When someone came up to me today and asked me about fibromyalgia, I thought it was pretty fitting. After all, today is National Fibromyalgia Awareness day. Why is there such a day? Well, most people, unless they suffer from it or have loved ones who suffer from it, have never heard of fibromyalgia. Some doctors… Continue reading Pain, Pain, Go Away…
(AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)Demonstrators damage a Dominican Republic’s flag during a protest in Port-au-Prince, Friday, May 8, 2009. People hurled stones and tore down a sign at the Dominican Republic’s consulate in Haiti to protest the decapitation slaying of a Haitian in Santo Domingo. In America, Mexicans are the bottom of the food chain. Whether native… Continue reading Ay Carajo! Haitians and Dominicans Take to the Streets
Dominicans are more than baseball players, I wrote on Twitter. But all the news articles that mentioned Dominicans, which Google Alerts kindly scoured the Internet for and compiled for me, seemed to say something different. The latest articles all focused on Manny Ramirez and how he recently confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs during some of… Continue reading Ode to Manny Ramirez
Hello, my name is Aliza and I am a Trekkie. No, I have never been to a “Star Trek” convention (though I’ve wanted to go). No, I haven’t watched every single episode of every incarnation in the series. But I can tell a Tribble from a tricorder, though Newsweek was correct to claim that the… Continue reading Getting Trekked Out
I know it’s shocking to some people that I can speak such good English. I mean, it’s not like it’s my first language or anything. It’s not like my parents, who both came to the States as children, were fluent in English or anything. I mean, really, it’s not like I read the classics for… Continue reading Spelling Circles Round Y’all
Wow. What a speech. Quite a character this Sarah Jones. No idea what TED is (and too exhausted to look after all this rainy weather wearing down my aching bones) but her impressions of everyone from an opinionated elderly Jewish woman to a fast-talking Dominican college student (both dead on!) were incredible.
Few people seem to take me seriously. I guess it doesn’t help that a lot of the time, I don’t take myself seriously. I rarely answer the question, “So what do you do?” In fact, I avoid it at all costs. Because people give you rather smug smiles when you say you’re writing a book.… Continue reading Seriously, people?
to Mayim Bialik? Remember her starring on that ’80s show, Blossom? Well, in case you missed my Tweet about it, read this Jewcy.com article on how Mayim feels about acting, motherhood and being an observant Jew: “From Blossom to Brachot”.
While all of my closest friends are repopulating the Earth, I am hesitant. There are so many reasons to be. My husband’s still in school. We can’t support ourselves much less a child (how did my mother do it on welfare?). Also, ug, getting pregnant means forgoing possibly every medication that helps keep my fibromyalgia… Continue reading Good Mother, Bad Mother, Not Yet a Mother
In the rush to write a great book about my crazy life and my ultimate conversion to Orthodox Judaism, I have read many, many books by other converts. I’ve read stories of Orthodox, Conservative and Reform converts. I’ve even met and befriended these converts from all different streams of Judaism. This has given me a… Continue reading Who is a Jew?
Memoirs of a Jewminicana 