Alright, I'm not gonna lie...... I was beyond thrilled that Obama was elected. I dare say I even choked back a tear, I was so happy. And at the risk of getting cursed at, it renewed my very deteriorated faith in Americans. Canada is happy and the world is pretty happy. Did you see the world wide celebrations going on??
Hell, I'm going to go against all political correctness and I'm going to just say what's on my mind; I honestly never in a million years thought Americans would vote in a black (I'm sorry, African-American) president (let ALONE one with a name like Barack Hussein Obama!). I just never thought that bible-belt America, or the deep south, could get past their racist tendencies. And yes, I am well aware that not *everyone* in those areas is racist, but they certainly have histories for being so.
So let me just say congratulations, America. I am impressed and I am proud.
And for those who voted McCain and are railing on about how Obama is going to drive the economy into the ground..... well, I think Bush has already done that. Give your new president as much support as you gave your last, and keep an open mind. The time for change has come, and you have voted accordingly.
Alright, so I was one of those fools who.. back in tha day... thought it would be better to have separate archive pages instead of a list of months in my sidebar. Now I get an error when I click on my archive pages coz things have moved around so much over the years thanks to Blogger, and I have no idea how to fix that on a custom template. Anyone out there clever enough to tell me how to fix it? Pretty please?
I really wasn't sure if I was going to bother writing again or not; I'm sure my audience has dwindled away (can't blame ya!) and crazy things have kept me away, including time in and out of the hospital. Not exactly good times, but it's all character building, right?
Something interesting has drawn me back, actually; an email from someone who happened upon my blog, and after reading it some, had written to me to share his views. Now, if you cruise my last few entries you will see that I often attract religious fanatics that need to express their views in an often offensive and in-your-face manner. I accept what comes, as it is part of what is to be expected when you put yourself out there, and especially when you declare yourself an Israel lovin' Jew. From time to time this has caused "a lively debate" ;-)
In this recent email however, my interest has been piqued, for the gentleman writing (a) used his name and didn't hide behind the cowardly "anonymous" title that so many do, and (b) though his religious beliefs are strong and expressed in the email, they are genuine, inoffensive and even insightful. I was surprised to see that this fellow even went so far as to "overlook" my 'habits and tattoos', which is always appreciated. Thankfully I'll be okay if I just repent.
But I digress. His email actually came at a very timely point in my life, you see; his email discusses my dreams (I have a dream blog as well, that he had read a bit of, though I have not kept up with) and lately my dreams have come back with a vengeance and more vividly than ever. In the past my dreams often kept me up at night, had me dreading going to bed, or fearing for events that may unfold. Sometimes they were foreboding, sometimes they were violent, sometimes they told of things to come, and sometimes they were lucid. When I had gone too long without sleep I often had a hard time sorting out what I had dreamt and what had really happened. Wacky stuff, I highly recommend avoiding it by doing what you need to in order to get sleep.
But I have digressed again! My point is, while this chap does indeed have some underlying motive for writing (including a link to his blog, though the link doesn't work) he has sparked at least an interest in me to get back to writing here again. I began this blog long ago and it has seen me travel to Israel and back 3 times, fall in and out of love, and struggle with life and all it's obstacles. I wondered if perhaps it served it's purpose, but perhaps one's need to write and share such things ebbs and tides; right now I am in love again, in the midst of buying my first home and planning for my future. Is that interesting enough to write about? Or shall I rekindle my old roots in which I wrote about Israel, with all her politics, up and downs, and religious dichotomy? Perhaps a little from column A, a little column B....
I'm going to rekindle my dream blog again as well. I might as well write about what's been keeping me up for the past month or so. Perhaps my new friend can offer his interpretations, and maybe you will see fit to do so as well. While I may not agree with all of my new friend's views I always welcome debate, insight and friendly sharing of ideas, thoughts and beliefs. It's how we best learn and grow from each other.
With his permission, I may put up the email he wrote me, a little later. Check back.
UPDATE: here's the email.. take from it what you will, but keep an open mind. Disagree or agree, however you feel compelled, but keep it fair. Keep the conversation intelligent and know that slandering or defamation of *anyone's* religion will not be tolerated.
Dear Celestial,
I just read your post about your very vivid dreams. I was taken back by your last post about your walking through blood and the blood running down from the mountain. Celestial what you are seeing is a dream from God. Scripture teaches that two huge future battles will be waged in northern Israel in the near future. One battle in Megetto, northern Israel, it is prophesied that the blood will run like a river as high as the horses bridle.
The nation of Israel will be going through a time of trouble like nothing in the past or will be in the future. I haven’t written any posts in my blog about these battles but I will in the near future. My blog url is JIPT.blogger.com.
Celestial, God is calling you to be closer to him. Often times God called many of the great prophets by dreams and visions. The very fact that you are questioning your Jewish heritage and viewpoints is a strong indication of Gods call on your life. Contrary to popular belief we don’t get good enough and then God uses us. God takes us were we are and transforms our lives from the inside out. I don’t question your habits or your tattoos; God doesn’t look on the outside he looks on your heart. He has put a desire for himself on your heart. Being a nice Jewish girl as the other posts say is like somehow you have a code of life to live up to, and it just won’t cut it. Nobody can be perfect before God. God knew you and formed you before you were born. God loves you. God gave you those dreams to get you questioning what was real and what was not in the world. Without your dreams there would be no way that we would be having this conversation.
In the last month God has called me to reach out to the Jewish people and tell them to repent before him. I didn’t know any Jewish people, I worked for a Jew when I was a kid but that was it. I wrote some posts in blogger.com and I came across your blog.
For the last 32 years I have been studying scriptural prophecy, what the word of God says about the future to come.
What I like about you Celestial is that you write God not G..od or G-d. God says we can come boldly before his throne of grace. I am going to ask God to give you more dreams, pleasant dreams about him. From your ATM dream you have a good understanding of right and wrong, good and bad influence. You somewhat understand the working of the devil. You need to say to the Lord, I hear you Lord and I want to follow you. In your speaking to God ask him to forgive you of your sins. He will forgive you of every sin that you have committed in the past and every sin that you will commit in the future, what a bargain.
I will send you a new url that will give you more answers. I will also e-mail you future posts that you may enjoy reading. If you don’t want me to send this material just e-mail and ask that I stop sending it.
Celestial the land of Israel has a very exciting future. I am excited for your love for Israel and its people. God’s word says that Israel will be the head of all nations and not the tale.Israel will be a land of peace and prosperity, The Jewish people will take their proper position of honest leadership throughout the world. You may say, that will be the day. God is re-gathering his people and it is no wonder that you are one of them.
You have a gift in your writing even if it is edgy you tell it from your heart, keep it up.
I will be praying for you, and I will be asking God to make himself real to you in your everyday life. Be sure to watch for him doing miracles in your life.
Many a Jew believes that if you are tattooed you cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery. This is one of those exciting myths passed down by Rabbis and Jewish moms alike. That's why it was interesting when a friend sent me an article that debates and dispels this very myth...
"But the edict isn’t true. The eight rabbinical scholars interviewed for this article, from institutions like the Jewish Theological Seminary and Yeshiva University, said it’s an urban legend, most likely started because a specific cemetery had a policy against tattoos. Jewish parents and grandparents picked up on it and over time, their distaste for tattoos was presented as scriptural doctrine."
UPDATE: found another great article dispelling the myth, here.
That's right folks, CNN.com felt that little gem belonged in the top ten headlines this morning, right next to actual relevant headlines such as "US Marine dies from injuries in Iraq" and.. er... "Dozens of catfish 'walk' on street". If you feel particularly moved by the catfish headline, you may go ahead and buy your t-shirt here.
Anyone else interested in flogging a dead horse with an unwelcome and self righteous guest who has scary and narrow minded points view? No? Let's move on then, shall we?
I'd like to start a new feature that I have had rolling around in my head for a long long time now. Until I think of a catchier title for it, it'll be known as the "ridiculous CNN.com headline of the day". You see..... I spend a lot of time on various news websites throughout the day and CNN.com offers me an often amusing point of view. It's amusing in that, I enjoy seeing what the folks at CNN consider important news.... important enough to make their headlines at the top/front of their page. If you don't know what I'm referencing, go have a look. We'll wait here.
Ok, so when you go to the webpage you will see the "big" headline of the moment, accompanied by a picture. Then to the right you will see another list of headlines that they deem important enough to make the top 20.... and this is generally where I start to have a good laugh. Allow me to cite an example.
Now before any of you go off on me, I am not laughing AT the boy and his condition (or that fact that he mows lawns in said condition) but I am questioning how this was a headline. Unquestionably, it's a heartwarming story about a boy who is doing things against all odds, but REALLY? A headline?? Why not scroll down and put it in your "Health" or "Living" section?
But here is where I really have to question CNN and their taste; do you not find it just a little bit disturbing that you actually SELL T-SHIRTS with that headline on it?? Has anyone seen this? If you go look at that top 20 list of headlines there are a special chosen few that have a little t-shirt icon next to them that indicates you can actually buy a t-shirt, that in this case says "Cerebral Palsy boy mows lawns" * I just saw it on CNN.com -7:24pm 07.12.2008"
Sometimes having a blog means putting yourself out there and potentially being in the line of fire. I think all of us realize that. It also means that there are people out there that are going to feel that they have the God-given right to come along and read your blog, think they know who you are, and then lay down some heavy judgment.
Know what I REALLY can't stand? Self righteous people. Know what's worse? Self righteous Jews laying judgment on other Jews. It makes me embarrassed to be a Jew, especially when that self righteous clown posts under the name "anonymous", like a coward.
Below you will see two comments made a few hours ago on my blogs, one on my photo blog and one on a post about my tattoo, both by my new friend Anonymous.
Honestly, what is your interest in all this junk pride stuff? You, a Jewish girl?
Haven't you learnt in your very short Jewish education that all these lesbians and homosexuals are losing their life on earth? Do you want to be part of that and also lose your own life on earth, you a JEWISH girl? If you have learnt one thing about your Jewishness is that these people are not helping themselves in any way by living the SHAMEFUL lives they live.
I do not know if you are lesbian but, if you are, you are simply losing your life. It leads to nowhere and these lesbian "feelings" are just false associations you put in your mind, usually by seeing videos or pictures of these lesbians and perverting your very fragile mind while watching these lesbian videos.
Instead, plan happiness in your life and think of planning a family and having children one day and this path will lead you to TRUE HAPPINESS. Finding a man in your life is what will bring true happiness in your life, not "admiring" people who have lost their minds and who want to lose the minds of others like you.
You might find these people very friendly. They sure are, as they are always very keen to have as many people join them in their craziness. You, the Jewish girl, you deserve better for yourself.
Haven't you learnt in your life so far that these people are losing the very short life they have on earth with all this junk pride stuff? There is nothing to like or to admire or beautiful about people wearing these crazy, sick outfits? NO PRIDE to have for having lost their minds and have become either homosexual or lesbian?
You deserve better than being attracted to all this shit!! Come, you are a JEWISH GIRL, you should know better. You know deep inside you that these people lose their lives, so why "admire" them and find them "beautiful" when they destroy their lives and want you to join them in their self-destruction.
Conclusion: NOTHING TO BE PROUD OF PARADING IN THESE CRAZY, SICK OUTFITS!! NOTHING TO BE PROUD OF BEING A LESBIAN OR A "GAY"!! ON THE CONTRARY, THEY SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEIR SICKNESS! YOU DESERVE BETTER IN YOUR LIFE. TRUE HAPPINESS COMES WITH CHILDREN, THAT WHAT YOU DESERVE FOR YOURSELF IN YOUR VERY SHORT LIFE ON EARTH.
Delete all this junk pride stuff and photograph children and families instead.
I am not here to sermonize you. BUT, wishing you only TRUE happiness, it is my duty to be honest with you, even if you feel that I am too open with you! I just want you to remember who you are, a Jewish woman, and from where you come from, the Jewish people. Your past experiences of being a Jewish girl and of belonging to the Jewish people might not have always been great but always remember to differentiate between people claiming to represent Judaism and anything Jewish and the values transmitted by the Tanach.
Take care of you. And G.od bless you and show you the TRUE PATH toward happiness in your life: children. Children brings deep, lasting happiness and, through children, you can claim true pride. G.od be with you and guide you. Take care.
The second is from the prior post, about my tattoo:
Tattoos, you the Jewish girl? You really have money to waste really! And many feel sorry later on to have had these tattoos in the first place!!
Come on, use your mind, do NOT let you convince that a tattoo is what you need because, the truth is, you do NOT need a tattoo, you the Jewish girl!
I believe you are in contact with the wrong friends to be influenced in such a bad way to have tattoo, to be fascinated by the pride march junk and so on.
Stop having these contacts and introspect deep into your SELF instead of imitating friends whose influences are no good to you!
Honestly, I don't even know where to begin to comment. Then again, I don't think this even really deserves a comment. I don't know what kind of a Jew YOU are "Anonymous" but I am an open minded and loving Jew who believes everyone in this world deserves love and I shall pass no judgments for how someone chooses to pursue that happiness. What kind of Jewish education did YOU receive that you have been taught such venomous hate and judgment?
It must be a very scary world you live in and I feel terribly sorry for you. I hope one day you find happiness within yourself and don't have to seek it from a man or children in order to achieve it. In fact.. and this may be hard for you to believe..... but at this point in my life, this VERY point..... I have never been happier. And that is the truth.
So I saw two movies on Friday and one on Saturday.
First I saw The Happening. Really, don't even get me started. In fact, I just read THE most brilliant review for it ever here. Go read it, but only if you have no intentions of seeing it because the review is chock full of spoilers. It's hilarious and made me realize even *more* just how absurd the movie concept was. Trust me.. at best, it's a rental. Don't waste your time in the theatres if you insist on wasting it at all.
However, the Incredible Hulk more than made up for my disappointment over The Happening. I went in with very low expectations (if you saw the Hulk movie in 2003 you'll know why) but was very pleasantly surprised by this new one. Great writing, decent special effects (I don't think there will ever be a computer generated Hulk I will be completely satisfied with) and just a well thought out movie. And a tie-in to the Iron Man movie! Awesome!!! Go see it, it was a great film and needs to be seen on the big screen. Oh and as an added bonus? It was filmed in Toronto! We locals really enjoyed seeing all the familiar landmarks of the main drag in Toronto during the big final fight scene.
I also saw the second Chronicles of Naria movie... er.... but I have no idea what happened in it. I really wish I had watched the first one over again because I had virtually NO recollection of it and it seriously impaired my enjoyment of the latest sequel. I'm not saying it was good or bad, I just didn't enjoy myself because I couldn't follow along (and it's a children's movie!!).
But enough about all that. There is something infinitely more exciting to discuss. For those who have been following lately, I have been gearing up to get a tattoo on my back sometime in the coming weeks. Today however, I went to a big tattoo convention going on here in Toronto with a couple of my friends and took along a few other tattoos I was interested in getting. I have a tattoo on my right ankle I want to cover up and I had some ideas I wanted to bounce off some tattoo artists there. Before I knew it.... I was gettin' inked! And I LOVE IT!!
Let us not mistaken "I LOVE IT" with "I LOVED GETTING IT!" because I really really did NOT. The guy doing my tattoo (I love you, Perry!) had the genius idea of going over my ankle..... as in that bone that juts out of your ankle with little more than a thin stretch of skin over it. No "meat", as it were. And can I just tell you? My language has *never* been so colourful. Mother*@ker was the word of the day and I called poor Perry that name more times than you could possibly imagine. I did not enjoy the process one iota and after all is said and done my ankle, though beautiful and colourful, is very very swollen.
I also learned some important things about my body and gettings tattoos. First, when a very sensitive spot is inked, repeatedly, it may cause you to twitch for a moment, quite involuntarily. Nothing like jerking your leg around and giving your guy a moving target. At least we soon learned which two spots were the nastiest and we both prepared for the inevitable reaction.
Second, and a much more important lesson, is to EAT before you sit down for a tattoo. It may seem counter-intuitive, but trust me it's not. I hadn't eaten for probably about 5 hours and even on a good day that's bad news for me; I tend to get shaky and nauseous if I don't feed the need and if left long enough I get a migraine.
In this case I indeed left it a little too long because I was so nervous that I didn't really feel hungry... in fact my body skipped almost completely past the shaky stage and went right into the nauseous stage. As Perry was working on the outline and the most painful part over my ankle (insert ridiculous amounts of swearing here) I noticed I was feeling.... not quite right. I lifted my arms and held my hands out and saw that I had the shakes. Uh oh, I thought. Then my head started to swim. I began looking around for one of my two other friends to beg them to get me food, and eventually one did come around to check on me. I told her I needed sugar, pronto, and I didn't care if it was a coke or a chocolate bar, I just needed it quick. Perry stopped the tattoo right away and asked if I was ok. I tried playing it cool and said I was just gettin' the shakes and would be fine as soon as I got the food; meanwhile, I'm checking out the garbage pail beside Perry and thinking... if I had to... I could puke there. But did I really want to do that in front of ALL these people? In front of the 16 yr old kid beside me who is being shockingly cool about getting his first tattoo (and it was BIG)? Not so much.
My friend returned with a muffin and a granola bar, but as she began to hand it to me I turned to her and said: "... I think it's too late..... I think I need to go puke now". Perry stands up immediately and announces he's going to walk with me to the bathroom because it is a long way away and he wants to make sure I get there ok. Once I started walking I realized why he said it... my head wasn't just a bit dizzy.... I was starting to get tunnel vision. Omigod, I thought, I'm going to pass out on the way to the bathroom and cause a scene. Little did I know until later that as I was making my way through the crowd, growing greener around the gills by the second, Perry was behind me motioning to the people ahead to clear the way. Such a sweet guy.
Anyway, by the time I got to the bathroom (after considering every garbage can along the way) and got myself locked into the stall and crouched in front of the toilet... it would not come up. I suppose it was because there was nothing TO bring up, but still. At this point I wanted it to, if nothing else than to give me some relief. But it was not to happen, so I picked myself back up, splashed some water on my face and headed back.
Perry gave me a few minutes to eat my muffin and within 5 mins my colour came back to my face and my stomach settled right down. Duh, I am such an idiot.
Anyway, below are some pictures and a video of my tattoo, before and after (pay particular attention to the one where I'm giving the thumbs up... that was before he started. my mood would shift rapidly after that. LOL!) Click on the images for a bigger size. I LOVE my new tattoo and all the detail and shading, even if my ankle is now swollen to twice it's normal size.
THANK YOU, PERRY!! You rock and you took my abuse and name calling like a trouper. And your work is beautiful; you were SO nice and patient and fabulous to work with. See you next year!!
UPDATE: Got these pics from my friend Phil who was there to document the goodtimes. Go ahead and laugh at my pain, Phil did too.
Oh look out. I'm in a great mood. It's sunny and beautiful, the scent of potential new love is in the air (come on it's spring! lol), and it's FRIDAY. Not only is it Friday, but it's Friday the 13th, and given that I was born on a Friday the 13th this date tends to hold a special place in my heart.
And so many things around me to make me happy!! Going to see the new Incredible Hulk movie tonight. Then I want to see the new movie The Happening as soon as possible; so help me god if M. Night Shyamalan angers me like he did with The Village I'll kick his ass. That movie looked good, and was, right up until the end. If he does that again I might have to beat my $12 out of him.
And there is a tattoo convention going on here in Toronto this week, all weekend!! Giddy up!! I totally want to go!! Wouldn't be surprised if I walked out with a little work done. Besides that big tatt I want (see prior post if you're just joining) I have an ankle tattoo I would either like fixed up or covered up, and it's small enough that it could be done in an hour or so. We'll see. One tatt at a time. ;-)
And as icing on the cake, a new episode of Battlestar Galactica is on tonight. OH. YEAH!!!! Does it get any better than all this? I think not...
