Like the Jewish Cartoonists Who Invented Superheroes

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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?

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

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

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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.