When I was 15 and in nerd camp I took an ethics course. We got into a debate at one point about altruism, as to whether or not there was really such a thing as true altruism. The counterproof was what we referred to, in our technical philosophical jargon, as “warm fuzzies,” an inevitable benefit of most acts which are seen externally as altruistic.
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Last brief post before Shabbos starts in my house…

I made pareve chocolate pudding for dessert for tonight’s dinner. My sister is coming over. It was a basic vanilla pudding recipe from the back of a box of cornstarch, using soymilk in the place of milk, and with pareve semi-sweet chocolate morsels added at the end.
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Okay, so today is going to be a FoodBlogging(tm) day. Jason wants I should post my mom’s Challah recipe. Along with that, I’ll go ahead and post the revisions that made the Ma’aseh HaGoyim(tm) bread.
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Okay, I’m WAAAAY too excited about this to not write about it.

I made French Toast.

But that’s not all…

I made banana stuffed french toast.

But wait… there’s more…

I made it with homemade bread.
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When I was a kid, my family observed Shabbat. Friday night dinner was not a question, it was a reality. It was what we did, how we did things. Going to shul (synagogue) Saturday morning was similarly not a discussion, it was part of how we lived. The restrictions we lived by from sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday night were non-negotiable, like keeping kosher. It wasn’t something you tried to get around, or get away with, it was just how it was. Sure we asked questions and had our discussions about why it was that we lived this way, our parents always wanted us to think about our religion rather than to just follow blindly… but it was the backdrop before which life was staged, a familiar set of behaviors as natural as breathing.
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Thursday night after work, in order to alleviate some of the mopiness I was feeling with regards to not being in Toronto, I decided to check out a discussion group that I’d seen online called BiRequest, a safe space for bisexual folks and bi-friendly people to talk about issues of concern to us as individuals and to our community. The topic for this particular evening’s discussion was presented as follows:

What sort of relationships are suited to bisexuals?
Must we be polyamorous? Can we give and receive joy
in monogamous relationships? Are we ever satisfied?
Can we be trusted?

What of long term committed relationships between bi
folk and non bisexuals? Do we have to “become”
straight or gay?

Is a long term relationship the goal, or is dating
more suited to our needs?

Are we doomed to a life of broken hearts, or do we
have special gifts to create the best relationships of
all?

Well, I found the tone of this set of questions very provocative, as did, I later learned, quite a few of the other folks in this group. As a matter of fact, this set of questions attracted more new people to the group than the regulars had seen in years. It is a subject that is very close to the hearts (and nerves) of a lot of us, and its a subject that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about, as a (here come the labels) non-monogamously-minded bisexual person.
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Ok, comments are enabled now. Soon you will need to be registered in order to comment, but for now its completely open. So party while you can. Or something.

Hopefully I’ll have some inner calm and mental peace to actually fill this space with interesting and thought provoking shit… at some point in the near future. In the meantime, exciting news is that Jason FINALLY has his own blog! Check out EyeDreamAwake.com and prepare to be blown away. Sometime in the near future (no pressure Yasha).

I once had a blog called Beyond The Near. Now I’m trying it again. Welcome to phase two.