You wanna hear another great story of how much of a sucker I am? While Idan Bitton was making dates on our anniversary and doing lord knows what. I was thinking about how hard it would be for him to go live on his own here in NYC.

As a gesture to him, to let him know I support him, I noticed that he liked this particular wine at Iron Horse vinyards: 2003 T-bar-T Benchmark and bought a bottle.

As we stood at the vineyard, me thinking he was just “confused” and looking for some clarity in his life, not knowing he was cheating on me and being really duplicitous, I did this little thing I used to do to show affection to him; I would touch the top of his right ear, this time saying, “hey, I love you, and I want you to be happy, I am going to get us a bottle and we can toast your new place.”

In retrospect his silence was an indication of his duplicity. I should have observed this at the time, but as I have been told recently: do not be too self critical about this, you loved the man and you were doing the best you could to show that.

I am sure you are not shocked at this statement!

It has been about 2 weeks and Bono is missing. I hope he either has a nice new owner or his demise was humane. It is just really sad to sustain such hit to lose a beloved pet.

I have all this space suddenly! My closet is empty, my dresser is empty, my house is really empty. I have been avoiding putting things into the empty space. No real reason, I just don’t want to look at it right now.

But I placed a sweater into the dresser and just started to cry. In like 5 seconds. Amazing.

For years now I have been going and seeing movies that are part of Nefest, the NY GLBT Film Festival. Besides the obvious silly gay films from around the world, I am often struck by some of the documentaries. I tend to see about 12 movies, with a 50/50 breakdown of serious to fun.

Last night Idan and I saw Be Like Others, a film about Iranian boys undergoing sex change operations to become female. My understanding, from the film, is that homosexuality is forbidden, but transexuals need to be medically treated and in fact the state help pay for this treatment and care.

The movie is very well done, simply, is shows you many sides of the issue in Iran and lets you make up your own mind. That said, it does confront several issue head on; if you cannot be an openly gay male, what other choice do you have?

There are several different people profiled. Vida, is a transexual who is very happy with being a women now. She turns out to be a leader type, even mother figure, to other men seeking this operation. She is the only one in the film who is very obviously ok with what she has chosen.

Anoosh and her boyfriend are kind of a sad case. Before the operation the boyfriend as very loving and kind, later in the movie, post-operation the boyfriend is obviously unhappy and distant. Who can guess why this happened, but it because clear that he probably was in reality gay and is no longer attracted to Anoosh now that he is a female.

There are also several people who, as time progresses, choose not to have the operation. You are welcomed into their fears, how they are treated by strangers and family, as well as the strict Iranian society.

The other point of view you are shown is of a transaexual who post-op has no choice but to arrange temprary Islamic marraiges. This is a form of legal prostitution.

Overall the movie leaves you with a sense of sadness for these Iranian boys and you wonder how they would be if they lived in NYC where being gay isn’t a cause for surgery and moreover, what the exact nature of sexual identity and sexual orientation are. It is indeed very complicated.

Last weekend, Idan and I went to the Brooklyn Museum to see the © MURAKAMI exhibit. It included many rooms of his works along with an ultra tacky LV shop smack in the middle. It was the ultimate in tasteless consumerism of art that you could buy on of the over priced, often knocked off, boring bags while trying to absorb the art. It was down right jarring.

Some of his work was a bit repetitive and boring - how many times do you need to see the same DOB in 50 different colors? But there were some very neat items. I have a couple favorites, which include the mushroom group entitles, supernova, and I believe a work called Tan Tan Bo - I have to confirm both of these when I have a moment to crack open the catalogue.

Supernova is a multi-paneled work with many different animation-like mushrooms. On display was well were two study sketches that give you an insight into the process of creating this gigantic mural.

Tan Tan Bo Puking is about the same size, perhaps a little narrower. It too contains many small detailed elements that make looking at it for hours fascinating. It might be hard to see, but center right, on the edge of the sphere is a small blob monster about to eat some of the puke. It was my favorite little detail.

Google Murakami and tons of links come up, so I wont pretend to know lots more about him. I enjoyed the art and would recommend seeing his works anytime you can.

Sunday was the big dinner day for my birthday. Idan and I got up early and went to Patterson, about 25 minutes away from Hoboken. This area is known to have a large Arab population and we figured there would be great stores there to buy food for my Moroccan feast.

We found a place, Nouri Bros., it is labeled as a Syrian market, but it might be better described at pan-Arab. After shopping for pita, labne, zaater, a tagine, fruits, olives, and on and on, we returned home and Idan cooked up a storm! Creating a delicious lamb and dried fruit tagine with salads and other delicious dishes with ease. It was the best birthday meal anyone could imagine.

We lugged everything over to Patrick’s and all my pals joined us for the evening. Tons and tons of food was consumed by all! Then we soaked in Patrick’s heffneresque backyard hot tub under the stars.

Idan and I return to the spot of my first trip to Puerto Rico. The restaurant at Numero Uno. I can’t even recall when I first came to this location! this time around I had one of the best meals I have ever had, all on this romantic stretch of beach under the stars with the waves quietly crashing in the background.

Sitting in the room sipping rum and coke. Ah…La Isla De Encanto.

I am not 100% certain of the origin of the magical dish known as shakshuka! I am told it means mixed up in Arabic and its prevalence in Israel has something to do with the influx of Jews from Arabs lands.

I am told it is made from roasted peppers of various kinds, tomatoes and spices reduced down to make a sauce that is then cooked with eggs and eaten with bread. This is at least how Idan makes it!

I sometimes crave it, despite me dislike of tomatoes. When looking for a proper recipe I found this funny article that sums up why I might be a bit confused:

What he intended to make, he said, was shakshuka.

Almost instantly, a flurry of sighs and grunts rose to the air.

“A Greek? Making shakshuka?” said Tzachi, a short and temperamental man with warm brown eyes and a hairy chest. “Please, that’s Moroccan food, leave it to us.”

“Moroccan?” came a voice from the other end of the tent. “How dare you, punk?” It was Danny, and he wasn’t happy. Shakshuka, he said, originated from Tripoli, and was brought to Israel by Libyan Jews. Greeks and Moroccans, he said, have no right to claim it.

As you can see just about any culture that naturally has these ingredients seems to have come up with a variant or localized version of the dish. Selective pressure in action!

Another fun Dor Chadash event. Idan and I went to Symphony Space to see and hear them perform. Now I admit I have almost no cultural context to properly place these people within. However, I am guessing from Idan’s comments and from the reaction of the audience that they represent cultural or musical superstars in Israel. I am struggling to think of an American equivalent. Maybe the Beatles or ??? Either way, there was one song where the singer started to sing and the audience knew all the words. For several verses the band played on while the audience sang the song.

I have a feeling I was one of 15 non-Hebrew/non-Israeli people there because most of the time I was struggling to get a word here or there. I figured out they were making a joke about the weather and that one song was about a dog and some pants and boots.

It was a fun evening and Idan seemed to enjoying 2 hours of feeling like he was
home in Israel.

I get the feeling I am out of the prime target audience for Dor Chadash, but their events are nonetheless enjoyable. I think this makes 4 I have been to in the last year.

I don’t know if you can see what this is an image of. But it is a very cute photo of Idan and I out one night that he took with him to Israel and had made into stamps. In Hebrew they say to love (and some stuff about being for internal mail only). He told me he found something for me in Israel that I would love but wouldn’t tell me anything about it. Then this arrived in mail tonight.

Idan gets that fact that his time and love are worth more than anything. When he does pull off a surprise it is usually something like this: ridiculously thoughtful and nice!!! He also made me a frame of all kinds of photos of us together and wrote me a nice poem as a good bye note when we parted ways the first time.

This is Idan in Mexico. He was traveling around down there and I flew in to spend a long weekend hiding from a hurricane. It was something that I don’t want to do again, but in classic Idan style “If we survive this, it is kind of romantic,” he said as he fell asleep.

I also have this wonderful photo from about 6am on top of Masada. He hates it because he looks Arab in it, which he kind of does, but hey he is, kind of.

I do not need to go into too many more detail about Idan, my normal readers will know him for his wicked smile and sarcastic charm. Oh and the Israeli accent!