom, but
also parenting, and receiving parenting from, my partner
Pat, and co-parenting two adopted cats. I'm glad I've lived
long enough to form my own family, and wish I didn't still
feel pouty about my sisters' genuine children, interrupting
the attention I got from my sisters back in the day.

And I am grateful still to have one out of four of my
original parents left, and a new one in Pat, over the past
nearly 19 years.

Pausing on Page 124 for Reflection Disguised as Poetry

Jill Bialosky's youngest sister did not finish her life
I have a sister Jill's age, and one in between; I'm the
youngest, like Jill's baby sister Kim.

Never wanted to kill myself, except fleetingly, in Chicago,
in my early-twenties, after a love didn't work out and since
I felt like I was in a job beneath me with no idea of how to
climb out from under it. No romantic love, no real money and
neither in sight; those were my reasons for despair.

My friend, Marsha, coincidentally from the same Cleveland
suburb as Jill and her little sister, Shaker Heights, said,
"You don't want to die. You just want the pain to stop."

True! That's all I wanted. And I never again contemplated
suicide. Probably, what had kept the idea at bay till then, as
much as a lack of desperation up to that point, was an elementary
school lesson:

We were taught that it was forbidden for Jews to kill ourselves
and that those of us who did were buried on the fringe of the
cemetery, not alongside the rest of our family and community.

Little did I know that since my dad of blessed memory was
buried in the cemetery affiliated with the Modern Orthodox
synagogue, where we belonged when he died, I'm not qualified to
be buried alongside my family and community in any case, since I
want to be buried next to Pat[ricia], with a joint-headstone that
indicates our couplehood.

In my case, and ultimately in Jill's little sister's case, the
early-twenties were challenging to survive. My middle sister
encouraged me once during that period: "Sarah, turning 30 was like
being let out of jail." Everything became easier once my twenties
were over.

I wish Kim Bialosky had had a friend like Marsha, or had been
haunted by the Orthodox rabbis' warning or had not lost her father
so early, or....Like Jill, the author, I am wishing for a solution
to the mystery of her sister Kim's suicide and maybe all there will
ever be are clear clues -- looks that way so far....

Both of these poems were inspired by *History of a Suicide: My sister's Unfinished Life;* here's a link to an interview with the author.

Impressions of PFLAG's 2011 Straight for Equality Awards Gala

2011-03-18T20:39:00.007-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Re-posted from GLBT IBMers & Friends Community (Behind IBM's Firewall)

Joseph Bertolotti kindly asked me to be his guest at PFLAG's 3rd annual Straight for Equality Awards Gala at the Marriott Marquis in NYC. We were grateful that in her role, Pinki Modi organized IBM's presence at the event. Here's a picture from the experience:

It was like old times; Joseph and I started up the GLBT Sales team in 2001 and worked together closely for three years. We live just a few miles from each other's home in New Jersey, though we didn't know each other prior to serving in our roles. Joseph pulled up in the driveway and we were so psychic: My blouse under my suit and his tie were solid, complimentary, similar shades of blue. "Joseph, look!" I said, pointing.

"Just like the prom," he said smiling...the prom I never went to. Joseph went to three, and I was never asked :-(

We walked up to the reception outside the ballroom on the fifth floor and I spotted one of the most beautiful lesbian entrepreneurs I recall from Joseph's and my selling days; an unexpected shyness gripped me as Joseph exclaimed excitedly that we needed to say hello to her...after each of us used the facilities. Upon meeting Joseph outside the men's room, near the coat-check area, I ran into Tim Collins from IBM and his partner Tom; I'd not yet met Tom. MetLife, Tom's employer, was going to win the Corporate Award, so the couple wore the tuxes they were married in. There's something so cool about a tux, on any gender.

Paul Frene came over while we were getting to know Tom. Paul and I were among the founders of what became Out & Equal - Metro-NY and it's really Paul's work that got MetLife to the honored place it would hold that evening. We introduced Paul to Tom as colleagues and then excused ourselves to talk with the beautiful entrepreneur, figuring that we would be seated at the table with Tim and Tom and could talk more then; Paul and Tom launched into shop-talk, so we figured they wouldn't miss us.

The woman was even more charismatic than I remember and she introduced Joseph and me to some of her female colleagues, pointing at us and saying, "These guys are old-school --"

"Thanks a lot," I interrupted, "So we're old!"

"No, no," she said, "They really got things going, what, 10 years ago?"

We smiled. IBM really was in the vanguard in 2001, when Joseph and I started up the team dedicated to the GLBT business-to-business market.This whole section of the evening had a poignant sweetness about it, like Joseph and I were being given an opportunity to time-travel back a decade, back when we stood and sat side-by-side at so many of these great community occasions. And even though all three of us were 10 years older, we still looked pretty good and were healthy, thank God....If only I were less vain....

We came to the table and already, seats were filled around Tom and Tim, and so our plan of socializing with them over dinner was foiled. I felt shy again. The people at the table who struck me as PFLAG parents were gracious and welcoming, but I felt a bit disoriented at first. Really, I had been hosted at a GLBT gala just once, by Erica Karp of UBS, at New York City's LGBT Center Women's Event some years ago, and rather, was used to *being* the host, along with Joseph. I guess I'm saying that I was comfortable, ushering people to the IBM table and hosting them, but not as much with arriving at a table of strangers, other than Tim and Tom, though Kathy & Robert Reim, and Tammy & Rachel Reim-Ledbetter, plus Mike Neubecker and Dr. Steve Krantz weren't strangers for long. During the Broadway Boys' opening entertainment, I started feeling uncomfortable that I hadn't yet introduced myself to Tammy & Rachel, the two young women, sitting across the table.

During the first break, I asked Joseph to come over with me. We introduced ourselves to Tammy and Rachel and learned that they were a couple, and were the daughter and in-law of the couple to their left. And then I learned that they worked for an Alaska credit union, and so I asked Joseph and them if I could sit down and talk with them about Alaska, since Pat & I were planning a trip there in August. Joseph understood and went over to Walter Schubert's table to say hi; as the first openly-gay man with a seat on the NYSE and as a founding board member of NGLCC, Walter was a great partner to Joseph and me in our work. I went over to say hi a bit later.

As I talked with the young couple, even though they were beautiful like the entrepreneur, I relaxed and felt at home and comfortable for the first time that evening; a beautiful couple is easier to talk with than a beautiful woman in a couple whose partner is not with her, and when my partner's not with me, e.g., in the entrepreneur's case. Their faces were kind, and I could imagine Pat, meeting and enjoying them as well. After the Alaska exchange, we traded stories about how they go with their mom/mother-in-law to rural towns in the Washington State region, including to cowboy bars, and win over the patrons through sharing their family experiences. My unexpressed stereotype was that heterosexual cowboys wouldn't necessarily get it; their cowboy-bar stories reminded me of the time my sister asked me to come talk with a group of 11th graders at the Brooklyn International High School, where she was the principal at the time, about being out at work. "These students are not privileged. They're new immigrants and refugees, and can you guess who was the most receptive to my visit? A visibly Muslim Arab girl; she wore a hijab....She told me she related to my story around being stigmatized by society; this was not long after September 11th."

Tom came back to the table and I was in his seat, so I excused myself from the conversation with Tammy and Rachel and went over to Walter, who just happened to be speaking with Claire Buffie, Miss New York, along with Joseph and Miss New York's boyfriend. Willowy and gorgeous though she was, I wasn't shy at all. Something shuts down in me when I know that a woman is heterosexual; she had already been introduced from the stage as a "straight ally." Unbelievably, I didn't already know her story. I asked, "What made you run on a gay rights platform?"

"My sister's a lesbian," and I don't remember the rest of what she said, as I was distracted, imagining a lesbian version of her. And then I was able to compose myself to say, "Our rabbi for 10 years, at the gay, lesbian, bi and trans synagogue, where we belong had a lesbian sister, too. As a rabbinical student, the rabbi was a prodigy; everyone in the Conservative movement thought she had an amazing future ahead of her and when she chose our congregation, they asked, 'Why are you wasting your talent *there*?" She still does have an amazing future, but she married another rabbi and left the synagogue to continue building her family; they had one baby-girl while she was our rabbi and then she bore a boy since her departure, if I remember correctly. No doubt, they'll grow up to be wonderful citizens, like Claire Buffie and their parents, no matter their sexual orientation.

It's practically dinner-time now on a Friday, and I could go on for awhile longer, but I'll end here, with a heartening exchange that Joseph and I had with Steve Krantz, who was sitting to my right. Steve is a Distinguished Engineer Emeritus, retired from IBM, but back supplementally, to support one of our GMs, as well as well as a PFLAG National Board Member. He's the father of a Los Angeles-based 29-year-old son, who's a lawyer and single, in case anyone needs a great litigator or boyfriend. (Hope Steve doesn't mind my trying to be an agent.) Toward the end of the evening, Steve said, "My son made me a better person."

"How did your son make you a better person?" I asked.

"He made me want to change the world."

The Cats Are Friends Again!

2011-03-17T22:32:00.000-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Soft-launch Announcement

This must be a bit like what pregnant women feel like: They don't want to announce their pregnancies till they're far enough along, but I figure I can declare it here, since lately, only an average of 12 people a day view my blog:

Phoebe and Toonces, >7-year-old sister-cats from the same litter are friends after being enemies throughout the winter. The vet said no, but I'm still wondering if I caused a psychotic break in Toonces last November 5th, by waving a rubber ball on a string, which featured colored, flashing lights inside it. It was a party-favor from my cousin's Bat Mitzvah.

Prior to that action on my part, the girls were good friends and good sisters. About 10-20 minutes after my silly game-playing, a chilling cat-fight began; it was not silent like all of the other play-fights. The noise was that of enemies, trying to kill each other. Phoebe chased Toonces (who likely started it) up the stairs and a haunted/hunted Toonces left a trail of urine on the steps as she ran away from her sister in terror.

From then on, we kept them separated in the house, except for very short visits. They cried and complained, but whenever they saw each other, they'd begin that low-voiced purrmuring and then hissing. We wanted no more urine-trails of terror, so they were deprived all winter.

A few days ago, we experimented. And they were good. And we pledged that if they fought, from now on, they'd just have to work it out. There have been no fights with noise ever since we freed them to be in the same place at the same time.

Makes the house so much more haymish again.

Integrating Personal & Professional Identities

2011-02-19T21:02:00.001-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Remarks by Sarah Siegel for oSTEM – University of Michigan Chapter

16 February 2010

Gary, thanks for the privilege of speaking with you today on integrating personal & professional identities. During this session, I’ll tell some stories about how my identity took shape; we’ll discuss the anonymous questionnaire, to help us gain a sense of where we are collectively with our identities; and of course, you’re also welcome to ask me questions along the way. How does that sound? [Pause for answer. They agreed it sounded good.]

Let me get an initial sense of who’s here: How many of you are freshmen? [None.] How many are sophomores? [25%.] How many are juniors? [~38%.] How many, seniors? [~38%.] How many are Master’s students? [None.] Are there any doctoral students? [None.] I didn’t go to Michigan for grad school, but I do have at least a story or two for each of my undergrad years here.

Freshman year: Picture the yearbook version of me minus four years, living in Bursley Hall – how many of you live, or have lived, in Bursley? Well, there I was, rooming randomly with a beautiful, bright-blond, blue-eyed Michigan farm-girl, who was a National Merit Scholar semi-finalist and an art student. Our first morning as roommates, she did a moving pencil-drawing of me, sleeping. [Show the sketch. A participant asked, “Were you really asleep?” Yes, really, I was, I told him, which made it all the more astonishing when I awoke to the gift.] When she gave it to me, I was hardly gracious lest I betray how I really felt and then I feared she’d guess the rest about my attraction to girls and women, and my attraction to her.
All year, she was relentlessly kind to me, no matter how indifferent I tried to act. Finally, we became friends during senior year, after I told her the truth about my identity, and she was as kind as ever…and probably already had guessed, though she didn’t say so.

But let’s go back to freshman year again, to my first weeks on North Campus, where I made a magnetic, new best friend: Like me, she was also Jewish and from the East Coast; she seemed like a worldly version of the most appealing girls who had been my classmates at the Modern Orthodox Jewish day school I had attended from 1st through 8th grades. I felt at home when I was around her. We were together day and night.

One of those nights, early on, she initiated intimacy with me, but the next day, claimed to have been asleep and dreaming through the experience. I was devastated, but I followed her lead. I told her, I agreed: it was nothing…but our friendship was spoiled, since I represented a discovery she did not want to make at the time….I wonder if any of you have had something like that happen to you with a friend. [Pause, but don’t wait for answers.]

In contrast to you [or most of you], my luck is that I can fast-forward to nearly a decade after graduation, when my mom ran into my freshman friend’s mother at a dance for Age-50+ Jewish singles. Her mother was divorced and mine was a widow, who had not found anyone close to my father’s caliber to remarry. While standing there, hoping for any decent men to walk through the door – rather than making do with the ones who were already there – my mother caught up with her mother and told her that I was a lesbian.

Her mother responded, “Oh, my daughter’s that way sometimes, too.” [Pause. Some (rueful) laughter from the participants, which I had hoped for, and which materialized.] It’s sort of funny now, but definitely was not funny when I was 18 and just finding my footing. In fact, though I was self-aware by 11, I ran from my identity till age 21, based on my upbringing and schooling: All of the girls in my school and community were expected to marry one Jewish man each with whom we would have Jewish children.

Not long after the episode with my female freshman friend, my high school boyfriend, who went to “the Michigan of the East” – do they still sell those T-shirts? [Pause for answer. Yes, they confirmed, they do] – visited for a weekend, but it was like hosting a sibling; he was Jewish, gorgeous, brilliant, a college track-star and I loved him, but not the way my heterosexual friends loved their boyfriends. I willed myself to stay involved with him through sophomore year, but not exclusively.

So now, I’ll help you imagine my sophomore year: During my first week, I ran into my high school girlfriend on campus, as that girlfriend was here for an internship. Just as our whole relationship had been in high school, I spent the winter with her in secret with the explicit deal that we did not qualify as a couple. After she left campus, I became involved in parallel with a closely-cropped, sandy-bearded Philosophy major – a guy – and another beautiful student who identified as lesbian at the time, but who was actually a transman, who transitioned some years later….Our first date was at a Women Take Back the Night march. Do they still have those in Ann Arbor? Does anybody know? [Pause for answer. One of the men shook his head that he didn’t know, and I said, “Right, why would you necessarily know?” and then one of the women confirmed it.]

Since I didn’t yet own my identity, I didn’t pledge romantic loyalty to anyone and felt super-lonely after each successive experiment.

By junior year, I was living in Jerusalem and studying Israeli Literature at Hebrew University. A large part of my agenda for going to Israel was to increase the odds of finding a Jewish man who was attractive enough to sway my orientation, as if that were possible – I had broken up with my high school boyfriend prior to the journey, to free myself up, I told myself, to meet my true Mr. Right…except that I kept meeting women along with men that year. From the anonymous survey results, which we’ll discuss in a bit, I know that at least a few of you have studied abroad and at least one of you is studying abroad by being at Michigan.

Back in Ann Arbor, during the first day of my senior year, in the ladies room of the Grad Library, I saw a flyer for a lesbian campus group and finally surrendered; I went to the advertised event and met the woman who was my first acknowledged girlfriend. I was still full of internalized homophobia, but finally brave at least:
I wrote to my family: my mom and two older sisters, as my dad of blessed memory had died of cancer when I was 17; he didn’t even get to see me graduate from high school. I told them about my lesbianism and my Michigan girlfriend, saying: “If you don’t accept me, then don’t bother coming to my graduation.” I don’t know where that bravado came from, but I feel fortunate that they were loving in response; my mother, brother-in-law and sisters all flew out to celebrate with me when I graduated. Later, it emerged that my mom felt she had already lost my dad, and that she had to accept me, as she did not want to lose any more family members.
My mother’s revelation confirmed a truth for me: So many of us worry that our families will reject us if we tell them about our sexual orientation or gender identity, but just like a job interview, rejection can go both ways. I think a number of us forget that. In the survey, one of you talks about this as well, in relation to your grandmother…but more on that in a bit.

Well, back to my girlfriend, who I met at the start of senior year:
We were together for two years and eight months, which was remarkable, since we had the following in common: both of us studied at the University of Michigan; both of us were lesbians; and both of us loved fiction. What was great about being with her, though, was that I finally committed myself to one female person; once I settled into one, focused relationship, it was remarkable how much else I had time and energy for:

I wrote a thesis that enabled me to graduate with High Honors; I became an active GLBT community volunteer when we moved to Chicago after graduation; I joined a winning rugby team as #5 in the scrum; and I even co-anchored a Cable Access TV show focused on news and entertainment by and for Chicago’s gay, lesbian, bi and trans community. The seeds of the most interesting facets of my IBM work, namely, being visible and building community, were planted during this period of volunteering.

But why did I need to suffer, and make others suffer, through all of the romantic drama in the years leading up to graduation? Because I did! Certainly, all of that exploring made me doubly grateful when ultimately, I found my partner Pat.
Are any of you able to relate to my experience? In terms of discussions with your families, or in terms of your love-lives or in terms of GLBT community volunteer work? [Pause for answers. One of the Asian participants agreed that in his experience, “…there’s an image of what an Asian child is supposed to be…” and that it was hard, within his family, not to conform to that.]

When I look at my college yearbook picture, I remember consciously wearing something unusual – a tropical shirt with a hoody Michigan sweatshirt over it, topped off by a double strand of iridescent plastic, purple beads. So part of me was trying to assert my difference via my clothing-choice, but as I look at the attempted disguise of my hair, I know that ultimately, I was ambivalent and sort of still wished to pass as heterosexual then. Have any of you posed for your yearbook pictures yet? What did you wear? [Pause for answers. A senior, who later identified herself as a straight ally, said that she wore a “pants-suit,” and one of the male seniors agreed that he wore a suit. So in contrast to me, they opted for the traditional look, I acknowledged.]

I’ll tell you one more story, about mentors because in the tip-sheet I give you at the end, you’ll see that I’ve included, “Find role models and mentors…” as the third tip. I included it even though I recalled how useless it was to look for coaching from anyone when I was first coming to own my identity. Here’s an example: I mentioned that I did the Honors Program through my major; I first met with an Honors advisor as a senior.

One afternoon around this wintery time of year, I sat down across from my advisor and saw that she was wearing a small, gold Lambda symbol around her neck. Back in the day, it was like wearing a rainbow bracelet; it was a signal of someone’s homosexuality. I marveled at it, as she was also a Physics professor, and until then, the only professional lesbian woman I knew was my high school gym teacher, and even that was not confirmed, but rather, just the rumor. Really, part of my internalized homophobia up to that point had been that I thought I’d have to be a gym teacher if I were lesbian, that is, that my career choices were limited.
Awkwardly, I acknowledged the advisor’s necklace and told her, “I am, too.”

Generously, she suggested we go get a soda, or around here, I should say, pop, and we talked about my future. Could I be out at work? She thought so, definitely.
P.S. I did not come out at my first post-graduation job, as a summer intern at a Chicago magazine; then I was under-employed, since I chose an employer solely based on learning that the office manager was openly lesbian and that I could be myself there, too. The point of this story about mentors is that nothing a mentor says or a role model does will sway us to do as they say or do, until and unless each of us is ready ourselves. By the same token, I will never forget her, since ultimately, she taught me by example that my career options were not limited by my sexual orientation. I just needed to do a better job of networking with people, who could help me.

The other point of that story, I think, is that too often, as gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, we still tend to be under-employed; I am hopeful that this is the decade when that changes.

May I give you a couple of current examples of what I mean? [Pause for agreement. They agreed.] This past fall, at the Out & Equal Workplace Summit in Los Angeles, Dr. Steve Salbu, the openly-gay dean of Georgia Tech’s business school, shared research, reporting that GLBT leaders in business rise to senior leadership positions more slowly than leaders of any other historically-underrepresented group, including women and people of color.

Telling you about this research is not meant to motivate you to abdicate. I’m reminded of something my mom told me about a boyfriend of hers who didn’t last. When he met my grandfather for the first time, he told my grandfather that he couldn’t get a job in a particular field because he was Jewish. This was in the 1940s. My grandfather told my mother to get rid of him. My grandfather’s point was that we must be ambitious [I saw several heads nod then] and must believe in our ability to triumph over potential discrimination. Fortunately for me, she agreed with her father’s assessment (or I wouldn’t be here).

Here’s the second current example of gay, lesbian, bi and transpeople, being under-employed: In my current role at IBM, recently, I designed and facilitated a GLBT Leadership Development Workshop for 30 openly-G-L-B-or-T high-potential IBM leaders from around the world. Their managers and the people who reported to them completed anonymous surveys on their IBM leadership competencies and “Influence through expertise” was the Competency, where they most needed to improve; that Competency is all about being recognized at IBM – and externally – for our thought leadership, or not. Please keep in mind that this was just 30 leaders, most of whom had been working for a decade or more, as opposed to being new-hires, who might have a different mentality, and I hope that’s the case…but still, I was struck that this was the Competency, where we needed improvement. To me, it meant that the 30 leaders were not yet as bold in demonstrating our expertise in our business and technical leadership as our non-GLBT counterparts. Being seen as a thought leader is a giant component of reaching the top rungs of the leadership ladder, so there still is work to do.

On the upside, the IBM Competencies at which these leaders most excelled included “Collaborate globally” and “Build mutual trust.” There is no research on it, but my hypothesis is that the leaders are seen as excellent at these Competencies, since our bicultural perspective makes us adept at collaborating across cultures, and since *when* we are open about our sexual orientation and/or gender identity and expression, people feel trusted and return our trust. Does that hypothesis, or hypotheses, make sense to you? [Pause for answer. They agreed.]

Speaking of surveys, let’s talk about the anonymous survey you should have received prior to this session. I know it came while you were studying for and taking midterm exams and I hope your exams went well for you. Due to the timing of the survey, we received relatively few responses, but it’s quality, not quantity! Let’s review them, and as time allows, feel free to answer live, here as well, if you feel comfortable doing so.

1. How do you identify? Select all that apply: student, faculty member, administrator, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, heterosexual, scientist, technical professional, engineer, mathematician, other: _________________.
2. Explain your culture's influence on your personal / professional identity; specify your particular culture (e.g., your native country; ethnicity; religion; and/or whichever elements you identify as part of your culture…).
3. How do you express your personal / professional identity, using social technologies (e.g., Twitter; blogs; YouTube; podcasts; Facebook; LinkedIn; others…)? Be specific.
4. How important is it to you to be open about your sexual orientation and/or gender identity and expression, and why? Totally; Very; Neutral; Somewhat; Not important. Please explain your selection
5. Have you faced discrimination because of your sexual orientation or gender identity and expression? Yes, as a GLBT person; Yes as a Heterosexual person; No. If Yes, please share whatever details you are comfortable providing.
6. If you have you studied abroad, were you active in the local GLBT community to any degree? Yes, as a GLBT person; Yes, as an ally / supporter of GLBT people; No; Not Applicable. If you have studied abroad, in which city/cities and country/countries did you study?
7. If, for your post-graduation job, you were offered a six-month international assignment in a country, where homosexual activity was illegal, what would you do and why?
8. In preparing for your career, how do you determine the employers that are most welcoming to GLBT and GLBT-friendly people? Check all that apply: Word of mouth; The employer's web site; Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) Corporate Equality Index. Which employers seem to be the GLBT-friendliest in your experience so far?
9. Do you see your sexual orientation and/or gender identity & expression as a potential barrier to realizing your deepest ambitions?
10. What does success look like to you?

If I had been responding to this survey as a senior at Michigan, even though I felt so unsure of what I wanted to do for my career then, the last question, about what success looks like to me, would have been a similar answer to the one I'd give today, fortunately: to have stable love and stable work to make me much richer than I'd be without either one.

We haven’t talked much yet about stable work. In your case, most of you, I hope, will not need to work full-time until you graduate, so I’m probably one of the people in the room with the greatest amount of work experience, though a number of you might have been entrepreneurs from an early age and so the number of years you’ve been working might come close to mine. Is there anyone like that in the room, who invented something very early on and sold it commercially? I remember from the survey that at least one of you is a game designer. [Pause for answers. One of the participants said, “No. I wish I were that cool.” No one else claimed to have commercialized a product or service to date.]

Well, if you like, I can share a number of experiences, where I was able to successfully integrate my personal and professional identities, as it might spark your imagination on how to integrate yours, even if the examples I give per se don’t seem like ones you would want to experience yourselves. May I? [Pause for answer. They agreed. (There’s a best practice when presenting that one shouldn’t speak for more than three minutes consecutively without asking a question that participants can answer, i.e., rhetorical questions don’t really count, and so that was part of my logic in asking for their permission, but also, sincerely I wanted to determine their interest-level.)]

Thanks. The one great thing about the first job I had out of school – the one I mentioned, where I was under-employed – was that it got me invited to work on the TV show I mentioned, which I’d never have been otherwise. Pam McDonald, a friend I made, volunteering on the hotline at Chicago’s GLBT Center, said, “You work in video and TV, right?”

“Not really. I sell videos, audios and transcripts of TV news to PR and legal departments.”

Even so, Pam invited me to the first meeting of “The 10% Show” and since it was all-volunteer, and since she and I were two of three lesbians to show up, and probably because I had no actual camera or editing skills like the other two women, I was invited to co-anchor the show. I relished the opportunity. The best part of the show was that it taught me that I was part of a rich culture. Till then, the only sense of the culture I’d gleaned was through reading lesbian fiction and through the social aspect, which I had come to know only through going to lesbian bars in Chicago.

“The 10% Show” enabled me to interview the filmmaker of a documentary on a self-identified Kentucky drag-queen; the author David Leavitt; the producer let me crew for the interview of Robert Ford, publisher of “Thing,” a ‘zine written for and by Black gay men; produce a segment on a lesbian kiss-in at Water Tower Place in Chicago and so much more. Doing that work after hours and on weekends helped me see that my lesbian identity made me a member of a rich culture just as my Jewish identity did. Up until then, I knew only about Jewish culture. Both gave me pride, which made up for feeling so different. In the survey, one of you mentioned that you didn’t know anything about being gay till you got to the States. Can you relate to what I’m saying? Can others? Do you recognize a GLBT culture yet?

[Pause for answers. One participant answered that he related to the idea of a GLBT culture in terms of the sheer diversity of gay, lesbian, bi and transpeople he met at the University of Michigan, compared to where he grew up, where there was just one openly gay guy in high school – and it wasn’t him.]

In 1990, thanks to my girlfriend at the time getting an interview for me, I joined what had been the technology arm of Sears as a technical writer before it became a joint venture of IBM and Sears, and that’s how I got started, working for technology companies.

The way I got started, thinking about using my personal identity to enrich my professional identity came from joining the National Organization of Gay, Lesbian, Bi and Trans Scientists and Technical Professionals not long after joining Sears Technology – and that organization is the reason I’m with you today, since Gary had advertised in the e-bulletin that he was looking for a speaker. I found my first openly gay friend at IBM through that organization, Rob Shook. Both of us are still at IBM and Rob remains a premier mentor for me.

If I boiled down my career to its essence, I’d say I used my:

1. Sexual orientation as a differentiator to help clients and my employer succeed
2. Bicultural, or multicultural perspective (Lesbian, Jewish, American) to promote cultural intelligence among my colleagues globally
3. Web-affinity and visibility advocacy to apply technology to social learning, again to help our leaders.

When I interviewed to join IBM’s Center for Advanced Learning, I told Ian Bird, the London-based manager I now report to, that I’d been helping build online communities since 1997 – and that the one I helped build in ’97 was for IBM’s gay, lesbian, bi and trans population, since we needed a way to find one another. It was one of my selling-points, that I understood how to give online communities what they needed, and how to help them flourish. The principles that work for the GLBT online community also work for the online Technical Leadership Exchange (or TLE) Community, and the IBM Manager Community, that is, connecting to, and learning from one another’s experience.

It’s my privilege to help our technical leaders and business leaders of all sexual orientations and gender identities and expressions to learn from one another. Remember, I also said that the volunteer work I did in Chicago’s GLBT Community with “The 10% Show” sowed the seeds for what I’ve achieved at IBM around communities and visibility. This past summer, I moderated a panel of three IBM technical leaders from Vancouver, Haifa and San Jose, through live video, streaming over the web and it was like being on the TV show again.

In my current role, I think of online social learning as an equality-agent. Everyone has a chance to shine online, whereas traditional hierarchies, shyness and a fear of standing out sometimes impede a number of colleagues from expressing their good ideas. Can you relate to this notion of online social learning, being democratic? [Pause for answers. One of the participants responded that he felt that online, he had a better opportunity to control his image, since he could take time to craft what he wanted to say by contrast to how awkward he sometimes feels when speaking live. His point was that his online presence gave him an advantage to balance out the occasional disadvantage he felt offline. That was his interpretation of democracy. No one really questioned what I meant by “social learning” because I think they were simply thinking of social behavior online, which includes learning and socializing in parallel – unconsciously for them, and for most of us, I think.]

[Another student brought up friends of his who were applying to med schools, who had two different Facebook accounts, to ensure they wouldn’t be disqualified by the less inhibited version of their profile. Predictably, this was the most lively part of the dialogue, as everyone there engaged in social networking; Forty percent of the participants and I became Facebook friends within 48 hours of the session. None, yet, has asked me to join his or her LinkedIn network.]

To finish our session together, I’d like to show you a couple of collages of some favorite professional moments that were personally meaningful. And I have a tips sheet that we’ll hand out in a bit. Also, at the end of the session, please also take a few minutes to complete a quick feedback survey. [Show collages.]

[They recognized the three IBM alumni in the pictures, but not that all of them were IBM alumni: transgender activist, Kate Bornstein; New York Times best-selling author of blessed memory, E. Lynn Harris; and Edie Windsor, the first openly-lesbian IBMer, in the ‘60s; one of the participants said he had just read an article about the documentary they made on her partner and her. By coincidence, the following day, while in the airport on my way home, I read a letter to the editor of “The New York Times” by Edie Windsor, about how if she had been the legal spouse of her female partner, she would not have had to pay $350,000 as an estate tax, just like any wife would not pay upon her husband’s death. It felt like a sign that I was doing something meaningful in making this trip, which on and off seemed to pale compared to the cool Watson saga on “Jeopardy.” On Night 2 of the Jeopardy series, the night before I flew, I remember thinking, I wish I were one of the IBMers who had been brilliant enough to work on the Watson project, but then I had to acknowledge that all of us can make a difference from whatever our vantage point, and this was what I could do; I could encourage up-and-coming talent. In one of the feedback forms, a participant responded to “What did you take away from this session?” as follows:

“A good understanding of how my place in life fits into a greater LGBT life. Lets me calm down and enjoy life.”]

When I spoke of the suffering I endured while cementing my identity, I need to admit that it wasn’t pure suffering. Some of that time was fun, and I hope you feel the same way about your time at Michigan; it’s hard and fun, and ultimately, I wish all of you great success by your definition.
* * *
Seven Tips for Integrating Personal & Professional Identities and How I Can Become Your Agent

1. Look for love in the right places, among people you respect and who respect you, including:
• Romantic love
• Familial Love.
2. Volunteer in your community until, & after, you land your dream-job:
• You will discover talents and interests you were unaware of
• Confidence grows with positive volunteer-experiences.
3. Find role models and mentors, including:
• Faculty
• Internship managers
• GLBT professionals.
4. Let your sexual orientation and/or gender identity be an innovation engine; use your bicultural perspective to collaborate with others globally to hatch new ideas
5. Work for an organization that welcomes you to be yourself, e.g.:
• Apply to join IBM (see below)
• See HRC’s Corporate Equality Index for other ideal workplaces
• Connect with GLBT, seasoned professionals on LinkedIn (e.g., me) and check their networks re: to whom they could introduce you.
6. Be open to travel for your studies and work, and get comfortable with respecting local norms while helping build local GLBT communities:
• Confirm organizations’ global non-discrimination policy
• Contact me if you would like a copy of “Top Tips for Prospective International Assignees,” which includes tips for GLBT assignees.
7. Use social technologies to advance your learning at work and to build your global, personal and professional network, e.g., join Friends and Family of GLBT IBMers on Facebook or follow IBM GLBT on Twitter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Go to http://ibm.com/jobs
2. Click on “Search for Jobs at IBM”
3. Select “Register new account,” if you haven’t already done so
4. Apply for any jobs that appeal to you
5. Send your resume and the job number(s) for which you’ve applied to Sarah Siegel at....

I will look up the hiring manager and put in a good word, so that your application will jump the queue.

Handsful of Heroes

2011-02-19T18:07:00.004-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Daloz Says That a Mentor Is Someone Who Has Been There Before You

Mentors for me, whether or not they know they are, include:

My sisters, Deborah and Kayla, both older than I -- girls can do anything
My mother -- Jews can do anything
My father of blessed memory -- Creative souls can do anything
Aunt Tovah of blessed memory -- women can do anything
Dr. Barbara Sang -- lesbian women can do anything
Jane Harper -- people can do anything
Rob Shook -- I can do anything
Carol Vericker -- I can be a leader
Mike Fuller -- I can help IBM do anything in behalf of gay, lesbian, bi and trans clients and colleagues
Edie Windsor -- Lesbians at IBM in the '60s can do anything
Lynn Conway -- MTF women can do anything
Kate Bornstein -- MTF people can love anyone and then also can raise my consciousness about the not necessarily binary quality of gender.

I'm grateful to all of my mentors, all of whom are heroes to me.

Treasuring My Heritage Today

2011-02-13T19:54:00.000-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

So Lucky to Be Participating First-hand in Jewish and GLBT Culture

This morning, a gay Moroccan guy who is just out of high school found me on Facebook through his bisexual female friend, who had found me a couple of weeks ago -- not sure how. I accepted the friendship request of both.

Within the same hour, I received e-mail from a friend I'd known when I lived in Chicago, Rabbi Benay Lappe, who was inviting me to enroll in a Talmud course at Svara, a traditionally radical yeshiva, i.e., one that is inclusive of openly G, L, B and T students and teachers.

The Moroccan guy's photos included cartoons that were super-anti-Israel and my knee-jerk reaction was to "unfriend" him and then I decided to steel myself and leave it alone. I have four generations of Israeli family and while I am disappointed by Israel at its worst, I love Israel at its best. I decided not to "unfriend" him because both of us have an opportunity to see each other as human, rather than as any sort of enemies.

Before any of these e-encounters occurred this morning, I was already feeling grateful this weekend for my bicultural heritage. Why? Pat & I saw "I Can't Think Straight" on Friday, which features a Palestinian Muslim woman from Jordan and an Indian Muslim woman, who meet in London and fall in love, which I doubt we'd have seen if we weren't lesbian -- wouldn't have heard of it, and it was terrific -- and then on Saturday, I met my mom, two older sisters, brothers-in-law, three nephews and niece for a scholar in residence program all day, by Rahel Musleah, featuring the Jews of India. Rahel taught us Jewish Indian tunes, showed us pictures of a world that's mostly gone, read beautiful memoirish passages and brought the world she came from back to life in the middle of a Reform temple in Stamford, Connecticut.

The movie on Friday, then the program at the temple on Saturday added so much richness to my life, and I'd also never have heard Rahel's program if I'd not been Jewish.

Thank you, God, for making me who I am and for showing me the cool parts of my identity along with the challenging parts.

College Playlist

2011-02-04T21:22:00.001-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Selected Songs that Moved Me When I Lived in Ann Arbor, Jerusalem and Chicago, '83-'87

1983:
Let's Dance
All Night Long

1984:
Owner of a Lonely Heart
Let's Hear It for the Boy
What's Love Got to Do Have to Do with It

1985:
I Want to Know What Love Is
Crazy for You
Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Shout
Oh Sheila
Take On Me
We Built This City
Broken Wings

1986:
Kyrie
Rock Me Amadeus
Holding Back the Years
Higher Love
Venus
When I Think of You
Breakout

1987:
Head to Toe
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Who's That Girl
Lost in Emotion
What Have I Done to Deserve This
When Smokey Sings
Don't Disturb This Groove

Witnessing 1/5 of #IBM100 History...

2011-01-21T18:36:00.004-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

...Practically First-hand

Our rabbi likes to use the occasion of High Holiday services, which our synagogue hosts at the Javits Center in NYC, to remind us to be awed by being part of something so much larger than ourselves, rather than being alienated by it. She asks us to look around the mammoth space where our services are held and somehow helps us feel akin with the thousands of worshipers that opt in to these services.

This past July, just 10 days after my 45th birthday, my IBM service counted for 20 years; I was with a joint-venture till '96, but IBM's influence was giant there, too. When it became a joint-venture, for example, all of the sudden, there were learning options galore. The prior company, on its own, sent me to one class in three years, to learn to use a text-processing product for writing my EDI user guides.

Rabbi Kleinbaum's talent for warming up a crowd of thousands comes to mind as I consider IBM's Centennial year, which is starting to be celebrated today. There are ~400,000 IBMers worldwide. Oy! So big! How do we not all get lost?

Picture a really, really, really huge virtual Javits Center, with a mashup of the enormously charismatic IBM leaders from around the world, plus a phenomenally large quorum of warm, interesting, global colleagues and I can't help but feel awed, rather than alienated when I consider the company I work for.

It's the same company that said yes to my helping start up a first-of-its-kind business development team, serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) B2B market; the team celebrates its first decade this year...the same company that sent me to India for six months to help design and deliver accelerated leadership development learning to the region's GM and his direct reports, including a spousal allowance for my female partner, Pat, who accompanied me...the same company whose global non-discrimination policy protected and welcomed Pat and me within IBM's four walls throughout our Indian sojourn...the same company that is sponsoring my part-time Master's at Columbia University's Teachers College...the same company that encourages its employees to engage in social learning online, both internally and externally through blogging services like this one from Google, and through Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook...and it's the same company that has enabled me to make real/true global friends including from Austria, China, United Arab Emirates, Israel, India, Japan, United States, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, South Africa, Italy, Canada, UK, Thailand....

Too bad for the weather and inertia that keeps my partner and me from heading out to Shabbat (Sabbath) services this eve, but I'll still end now to begin enjoying Shabbat at home with Pat and our two, sweet cats anyhow. No doubt, alas, it will be TV-and-online-community-infused, rather than liturgy/music/f2f-community infused relaxation, but we'll still take it on this windy winter metro-NY night.

I'll repeat my YouTube comment, which I posted upon seeing the film that's accessible from here:

"I'm an IBMer. That means that I get to make my good ideas real, and I get to be myself in all my humanity...."

Favorite Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Films

2011-01-09T15:08:00.001-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Reprinting from GLBT IBMers & Friends Community Behind IBM's Firewall

This weekend, a Brazilian, female colleague posted, "Off-work Topic: What are your interests when not working?"

A Peruvian, male colleague and I have answered so far. Here's my response:

Other than spending time w/my partner and other family & friends, I like to swim, watch TV, go to museums and plays, and blog, micro-blog (tweet via Twitter) and keep track of Facebook. Just now also exploring quora.com.

As far as GLBT films go, my favorites include (warning: I'm giving away some of the plots here):

* "Desert Hearts" - a female Columbia Univ. professor goes to Nevada for a quick divorce in the '50s and meets a charming cowgirl - thrilling/charming
* "Southern Comfort" - a documentary, featuring a tragic love story between a transman & a transwoman in the U.S. South - heartbreaking
* "Fire" - Two Indian women discover each other during unhappy marriages - mesmerizing, sad and hopeful
* "Julie Johnson" - An American housewife in the '90s falls for her best friend - super-poignant in its simplcity
* "Show Me Love" - Two Swedish high school girls fall in love - a fairytale, since one is the popular girl and the other the nerd - darling/sweet, hopeful, charming
* "Milk" - Features the life & untimely death of the closest leader that the GLBT community has had yet to Dr. Martin Luther King, worldwide - sad and inspirational
* "Hannah Free" - About an independent American woman and the married woman she falls for in the '40s or '50s, flashed back to from a nursing home setting, where both now live - sweet
* "Prodigal Sons" - a documentary about an American transwoman and her mentally ill brother - clever, disturbing, and all should see it
* "A World Unseen" - Two Muslim Indian women -- one married with two kids -- discover each other in Apartheid South Africa - sad, thrilling and semi-hopeful
* "Maurice" - Edwardian schoolmates at Cambridge fall in love and one marries - romantic and sad
* "Brokeback Mountain" - Two U.S. cowboys -- one married -- fall in love - tragic, including for the wife.

What the Samoyed Taught Me (Again) Today

2011-01-01T15:29:00.001-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

A Perfect Lesson for 1/1/11

I'm barreling down our quiet street, where a neighbor got the city to post a "Slow...Children..." sign last year, when I see a neighbor, walking her dog. I slow down, at first a bit annoyed that she doesn't try to move over -- though, where's she gonna go, given the banked snow on either side of the road -- when I notice that the dog is harnessed to a back-set of big cart-wheels.

The dog is as white as the still-pure parts of the snow, which blankets the middle of people's lawns -- a beautiful Samoyed whose hind legs are swinging to and fro while the dog trots along on his or her front paws. I stop the car completely and watch from behind how jaunty the dog is. The dog is having a ball. Apparently half-paralyzed, he or she is thrilled to be out for a walk, no matter the conditions.

The dog reminded me to be patient about getting from here to there, and grateful and joyous at what I've got already: love, companionship, sufficient mobility, spirit....

Michigan: Day One Memories

2010-12-31T19:08:00.001-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Poem

Never saw the country west of
Pennsylvania prior to Day One of
My Freshman year in Ann Arbor.

Do you also try to be reminded of
More familiar people, places et al
When you are in a strange environment?

State Street reminded me of a patch of
Downtown New Canaan -- just for a moment --
And that calmed me.

Where are you from? So many held up hands
Like Mittens and pointed to a spot with
Their other hand.

Benton Harbor...Birmingham...Bloomfield Hills...
No suburbs I'd ever heard of. What was I doing
There?

Michigan was more foreign to me than Israel,
where I had a grandmother, aunt and many cousins.
Michigan squirrels had dark-orange-ish, not gray, fur.

Filling Up on Memories With My Omelet & Soup

2010-12-30T17:58:00.003-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Fighting Wistfulness

My former classmate and Phil Jones Dance partner and I have lunch this afternoon; at 12, we took lessons in preparation for many upcoming Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, and for life. We were also at the University of Michigan at the same time, but I don't have much memory of that till he reminds me:

"The last time I saw you was in 1985, in the Fishbowl [the all-glass part of Mason Hall in Ann Arbor]. You seemed really uncomfortable; in fact, whenever I ran into you on campus you seemed uncomfortable, but that day, you were with some girls and one of them --"

"-- had a mullet?"

"Yes, and one's hair was multicolored."

"Well, the one with the mullet is a guy now." (Not sure he's heard me.) "Really. He was a guy back then, too; he's transgender, but hadn't yet transitioned and I didn't know then, but yeah, that was really awkward, seeing you then."

He nods acknowledgment and then says, "You know, if you hadn't acted so odd, I'd have never guessed about you, but since you did, I realized [that you were a lesbian], and thought, She probably doesn't want her mom to know, and I never told a soul."

"Well, you were who I was supposed to want -- you, a good-looking, smart, nice, tall, Jewish man and so of course, I felt awkward."

He's flattered, but what is there to say in response?

Our Dads (z"l)

Both of them died at 56, of the identical, rare cancer. We agree that we became adults overnight at the time. His dad (z"l) died in '88, when he was 22 and mine (z"l), in '82, when I was 17 -- right around the same time of year, within two weeks of each other. I sit there, feeling jealous and competitive; at least his dad saw him graduate from high school and college.

Overall...

He is a gentleman, a mensch.

I have yet to regret getting together with anyone from my Stamford past.

This lunch, plus Teena Marie's passing earlier this week, are making me feel tons of pre-teen and adolescent memories. I'd rather feel my feelings than ignore them, I guess. How can I channel them for further good, though?

Teena Marie: Magic

2010-12-27T15:35:00.001-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Need to Photograph, Scan & Post My Roller Skates in Tribute

Teena Marie, who died at only 54 last night, was among the best musical reasons to go on when I was a teenager.

Her music was the soundtrack for so much of my rollerskating, and then rollerblading, solo-sessions from 13-27. Moving to her music on or off my skates, she made me feel romantic, joyful, soulful, even beautiful, and in good company....If she could sing this great music that played mostly on "urban contemporary," i.e., Black radio stations, then it also made sense that I, a Jewish girl in the suburbs, loved listening to it.

This feels like when Aaliyah died, since I love both of their voices, but Teena Marie's death reminds me that my adolescence definitely has passed.

Comfort-Kitty

The thing about cats is that they don't comfort their human parents reliably the way that dogs are famous for doing. I'm just lucky that it's warm behind the computer and Phoebe's little face is facing me while I grieve and write and listen to a YouTube Teena Marie playlist in parallel.

In tribute, I'll re-post a Facebook note I responded to here:

My Life as Teena Marie Song-titles
by Sarah Siegel on Sunday, July 12, 2009 at 9:35am

"Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to 15 people you like (or think will actually do this) and tag me. Try not to repeat a song title. It's harder than you think."

Your Artist: Teena Marie

Are you male or female: If I Were a Bell

Describe yourself: Ooh Wee

How do you feel about yourself: Still in Love

Describe where you currently live: Out on a Limb

The first thing you think of when you wake up: It Must Be Magic

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Behind the Groove

Your favorite form of transportation: Don't Look Back

Your best friend is: You're All the Boogie I Need

Your favorite color is: Midnight Magnet

What's the weather like: 14K

If your life were a TV show, what would it be called: Ooo La La La

What is life to you: Squarebiz

What is the best advice you have to give: Work It

If you could change your name, what would it be: A Rose by Any Other Name

Your favorite food is: I Need Your Lovin'

How I would like to die: Just Us Two

My soul's present condition: Jammin'

The faults I can bear: Young Love

How would you describe your love life: Since Day One

What are you going to post this as: My Life as Teena Marie Song-titles

Prepping for oSTEM at U of M Remarks

2010-12-26T20:00:00.005-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Cannot Reminisce Tiresomely; Rather, Must Give Them What They Need

Here I was at 21, appearing in my college yearbook. I wanted to look sporty and pretty at once. No more wearing feminine stuff just to fit in. I wore a navy-blue Michigan hoody sweatshirt over a turquoise, tropical shirt and completed the look with a doubled strand of translucent, plastic, magenta beads 'cause for the first time ever, no one was there to suggest an outfit for my yearbook picture; as someone who had just finally opened up publicly about my sexual orientation during senior year, unwittingly, yet apparently, I was going for a butch-femme blend....Well, I can reminisce tiresomely here, but not at the oSTEM at U of M session.

oSTEM stands for Out in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (as in, out about one's sexual orientation and/or gender identity). How did *I* a Comparative Literature major come to be speaking to such a student group about six weeks from now? How did I come to be working for technology companies for 20+ years, practically my entire career so far? In my experience, like with learning, the most interesting outcomes in life tend to be incidental.

Meandering through my undergrad years, I had no idea what my career would be; I knew just that I wished it could include writing and that I could make good money at it. Since I didn't have the particular talent for screenwriting or blockbuster-best-seller writing, good money and writing struck me as mutually exclusive...till an ex-girlfriend -- she was a current girlfriend at the time -- introduced me to the tech. writing profession. And that's how I got my start....

What I want to ask the undergrads who attend my session

On a scale of 1-5, with 5 being most integrated, how integrated do you already feel your personal and professional identities are?
Have you met the love of your life here at Michigan, or while in college?
Are you out to your family?
Have you studied abroad? If so, where?
Are you open to going on an international assignment for your job?
What does your research or word of mouth tell you are the LGBT-friendliest companies or organizations to work for?
Do you see your sexual orientation or gender identity & expression as a potential barrier to realizing your deepest ambition? Why or why not?
Are you open about your sexual orientation at your internship or current part-time job if you have one?
Do you plan to be out about your identity from Day One on your post-graduation job?
What does success look like to you?

If I had answered some of these questions at their age, #1 would have been, "1," as I had zero professional identity then, unless you count the temp jobs I had, doing office-work during school-breaks....It never occurred to me to find a co-op job at a company like IBM; #2 would have been, "Yes," and would have been incorrect; and I would responded yes for #3, as I came out to my family during senior year. Question #6 was not even in the realm of my imagination back then; and paradoxically, considering I felt so unsure of what I wanted to do for my career, #10 would have been a similar answer to the one I'd give today, fortunately: to have stable love and stable work to make me much richer than I'd be without either one.

If I Were a 17-year-old Boy

2010-12-23T11:01:00.002-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Boy? Man? Guy.

First, I wouldn't want to be called a boy. Second...how do novelists do it? I'm having a failure of imagination. I can picture only what I *was* like, as a 17-year-old girl:

I was amorous and lonely; grief-stricken at my dad's death on November 1st of my senior year; and an active dancer among my friends at high school dances. Fortunately, we went as a group and danced as a group.

At 17, I had a girlfriend and a boyfriend and the boyfriend did not know about the girlfriend, but the girlfriend -- and my mother -- knew about both. A tumultuous existence. I felt money-strapped and privileged; and smart finally, but half-hearted about school once my dad died. I was anxious about which college(s) would accept me, or not, and wanted to be out of the house without knowing how challenging that would be, having lived there for a solid 18 years.

I was furtive and gregarious. Kind and fake. Prudish publicly and hyper-sexual privately. Active with skiing and with eating as much candy and junk as I could bare, and more. Luckily, my metabolism is so fast that I didn't need to vomit. "Don't drink. Don't smoke. What do you do?" From an Adam Ant song that was popular then....

I wanted love and security and to be a star, but of what, I wasn't sure. All of this occurs to me as I get ready to spend the afternoon in Manhattan with my 17-year-old nephew Zach.

Another Kind of Coming Out During This Season of Giving

2010-12-19T17:20:00.009-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Re-posted from the GLBT IBMers & Friends Community Behind IBM's Firewall

I almost didn't go. Ultimately, I became convinced to show up by reminding myself how much I had enjoyed every other event I'd ever been to that had been hosted by Thinking Out Loud, a lesbian professional group that had been started by some great women at Ernst & Young in New York City.

December 15th, all day, was a busy time at work -- when isn't it? -- and yet I deserved the gift of seeing the group; I'd had a work-meeting conflict with the prior event this past spring and wanted not to miss another one. The invitation went, "Being near the holidays, we thought it timely to talk about women and our role as LGBT leaders in giving back. Our guests to lead the conversation will be Ellen Glazerman, who heads EY’s foundation, and Jane Canner, president of non-profit, Classroom Inc."

Maybe all of you are super-open about your philanthropic inclinations, but historically, I've only told if asked, and hardly anyone has ever asked.

There was a smaller crowd than usual, perhaps due to the bitter cold, or the less central location this time, or that others felt similarly shy about discussing how they gave philanthropically, but in any case, 10 of us introduced ourselves, including:

* For which firm we worked
* To which GLBT organizations we contributed.

Nine other women listened to, or at least witnessed, my list: "[In terms of the GLBT Community,] I give to NCLR [the National Center for Lesbian Rights] through United Way, and we give to Lambda Legal and to our GLBT synagogue, Beit Simchat Torah, and that's it." (We give the token donation here or there, when asked, e.g., to AIDS rides, but I was referring to Pat's and my mutually-designated organizations.)

Ellen Glazerman of EY quoted the Institute for Gay & Lesbian Strategic Studies and a Harris Poll, saying, "Gay donors tend to give 2.5% of personal income..." compared with "...the general population, which tends to give 2.2%...." GLBT people give it, she continued, as follows: 25% to GLBT issues; 23% to political party/candidate; 22% say it's important to give to politicians who support us.

She also told us that a Denver-based research organization, Ordinary Magic, stated, "20% of lesbians surveyed said they didn't give because they weren't asked..." and that openly-lesbian and openly-gay people give more than those who are not out.

IBM, like most firms, I'd guess, has a no solicitation policy, and this blog-entry [remember, this blog-entry is also sitting behind the IBM firewall, on an IBM server] is not a specific solicitation, certainly. It's more so another coming out on my part.

Like sexual orientation, historically, money-topics have been a bit taboo, depending on the people you're with and I guess I'm challenging the taboo with this entry.

Annually, for years, my IBM colleague, David Chase, has done the most constructive thing related to this charitable giving topic. He has informed U.S.-based IBMers of the GLBT organizations already on IBM's United Way list, and also has provided guidelines on how to apply to have a favorite GLBT organization added, if it is not already there.

After the session ended, I confessed to one of the participants that I almost didn't come because I was uncomfortable with talking about my charitable giving.

She was compassionate in response. Finally, I was glad I went because like with any truth-telling, I felt less heavy afterward.

Lebowitz, de Rossi, and Wright

2010-11-28T10:19:00.009-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

My Heroes & Sex Objects Lately

This morning, I woke up, feeling stirred by all three of these women, Portia de Rossi, Fran Lebowitz and Chely Wright -- moved, aroused, compassionate, reverent, coveting them and their talent. I find it much easier to write here on Jewish themes than on lesbian themes. Jewish themes, for me, are connected to my upbringing and family of origin and a well-established, relatively famous culture.

Lesbian themes often are connected to my desires and typically, feel too hot to touch publicly. Non-queer friends could argue, so are themes on sexuality of any sort. And that's true. That is, who am I to write about desire beyond a private journal? The facile, political response is that I want visibility for lesbians; I want us to have a voice, to have our humanity acknowledged -- I want people to understand that typically, lesbian identity includes a sexual component; we spend so much time, trying to get people to stop fixating only on the sexual aspect of homosexuality that I fear we silence it and ourselves. We want the "right" sort of positive attention.

The fully genuine answer is hinted at in a blog-entry from two years ago. I want to be as honest in my writing as Fran Lebowitz, Portia de Rossi and Chely Wright are in theirs. All of these women are intensely sexy to me because they are gifted artistically and vulnerable in their art, enabling me to relate to them; they are also visually appealing in very different ways. Fran Lebowitz is magnetic sartorially; Portia de Rossi has a gorgeous, warm smile and Chely Wright, a beautiful, soulful face.

Last night, my partner Pat and I watched "Public Speaking," the documentary on Fran Lebowitz. As much as I'm in awe of her wit, I don't want to take the advice of a writer who has said she suffers from "writer's blockade," when she says that not everyone should write -- that culture should not be a democracy, but rather, there's, "...a natural aristocracy of talent."

By contrast, a friend who's been published by "The New Yorker," once told me that she thinks everyone should be encouraged to write because really, what's the harm in it? They're not hurting anyone, sitting alone and writing. In that spirit, I maintain this blog.

Also, late last night, I finished reading Portia de Rossi's memoir. I had never seen her act till looking her up on YouTube this morning. She's good.

Likewise, I had never seen Chely Wright sing till her memoir and she came out. I've always favored R&B music, but I liked the songs I saw on YouTube and became a total fan while reading her story.

How I relate to each of these women:

Fran Lebowitz -- We're Jewish; took longer than we might have to become openly lesbian; felt out of place in formal school environments when we were young -- and she did permanently; grew up in the Tri-State (NY, NJ, CT) area; suffer on and off from writer's block; enjoy well-made clothes; are talkative; have no children.

Portia de Rossi -- We're tall (I'm 5'9.5" and she's 5'8"); she lost her father when she was young (younger than I; she was nine and I was 17); growing up, had romantic crushes on some of our best female friends; for comfort, turned to excess food -- in my case, from childhood through my 20s, though never was bulimic, since my metabolism still was so fast, didn't need to purge to ward off obesity; heard, and sometimes still hear, negative voices in my head about my appearance, even though objectively, I'm attractive -- in my case, I heard self-criticism on the size of my breasts and my androgyny; found love unexpectedly with a funny, kind woman who loves animals; have no children.

Chely Wright -- We're lesbians who realized our attraction to girls at a young age, she at nine, according to her memoir, and I at 11; we've felt we had to exile ourselves from our hometown and home region for a period, living in regions that were totally remote from our experience; growing up, she did not know from NYC and I had not been west of Pennsylvania till college; have no children.

The magic of writing is that I can say what I would be too shy to say if I were making eye-contact with anyone; that's its chief appeal to me. These women are heroes because I need heroes. I tend to stand up visibly as my lesbian self in most situations, hoping I'm helping someone somewhere by my openness, and it's comforting to see other women who are willing, also, to be visible. Their visibility as much as their talent and looks makes them desirable to me.

Shakespeare, the Torah & Therapeutic Avatars

2010-11-25T11:48:00.001-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Even I Don't Know Where This is Going

I just know that beginning last Saturday, I thought of the first two, established powerhouses, and two days ago, "The Science Times" reminded me of the potentially therapeutic power of virtual-world-based avatars. Maybe I'll make a connection among the three before this blog-entry is done. Suddenly, I have an image of the avatar versions of Shakespeare, Juliet and Joseph & his dreamcoat....

Last Saturday night, Dr. Eleanor Ehrenkranz got me thinking about shared themes in the Torah and Shakespeare's plays. Dr. Ehrenkranz was a featured teacher at a lecture series, which my mom invited my sisters and our families to attend with her on her birthday. The series had many lecture-topics to choose from, including, "E.T. Torah: What Does Judaism Say about Life on Other Planets? Do We Care?" but we could participate only in two of them, since they were concurrent, so we went to the ones my mom attended, namely the one on Shakespeare and a second one, "500 Years of Hiding: The Lives of the Secret Jews" by Dr. Andrée Aelion Brooks.

During Dr. Ehrenkranz's interactive lecture, if I remember correctly, she spoke of envy/jealousy as the world's most destructive emotion. Earlier in my M.A. pursuit, I blogged about envy, essentially agreeing with Dr. Ehrenkranz, especially in the written-comments-exchange I had with my classmate Zdravko, the object of my envy, following the blog-entry.

The morning after the lecture -- I got home after midnight -- I heard from my partner Pat, who had to miss the whole day, since she lay in bed with a crippling cold; she said, "Envy might be the most destructive outward emotion, but shame is the most destructive inward one." In other words, envy is the most destructive, and shame, the most self-destructive.

Here's where therapeutic avatars might come in:

If, for example, I could go through 3D simulations, where I could experience vivid envy or shame in the safety of a therapist's office while interacting with some 3D automated character, maybe I could experience less of both emotions in the real-world, or be better equipped to handle those emotions.

Here's another possibility that seems more remote at this stage, but I'm prompted to explore it due to a hallway conversation I had with one of the people I met at the lecture series: trying out being an adoptive parent by caring for an adopted baby automated character. Talking with Pat at breakfast this morning in Green Bay, where we have visited her family every Thanksgiving for the past 19 years, I mentioned the idea of a parenting simulation, saying, "If people got to try it out ahead of time, nobody would have children."

"I think some people would like it; some people really want to have babies, whether adopted or organically," Pat answered.

Just when I am feeling some peace around our having chosen not to adopt, since I was unable to conceive by natural means after 18 months of trying, and since Pat, being 15 years older than I was too old to conceive a child by the time we agreed to try to have children, I have the following exchange and get a bit stirred up again:

I'm talking to a new acquaintance about how our 17-year-old nephew enjoyed the lecture on Shakespeare and the Torah and about how one of our 12-year-old nephews enjoyed learning to bake challah in one of the sessions.

"What about your family?" she asks.

"Oh, I don't have any children. My partner is female and I tried for awhile [via anonymous donor], but it didn't work and we didn't want to adopt. I wanted a 'little me.'"

"[Can't recall precisely what she said to encourage me to re-consider adopting, but then simply,] You're a beautiful woman," she said as she turned and walked away and I touched her shoulder gratefully as she departed.

Here's where Shakespeare and shame and envy and the Torah come back in:

I'm left, standing there, feeling positively recognized among this huge sample of humanity -- the whole parking lot was packed for this event -- while also wondering later, the usual chip on my shoulder returning, Did she mean, "You're a beautiful woman; it's a shame you are a lesbian and didn't have children?" or am I projecting? And I'm also standing there, feeling envious of my mother and of her, for having daughters to kvell over while I simply have nephews and a niece for whom I can take nearly zero credit.

Oh, well, it's time for the dessert reception, following the lectures. I enter the busy room and see one of our 12-year-old nephews, Sam, sitting at the "Young Jewish Professionals" table with his plate piled high with cheesecake and cookies. He is a skateboarder and drummer, and likely will burn off the calories of this plateful soon enough -- not that that's on his mind as a 12-year-old boy.

"Are you a young, Jewish professional?" I ask, crouching by his chair, not wanting to take another seat from the earnest, mostly appealing people seated across from us.

"I did a rap at my concert," he answers.

"Oh, great. I thought you were just playing the drums. Take me over to a corner of this room and do it for me."

Sam gets up instantly, abandoning the heaping plateful, and leads me to the quietest pocket of the room he can find. He begins. It's an onslaught of crazy-rhyming and I'm impressed at his memory-retention.

Kids used to memorize Shakespeare and recite patches of his plays; in fact, my mom's dad, who did not get to go to school beyond the 6th grade (a year behind the grade Sam and his twin-brother Max are in now) had sent my mom and her sister to Shakespeare lessons when they were girls.

Who knows? Maybe I'll be like Sarah in the Torah and have a child years from now. I wonder what kids will be reciting by then.

Passing the Parade By

2010-11-14T12:16:00.005-05:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Why the Crowds Didn't Love a "Parade"

Yesterday, Pat and I saw the astonishingly moving James Earl Jones in "Driving Miss Daisy." Who doesn't love a play that exposes stereotypes, letting the audience laugh along while seducing it into seeing how wrong they are? Who doesn't love a late-in-life, unlikely, beautiful friendship? According to the article linked to from Alfred Uhry's name below, Miss Daisy and the driver were inspired by Uhry's grandmother and her driver.

While raking leaves this morning, I told Pat that I thought Alfred Uhry's masterpiece so far was "Parade," which closed quickly, even though it won six Drama Desk Awards and two Tony Awards.

It demanded so much more from its audience than "Driving Miss Daisy." Based on the true story of the lynching of Leo Frank, it demo'ed a hierarchy of prejudices, at least regarding this particular case: In 1914 -- less than 50 years after the end of the Civil War -- apparently, it was worse to be a Northern Jew than a Southern, Black ex-convict.

Among the reasons to love Uhry is his fairness in parallel with his artistry: In "Driving Miss Daisy," Uhry doesn't let Daisy get away with kvetching about her childhood poverty to her driver and friend Hoke, who is Black. More than once, he reminds her, "But you doin' all right now," [compared with his family, all of whom grew up poor and could not rise in society due to their skin-color]. Likewise, in "Parade," Uhry has a number of the Black cast-members wonder aloud if there would have been so much visibility for the Leo Frank case if it had "just" been another Black man lynched, rather than a White man.

Turns out that Alfred Uhry's great-uncle owned the pencil factory that Leo Frank ran. And Uhry's grandmother was friends with the Frank family.

In both plays, Uhry, who is Jewish and who grew up in the South, does something else interesting: He has Northern and Southern Jews, expressing their alienation from one another; in "Driving Miss Daisy," in the '60s, Daisy's son's competition is a printing company run by "...a New York Jew." The son is concerned that clients could view his competitor as smarter than he, since "New York Jews" are smarter than Southern Jews, he says.

In "Parade," Uhry has Leo Frank, a New York Jew, expressing his culture shock at being in Atlanta, "How Can I Call This Home?" He sings that he's realized there's more to being Southern than simply living in the South. All of this just reminds me that there is no monolithic American, or Jewish-American culture...and I recall while living in India in 2007, being told that Northern Indians are different from Southern Indians. There are endless nuances and stark contrasts within cultures.

Culture, Friendship and Congregations Prevail

This weekend, I'm also reminded of the imminent opening of the new National Museum of American Jewish History, which I hope includes references to Uhry's plays. And I'm reminded of my Southern, Jewish friend, Robert Kingoff (z"l).

Robert and his family hailed from Wilmington, North Carolina and as I've written here before, the first and last time I had fried chicken for Shabbat dinner was at Robert's parents' house; chicken is a traditional entree in Jewish homes on Friday night, but frying it seemed to be a Southern touch. I miss Robert, who taught me about Southern, Gay, Jewish culture; he was taken by AIDS at 28, back when so many dear men were. I lost Robert, yet he remains with me.

More than two decades ago, on Robert's 25th birthday, he took us to see a favorite pop star, Grace Jones. I can't recall if she sang "La Vie En Rose", but life was rosy whenever Robert was around. He made me laugh and feel so much lighter during my early-20s, when I was sure of so little.

We weren't Miss Daisy and Hoke, but still, we were also perfect if unlikely friends brought together by necessary circumstances, i.e., both of us needed a way to celebrate Shabbat, where we felt most at home, which was at Or Chadash, Chicago's LGBT synagogue (which is also where I later met my beloved, Pat). Robert was in Chicago for law school and I was there because I wasn't yet ready to be myself in all my humanity back in metro-New York, where I had grown up.

We became family for each other, Robert and I -- a Southern, Gay Jew, and a Northern, Jewish lesbian -- super-tight and unexpected.

Unlike Miss Daisy's temple, our synagogue was not bombed, though Robert didn't live to hear the news several weeks ago of Or Chadash as a target of an explosive package.

Earlier this weekend, I tweeted, "The unlikely friendship of Miss Daisy & the driver reminds me to be grateful for the likely & surprising friendships I've made so far."

My unlikely Canadian friend and likely colleague Bernie asked in response, "Are you the driver or the passenger?"

"Both," I'd answer, as were they, and as are all friends and family.

Life & Death Cycling

2010-10-31T07:37:00.003-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

November 1st

We're not Christians and
My Dad's (z"l) death was not graceful.

That's not what is meant by All Saints Day,
But I'm taking poetic license.

Rather, 28 years ago, having declared
To my mom about his daughters:
"Where are the girls? I'm ready to go,"
He plunged into a coma and rattled his final breath
At 11:20ish pm on November 1st.

My friend Lynn's mom of blessed memory died this week
And I made a shiva call last night.

This morning, the symbolism of Lynn's vivid green blouse
Struck me and made me smile.

Lynn's dad, all in gray, sat like a solid mountain of grief
Friends and family, surrounding his foothills.
What did it mean, my being struck by the attractiveness of Lynn,
Her husband, brothers, son, niece and nephew?
Life pushes through, I guess, and I became alert to all of the life
Left behind by Lynn's mom (z"l), who was gorgeous, too.

Lynn is an artist and so was her mother. Lynn's mother (z"l) left a legacy of
Beauty.

My dad (z"l) left a legacy of...God, it was 28 years ago -- so what's still left,
and what's blisteringly fresh about his passing? My dad (z"l), an industrial designer,
who invented games and toys for a living, left a legacy of
Creativity.

Crazy Cat

2010-10-22T21:20:00.002-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Now What?

I didn't have pets, growing up. I didn't have children. Now, I have both, in the form of two American Tabbies.

And one of them is ill. Mentally.

The vet said we had four options if they didn't behave when we got them home:

Put them in his cat-condo for 12 hours and see if they re-bond
Give Toonces anti-anxiety medication, squirting it in her mouth daily
Keep the cats in separate parts of the house
"Adopt out" Toonces.

Minutes after our return, Tooncey's voice became surly and her ears and fur got ready to fight. We didn't let it go further. She's sleeping like an exhausted angel on the couch now. Like nothing is awry.

Dream-job Dreams

2010-10-21T23:57:00.001-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Note: Writing this made me realize: a) I enjoy many elements of my dream-job today; b) My favorite medium for work is all sorts of media.

Re-posted from My Entry on One HCM Global Community, LinkedIn

"a) an interest or passion that, when you engaged in it, makes you feel as though you are "living more fully than during the rest of life."

My most vivid life includes swimming, writing, laughing, rollerblading to late-70s-80s Disco; incidental and continuous learning; demonstrating my humanity and noticing others'; and being visible in a heroic role while encouraging would-be heroes to be visible. Specifically, I love interviewing heroes on camera; moderating live-event chats; hosting informal learning experiences that I've co-designed; being included in ad campaigns that advertise something I believe in; tweeting; blogging....

"b) a dream assignment, experience or learning program that your organization could craft for you that would cultivate this passion and harness it somehow for your organizations's greater good."

If time and money were immaterial, I would ask to be paid less to do only the dreamy parts of my current job solidly because in it already, I get to do everything I listed above other than the rollerblading and swimming, just not 100% of the time yet.

The Journey from David's Bar Mitzvah to Lesbian [Role-]Modeling for IBM

2010-10-10T16:22:00.004-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Reprinted from GLBT IBMers & Friends Community Blog Behind IBM's Firewall

How did I get from the dance-floor of Congregation Agudath Sholom's reception hall to becoming a lesbian "poster-child" for IBM? In response, I considered three photos from 1978, 2002 and 2010:

In the first, the girl towered over the Bar-Mitzvah boy; she was me at 13. The boy's younger sister, now married with kids, just like the boy is, shared the photo with me via Facebook last week. It arrived while I was participating in Out & Equal's Workplace Summit, where IBM won the Workplace Excellence Award. The boy was sweet, but the girl that his twin-brother danced with nearby was a classmate on whom I had a crush.

This past June, in a letter to my younger self, I described how it felt to be attending a Modern Orthodox Jewish day school while being consciously aware of my lesbianism from age 11 onward. Paradoxically, I think that my years at that school were what motivated me to help represent IBM's GLBT Community so visibly; at our 8th grade graduation ceremony, I recall our principal, giving each of us a copy of *Pirkei Avoth* (*Ethics of the Fathers*) and telling us that he knew we would be among the leaders of our communities -- he was referring to Jewish communities, but I think I must have subconsciously taken it as a call to community leadership altogether.

Ten years after realizing my lesbian identity, I came out explicitly to my family and gained community leadership skills while living in Chicago; I volunteered as a GLBTQ youth group advisor and also co-anchored "The 10% Show," which was produced by the Chicago bureau of the Gay Cable Network (which no longer exists, unfortunately). These experiences were tremendously confidence-building, and profound; the youth group enabled me to help youth feel better along the way about who they were, and to speed through some of the same angst I had had, growing up, and the cable TV show taught me that I was part of a rich culture. Till then, I'd really only been taught to see the richness of Jewish culture. It was my gay community experience in Chicago that sewed the seeds for the work I would do at IBM.

Fast-forward to 2002, when Joseph Bertolotti and I (center of the photo) were leading GLBT Business Development, the coolest startup I've been part of so far, and which I'm proud is more global and more successful than ever through Yvette Burton's, Andreas Citak's and Tony Tenicela's leadership today. This 2002 ad was U.S.-centric by design, as it ran only in U.S.-based GLBT magazines, e.g., "OUT" and "The Advocate." My rabbi, openly lesbian herself, and leading the world's largest congregation of GLBT Jews and our friends, held up a copy of the ad from the pulpit when it first came out and celebrated that it featured one of her congregants. This was the same period when I was trying to conceive a child through IUI and an anonymous donor; unfortunately, I did not succeed. The other Sarah, in the foreground, gave birth to a girl some months later -- she's visibly pregnant in the photo -- and Rahel, between the Sarah's, gave birth to twin-girls. Ultimately, Rahel left IBM because she was part of GBS and did not want to travel so much with young children; she took a job at a financial services client, with no travel. And Marcelo on the far-left retired, so time did march on.

By 2004, I had moved from the GLBT business development role to what would become IBM's Center for Learning and Development, and was facilitating leadership development programs for our first-line leaders and emerging leaders, and then for new execs and our leader of India/South Asia and his direct reports. Six years later, I look at myself and see someone, who is as spirited as my 13-year-old self, who's happily paired with a Jewish woman for the past 18+ years, and who's dedicated to mentoring colleagues in their leadership development; I see someone who should make my principal proud.

Finally, by 2010, we launched a new campaign and when Andreas invited people from the New York area (which is where our ad agency is) to be photographed for the ad, I made sure to participate. I was talking with some new friends at Out & Equal, being self-effacing about my choice to model again for a GLBT-specific campaign; "Oh, it's only because I live in the NY-area, and maybe I like attention and..." but one of the friends challenged my vanity-explanation. She made me admit aloud that no, it's not only attention-seeking that drives me to pose for our ads; it really is a wish to raise our community's visibility. And I guess my rabbi, if not my principal in his Orthodoxy, recognized the act as a form of community leadership.

The Crash

2010-10-08T02:49:00.001-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Bon Vie & Mr. Lonely

Too many beautiful women, too little exercise, too much humanity, not enough. My finger-nails need attention; sleep is calling. So is packing.

Missing Chely Wright 'cause I didn't plan it right. I'll be boarding my plane as she stands before everyone else at the convention center.

Logo'ed lanyards, free lip-balm as a promo, if only I'd known and not bought it from the hotel gift-shop.

New friend, who's fluent in Thai....I experimented today and wore a tie; got everything from, "You look beautiful," to "Hi, Gorgeous! Are you turning transgender?"

Should have responded, "Aren't we all?" Instead: "Who knows, and if I can't wear this here, where can I?"

Learned the most about myself when opting to enter the gender-neutral bathroom for the first time at the conference and being reminded of the first time I entered a lesbian bar in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Who saw me?

Only this time, do they think I'm trans? Instant shame about worrying what they thought.

Such a contrast to the Facebook note I received earlier tonight from the little sister of a junior-high-school classmate, David. She posted a photo of me, dancing with David at his twin brother's and his bar mitzvah.

Really was hoping to dance tonight with my people. Shake off that struggling new teenage self -- and also, embrace the essential sweetness of who I was then.

Instead, ended the night, feeling desirous and thwarted and ashamed and sad and wistful and unfinished and off-kilter and not powerful like I did during the day, when I wore my dad's (z"l) tie.

Who wants to go for a drink? Not me. I wanted to go dancing.

Only, I wanted it to be like it was in Austin -- dancing right outside the banquet hall -- no special effort required. And then there wasn't convenient dancing, and it was anti-climactic, big-time.

I am touch-starved and can't wait to pet Pat and the kitties. I'm very lonesome.

Played Bobby Vinton's "Mister Lonely" on YouTube, and then to get in a better mood, T.S. Monk, Jr.'s "Bon Vie." What a marvelous song!

Why can't I recapture the pretty pure joy I felt, listening to that song when I was 15? God, please let me get over my essential sense of loneliness. Now, I'm listening to "Sarah, Sarah," by Jonathan Butler. This is pure self-absorption. So what?

I'm really nostalgic for who I didn't become. Met people at this conference who were involved with a woman with whom I was involved 15 years prior. Met a researcher, who recognized the name of the only boyfriend I ever had. They research similar cancer-things. Another former administrator from his school, who knew him, too. Now, she's an IBM colleague.

The world really is strangely connected. Women flirted with me when I wore the tie today. I wish I could feel that powerful all the time.

The world responds to me and I love it and have a hard time, taking it in.

If only I could just feel peaceful. I don't want to want so much.

Another Prayer for Patience

2010-09-19T11:26:00.001-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Patience-Prayer As Poem

Freudian slip: Typed the title of this poem
First: "Patience-Prayer As Power"
Really.
Patience would be my greatest power now
Powerful patience: What would that look like?
Staying present
Raising my brows as high as they go to
Release the furrow
Feeling magic enough at the prospect of a
Small contribution, paradoxically making
A big impact
As Rabbi Kleinbaum reminded us: A butterfly
Flaps its wings in South America and a
Hurricane -- or was it a tornado -- is
Unleashed faraway, elsewhere in the world
Yosef Goldman, one of our rabbinical interns,
Reminds us that two strangers can sit in a
Doorway of a city-street, listening to
Bethoven's Ninth on a boom-box and cry
Together
If I can just be present, just be patient, I
Can be a conscious butterfly, but
Flapping my wings for good, not destruction
And a listening, crying, connected human.

A Beautiful Riddance of Sin

2010-09-11T09:13:00.003-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Tossing Away My 5770 Wrongdoings

It is now 5771, according to the Hebrew Calendar. That means that 5,771 years ago, God created humanity, according to Jewish tradition. Obviously, humanity's a lot older than that, but I still like the idea of a birthday for the world that fits a time-frame that's well within the realm of my imagination.

I want so badly to keep this blog entry pure and free of references to September 11th, 2001, but as I write, it's in my head in parallel with what I want to write about, so I'll just acknowledge that it's nine years on; and it was the closest I ever came to being in a war-zone, since I was in Manhattan that day; and it's a gorgeous day so far, just like it was then; and otherwise today, I'll be going about the business of getting my hair cut and having lunch with my mom, then coming home and doing some work.

What I Want to Write About:

It's the end of dusk on the sunny-cloudy-sunny first day of Rosh Hashanah and I'm standing on a bridge, tossing seven stones into a small river because we have no bread with us. It's not the Mianus River; it's more of a huge creek, just north of Exit 35 of the Merritt Parkway, diagonally across from Wire Mill Road, just off of High Ridge Road in Stamford, Connecticut, the town where I was born and raised.

I'm doing Tashlich for two, as my nearly-85-year-old mom's unable to walk the relatively short distance to get to the river-creek. "How many sins do you want me to get rid of, Mom?"

"Three," she says after a pause.

My Rosh Hashanah outfit this year is green and brown and practically, I blend into the woods as I bend over to pick up the stones. I'm amazed at the memory of 40+ years ago that sketches itself over top of the current scene; it erases the foot-bridge I'm standing on, adds more dragon-flies than the one I see and includes dappled sunshine and a mother my age, watching her three daughters, splashing among the rock-bedded, shallow ripples.

We called it the swimming hole then, though the water wasn't really deep enough for swimming, and it was an adventure just a few miles south of our High Ridge Road house, which my mom treated us to in summer-times.

Now, I'm standing on a cement and metal bridge over it, tossing three stones in a row for my mom and then several for me: For not spending enough time with Pat, my family and friends -- one stone (Pat just came to say hi and I told her I'm trying to blog; oy!); for being impatient with my mother and any of her extra needs as she's getting older; for being impatient with myself for not being able to do as much as I think I ought to on any given day; for being self-absorbed.

I return to the car and tell my mom that other than the bridge and time of day, the swimming hole looks like it did when we used to splash there.

She smiles.

I drive my mom back to the High Ridge Road house, where I grew up and where she still lives, and feel the loving opposite of impatient.

God, please let me be that way at lunch today, too, and let me have a more patient 5771 altogether. Amen.

Some Impressions of Wilson Textbook, Chapters 11, 12 & 13

2010-09-06T12:24:00.000-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

The Textbook Title: Human Resource Development...

[Re-posting from the internal Teachers College online system for my cohort, for whatever it's worth:]

This was a good chapter-trio, since chapters 11 and 12 talk about adult learners' characteristics, needs, learning styles and motivations and chapter 13, "Reflective Practice," speaks directly to us as practitioners, reminding us that being reflective of what we do in our practice is essential, just as encouraging the learners to be reflective is key to an optimal learning experience.

Perhaps I've said this in other adult learning courses, but as a learner myself, I've found that the incidental learning I've done (referred to on p. 202 as the unintentional part of Informal Learning) always has felt the most profound and memorable to me compared with the planned curriculum. As an adult educator, it could demoralize me if I thought that that was generally true, that the learning I designed was less effective than the learning they did by accident while enrolled in one of my interventions...however, chapter 13 (p. 241) redeems my mood:

If I design reflection into my interventions, then the learners might feel like it's incidental learning, but really, I know they'd not necessarily have had that learning if I hadn't set the stage for it.

On p. 240 of chapter 13, Wilson writes, "Most of the time, most practitioners do not question what they do." It's true that I was ready to barrel along and design a 60-minute Social Learning Enablement Workshop by pure intuition...well, and a theory based on historical observation of the learners, but had not really thought too hard about honing the learning objectives, creating a needs analysis and assessment, nor per se about the Learning Combination Lock model's elements on p. 207.

Now, since I'm conscious of the need to do all of that, thanks to the reading, I'm reflecting *pre*-action that I need to be aware of how adults will resist learning anything that threatens their identity (p. 211). Also, they will struggle, even if motivated to learn, if they feel it's beyond them -- of all things, a technophobia example was cited in that context (p. 213); I will try to counter the struggle and encourage the motivation through a Humanist approach of "...warmth, care and understanding (p. 213)

Now, too, I recognize that I'm facilitating their gain of domain-specific skills, including Cognitive and Psychomotors skills from Bloom's taxonony...and I know from having done a Honey-Mumford-produced self-assessment at work several years ago, my natural learning-style bias will be toward Activist-Theorist (p. 216), so I'll need to see if I can stretch and design elements that will also appeal to learners with Pragmatist and Reflector styles.

Some Impressions of Wilson Textbook, Chapters 3, 5 & 6

2010-09-06T12:22:00.000-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

The Textbook Title: Human Resource Development...

[Re-posting from the internal Teachers College online system for my cohort, for whatever it's worth:]

All semester, I will relate the readings to my own job experience wherever possible, since I work for a corporation.

The three chapters were useful as an intro to the course because they position HR developers as change agents (Wilson, 2008, p. 57); the needed linkage between business strategy and HRD (Wilson, 2008, pp. 83-84); and refer to the learning organization as "...a process rather than a state," which reminds me of how business strategy works, too; it is never static (Wilson, 2008, p. 101).

Change management drives both learning organizations' directions and strategic direction, so it's a fitting first chapter of the trio, and I appreciate Burnes' comprehensive model, as up until this year at my employer, IBM, we'd been facilitating John Kotter's change model in our leadership development learning offerings. The most interesting part of the model to me was his distinction between Information and Communitcation (Wilson, 2008, p. 51).

I was also happy to read about PWC's Change Integration Team as foundational (Wilson, 2008, p. 46) because IBM's now moved to that Change Integration Team's concept of Better Change.

Finally, I saw a connection between the Theories E & O (Wilson, 2008, p. 47) and the potential tensions that a learning organization model could cause: While a company's top management might think that it was promoting Theory O by encouraging informal learning and communities of practice, a number of employees could interpret it as Theory E. This possibility came to me as I read the chapters: A company might be so proud of itself for encouraging grass-roots, peer-to-peer learning, thinking it was being progressive and empowering employees/promoting autonomy while a number of employees might interpret the encouragement as a cost-cutting tactic, e.g., fewer formal learning programs (which cost the company money to develop and run), and more informal opportunities, which cost the company no additional money beyond employees' salaries.

P.S. I just re-read the final paragraph and want to mention that I'm an agent of online social learning among peers and see it as a sign of Theory O, but I know a number of people across a number of companies who focus on the cost piece and are a bit bitter as a result, i.e., they think their employer is being cheap, rather than that their employer is promoting innovation and autonomy.

Whatever Happened to Debbie?

2010-08-28T15:27:00.001-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Where Is Debbie Today?

At my friend's half-way-to-90 birthday party last night, she reminded me of a boy we had known in high school who was so gorgeous, such a player, so skilled at flirting, he moved even *me*. Now, he also had a beautiful sister, Debbie, but she never flirted with me.

As the birthday-girl reminisced about a magical boat-ride she once got to take with him and a guy friend, I thought of the boy's sister and wondered whatever happened to her. This morning, I was still wondering, so I googled her name and found that if any of the women listed is her, then she could be a:

"Professional actor & voiceover artist"
Co-owner of a winery
Rabbi
Computer graphic artist....

I wonder if any of these people is her. A number look to be the right age, but none has the same long, dark, straight hair and perfectly proportionate features that she had.

Better to live in the present, but still, it's fun to have a number of friends who have shared memories of high school.

Will the Pool Dry Up?

2010-08-22T18:40:00.000-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

A Year Or More

"Did you receive your 'Dear John' letter, Sarah?" Lou asks as we pass each other the other day in the Clifton YMHA.

"Not yet, but maybe I missed it."

This is the third reference of the morning to the Y's potential closing. Lou is 87 and cannot hear well at all, so he mostly just talks and then smiles in response to my answers and keeps going. "Well, you should get it in the mail soon. I like your hair that way!" (My hair is styled only by a vigorous, post-shampoo towel-rubbing. Lou is a big flirt. He always makes my day.)

As I walk in, I see one of the early-bird s who's already done with her laps; she tells me, "We have one more year and then it's either going to be sold to people for the property, or to the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and in either case, we won't be able to swim here anymore."

"How do you know that?"

"I have a friend in the [Jewish] Federation [the organization that will raise the funds or sell it]."

Going in to the pool, I see my 80ish-year-old friend, who says, "Are you going to go to L.A. Fitness when this pool closes?"

"No, I want to go to a Jewish place again, I said, "How about you?"

She shrugs, and then, "The Paramus JCC is probably the nearest one besides Clifton."

I feel so sad, having this conversation with my friend. I don't want the pool to close and I don't want this community of swimmers to scatter. Pat & I've been swimming there for five years.

In five years, I've met a Holocaust survivor, an Italian great-grandmother, a contemporary lane-hog, who's half my size, but who takes a lane and a half, a guy in his late-60s who likes to swim with snorkeling gear and another lesbian couple who also were able to join as a couple, among others.

I hope the pool stays open. Change is hard.

Pat & My Mom Are Tied

2010-08-10T11:57:00.000-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Longevity

Now, Pat is tied with my mother as the person with whom I have lived the longest in my life. I find myself making deals with my mom that I hope she can keep, and being reminded of that song I've written about here before, from "Into the Woods:" "No One is Alone:"

No one is alone. Truly.
No one is alone.
Sometimes people leave you.
Halfway through the wood.
Others may deceive you.
You decide what's good.
You decide alone.
But no one is alone.

I don't want my mom, or Pat, leaving me, "...halfway through the wood" the way my dad of blessed memory had to do so due to cancer. Actually, my dad (z"l) left me less than half-way through the wood.

This morning, I find myself, saying to my mom: "Let's both go swimming in the Teachers College pool just before I graduate," which will be more than a year from now. This November, God willing, my mom will turn 85. She has lived longer without my dad than with him. they were married for 27 years when he died, and she's been without him for 30 years.

Funny how I bargained with myself at the start of this vacation that I wanted to stay in the present and enjoy every drop of the vacation...but something about having time off to think is making me reflective about how much time any of my loved ones (and I) have left, and it's making me think existentially, not just about this week vs. the rest of my work-year.

Today, I pray that Pat and I will live for long enough to:

Marry legally, ideally while our mothers are still alive
Travel through Israel and Ireland while we're still able-bodied
Pay off our mortgage (which should be done in less than eight years)
Earn more leisure-time together.

I also pray that my mom and I will live for long enough to:

Be at Pat's and my wedding
Swim together in the TC pool just prior to my graduation
See me march for my Master's in Adult Learning and Leadership.

Augmented or Diminished Reality?

2010-08-01T13:34:00.005-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Not Better or Worse, Just Different

If you'd have asked for my definition of "augmented reality" (AR) before I became aware of the technical definition, I'd have replied, "My reality is augmented by family -- including pets -- and friends who love me; art to enjoy and produce; sensual pleasure; communities with which I affiliate; meaningful work, including substantial cultural exchanges; and the means to: give charity, buy healthy food, nice clothes, a lovely home, a comfortable car and gifts."

That definition still works, even as I was introduced to a different, technical definition of the term recently by a colleague and friend who invents AR apps: "...a layer of information on top of reality."

The same colleague pointed me to a link of an AR app demo, showing how IBM let Wimbledon attendees watch games through walls while waiting on line to get in. I told another colleague, who's proudly anti-Web 2.0, about how IBM has created an AR version of Madison Square Park in NYC, so that he could point his smart-phone at the Flatiron Building to learn about it.

He said, "Now *that* would interest me." For him, it would be like turning the world into a museum with exhibit labels.

A relative who's an artist wondered if AR was such a good idea. She, who is a talented photographer as well as painter, said, "I've stopped taking my camera everywhere I go because I was feeling less present with it."

"It's true that this could make us feel more removed from reality than a part of it," I responded. I've been thinking further, though:

The dark side could be isolation and also another dimension of the societal division of the haves and have-nots. The up-side could be cultural enrichment and fun, as well as performance aids, if not full-blown, profound learning, plus universal access over time, i.e., no haves/have-nots.

One of the constant tensions of technology, I think, is that it can remove us from what's traditionally seen as organic/natural *and* it can expand our vista a million-fold, e.g., cars remove us from nature, and from people...and cars enable us to see and enjoy more/other people/nature than we could on our own arms-and-legs power.

Recently, a Group Dynamics classmate in the School Psychology program was complaining about how a number of us from the Adult Learning and Leadership and Org. Psych. programs had amazing access to global resources -- people and technological -- while in his experience, he was lucky to get a desk at work.

It struck me: A) I knew from his Facebook page that he went to one of the most privileged of he Ivy League schools for undergrad, and so perhaps, he was mourning the loss of his prior, routine sense of privilege and B) certainly seemed to use social media outside of work, and so I didn't know why he was complaining. He chose a line of work, where by design, it's all local and nearly all face-to-face.

To me, AR will always consist of the definition I gave above, but my friend's technical definition is intriguing, too. I don't think her AR definition is better or worse than plain-old reality; it's just different. I think that people who feel isolated don't need help from the Internet; they're likely that way offline, too...and at a minimum, AR could make their natural isolation more interesting, and help them feel more connected in other ways.

Personally, I'm an extrovert and yet have also written here about having an unusually large sense of loneliness, no matter how many people appreciate me. For someone like me, ultimately, the technical version of augmented reality seems like a way to help me feel more connected to the world and other people, for example, I'm the sort of person who would likely exclaim aloud, "Wow!" if I saw something cool as a result of AR, and would need to share what I learned with whoever was in closest proximity; for me, AR would likely serve as a conversation starter, i.e., a device for connecting with others.

A Very Public Private Person

2010-07-25T11:40:00.002-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Not an Oxymoron

Who has time to let relationships unfold? Who feels safe, doing that? Not me.

Ever since I began facilitating programs for new executives, new managers and emerging leaders at work, and ever since I enrolled in grad school, I've been trying to learn what I could about the participants and my classmates prior to meeting them face to face for the first time.

With the participants, it was a matter of looking up their behind-the-firewall, online profile, to see their role and any of their activity with internal online communities. With classmates, it was about looking them up on Facebook, to see whatever I could, depending on their privacy settings.

Was I being prepared, or controlling? Curious, or anxious?

For the participants, I felt that I was doing extra preparation, to understand their business mission and role, and their degree of Web 2.0 adoption. With classmates, perhaps I was being a bit voyeuristic. But why? I told myself that it was my intense interest in connecting with other people that made me try to find things I had in common with them, or at least activities of theirs that interested me...but when I confessed what I do to my most recent cohort of classmates, I felt kinda creepy, and I think a number of them were a bit creeped out as well.

Do I have an extraordinary need to be known by, and to know, others? Or is this behavior of an irredeemable control-queen/king? I mean, by posting what some might consider my every thought on my blogs (IBM and public), Twitter and Facebook profiles, am I doing so in order not to be surprised by anyone's unexpected inquiry, to avoid feeling caught off-guard? If I tell you everything upfront, can we streamline our relationship? Or can we avoid a relationship altogether if what I tell you repels you?

Of course, what interests me most is your reaction to what I share, which most of the time, you do not tell me. For example, a colleague from a faraway country, who's also a friend on Facebook, was visiting my work-site the other day and told me, "I love your status messages. When you talk about going swimming, it reminds me that I need to get to the gym. I feel like I'm close with you, just by getting to see your daily updates...." If we had not seen each other, would she have ever told me that?

Or am I paradoxically private -- trying to manage what you think of me by serving up all sorts of my thoughts, to distract you from asking questions about features of me you don't yet know or understand, and which I might be too uncomfortable to answer?

Of course, the work I'm doing of letting myself be known and of exploring how others portray themselves is all an illusion of control, perhaps...but maybe not as much of an illusion as some might think, since, according to Jeffrey Rosen in "The Web Means the End of Forgetting:"

A recent study suggests that people on Facebook and other social-networking sites express their real personalities, despite the widely held assumption that people try online to express an enhanced or idealized impression of themselves. Samuel Gosling, the University of Texas, Austin, psychology professor who conducted the study, told the Facebook blog, “We found that judgments of people based on nothing but their Facebook profiles correlate pretty strongly with our measure of what that person is really like, and that measure consists of both how the profile owner sees him or herself and how that profile owner’s friends see the profile owner.”

By comparing the online profiles of college-aged people in the United States and Germany with their actual personalities and their idealized personalities, or how they wanted to see themselves, Gosling found that the online profiles conveyed “rather accurate images of the profile owners, either because people aren’t trying to look good or because they are trying and failing to pull it off.” (Personality impressions based on the online profiles were most accurate for extroverted people and least accurate for neurotic people, who cling tenaciously to an idealized self-image.)

How much of my online activity is fear-based? Am I just the other side of the coin of the people, who avoid expressing themselves in online venues altogether?

Guest Post

2010-07-13T22:22:00.001-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

My Brother-in-Law's Birthday Gift

Upfront note from Sarah: Well, I'm not yet an IBMer for life, though this July, including my time at Sears Technology Services and then the joint-venture of Sears and IBM, my IBM service counts for 20 years.

Also, I've not re-made IBM into a place, "...Where GLBTs want to go," I don't think; I've just helped it be an even more appealing place, along with many, many GLBT and GLBT-friendly colleagues.

My apologies in advance for any liberties I’ve taken in the name of humor. Particularly the second half of the third paragraph, and maybe the whole second paragraph. Know that I love you, and wish you all the best. Hope you smile, when you read this and throughout the day.

>> G

Dear Sarah,

In North Jersey suburbs,
Where some spies reside.
I’ve a sister-in-law
Who’s got nothing to hide.

Sarah blogs about everything
under the sun.
She shares, over shares,
And maybe then some.

She swims like a fish,
And blades like a blader.
But breathes very quietly,
Not like Darth Vader.

An IBM lifer,
who woulda thunk it?
Yes, she’s taken some fresh
Big Blue cool aid and drunk it.

Sarah’s made over Watson’s
Big computer co,
To a fabulous place
Where GLBT’s want to go.

So open the windows,
yell “Proud to be Gay”
And let’s celebrate
Sarah Siegel’s Birthday.

Happy, Happy Birthday.

Your loving brother-in-law,
Gary

Kvelling on Pride Weekend

2010-06-26T14:08:00.000-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

GLBT Pride and More

This month's theme and celebration inspires me to list what I'm proud of:

Pat and I have a positive, long-lasting relationship -- 18 years next month
Two summers ago, I agreed to adopt sister-cats, Phoebe and Toonces, not having grown up with pets, and apparently, they love us and are happy in our home
Our nephews and niece are fond of me
My mother, sisters and I are close, and mostly, we let one another be ourselves
My work and most recent schooling is dedicated to helping people learn
I've earned a 4.0 so far, and am two-thirds of the way through a Master's program at Columbia University's Teachers College while working full time...when I didn't even believe I'd be admitted
I am relatively athletic and fit
I blog and am able to express myself openly
Even if it's droll more often than I'd like, I have a good sense of humor
You can count on my honesty
I have color- and style-sense
Healthy eating has been a 20-year commitment so far
Even when my opinions or beliefs are not popular, typically, I speak up
Creativity, enthusiasm and bravery fuel my sense of possibility, which leads to a willingness to experiment and take risks
Pat and I have made a nice home together, which I enjoy living in and walking around.

Father's Day 2010

2010-06-20T14:16:00.003-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Warning: Self-pity May Ensue

Now, there's a sub-heading to make anyone want to run from this blog, including me. I am sad. Lonely for my father. Nearly a decade ago, I found a book that helped a bit, but I just miss him.

Can't recall my father's voice anymore, not really. Am grateful still to have my mother. How marvelous that she could make it with her walker down the dock at 23rd Street in NYC yesterday and onto the boat for the "Rocks Off Concert Cruise;" how hilarious to watch her wildly-amused reaction to the teenage heavy metal band that preceded our nephews' under-12 rock band during a 3.5-hour boat-ride, and then her delight at her twin grandsons, playing electric guitar and drums to "Come Together" by the Beatles and more.

What would have been my dad's reaction? I think he'd have smiled non-stop. The boys -- especially Sam, the drummer -- are reminiscent of him...gorgeous blue eyes, tall, with big feet and big ears; genes are amazing. Today, their 17-year-old sister Zoe and they are celebrating Father's Day with my brother-in-law and sister Deb while our nephew Zach celebrates with my other brother-in-law and other sister. I'm not celebrating.

If only I'd married a man. If only we had been able to have children. If both if-only's had happened, I'd be serving or buying brunch somewhere and all of us would be presenting suitable gifts. Instead, I'm blogging. I know I'm not the only one who wonders what if about any number of life-scenarios, and I also know that everything happens for a reason. And I don't want to disrespect the extraordinarily great relationship that Pat and I have, but some days, like today, I ask myself why I had to have an uncommon sexual orientation.

Yes, I know, too: I could have married a man and still had no children. Or he could have died, or a million other variations. And now, as if on cue -- though I know cats are not supposed to be empathetic like dogs -- one of our two cat-children Phoebe appears for pets and purring.

What would have been my dad's future if he had lived beyond 56? That's just 11 years from now for me, God willing, and I can't imagine being cut off that soon.

Would he have had one more great invention in him? Would he have adapted his game-designing skills to creating online games? Would his health have declined in some other way or would he have heeded some wake-up call and become fit? Would we have roller-bladed together, since he was a skilled roller-skater from childhood? Would he have kept singing Adir Hu his way at the Passover Seder every year? Would he have fallen asleep, telling bed-time stories to his grandchildren, like he did with his children? Would we have become estranged over my sexual orientation or would he have risen to the occasion ultimately like my mother?

I have such a sense of regret in both directions this Father's Day. Though I knew of my lesbianism by age 11, I was afraid to enable an authentic relationship with my father before his death six years later by sharing my knowledge with him. And then the other regret at this moment is that I did not have any children. Yesterday, while we were on the boat for the boys' concert, I overheard my sister Kayla, reminding my mother of the view of the ships in the river she had while giving birth. "When I gave birth," she said....I was so wistful and envious at once, as I heard her speak. I am lacking that life-experience, plus what comes after of raising a child.

On most days, I'm confirmed that I'd rather not have the full experience of having and raising children than have it -- and at this point, it would be a matter of adoption, rather than an organic birth -- but on days like today, I am sad.

Also, we had dinner and swimming with a couple of friends last night and I watched their affection with the kids with some longing. And enjoyed the affection the kids generously lent to Pat and me, but it was still just a loan....

And then I also recall, hearing that they all woke up at 4:30 that morning, since one of the twins had had a nightmare, and I said to myself, Thank God I don't have all of that responsibility. Feeding the cats daily at 6 am is enough.

My celebration of Father's Day died with my dad (z"l) >27 years ago....Don't say I didn't warn you that this blog-entry would be self-pitying.

Just a final thought: Most of the time, I don't indulge in blogging in this tone, and I keep myself busy enough that I don't spend much time on this sadness in my mind either, but today, as a fatherless daughter on Father's Day, with no children to celebrate the day either, it actually feels refreshing simply to yield to my ambivalent grief.

If I Had an Artificial Leg...

2010-06-12T12:46:00.002-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Thank You, God, for Not Giving Me That Challenge, K'ayn Eyeen Harah

Last night during a walk beyond my neighborhood, I saw a little boy or little girl -- big curls, striped T-shirt, shorts, no more than six years old, running around in the family's driveway, playing catch with a big rubber ball, throwing it back and forth, perhaps, to her mother and grandmother. They spoke French and wouldn't return my smile and eye-contact. They were intent on one another.

As I walked by, I saw the child's left leg, glinting in the pre-twighlight sun. The leg was made up of silver-colored rods. Before I saw the child, running around with an artificial limb, just being a kid, I wondered whether I could muster the mood to take a walk....

On my walk, I listened to my mom tell me her sorrow at one of her dear friend's recent heart-attack. I've never before spoken on a cell-phone during exercise, but it was so beautiful out and I wanted to share what I was seeing with someone, since Pat wasn't with me.

A child with a metal leg; two octogenarians -- one with a damaged heart and the other, heart-broken over her friend's new infirmity; and me, in the middle, witnessing the:

Eager beagle, running alongside, behind his picket-fence as I passed
Pink-white rose-bush with enough blooms to bury my face in them without risking thorn-pricks
Lithe, high-school girl who nearly smiled at me as she ran by, her blond hair darker on her neck with sweat
Shiny, black, Saturn convertible, rounding the corner and piloted by a balding guy older than I, who seemed to enjoy the breeze through the hair he still had
Hyperactive Pekingese dog straining at me on his leash and his lovely Indian female walker, younger than I, smiling broadly at me for smiling at the cute dog
Professionally-maintained garden of the property next to the also-gorgeous garden maintained by the Master Gardener who lives in the home behind it -- one of Pat's friends
Tiny grass-seed, shaped like thin rice, dotting new dirt on the little boulevard above our street
Beautiful yard of our property, more visibly so as I approached it on foot than when I typically drove toward it, focused on entering the garage....

I Could Have Danced All Night II

2010-06-06T22:08:00.003-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Or Golfed or Swum

Instead, I had restfully full nights' sleeps; serendipitous chats with friends; quality-hours with Pat; surprisingly good chip-shots, putts and drives; dancing in the ranch's saloon to songs I loved and songs I danced to for love, since Pat liked them; NY-state cheddar-cheese omelettes; dinosaur discussions with a six-year-old son of our friends Mia and Deb; conversations while treading water for 30 minutes in an outdoor pool; horse-clopping in the background while finishing Chely Wright's memoir pool-side; a pre-bed "New Yorker" short story; meal-time conversations about what it's like to be a Kate Winslet movie extra....

Wishing the weekend were double its length.

A Letter to My Younger Self

2010-05-22T14:36:00.099-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Here's a Draft:

Dear Younger Sarah,

Let's time-travel, so that I can let you speak from your perspective, and then I'll return and try to be helpful from my older perspective:

When I realized at age 11, that I was physically attracted to my female best friend, I was crestfallen. This wrecks everything, I thought. After all, she and I were long-time classmates at a Modern Orthodox Jewish day school, where by First Grade, we learned that we were expected to marry a Jewish man, have Jewish children and keep a kosher home.

My early training was powerful because even though my family still loved and accepted me when I told them a decade later about my lesbianism, it was not till age 36 that I got over my internalized homophobia at the prospect of our child, having two mothers. Finally, I came to hope that two loving parents of any gender-combination would be fine, and then tried to become pregnant by IUI through an anonymous donor. I tried nine times over the next year and a half, to no avail. Neither technologically-trickier options nor adoption appealed to my partner and me, and so I concluded that God had other plans.

Now, I'll continue the letter from my 44-year-old vantage point.

God did have other plans for you, beyond any adventures your 11-year-old mind could have imagined, including:

A smart, beautiful, kind, funny Jewish woman with whom to spend your life, so far, for nearly 19 years
Helping conceive of, and start up, an IBM business development team, serving the GLBT B2B market, including substantial attributable revenue and great press in "Business Week"
Pursuing a Master's part-time at Columbia University's Teachers College (TC) and serving on a QueerTC panel about being openly lesbian at IBM
Six months in India on assignment, with your partner, accompanying you, and introducing local colleagues to her as your partner
Designing and facilitating cultural intelligence learning programs in Second Life, inspired by your own attempts at cultural adaptability while in India
IBM's:
- Diversity and Multicultural learning offerings stewardship
- Center for Advanced Learning, to champion social and informal learning across IBM, which is dedicated to connecting IBMers to learn from one another
Successful GLBT diversity network group launch-encouragement at IBM in India and China
Happily co-parenting two, adopted, tabby sister-cats; they seem fine, having two mothers
Joining the world's largest GLBT synagogue, and writing and delivering a series of layperson's sermons.

I hope this list encourages you to believe that God gives you wonderful surprises.

Love,

Older Sarah

P.S. My partner is making me write this part: I worried about social belonging when I became aware of my lesbian identity, but through my involvement in the GLBT arena at IBM, including being featured in national, GLBT-specific print-ad campaigns for IBM, I've had just the opposite experience. In fact, I've been told by a number of colleagues and even people beyond IBM that I've served as an inspiration and role model, since I took the risk of being who I am ultra-visibly.

Chely Wright & Tonéx Are Free

2010-05-21T22:33:00.003-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Two Singers I'd Never Have Known Otherwise

This evening, Stevie Wonder's "Golden Lady," U2's "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," Soul II Soul's "Get a Life," America's "Ventura Highway," Chaka Khan's "Papillon," Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" and more accompanied my 2.5-hour soil-shoveling in service to our newest, emerging garden in our backyard.

Before reading Tonéx's story in "The New Yorker" some months ago, and then reading excerpts of Chely Wright's interview and story in "Curve," I had never heard of either, though in their genres, they were super-popular, and then both of them came out as gay and lesbian respectively.

Tonéx's tale touched me, especially after I saw this hit of his. I watched it over and over, marveling at his sexiness, voice, the beat, and the theme ("He won't fail you...")....

Similarly, I saw Chely Wright as exciting when I watched her hit, "Single White Female." Typically, I'm not a Country music fan, other than Dolly Parton's music, like "Hard Candy Christmas" and "Travelin' Through," but I was thrilled to see that someone so apparently different was like me after all. That's the name of her newly-published memoir: *Like Me*.

Chely Wright mentioned that she knew of her lesbianism by 3rd grade. She beat me; I wasn't fully self-aware till 6th grade. In Chely Wright's case, she was ready to kill herself just four years ago, when she was 35, tired as she was of her closet. In my case, beginning at age 36, I tried to have a baby, having been too internally-homophobic to try prior; I worried about the baby, having two mothers. By the time I got over that concern, as I've written here before, I was unable to conceive after nine tries, and gave up ultimately, figuring that God had other plans.

Now, Chely Wright says she's ready to be an ambassador for the gay, lesbian, bi and trans (GLBT) community, no matter what happens to her singing career. Tonéx got to that point, too. Their stories remind me of a recent invitation:

At work, those of us who are openly G, L, B or T, have been called to serve by writing letters to our younger selves, to be published on the front page of our company's internal web site on June 1st, in honor of GLBT Pride Month. I've been hesitant to be so public about my life-story within our official company web site. Here, I don't mind being so at all, as this is my blog, not my company's.

Will I feel even more free, like Chely Wright and Tonéx, if I write and submit the letter?

Dirt-shoveling for a Higher Purpose

2010-05-20T21:24:00.000-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Exhausted and Satisfied

Daylight into the evening enabled Pat and me to shovel and wheel and shovel and wheel and shovel and wheel and shovel and wheel and shovel and wheel...Two and a half cubic yards of soil, and two and a half more to go.

At midday, a dump-truck left five cubic yards of dirt in the middle of our driveway. Pat wanted it for the garden she's building in the backyard. After work, I loaded and re-loaded and re-loaded the big wheel-barrow and dumped and dumped and dumped the dirt wherever she directed me.

Standing on the pile with a shovel, I was reminded of Rosalie's funeral a few weeks back. Rosalie was the mother of Gary, my brother-in-law. All of us were asked to add a shovel-ful to Rosalie's grave in accordance with Jewish tradition.

At Rosalie's shivah afterwards, Gary's brother's wife told me how they have buried a few horses because, "They're members of the family, too, but it actually takes a bulldozer." I stood there shoveling this evening, feeling good at the contrast of this shoveling to all of that shoveling. This shoveling was to enable living things to grow.

Culture Mashups...

2010-05-15T08:21:00.007-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

...Make Life More Special

Culture mashups can be so powerful, I'm reminded by the rock band, Toto's, and R&B star, Cheryl Lynn,'s Georgy Porgy." And by the biracial son of a friend who has his choice of Yale or Harvard for college next year; both of his parents could have been brilliant and of the same race, but they were brilliant and not, and I think that contributed to my friend's son, being a special and extraordinarily brilliant person. And by a heterosexual wakeboarding enthusiast, who is among my colleagues and who is close to his two gay brothers -- and a visible ally of the gay, lesbian, bi and trans community, just by his active love for his brothers. For all I know, my colleague's gay brothers could be wakeboarding enthusiasts as well, but the sexual orientation aspect of my colleague's and his brothers' cultural backgrounds will always be divergent, and yet they love one another in all their humanity.

I've said this before, probably here, too: As amazing a city as I found Shanghai to be during my relatively brief visit in 2005, I was less compelled by it than by New York City, since the streets were filled with people who appeared to be mostly of a common cultural background; NYC is filled with so many people from so many different cultures and I think that's the secret to its vibrancy.

When I get together with my mother and her friend Harriet, it's another sort of culture mashup: a cross-generational one. I'm amazed by our different experiences, and how interesting it seems for all of us to be together -- more interesting than it is, often, for me to be with contemporaries.

Same goes for talking with my 17-year-old nephew, in the other direction; I'm always the beneficiary of his native wisdom. The other day, we were discussing small-group dynamics for school-projects. We agreed that we're always among the ones who do most of the work in the group. I said, "Usually, instead of confronting the shirkers, I just go ahead and do the work."

"Well, since I'm doing so much of the project already," Zach said, "I figure I have the right to do some delegating, and so usually, I'll say, 'I'll do this and this.' And then I'll turn to the other person and say, 'And what will you do?'"

Probably among the biggest culture-mashups from which I've learned the most has been our adopting and co-parenting two tabby-cat sisters. We will never learn each other's spoken language, and yet we can communicate with one another, and I love them deeply, and feel affection from them sometimes, too....

My human nature, though, leads me -- initially -- to seek people and places that seem familiar. The paradox is that often, the people/creatures and places that are most remote from my experience end up feeling most comforting to me; for example, our home is finally a fully-sweet home, since we invited the cats into it two years ago. Fortunately, while I naturally seek sameness, God puts difference in my path continually.

My Blog as a Family Member

2010-05-05T06:36:00.001-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

It's Too Early to Call Pat

Without my usual daily comforts -- Pat, the cats and access to a swimming pool -- while staying at the IBM Learning Center this week for the leadership development program I'm facilitating, I'm turning to my blog.

While I can't touch this blog, hug it, or take it for a ride around the house in my arms (like I could the cats, if not Pat), still, I'm turning to it to feel more human in the midst of being away from home for several days.

A friend had just posted a blog entry and I thought, aha, reading it will give me the reminder of my humanity that I'm looking for, but I was wrong. Rather, it just reminded me of *her* humanity and made me miss my own family all the more...even as it was a wonderful post.

I *could* drive home this evening and then drive back to the Learning Center later tonight, but...I'll use the idea all day to help me remember that I have options, and that this separation is just temporary.

Shul

2010-04-17T07:45:00.004-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

An Evening Out

Rainy, chilly, and then warm inside, catching up with our friend Laurie, and then rainy, chilly again as I leave the sanctuary to wait outside for our friend Karol to arrive. Has she ever been to a synagogue?

Yes, in college with her roommate; she went to Rosh Hashanah services at a Reform temple.

There's a lot of Hebrew in our service, I tell her. She had lived in Israel for seven months during the Gulf War and had studied Hebrew then.

It's a small world, it strikes me as we're finding our seats:

Of course, a woman I met in my Cultural Intelligence course this semester was referring to a fellow congregant when she told me about a new girlfriend she was seeing. I didn't know it, though, till I saw the two of them, sitting a few rows back from us, looking that blissful-new-couple way.

And a small world again: Karol's Ironman Triathlon captain was singing in our shul's chorus, she told me. They caught up after services.

In between, I sat there, wishing I could force myself to come weekly, despite working full-time and being in a Master's program the rest of the time. When we get there, we're always glad we came because it's meditative and joyous and sad and melodic and thought-provocative and relaxing and over-stimulating and poignant and imperfect and poetic and profound. Every time.

Most Friday nights, by contrast, when we're not at shul, it's TV-laden, Facebook-driven, cat-filled and mostly positively tranquilizing. Pat and the cats are the sum of humanity for the evening, rather than hundreds of worshipers, among whom we have a few friends who are always glad to see us.

One difference this time: a friend *from high school* who's not Jewish and who's heterosexual, accompanying us. Over the years, we've only invited one other non-Jewish friend to join us at services because she was visiting the U.S. on business from India and we thought it might be interesting for her.

Our Indian friend told us that it reminded her of what she had read about the Shakers, the way a number of us swayed a bit, forward and back, as we recited our standing prayers. (Those of us who did so likely spent years at a yeshiva/Orthodox Jewish day school, where that's how we were taught to pray -- swaying to and fro and standing with our heels together, always, to ensure optimal respect to God.)

It was more meaningful to me to have a friend from my teenage years with us last night. Back then (and still now occasionally) I spent so much time trying to fit into the mainstream, which I always thought this friend embodied. Turns out that all of us have huge differences between us and some striking common ground.

All we used to have in common was our love of skiing; that a number of our teachers mistook us for each other; and that we both enjoyed laughing. Turns out that both of us love to write -- she's a professional writer; both of us lived in Israel for a significant time during our twenties; and both of us felt part of a religious minority (she's a Christian Scientist).

Who knew when we were sitting on chairlifts or giggling during class all those years ago that we'd be spending April 16, 2010, celebrating the Jewish Sabbath at the world's largest synagogue for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Jews and our family and friends?

Yesterday afternoon, I tweeted, "Looking forward to going to shul this evening for the Yom Ha'atsma'ut service, and to a friend from high school, joining us."

Karol responded with a comment on my Facebook profile: "hey me too what a coincidence! :)"

Poem

2010-04-07T21:31:00.001-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Me-Ow

Like a kitty to be stuffed in
A pet carrier for her own good
Crying all the way to and from
The vet.

Why should she trust
The professional?

"It's the Things That Are Most Different About Us..."

2010-03-27T15:47:00.003-04:00

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

"...That Make Us Most Interesting."

I've quoted this sentiment here before; it's my friend Richard's, and I think it's true. Earlier this afternoon, I was viewing a documentary on a woman I met more than 20 years ago at a lesbian dance-bar. She was telling her story for a gay history project and it touched me. I knew none of it, other than that when we met, she was still married and confused about what to do next with her life. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've written about her somewhere in this blog before, too, but prior to having any of the insight I gained today from the video.

She was stunning -- also dark-haired and blue-eyed and Jewish, but a number of years older than I. We left the club together and got into her convertible sports-car. It was summertime and she put the top down, but we never left the parking lot. I half-listened to her talk about her confusion, and meanwhile, was thrilled to have met a gorgeous, Jewish, likely lesbian woman of any age and tried to kiss her in response. She rebuffed me and I got out of the car, figuring, oh, well, she'll figure it out somehow, but not with me, I guess. I went home lonely and never saw her again...until six years ago, when we were at the same GLBT community benefit and I recognized her.

She was visibly older, but still beautiful, and I re-introduced myself to her as someone she had met nearly 20 years ago for just a single evening, and referring to the now-closed dance-club. She seemed not to remember me at all, and I guess that's what it's like to be unforgettably beautiful; you don't remember everyone who remembers you...or maybe she was chagrined to be reminded of that time in her past, or both. Either way, she was cordial, but I excused myself quickly, as I felt suddenly embarrassed to have failed at re-connecting platonically, despite our both now being in much more solid, settled places in our lives.

Humanity as a Revelation

The formerly married lesbian's story reminded me of how difficult it was for me, sometimes, to see others' humanity, and to reveal mine. In the case of our initial meeting, I focused on two of her features exclusively -- her beauty and her Jewish identity -- and didn't want to think about the rest, i.e., that she was tortured about being married at the time and (as I learned from the documentary) had 20 years more of life experience than I, plus an oldest child who was just eight years younger than I.

The other night on Facebook, I posted a link to a CNN story on people who lose a parent(s) when young, and prefaced it with:

I lost my dad of blessed memory to cancer when I was 17. The survey's sponsor reminds me of the grief group I went to for high school kids who had lost a parent(s) in Hartsdale, NY. I was so grateful that my mom found it for me. I went every Wednesday night from December thru June of my senior year of high school.

I was surprised at two comments in response by Facebook friends I knew in high school and after college, who both said they had no idea I had lost my dad. The first respondent said that she had also lost her father at a young age, which I never knew, and the other one was a heterosexual guy trapped in a lesbian woman's curvy body when I knew him, which I did not know at the time.

Why didn't I know about my high school classmate's dead father when we were in high school? Why didn't I know about my then-lesbian friend's gender identity struggle when he was in the midst of it? Why didn't they know about my father's (z"l) death till the other night? All I can say is that this blog and how I live today are reparations to myself for having been so closed off, and maybe the pendulum has swung too far in the self-disclosing direction. Still, I feel that I have been making up for what I experienced as lost time, when I was so self-contained that no one knew much about me, other than that I was typically nice, was funny sometimes, and while in my early-twenties, was ultra-amorous.

Fortunately, I have lived long enough and matured sufficiently to see the humanity of my high-school classmate; my post-college friend; and the gorgeous, lesbian mother...and to try to show them more of mine.