"Marry or merry?"

It might be the 80 degree weather or maybe the fact that I’m Jewish, but I can’t believe Christmas time is upon us. I’m not usually in The Holiday Spirit anyway, but this year it seems next to impossible to get into the swing of things.

It was easier when I was eight. Your teacher at school would start gearing you up for the holidays somewhere around September. Maybe the classroom would have some lights and you’d do a nice craft activity where you’d make a few ornaments. I’ve had many moments where teachers would pull me aside because of my religion.
“Are you ok? Are you ok making an ornament? I know you’re Jewish…”
I had learnt, after abandoning Jew School, that it is best not to make a fuss unless it can get you out of your homework or a test.
“I’m fine! Really!” I’d say as I continued eating all of the candy designated for my ginger bread house in third grade. “I LOVE Jesus and Santa!”

Actually, I thought it was “illegal” for Jews to say the name Jesus or look at a cross until I was about ten. I never stepped foot inside a church until I was fourteen, and I just spent the entire time making fun of the wedding ceremony.
“Let us read from the book of Solomon,” the priest (or pastor? Father? You tell me.) said.
“Relaham and Blake,” I would add, which only caused fits of giggles from my cousins sitting next to me. To clarify, since I am pretty sure these guys aren’t national; Solomon, Relaham, and Blake are so-called attorneys in Arizona who are willing to help you with your D.U.I. charges for a small fee.

Let me also clarify that the Jews didn’t kill Jesus. Jews are totally wimpy and neurotic. I should know, I’m one of them. Apart from Goldberg the “wrestler” the most violent we ever get is probably just our excessive hand gesturing. We mostly fight with our wit and brisket recipes. Some of us do math for fun and all of our mothers want us to marry Jewish doctors. All of them. We’re almost all obsessive compulsive and we hate guilt. We probably did try to rough Jesus up a little though, for fun, but he probably just said -while gesturing- “Hey, you guys, I’m one of you!” and then they all had a good laugh about it and ate. It probably made a great story for years at Passover. “Hey Sheldon, remember when you tried to kill me? Oh man, that was funny!” Just like that.

It’s Christmas Eve y’all. I’m going to the movies.

Quote of the day:
Sister: “Can we open our gifts on Christmas eve?”
Mom: “No! What do you think we are? Goyim?”
- My mother to my sister regarding our Chanukamas gifts. Despite being a True Blue Jew, my family likes the Christmas tradition of having gifts to open on little Baby Jesus’ birthday. Shut up, you know you wish you could do both too.

“Would you like me to let go of your hand?”

If I’m going to a friend’s house, I always bring something, and since I’m on this baking kick and they are all poor college students, none of them seem to mind.

“YOU! YOU BROUGHT COOKIES!” Sky shouted into my face as she hugged me, “Aw Stefi! I missed you!” She was drunk, which wasn’t far off from the way she was the last time I saw her, but I missed her, too. She surprised me by being at an End of the Semester Merry X-mas Par-tay my friend Bri was throwing for a hundred of her closest friends this weekend; and I surprised everyone by showing up only an hour later than I was supposed to. “Are you gonna drink?” Skylar asked me, “You have to drink!”
“Uh, I’m not drinking, I don’t really drink, plus I’m driving,” I said as she poured me out 9/10th of a vodka bottle.
“You have to at least do a shot! You can sober up later,” She insisted before a blender in the kitchen caught her eye, she turned her back to me and I dumped my “shot” into another cup, “OH A BLENDER!” Skylar shouted, “I feel the need to blend something!” I took that as my cue to mingle.



I had only ever spoken to J. after he answered StephanieBrown’s cell phone earlier that night.
“Is he cute?” I asked her when he handed the phone back to her, “He sounds really cute. And is he single?”
“He is most definitely not cute,” she assured me, “But I’m positive he’s pretttyyyy single.”
Despite her drunken state, she was right, except she left out the part where he was also crazy, but it was all fine- there were a lot of other drunk boys there to keep me company. Drunk boys love me, you see, because apparently when they’re drunk, I look like fucking Angelina Jolie.

“Hello, Unknown Person,” what seemed to be an Oompa Loompa said to me as he took my hand in his. Apparently, once you start college, you are required to either kiss everyone you meet or shake their hand. That’s the rule.
I turned to Skylar next to me for help, but she was far too gone, and about to take another shot. Rolling her eyes, but not moving to break up the greeting she explained, “That’s E.” He left and then she added, “He’s short.”
“Do you wear contacts?” he later asked me later as I stood in the kitchen.
“Uh, no. Why?” I had to look down to answer him.
“You sure?” He asked.
“I’m positive.”
He stared at me for a moment, “Nice eyes,” he said before walking away. I didn’t mean to, but after he said that, I laughed.
Skylar came up behind me and grabbed me to steady herself, “He’s weird,” she said and then nodded vigorously for emphasis and walked away, I assume to smoke.



“LOVE the dreidel cookies!” a girl in a hat squealed at me. “You brought them right?” I quickly tried to find someone less perky or less drunk to talk to, but found no one. I was stuck.
“Yeah… I brought them.”
“SO CUTE!” she hugged me, “I’m L. I’m JEWISH! ARE YOU JEWISH!?” She asked me, she was still holding onto me.
“Uh, yeah…” I broke away from her grasp.
“Can you sing Hava Nagela?” she nearly spilled the beer in her hand, “I love it! Let’s sing it! C’mon! Hava…” she waited for me to join in.
“Oh,” I say, shaking my head, “Nah, no, that’s all right.”
“No! I LOVE IT! LET’S SING IT!”
“Really ah, no.”
“Do you not like being Jewish?” L.’s tone suddenly shifts and I’m afraid she is going to have a throw down with me. I have nothing against being Jewish, I just have a thing against annoying people who happen to also be Jewish.
“I love being Jewish,” I counter, “I just don’t want to sing.”
“NO! SING IT!”
I search for something shiny that would catch L.’s attention but come up short, so I resort to saying anything, “Uh-oh! Should that cat be on the counter?”
L. looks in the direction I’m pointing and I make my getaway.

“She’s like that with everyone,” Bri tells me later over the phone, “Fuck, I’m not even Jewish and she wanted me to sing Hava Nagela. And did you know that the reason J. left the party was to follow L. home?” I think back to how he left just moments after her cab arrived. Bri continued, “He basically went over there demanding sex.”
“That’s awful!” I say, happy I didn’t really talk to him now, but then I think about it, “Bri, he’s not nearly good looking enough to be demanding sex.”



People started filtering out of the party and I sat with a sobered up Bri, her boyfriend-ish thing, and a few people I never met for about an hour.
“These cats,” A. started rubbing his head, “They’re killing me, I’m allergic.”
“I don’t really get allergies,” S. says. “I mean, like, I don’t have any allergies, why should other people?”
A. and I exchange looks of disbelief as I contemplate whether or not I should explain allergies to the apparently only drunk person in the room. “I don’t get gay people either,” he adds, “That’s not real passion.”
I fear poor Bri’s head is about to explode, but I couldn’t pass this up.
“What is it that freaks you out?” I ask S. “The fact that two boys have feelings for each other?”
The room went silent, save for A.’s snickering.
“You can only be gay until a certain age,” S. explained, “But mostly they are just desperate.”
Bri went nuts, as did the four other people in the room, including myself.
“You guys,” I said, half-mocking after more than a few minutes attacking S.’s belief system and getting nowhere, “Let it go. The kid doesn’t even understand allergies, how is he gonna understand being gay?”

Quote of the day:
“Imagine pushing out some monstrosity out of your vagina and having it die two hours later… That’d be awesome.”
- StephanieBrown on childbearing.

“If he puts them down, it’s 'cause he’s jealous.”

Finding straight boys to date has never been my specialty. I'm prone to adoring boys who like boys or wish to be girls.

It started early. Josh was the prettiest of all the second graders in my class, and probably also the cleanest. He loved Hanson and Cher and The Spice Girls, and Jewel and I adored him for it. He used to pick me for pop-corn reading and I would choose him for soccer. We'd talk about why we loved Gap clothes and how Madonna looked better with brown hair. We were eight, it was love. He was gay. I found out in seventh grade. Looking back, I don't know how I couldn't know he was gay. He had great hair.

The transition into high school was easy for me, I made new friends quickly, and was excited when I finally had a crush on one of them.

"S. is GAY," my best friend at the time told me over and over again, "and he looks like a fish."
I ignored her. He was cute. OK, he smelled weird, and, ok, he wasn't particularly good looking at all in actuality, but he understood all of my Buffy and Will and Grace references.
"Shut up," I'd say, "He’s crazy about me."

S. and I hung out all the time. At his family's Christmas party my Freshman year we sang karaoke Grease before his best friend, who was a girl, came up to me after our “Summer Lovin’” duet.
"You better stop," she said while we were both at the kitchen counter pouring soda.
"I'm sorry?" I asked. I thought she was just concerned that she wouldn't get any Sprite.
"Stop flirting with him," she looked me square in the eye, “You’ve been glued to him all night."
I played dumb. “I don’t see how telling him his hair looks great and sitting on his lap is flirting,” I replied in my best Samantha Jones voice. Who was she to tell me to back off? Especially when I could probably give him more than this girl ever could. More what, exactly, I couldn’t tell you, but whatever he wanted, he could have had it from me, which, looking back, probably just would have been shoes. She flounced off in a huff, tripping over her own feet and spilling her soda along her way back to the living room. I felt sorry for her, and I didn't know it then, but I see now that this girl and I were in the same position. Hopelessly “in love” with a fag.

Later that night, the two had a huge fight in front of everyone. I was only a little delighted. "C'mon, Stephanie," S. said, "Let's go to my room."
I was only too happy to oblige. We left his other friends and I practically skipped down the hallway to his room. He closed the door behind us and simultaneously switched on Bette Midler's greatest hits.
"I love her," he sighed, tossing me the CD case.
Me, oblivious to his love for other men, answered, "Oh, me too. I didn’t know anyone but my mom and I listened to her!" When were we gonna make out?
"And I just bought the new Coyote Ugly soundtrack!" he giggled, "I just LOVE LeAnne Rimes."
I nod, I am so into him, he could have told me he thought Glitter was a fantastic movie and I would have agreed just incase he wanted to stick his tongue down my throat. We talked for a while, all about him, while we sat on his bed. Towards the end he began to vent about a presentation he had to give in a science class. "I'm scared," S. admitted, "Will you help me pick out my outfit?" He opened his closet revealing a wardrobe similar to Siegfried's or Roy's.
Glitter, color, animal prints. You name it, he had it.
"I love yellow," he gushed, "so pick me out something yellow that really POPs!"

I came home that night and called my best friend in a frantic, “You were right,” I told her, “Gay. Gayer than gay! Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay!”
She laughed on the other end, “At least it only took you six months to figure that one out.”

Quote of the day:
Bryan (11:28:33 PM): So I’m having a real problem...I can’t remember the name of 5ish girls I’ve slept with. Someone asked me to list them all the other night.
Stefi (11:29:06 PM): Fiveish girls? You've slept with more than 'fiveish’ girls. You’re not fooling anyone.
Bryan (11:29:29 PM): No, no, no, I forgot the names of five of them.
Stefi (11:29:47 PM): Then obviously they were fatties.
Bryan (11:30:04 PM): No, I got those.
Bryan (11:30:17 PM): Well, the one.
Stefi (11:30:36 PM): You're a kind and generous man giving back to The Community like that.