Originally published at Corey J Feldman. Please leave any comments there.

So most of my life I have been “Big Guy”. Not a big guy mind you, but “Big Guy”. You know “watch out big guy” “what’s up big guy” “excuse me big guy”… This is what you would call irony. Though I have often wondered if those who use the expression actually understand they are being ironic. I mean if I were to asked them to define irony would they ramble on about black flies in chardonnay or would they say – hey your 5′8, skinny, and I called you big guy, I think I can grasp the concept of incongruity between outcome and expectation. I typically assume it is the former as it is a little obvious, but then again I maybe falling into the obvious cliché of big and dumb.

Anyway, I said most of my life… For a couple years it stopped. I wasn’t suddenly 6 feet tall, but fitness stopped being a priority and somewhere a long the line I crossed some magical threshold where the irony didn’t quite work. I wasn’t big, fat, or even chubby. I mostly just filled out in the rather typical way of a lot of guys in their 30’s.

I believe the G-d, The Universe or whatever you want to called it, is constantly speaking to us. Most of the time that message is hard to hear through the noise of life. I have some difficulty with organized religion, but I do think that it can be good a quieting the noise (I have more to say on this but I think I will leave that for another post). Sometimes we are fortunate enough to find a quiet place (metaphorically) or the Universe is kind enough to raise it’s voice. Though in my experience, this kindness is rarely pleasant to hear.  Anyway the Universe and I have had a few unpleasant   conversations over the last couple of years, some of which I am still trying to fully understand but others were loud and clear.  My world is a better place with fitness a regular part of my life.

I am far from perfect and have had my lapses – I have a hard time getting myself to the gym when sick and have been sick more than not over the last 2 months (kids are germ factories).  But overall I have done a pretty good job of getting and staying in shape.  So the label of “big guy” has returned, but I no longer find it condensing. I wear it and my fitted shirts with a sense of accomplishment.

Originally published at Corey J Feldman. Please leave any comments there.

Friday at sunset begins Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and the first of the High Holidays. As a child it was one of my favorite* Jewish Holidays. It was an extra day off school, we got apples & honey, they would blow the Shofar** at Synagogue, and there was my Mom’s brisket*** – may we do it some justice.

Traditionally Rosh Hashanah is the day of judgment. This is the day that our sins are measured and God decides if we should live another year. I suppose in that way, God is like the US Government, contracts run in one year increments. In theory, if you are righteous, you are given an automatic pass. If your wicked your fate is sealed. For the other 99.99999%**** you have 10 days until Yum Kippur, the Day of Atonement, to get your act together and repent. I personally don’t believe God works that way. For one thing I doubt there is such a thing as the truly righteous or truly wicked and for another I have never found Death to be particularly discriminating; horrible people live and good people die.

Judaism has a different concept of hell than Christianity. There is no eternal damnation, the closest concept is Gehenna, but even that comes with an annual review and opportunity for release. One of the things I find beautiful about religion is that is can work on so many levels. Let’s face it, many people do need a punishment/reward system. It is not a bad thing, it is just where they are at in their own development. This is one of the ways the Jewish religion motivates righteous behavior. While not eternal damnation, if you truly believe you are going to die in the next year if you don’t change your ways, that can be a pretty powerful motivator. But as I said, I don’t believe that is how life really works. In fact on a basic level, righteousness committed in the name of self preservation is inherently selfish. But that is actually OK because it is more than just controlling the masses; “walking the walk” and “talking the talk” helps people internalize change. It helps them to grow and become the kind of people who do good not because of a religious mandate, but because it is an essential part of who they have become.

Shana Tova

* not counting Chanukah

** Ram’s Horn

*** My mom was not known for her cooking but man could she make a brisket.

**** Just made that % up

Originally published at Corey J Feldman. Please leave any comments there.

Here is a little idiosyncrasy from my childhood. Somewhere around age 6 I got in my head the notion that it was possible that I could die and keep on keeping on in some sort of heaven/hell of my own creation. So every time the thought popped into my head I had to check my pulse to see if I was still alive. Even at 6 I understood that it was a little silly to assume that God/The Universe would create a reality for me compete with sight, sound, smell, taste and touch and miss such a minor detail as providing me with a pulse. With the aid of cognitive dissonance I eventually reasoned that God/The Universe might want me to figure out that I was not actually “living” in the real world and the lack of a pulse would surely be the path to my enlightenment. For the record by the time I was 10 I had given up on that theory. I actually hadn’t thought of this little ritual in some time but was reminded of it while reading Tim Pratt’s Dead Reign from his Marla Mason Series. One of the characters suffers from Cotard delusion, a psychological disorder in which the afflicted believes that they are dead. Please note I am not suggesting I suffered from this disorder, I was simply a child grappling with the nature of consciousness and reality.

So on to the dream… Last night I had what started off as a fairly mundane dream. Not really spectacular, vivid, creative or particularly enlightening. Other than some normal inconsistencies/dream logic, it was actually a pretty boring dream. There was, as I mentioned, some odd inconsistencies. Occasionally when dreaming I notice the dream logic and say – hey wait a second, that’s not possible I must be dreaming… Then I either go with the flow or take control of the lucid dream. Not this time. In what I am sure was some sort of synergistic reaction to Tim Pratt’s book along with the impact of my Mother’s sudden passing I was sure I was dead, I even checked my pulse. When I couldn’t find one, I had the sudden recollection of an impact and I just “knew” that I had died in a car accident. I woke up with such a fright that it was a good hour before my adrenaline was overwhelmed by the Lunesta and I was able to get back to sleep.

Originally published at Corey J Feldman. Please leave any comments there.

I was tagged and completed one of those “25 random things about me” and true to #25 I decided to repost to my blog.

1. Someday I will finish and publish a novel.

2. I have finished many shorts stories over the years and have never attempted to have any of them published.

3. I have an irrational fear of birds.

4. That said very few things in this world truly frighten me. I have driven a buck twenty bumper to bumper on a tortuous road, gone bungee jumping, cliff diving, skydiving and countless other youthful indiscretions.

5. And that said I have been terrified on a couple of occasions. The first was a month before Josh was born and we were driving to Holly Cross to do a tour of the maternity ward. We were stopped in traffic on 495 near magical kingdom AKA the Mormon Temple. Melissa stated screaming as a SVU plowed into us at highway speeds. The accident put her into early labor and it was hours before they were able to stop the labor and give us any assurance that she and the baby would be OK. The second time in recent memory was when I held my son for the first time.

6. Even though I am pro-science and highly critical of religious dogma, I am surprisingly religious. I have never doubted in G-d, only humanity’s ability to understand.

7. Most of my life I preferred to read what Academics call literature and now I prefer speculative fiction. I can even admit to truly loving some urban/dark fantasy that could just as easily be housed in the romance isle.

8. I am a terrible insomniac and Lunesta has changed my life.

9. I have been contemplating giving up meat on moral grounds but am not sure I have the will power to make it happen.

10. I’m a Mac, and a PC and a LINUX

11. As a kid I used to take things apart to to figure out how they worked, I still do.

12. I used to build PCs before it was considered easy.

12. I am very mechanically inclined but have never changed my own oil, mostly because I don’t like getting dirty.

13. I love to garden. I know that sounds contradictory but I don’t mind dirt dirt. It is the greasy and/or sticky things I don’t love.

14. I have studied Christianity more in depth than Judaism.

15. I hated being Jewish as a child but happily identify with Judaism as an adult.

16. My favorite game is Gin provided I am playing with my wife. She is a knocker!

17. My mind works best when I am multitasking.

18. I can listen to an audio book or watch TV while reading and follow both. I know this makes me a little odd but I was a multitasker before modern communication necessitated it.

19. My wife never ceases to amaze me.

20. On any given day Lifeguarding was my favorite job. Bar-tending was the most fun, and Teaching the most rewarding.

21. Even though I don’t LOVE it I am very good at HR an assume I will keep doing it forever unless I do #1 more than once and really really really well.

22. I am terrible with names.

23. Having a child (soon to be children) has changed my life in unbelievable and indescribable ways.

24. Yes I do get asked about the other Corey Feldman all to often and how funny is it that my best friend’s name is Tony Orlando.

25. Most of my life I have shared easily but with few. With Social media (blogging, facebook, twitter) I now share with many but no longer with ease.

Originally published at Corey J Feldman. Please leave any comments there.

This was a good weekend for getting thing things accomplished.  And when I say things I mean concrete real world stuff.  Unfortunately not one word penned to paper.  I did think up a short story involving a disastrously bad President but I quickly realized that it wasn’t going anywhere.  I couldn’t bring myself to make him likeable and any other direction I took it in was just too damn depressing. 

Our new community has an annual tradition around Passover where they arrange for the removal of large items*.  I believe they give anything in working order to charity and toss the garbage.  So I spent Sunday, hauling crap to the curb.  Yes, even though we just moved in, we had/have plenty of crap.  Some brought with some left behind by the previous owners.  I even did a little weeding in the garden.  This was after helping fulfill some family obligations** on Saturday.

We finally put up our Mezuzahs on our front and back door.  We even said the prayer.  Interestingly enough, we pulled out our Judaism for Dummies guide, we realized we had installed it in on the wrong side of the door at our old Condo.  Anyway, I really wanted to get it done before Passover and it is done so I feel good about that. 

*Our community has a large Orthodox Jewish population and it is common to clean out ones house in preparation for Passover.  Growing up I was unaware of this tradition as my family wasn’t particularly observant.  Not to say I was completely ignorant of Jewish tradition.  I knew enough to know why it was amusing that one of our cousins brought a Ham to a Passover Seder.  And the irony was not lost on me that we had a family tradition of breaking the Yum Kippur fast by gorging ourselves on Pork, Crab and Shrimp dishes at our favorite Chinese Restaurant. 

** My brother and I hauled bags of mulch from the driveway to the backyard of my parent’s house.  Additionally I had the added joy of climbing in to a cobweb infested crawlspace in their basement to turn on their outside water faucet.