queens english

I'm just a goy who was raised, as I think I've mentioned, by a Jewish girl from Queens.

Which means, gentile that I am, my vocabulary is sprinkled with Yiddish. I schmooze, I schlep, I have no patience for schmucks and nothing but appreciation for the rare mensch.

And I know schmutz when I see it.

Growing up with my stepmom may be the reason Manhattan feels like home to me -- especially Kari G's neighborhood where the bossy Jewish ladies live -- even though I only lived there for a brief flash when I was three. The cadence of her voice may even be the reason I fell hard for a guy from Far Rockaway almost as soon as I got to college (he sounded like home.) (&oh. yeah. he was brilliant.).

She's the reason I adore knishes and noodle kugel and halavah. The reason I make my Thanksgiving stuffing with challah, and will be making matzoh brei as soon as that box of matzoh gets stale enough (topped with Deer Mountain jam, of course. stay tuned for recipe.).

She's the reason too that I seek out museums and theatre and even State Capitols and U.S. Mints like a cat seeking a spot warmed by the sun, because, shipwrecked New Yorker that she was, stranded in the outbacks of Denver and Seattle and desperate for culture, she did everything shy of manufacturing it.

She's the reason I light the Menorah in the dead dark of winter to remember the light, and the reason too that I'll be joining my Jewnitarian peeps for Seder tonight; breaking the matzoh and tasting the bitters.

So no, I’m not Jewish. I'm all goy. But because of my stepmom, my passionately tempered unfailingly curious stepmom who no, wasn't always, shall we say, calm, but yes, was always there, because of my stepmom I learned early that we choose our worlds, we choose who we are, and we choose who truly is our family, through the simple daily discipline of choosing to love.