Jerusalem Ball

Sprague street

Lala Butt

Caitlin9

Telilla

The Ruins HDR

Fever Dreams

I've discovered the worst part about being sick. It's not the coughing, sneezing or throwing up. It's the fever dreams. Those I-don't-quite-know-whether-I'm-asleep-or-not nightmares. I don't know if everybody has these, but ever since I was a kid, my fever dreams have been complete incomprehensible gibberish, usually accompanied by the repeating chorus of the most annoying song that I had heard from the last few days.
The clearest thing I can remember is the feeling that in all those dreams I was supposed to be doing something and wasn't accomplishing it. That I was letting somebody down. I think it could be compared to getting chemotherapy and dental surgery without anesthesia while listening to a cute and she's-untalented-but-bless-her-heart-she's-trying-her-best child play the bagpipes.

179th St

179th St
Originally uploaded by Tmuna Fish.

Saturday Morning

Dad: This morning I did not want to get up.
Me: Neither did I.
Mom:(annoyed) YOU DIDN'T.
Mom:(to dad) He got up at ONE!
Me: Psshh! More like One-Thirty

A love of Torah

Heart Chumash
Originally uploaded by Tmuna Fish.

Taking it off

I never really intended to grow a beard. It just kind of...happened. The last time I shaved was before Rosh Ha Shana. I was celebrating the holiday at The NYU Chabad house. Usually, I shave before going somewhere for Shabbat or Yom Tov, but I figured

They're Chabadniks. They don't care if I shave.

So, I left a two-day fuzz on my face. Then I figured I wouldn't shave until all the holidays were over. After Simchat Torah I had a good beard going. It was decent, not too crazy.

After a while, the beard became part of my normal look. Then I moved to Crown Heights, where if you shave your beard you're mamish an apicurus.

So, before I knew it, my facial hair grew for about four months (with a few snips here and there from time to time). The whole time though, I wanted to shave.

It was always: "Tomorrow...I'll do it tomorrow..."

But...I never did. Finally, I left Crown heights and was sick and tired of spending thirty seconds holding my hands to my face, pressing down my sideburns while hoping that it would "train" to grow straight down rather than sideways; a little trick I picked up from a Rabbi at Yeshiva Hadar Ha'torah. He said the key was to do it when it was wet.

So two nights ago, I did it. I took a pair of scissors, lined my sink with a garbage bag and spent the next hour chopping of three months of growth.

And now my face is cold.

Maybe Mom Aint So Crazy Afterall

I realized something last night. I was walking up stairs past my parents room, when I heard a horrible noise. It was my dad snoring.

I've aways thought my mom was crazy. Randomly irritable and irrational. But I know that if I had to sleep next to that malfuntioning lawnmower for a quarter of a century, I would have smothered him in his sleep years ago.

I'm Back

Holy Crap!!! I totally just got lazy for the past few months and stopped writing. But that's done.
Why did I stop? I was mad busy. Alot has happened. Too much for one post, so I'll give just a taste.
First, I decided to wear my Kippa at work, which was good and bad. My boss gave me crap for it at first, but then the Jew customers loved me more.
Second, I had a tiff with my parents and moved to Crown Heights for a littel bit. What a trip that was, they're nutz.
But I'm back now and all is back to normal...for the most part.

Getting hit by car take two.

It keeps flashing in my mind; the moment of impact. I never saw anything, but I felt it. I was riding my bike on Stewart avenue in Garden city. I changed lanes and then felt the sensation of moving way faster then I should have been. It took me a split second to realize that I was now riding on the hood of a car.
It couldn’t have lasted longer than a second and a half, but it felt like a lot longer. During which I had the following thoughts:

• Oh shit…I just been hit by a car...no wait I'm still getting hit by the car.


• Hmm...maybe changing lanes wasn’t the wisest course of action.


• Oh crap it’s probably gonna hurt when I hit the ground.


• I hope my bike doesn’t get all f**ed up.


• Oh shit here comes the ground.


• Ouch

I got up and looked into the car. There was a very rattled looking woman behind the wheel of the Lexus.
Then I saw this.

That is my messed up bike. Wounds heal. Tires don't That was my first thought as I dropped to my knees and mourned the loss of my two-wheeled transport. Then I thought

"Stop being a dick. You could have been killed. Ask the driver if she's ok."

Fast forward... This is me in the hospital waiting for X-rays. At this point I was bored and just wanted to go home.

New Rule: If you are a New York Yankee, you may not fly an airplane

The New York Yankees are having a bad week.
The mid-afternoon traffic seemed thicker than usual. I knew something was up. But it never entered my mind that there was a plane crash. This alone was enough to be headline news. Add to that the pilot was a member of one of the most famous sports teams in the world.

It's sad; it really is. He left behind a wife, kid and twin brother. But it bears noting, what the f$%^ was he thinking. It's one thing when you fly over an abandoned field in the middle of nowhere, but he was flying over one of the most densely populated areas in the world. On top of that he was flying around thousand foot obstacles scarcely a mile a way from the most notorious plane crash in the history of aviation.

Then there is the other thing. Thurman Munson. Almost thirty years ago, they Yankee catcher was killed when the plane he was flying crashed in a field outside Canton, Ohio. One would think that teams would start banning their million-dollar players from taking such risks. Doesn't that seem reasonable? Yankees owner George Steinbrenner has a no-beard rule, but for some inexplicable reason he doesn't have a no-plane-flying rule.

This is the last thing the Yankees needed. Of all the places they could take a drop in payroll the starting rotation was the last.