My rabbi never, ever, ever calls me Michelle. He always calls me Miriam and it feels right. It feels like there was this piece of me missing my whole life until I found my place in the tribe, the religion and the community. I didn’t lose any pieces of myself, I’m still a Southern girl who grew up on a farm, I’m still a reader, a baker, a geek, sarcastic by nature, I’m still in love with Louisville, I’m still Michelle, I’m still me. The addition of Miriam just made me…more me.

A great deal of my life and my time revolve around my shul*. Services, volunteer projects, even actual paid work and I couldn’t be happier about it. It’s the place I’m meant to be and I’m lucky I found it.

Thank you for your love and support while I found my way here and for your continued love and support once I got to where I was going.

*And possibly even more time soon, I’ve been asked to lead the morning minyan once a week. I’m not sure I’m ready to do that but I’m thinking about it.

No Hurry Vegetable Curry
1 tablespoon peanut oil (I used canola)
2 large carrots, sliced on a diagonal
1 medium yellow onion chopped
3 Garlic Cloves minced
2 tablespoons curry powder
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 large Yukon Gold potatoes peeled and diced (I did not peel)
8 ounces green beans, end trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 15.5 ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes, drained
2 cups vegetable stock
1/2 cup frozen green peas, thawed
1/2 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
Salt

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium eat. Add the carrots and onion, cover and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, curry powder, coriander and cayenne, stirring to coat

2. Transfer the vegetable mixture to 4 quart slower cooker. Add the potatoes, green beans, chickpeas, tomatoes and stock; cover and cook on Low for 6-8 hours.

3. Just before serving, stir in the peas and coconut milk and season with salt. Taste to adjust the seasonings.

From Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker by Robin Robertson

For me the Kindle has two killer features. The first is that it helps me decrease the amount of physical stuff taking up space in my house. If it’s a book by a favorite author or a Jewish book that I know I’m going to reference later on then I will buy the physical book. If it’s a novel or a non-fiction book that I get interested on a whim then having it in Kindle form is just fine.

The second killer feature is the Kindle iPhone app. My Kindle and my iPhone stay synced so if I’m standing in line at the post office or waiting for B at a restaurant and don’t have anything with me but my iPhone I can still be reading. The problem is that I find I enjoy reading on my iPhone more than I enjoy reading on the Kindle. Obviously the Kindle’s screen is larger but I find the bright LCD screen and digital text of the iPhone easier to read than the Kindle’s darker screen and e-ink. And the touch screen of the iPhone has become second nature so flicking a finger to turn the page is more intuitive than pushing a button to do so. Also, the Kindle interface has never seemed quite right. It’s fine, but it’s not great. I guess the best way to describe it is that it’s just not smooth. Whatever task you need to do (make a note, go to a previous section, etc) is simple enough to do but it doesn’t feel simple. Does that make sense?

That brings me to the iPad. At first I thought this was device that would have absolutely no place in my life. Then I noticed how much B sits on the couch playing Tetris on her iPhone while I’m reading. Then I paid attention to how much I really don’t look forward to reading on my Kindle anymore because I feel like my eyes are straining with the screen. Let me pause here to note that I know people have said e-ink is easier on the eyes and perhaps long term it is but for me personally it’s much easier to read on an LCD screen.

I have been having fantasies of reading on essentially a much larger version on my iPhone and it excites me. I imagine B enjoying her games of Tetris infinitely more than she currently does. I imagine how beautiful and intuitive the experience of navigating and performing tasks will be on the iPad. Apple might be locked down, they might do weird pricing things but lets face it, they know how to develop an incredible complete package of hardware and software.

So am I going to go out and drop $500 on an iPad? Probably not, we’re spending way too much money renovating the house but I will definitely want to. See the difference? I never wanted to spend money on a Kindle but when I got one for free I loved it. I want an iPad. I see its potential in both my life and B’s life. I don’t think B has ever touched my Kindle except to hand it to me. In other words I cannot fathom someone spending $259 for a Kindle 2 or $489 for a Kindle DX instead of an iPad. Kindle is a great e-book reader, full stop. But I’m a fan of Alton Brown’s philosophy of only going with unitasking tools when you absolutely have to.

During this walk I got a peek into my new street and the street that my shul is on in a way that I never can in a car. I had forgotten that. I had forgotten how much you miss when you’re encased in a car. It felt so good to walk, even in the cold. Walking reminds you that you’re alive.

We’re 2 blocks from the grocery store now, I’m walking there too. I just need to find a good cart to tote things home in.

This week Amazon mp3 had Radiohead’s Kid A on sale for $2.99. I bought The Bends when it was on sale for $2.99 and I had $3 in free credit on the Amazon mp3 store. I bought OK Computer a year or so ago. So now that’s three (and if I’m not mistaken 3 of the most critically acclaimed) Radiohead albums I own. I don’t love any of them. In fact I’m pretty sure I don’t even like most of them. However since, like beer, Radiohead is kind of universally loved I’m going to give liking them the old college try. I’m going to immerse myself in Radiohead this week. If at the end of the week I’m still only feeling a track here or there I’m going to give up on trying to be a Radiohead fan. That’s fair right?

2. CCH Pounder is awesome in every single thing she does.

3. I don’t understand how Ana Lucia Michelle Rodriguez didn’t need an oxygen mask while flying the helicopter, it didn’t have a sealed cockpit like the planes. Is it because she wouldn’t have looked as badass with one?

4. I wish the score had been more dramatic. If you’re going to do an epic (even a science fiction epic) you need an epic score.

5. I like Dances with Wolves better.

1. Blood Bank (EP) – Bon Iver
Oh child, I love me some Bon Iver. I need him to release another new album with the quickness. I’ve listened to his full length debut For Emma, Forever Ago and the Blood Bank EP more than is probably healthy over the past 12 months.

2. Far – Regina Spektor
This physical disc has been in my car since August because when I’m too lazy to plug in my iPhone I know this album will always sound good.

3. I And Love And You – The Avett Brothers
I haven’t had nearly as much time with this record as the other two but it’s a definite keeper. Even if it does have a scary album cover.

Now, something that’s more interesting and insightful into my relationship with music is the music that I listened to most in 2009 regardless of when it was released. Thanks to Last.fm’s awesome charts I know that the songs I listened to the most in 2009 were:

1. Bon Iver – Blood Bank full track
2. Bon Iver – Skinny Love
3. Bon Iver – Beach Baby
4. Bon Iver – Woods
5. Bon Iver – Babys
6. Adele – Melt My Heart to Stone
7. Blitzen Trapper – Furr
8. Bon Iver – Flume
9. Regina Spektor – Two Birds
10. The Avett Brothers – Salina
11. The Avett Brothers – Black, Blue
12. Regina Spektor – Human of the Year
13. Kanye West – RoboCop
14. Adele – Tired
15. Nina Simone – Feeling Good
16. Kanye West – Love Lockdown
17. Adele – Best for Last
18. Regina Spektor – Samson
19. The Avett Brothers – Tear Down the House
20. Lucinda Williams – Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
21. Neko Case – This Tornado Loves You
22. Death Cab for Cutie – Cath
23. Adele – Chasing Pavements
24. Kanye West – Say You Will
25. Adele – Make You Feel My Love
26. Nina Simone -I Put A Spell On You
27. The Avett Brothers – Murder in the City
28. Bon Iver – Lump Sum
29. Death Cab for Cutie – Marching Band of Manhattan
30. The Postal Service – The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

I told you I love me some Bon Iver.

The albums most represented in my listening habits in 2009:

1. Adele – 19
2. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
3. Bon Iver – Blood Bank
4. Kanye West – 808s & Heartbreak
5. Regina Spektor – Far
6. Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs
7. Paul Simon – Graceland
8. The Rolling Stones – Forty Licks (disc 1)
9. Death Cab for Cutie – Plans
10. The Avett Brothers – The Second Gleam
11. The Avett Brothers – Emotionalism
12. Regina Spektor – Begin to Hope
13. Buena Vista Social Club – Buena Vista Social Club At Carnegie Hall
14. Lucinda Williams – Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
15. Philip Glass – The Hours
16. Amy Winehouse – Back To Black
17. The Postal Service – Give Up
18. Michael Bacon – The Jewish Americans
19. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone (I find this one suspect since I really didn’t like this album)
20. Nina Simone – Bittersweet The Very Best of Nina Simone
21. Matisyahu – Youth
22. Michael Nyman – Gattaca
23. Indigo Girls – All That We Let In
24. John Mayer – Continuum
25. Jimmy Buffett – A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean
26. Fleetwood Mac – The Dance
27. Otis Redding – The Very Best of Otis Redding
28. Van Morrison – Astral Weeks
29. Shawn Colvin – These Four Walls
30. Nirvana – MTV Unplugged In New York

It’s interesting how important music is in my life. Looking at these tracks I think “yep, X was going on right then and I listened to that track over and over” or “That album was the only thing I could listen to and man it helped get me through.”

Music is a conduit to the past. Or maybe just Music is a conduit. Full Stop (just like Love. Is).

January

• Was asked to be on a committee at shul
• Melissa made firm plans to come visit in February (so excited!)
• Daddy gave me a Wii
• Appeared on WFPL’s State of Affairs for the second time
• Was without power for 5 days during and after the ice storm. We stayed downtown at D’s condo.
• Vaguely discussed setting a mikvah date with Rabbi. He was disappointed that my birthday is so far away, far too long to wait to finish the conversion process but he likes to have the big dunk coincide with significant dates

February

• Chose date with Rabbi for mikvah visit and conversion ceremony
• Chose a Hebrew name
• Went with R to her first ortho appointment and then to lunch. This because a really fun routine for us and I was sad to see it go when her surgery and all of its follow-up visits were over.
• SMC Lou Social Media Bootcamp for Non-Profits
• Um, majorly unpleasant event that I can’t talk about on the wide open internet
• Agreed to go into therapy
• Spoke to classes at two different universities
• Melissa’s visit! So. Much. Fun. We did the Maker’s Distillery tour, had great meals at Proof and Toast and saw Amelie at the midnight movie. I say again So. Much. Fun.
• Was without power for 3 days because of wind storm. Stayed at the other D’s house one night.

March

• Entered therapy
• Lots and lots of unpleasantness both personal and Consuming Louisville wise (Breadworks brouhaha)
• Spoke to a class at a third university for the year
• Was nominated for 40 Under Forty which turned out to be one of the worst things ever
• Received a wealth of seder invitations
• Chose my mikvah witnesses
• Fell in love with Fleetwood Mac again

April

• Mikvah
• Conversion ceremony (and party with a gorgeous cake from Marsha)
• Two seders
• More major unpleasantness that I can’t talk about on the wide open internet
• Went to Chicago with B for a conference. Spent 3 days roaming the city in the rain by myself. Maybe not the best plan given my state of mind at the time.
• More therapy and more unpleasantness. I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced such a manic month in my life. It contained some of the happiness moments I’ve ever felt (mikvah, conversion ceremony) and also the worst week of my life (save weeks where someone has died).

May

• Lost my mind. No, seriously
• The “Libraries are Free but Books Aren’t” book drive on Consuming Louisville was really successful.
• Officially joined AJ
• Was asked to join the Jewish Film Festival Committee and agreed to do so.
• Made an appointment with Dr. T
• Was offered a job
• Had my first aliyah
• Went home and spent a weekend drinking, crying and being really sad with my stepmother and my sister
• Took steps to distance myself from a very large portion of my biological family

June

• Took a job
• Saw Dr. T and was diagnosed with major depression and dysthemia otherwise known as “Double Depression.”
• Started meds
• Joined Vision Committee at shul

July

• I was a mess the entire month.
• Turned 33

August

• Grace was attacked by a German Shepherd
• Got a Kindle from my dad and stepmom
• Quit my awful job
• Threw a bake sale for the library and raised $1,000
• Organized Punk Torah event at AJ
• Wrote an article for the Community paper
• Tried to gently disengage from a couple family situations. One went well, one went horribly.

September

• Was genuinely shocked by the hateful reaction to my disengagement by a family member
• Photography show that I curated (and featured my work) opened at Heine Brothers
• Bought a kiddush cup and challah cover
• Chose a realtor
• Apologized to E for not being more supportive of her new relationship
• Agreed to join the “New Media Advisory Committee” of the Kentucky Humane Society
• Stopped going to therapy monthly instead of weekly
• Served as a witness at the mikvah for a new convert
• Honors on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur
• Excellent lunch with the third D.
• Rosh Hashanah dinner at Rabbi’s house for which I prepared two kick ass desserts. For real, they were awesome.
• Consuming Louisville won two LEO Readers Choice awards
• Got invitations for 3 sukkot dinners
• Rescued Cassie, a runaway dog, twice

October

• Grace got pancreatitis again
• Shul offered me a job
• Louisville airport asked to use on of my photos for the cover of their annual report
• Helped build a sukkah (being raised on a farm came in handy!)
• Had three really awesome meals in sukkahs
• At one of those awesome sukkah meals got to know N. She intimidated the heck out of me when I first met her but after a meal where she and I (and no one else) got drunk and silly I was enchanted by her and she’s since grown to be someone really important to me.
• Spent more and more time with Sam, grew ever more fond of him.
• Took Sam to speak to B’s med students
• Made Sam lunch and spent hours talking to him on his final day in Louisville before he returned to Chicago
• Had setback which mandated an emergency visit with Dr. T and a shift in meds
• Melissa came to visit and much, much, much fun was had. I’d like her to come visit every month please. We went to a fancy bourbon party and proceeded to get drunk off our asses. We then made B escort us up and down Hillcrest so we could drunkenly enjoy all the Halloween decorations. It was a very good time.
• Spoke to my mother on the phone for the first time since April.

November

• Started the house buying process
• Grew more and more fond of N
• Dropped out of Jewish adult education class that I was really disappointed in
• Found a house, made and offer and it was accepted
• Attended Focus Louisville
• Started writing weekly letters to Sam
• Had two really excellent days hanging out with Dianna.
• Speaking gig for Kentucky Parks & Rec conference
• Hosted a potluck for B’s med students. I made kugle and cupcakes for 25 people.
• Had a really lovely breakfast with my family the day before Thanksgiving as they were driving through
• Brilliant “chosen family” Thanksgiving at D + C’s house.
• Discontinued therapy

December

• Had an amazing day with N lunching and shopping for paint colors and mailboxes for the new house.
• Threw a pretty good holiday party
• Had a bad couple weeks. More Dr. T time and adjustments
• Excellent lunch at Havana Rumba with the rebbetzin
• Cantor gave me a fabulous Hanukkah present
• Bought B tickets to the Norah Jones concert for Hanukkah
• Decided to move Consuming Louisville to WordPress and finally ditch Movable Type after a million years
• An excellent time was had at Brigid Kaelin’s Christma-kuh party at the Monkey Wrench (including Eddie B.)
• B injured her shoulder and required meds, physical therapy and lots and lots of ice packs
• Moved Consuming Louisville and On a path to WordPress. Will move all of the other sites I have to WordPress as well in early January.
• Started a Louisville Blogs wiki
• Before N left for her annual snow bird pilgrimage she said to me that she has a very short list of things she actively misses while in Florida and I’m now on that list. Is it amazing or silly that kindnesses like that from people I adore send me into such a state of bliss?
• Abstained from Christmas in absolutely all forms with my family. Enjoyed being completely absent from any December stress, rush or frazzlement.
• Made a boatload of candy and baked goods for B’s colleagues.
• Movie and Sitar on Christmas day. Mushroom matar and vegetable korma FTW.
• Started packing for the move

I’ll come back and edit December to account for the last week of December later. With the move coming up though I wanted to get the rest of the year down before I get too nuts trying to manage all the administrative stuff that comes with buying a house and moving.

One of the jobs I had in college was as a pharmacy tech. The pharmacy had one particularly crotchety customer who for whatever reason, was chatty with me. I don’t remember why we discussed his religion and that  of his wife but he told me that he was a Jew married to a non-Jewish woman but they were raising their son Jewish. I think he told me his wife was studying to convert but I’m not 100% sure on that memory.

I cannot recall how the conversation came up but one day, and this would have been 11 or 12 years ago, we spoke about my conversion. I’m pretty sure he’s the first person I ever mentioned, oh so casually, the possibility of converting to. I’m sure I said something like “if I was going to be religious I would want to convert to Judaism.” He quickly and firmly counseled me against it. The process was too long, being Jewish was too difficult, there’s no benefit in converting, etc, etc. I had long forgotten that conversation until tonight when I overheard a friend chatting with the couple about the wife’s recent conversion.

Clearly I must misremember her studying to convert all those years ago. Having been through the process, trust me, it doesn’t take 12 years. She mentioned to my friend the date she converted and I had a bad tv-movie-like flashback to her husband advising me not to even investigate the possibility of converting.

Perhaps he was just playing the traditional role of turning the potential convert away but there is something….I don’t know, ironic? funny? sad? about the fact that I didn’t think about conversion again for quite sometime after that conversation and yet I still converted before his wife took the big dunk. I’m not saying her path was wrong, far from it, I’m just wondering if my spiritual path would have been different if a conversation with a pharmacy customer ayears ago had gone a little bit differently.

No sense crying over 12 years of missed Shabbatot and holidays but reliving that brief moment in time certainly is a bit bittersweet.

In the less bitter and more sweet memory department I’ll mention that my rabbi and his wife were occasional customers in the drug store as well. They were both incredibly nice. The memory of that niceness stuck with me. So when I made the decision that I absolutely could not put off investigating conversion any longer the memory of that niceness is why he was the rabbi I chose to contact. And that was truly excellent decision on my part.

Sitting at my cheap ass computer desk from Target that was in the living room of our Woodbourne Avenue apartment I’d have MTV2 playing in the background. The MTV2 artist and track selection was sort of a precursor to KCRW’s Sounds Eclectic. They played artists I’d never heard before but having heard them once on MTV2 of course gave my self-given “serious music fan” title ever more credibility. Most tracks and artists just glossed over me. But one evening 100m Backstroke played and I stopped. Something in that song just touched me. The only way I can describe it is that it felt like a delicious scent smells. You walk in from a cold evening and the warmth of the house hits you and you are comforted but then the smell of something wonderful reaches you and a little hit of dopamine or whatever brain chemical it is gives you just a tiny little moment of euphoria.

That’s what 100m Backstroke was like.

A few weeks later we were spending the weekend in Nashville. When I was in college Nashville had two major attractions for me: The Connection, a massive gay club that all the baby dykes and pretty boys flocked to from our college town and Tower Records.

I spent Sunday afternoon going aisle by aisle by aisle of Tower Records. This was when CDs cost $17.99 and B and I were very poor college students. I knew I couldn’t buy more than one or two CDs and I already had way more than that in my hands when I stopped at the local artists endcap. Now in Nashville elevnty-two million country artists could be considered local artists. But this endcap was populated by artists who didn’t make the rounds on music row. Josh Rouse was one of those artists.

When I left Tower that day I had two CDs. Home by Josh Rouse and I’m pretty sure a Green Day CD that I listened to like 4 times before promptly forgetting about. I loved Home so intensely that I’ve purchased every single Josh Rouse record released since and got up to speed with the ones that came before.

Our relationship has been a solid one. With the exception of one album I’ve loved, not just liked, but loved every Josh Rouse record. And there are Josh Rouse songs that turn up year after year on my “Most Frequently Played” iTunes playlist.

If I were to make a Josh Rouse mixtape for you I’d warn you that it will be filled with the kind of sad bastard music I’m kind of infamous for loving. I’d warn you that there will be a few songs to break your heart and a couple that make you happy to be alive.

B isn’t really a fan of Josh Rouse, sometimes I’ll be listening to him and she’ll be all “What is this song even about?” and more often than not I’ll say “I don’t know and I don’t care.” And that’s the truth. I don’t care what it’s really about, I just care about the way it makes me feel. That’s what Josh Rouse does for me, he makes me feel.

Essential Josh Rouse Tracks
Winter in the Hamptons
Sad Eyes
Flair
The White Trash Period of My Life
100m Backstroke
Marvin Gaye
Quiet Town
Laughter
Under Cold Blue Stars
The Man Who