I’ll be damned if I know. I mean, I know, but I don’t actually remember the circumstances. Here’s what I remember: sitting at the bar at Cafe Presse, NOT BEING DRUNK AT ALL (this is key to the story), feeling woozy, getting up to go to the bathroom, waking up on the floor unable to see but laughing it off, then waking up again on the floor, this time with my head cradled by a bartender and my face bleeding.

Turns out I passed out. Twice. At Cafe Presse. And fell into a rack of glasses. And broke one, which cut my face. (I look like I was in some awesome brawl.)

But you know what? The Cafe Presse bar staff was absolutely awesome. Like I said, one of the bartenders sat on the floor with me and cradled my head until the ambulance came. The other bartenders huddled around and examined my cuts and bruises, keeping me talking and keeping me company. One of them called an ambulance almost immediately, and they kept watching me until I was carried away on a stretcher.

A stretcher! I know!

So I just want to send out a big thank you to Cafe Presse for their general awesomeness in a crappy situation. You guys rule, and you will definitely be getting lots more of my business once I get over my profound embarrassment. If you haven’t been, look them up for awesome French food, late night and early morning hangouts, and best of all, genuine human concern.

So I have to confess: I was on Jdate for a while. I had just broken up with my fiance and things were desperate. I was set on dating a Jewish guy (my ex wasn’t). So there I was.

Triathlete Boy messaged me one day after we “clicked”–that is, both said “yes” to each other’s profiles. He was an engineering type from the East Coast, big into triathlons and other outdoorsy activities. Not much in common, but he did keep kosher, and he seemed like a nice enough guy. I said yes to the date.

Identical Twin Boy was just the opposite: we seemed to have everything in common. His profile quoted the same Peter Bjorn & John lyrics as I did on Facebook. His cat and my dog were both white and fluffy (his named Snowball, mine named Matzah Ball). We read the same books, watched the same movies, listened to the same music, and I had a history of falling hard for guys who met that description.

But the same thing happened on both dates: they could barely look at me, let alone talk to me! They sat opposite me mumbling into their tea cups, staring into them as if seeing the answer to the universe.

It’s not just me: a number of friends have noted the same experience with alarming frequency. And at a much greater frequency than other cities I’ve lived in.

What’s up with that, Seattle? Is it just the higher frequency of engineering types here that correlates to and/or causes this? Is it just the higher frequency of shy people on dating websites? Or is it a Seattle phenomenon? Does something in the clouds make men turn inwards?

There is a certain sense of embarrassment associated with using a dating website. I definitely feel it–I already mentioned my shame at using Jdate. It makes you feel like something is wrong with you. I mean, I’m your typical 21-year-old in most ways. So why is it so hard for me to meet people?

But I’m not alone. Searching Okcupid for members within 10 miles of 98112 I get 9378 results. Maybe this is evidence that it’s a problem not just with dating but with all aspects of life. Two years into life in Seattle and I still have only met a handful of people, compared to the tons of people I met attending my first college in St. Louis. So how did I meet those people? Through my dorm, parties, classes, random places around the city.

Now as a UW student, I feel isolated and lost. Where are all those random meetings? Nowhere to be found. Only twice have random people approached me in all the times I’ve sat alone at Remedy and Liberty. One was gay and one was drunk–neither exactly dating prospects.

Is this the famous Seattle freeze? Does it really exist? It feels like it to me. Have you encountered it? How do you deal with it? How did you meet your friends, online or otherwise?

Reform Judaism abandons the traditional commitment to Sabbath observance and kosher eating, so there is no need for a sequestered community like there is in Orthodoxy. Indeed that was one of the original points of the Reform movement, to eliminate Jewish enclaves and integrate fully into society. This rings true as well in Seattle as it does elsewhere in the world. Reform Jews can be found everywhere in Seattle and Puget Sound.

When Reform Jews do gather, there are three synagogues in Seattle as well as in Aberdeen, Bainbridge Island, Bellevue, Bremerton, Everett, Federal Way, Port Angeles, Tacoma, and Woodinville. Those are just the communities officially affiliated with the Union for Reform Judaism, with more unaffiliated groups holding to Reform or liberal ideology spotted around the Sound.

The biggest and oldest synagogue in Seattle is Temple de Hirsch Sinai, which I attended for about a year (and where I converted as well). Located in Capitol Hill at 17th & Union, de Hirsch has a beautiful old campus (when people aren’t getting stuck in the chimney). Shabbat services here are intimate, running about 20 people each for Friday night and Saturday morning. High Holiday services are predictably huge, charging a steep fee for entrance. (This will likely come as a shock to non-Jewish readers–yes, most synagogues actually charge for admission to services on the two holiest days of the year!) It’s well-known for its wide array of Friday night services, including “Classic Shabbat” (classical music) and “Rock Shabbat” (predictably, rock music–I mean, Jewish rock music, not like Fleet Foxes or whatev). The attendance is mostly married people in their 40s and 50s, with the occasional teenager showing up.

North Seattle is a hotbed of Jewish activity in all movements, and so it’s no surprise that it plays host to Temple Beth Am. It’s known as the synagogue of choice for many Huskies as well as attendees of next-door neighbor University Prep (aka “Jew Prep”). As such it is mainly made up of families.

The newest and smallest synagogue is West Seattle’s Kol HaNeshamah. This is the synagogue most strongly associated with the GLBT community. They only have services twice a month, but Friday nights are followed by a dairy/fish potluck unique in the area. It has the strongest young adult contingent of the three synagogues, especially young families.

The curious thing about Reform synagogues is that de Hirsch (and possibly Beth Am as well) has a membership of thousands, but only 20 or so at Shabbat services. Where is everyone? Most members only send their children to religious/Hebrew school, preparing for bar/bat mitzvot. It’s a pity though, because the synagogues could be so vibrant if each family showed up even just a few times a year for a regular Shabbat services.

So what happened after I broke up with my boyfriend? Not much, to be honest. Blogger Boy No. 2 started avoiding me. We would plan get togethers, then he would be “too busy” and cancel. I wrote on my LiveJournal, “So you know that guy I drunkenly mentioned a few days ago? Ugh. Ugh. This is turning into such a mess. I just talked to him a few minutes ago and ended up with tears in my eyes. Either this guy has the best work ethic in the history of mankind or he’s seriously blowing me off.”

And it turned out he was seriously blowing me off. Finally I just gave up and decided to just be friends. I called him and told him as much. He says, “Well, good, because I’ve been meaning to tell you, I was dating this girl and things have turned sort of serious…”

I’ll leave you to sort out the many-layered irony of this ending for yourself. But it does bring up a number of lessons about being single in Seattle.

First, don’t put the burden of a major decision, possibly a major life decision, on to one person. I had been mulling a breakup for months but finally found a catalyst in BB2. That’s the wrong way to go about it. It puts tremendous pressure on the catalyst, and isn’t healthy for you.

Second, guilt is a multi-faceted thing. If the other person starts getting all guilty, there’s probably more to the situation than what he or she is saying.

Finally, don’t drink wine in Volunteer Park. You may end up falling for someone who wears yellow flip-flops and doesn’t know who Dana Vachon is.

So, not cute at all. That’s the risk in online dating, I suppose. But what do I do? I hope it’s not him and bury my nose in my book, praying the not-cute guy doesn’t notice me. Five minutes go by, then ten, then fifteen. Nope, it’s definitely him.

Finally he approaches. “Uh, Chaya?”

I looked up as if totally surprised. “Oh hi, are you Blogger Boy No. 2?”

“Yeah, I am. Sorry, I’ve been sitting inside, I thought that was you but I thought it couldn’t be because you’re reading a book called Mergers & Acquisitions.” -10 points for not knowing Dana Vachon.

We awkwardly got food and headed over to the park. Then something happened. As we sat eating and drinking wine, we started laughing together, and it’s like I remembered why I was attracted to him in the first place. Not cute turned into cute.

He dropped me off at my house and we said a chaste goodbye.

And then the chatting continued. And continued. We talked non-stop, including well into the night. And one night the conversation turned a little, shall we say, racy. To put it mildly.

Caught up in the moment I furiously type, “I can’t wait until I’m in your arms!” Suddenly he became racked with guilt, or so it seemed. Suddenly he’s talking about my boyfriend, and suddenly he won’t touch me until the boyfriend’s gone (despite spending the last two hours talking about much more than just touching), and suddenly…suddenly.

So I broke up with my boyfriend. Of a year and a half.

(to be continued tomorrow…)

It started, as any good Web 2.0 romance should, with a comment on the rival Seattle blog he wrote for. I had thought he was cute for some time; he posted about peeing on a tree. I commented that his post encouraged me to get over my silly little crush on him. No response.

…Until a few weeks later when I checked my spam filter. “Congrats–most women have to meet me at least twice before a crush wears off,” he’d replied. Cute. I replied, and we ended up having a bizarre but hilarious (to us) discussion about HTTP error codes. (Reproduced after the jump for the curious.) Fellow Metblogger Josh once told me upon reading that conversation, “I can’t imagine how things between the two of you didn’t work out.” And sometimes I wonder the same thing.

He friended me on Google Chat and I immediately began ignoring lectures and chatting with him instead. Often I had to stifle laughs in the middle of Intro to Comparative Literature, some times more successfully than others.

Inevitably he asked me for a drink. I demurred, not wanting to let on I was merely 20 to his 30. I suggested tea instead. In a day or two he upped the ante: a picnic in Volunteer Park.

I suddenly became wracked with guilt. I had a confession to make. I had a boyfriend, a boyfriend on the way out but a boyfriend none the less. We decided to go on the picnic anyway. I told my boyfriend, who loved his blog and was excited I was going to meet him. (There was a reason he was on the way out.)

I sat outside Volunteer Park Cafe for a good half hour before our planned meeting time, wanting time to look fresh in the shade rather than like I just dragged myself up the hill from 23rd (which I had, in fact, done). I keep looking up nervously from my book (Dana Vachon’s Mergers and Acquisitions) but nothing but moms and Bugaboos.

Then a guy in yellow rubber flipflops walks up.

Not cute at all.

(come back tomorrow for part 2…)

Blogger Boy No. 2: Congrats–most women have to meet me at least twice before a crush wears off.

Chaya: Ha, Gmail totally thought you were spam. See, most guys have to meet me at least twice before they end up spending the next few years sending me drunk messages on Facebook. Would that make us like matter and anti-matter?

BB2: Yes, but do they “poke” you while they’re drunk, too?

C: Oh, they try, but they always seem to end up with a 404 error.

BB2: You mean they can’t find it? Do you only date high school guys or something?

C: Okay, so in high school it was a 404, now it’s just a 403.

BB2: http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html
There are so many jokes here, I don’t even know where to begin, but I’ll start with this:
“Never gotten one of those, but I have gotten a few 413s.”

C: Oh wow, the potential for joke-making is mind-blowing. It’s like the description for 406 is just begging for this sort of thing.
But really the problem with most boys is ending up with a 408. It’s enough to make a girl implement a 411.

BB2: I really like getting a 303.

C: A 300 always makes things a lot more interesting.

BB2: Yeah, but you usually end up with a 402 after it’s over.

C: And eventually someone always ends up yelling 405.

BB2: Or just faking it because 417.
So it seems like both of our Saturday nights are kind of 202. I decided on a whim last night to spend this weekend in Eastern Washington–partially because I wanted to go to a minor league baseball game tonight in Yakima–but it was canceled because of…a power outage. That’s a first for me.

BB2: Fuck, I meant 204.

C: Yeah, ever since I 301ed to Seattle my Saturday nights have admittedly been pretty 202. So how is the Palm Springs of Washington? Sounds like a pretty terrible whim, what with the power outage and all.

Unfortunately this is an all-too-common occurrence as I’m driving around. Four-way stops especially–most cyclists I see just go right through them.

This frustrates me to no end. First, it’s hugely unsafe. Second, it’s hugely unfair. I respect their right to the road, so why don’t they respect the rules of the road in return? A four-way stop is for all vehicles on the road, cyclists included. Only pedestrians are immune. Would cyclists rather be treated as pedestrians? I doubt it.

So what is up with that, Seattle? Are these cyclists (note: I say *these* cyclists, not *all* cyclists) blind or just douchebags?

The pole cozies are back! [chs] And just in time for an unseasonably cold summer as well.

I remember when I first moved here two years ago (as of June 1!), one of the first quirky things I noticed about Seattle was a similar cozy on a sign somewhere around Capitol Hill. It’s just those quirky things that have made me fall in love with Seattle over and over. I like my cities the way I like my boys: a little warm, a little cold, a lot odd, and with nerdy glasses. (Wait…can cities have glasses? If they could, Seattle would have rain-speckled horn rims.)

And pole cozies? That’s exactly the kind of Seattle I love to love.

Any quirks you’ve seen and loved in your neighborhood? Better yet, any boys with nerdy glasses?

The first time I walked into BCMH, I was terrified. My previous experiences with the Orthodox community in St. Louis were hardly promising: cold, judgmental, and forbidding. But I had grown dissatisfied first with the Reform (liberal) community where I converted in 2007 and then realized after a year in the Conservative (moderate) community that I would never feel truly Jewish unless I converted Orthodox (conservative), because that’s where my observance had been driving towards over the past four years.

So I worked up my nerve and walked in one Shabbos (the Jewish Sabbath, running from Friday night to Saturday afternoon). I remember nervously asking a man in the lobby where the siddurs (prayerbooks) were; he pointed upstairs. I’d never been in a shul (the Yiddish word for synagogue, used by Ashkenazi Jews) that seated men and women separately before, and quickly discovered BCMH seated women in a balcony above the men. I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about this.

I was completely lost during the davening, or praying. It was all Hebrew and there was no transliteration (the mapping of Hebrew into English pronunciation), no people announcing the order of prayers, no sign displaying what page they were on. Prayer was almost completely silent and at your own pace, not all together like in my previous communities. I muddled my way through, occasionally recognizing a prayer recited by the chazzan, or prayer leader, and catching up. But mostly I was lost.

After davening ended, everyone heads downstairs for the kiddush, a light snack and social time. I stood up against a wall, completely terrified. I had attended the Reform community for over a year with the same dozen people every Shabbos and yet even by the time I left maybe one or two people said hello to me each week. I expected more of the same, despite the attendance being probably five or six times greater. Instead a woman walked up to me and invited me over to her house to lunch! I was shocked and delighted, and of course accepted. This lunch served as my introduction to Seward Park, and I instantly loved everyone I met and was eager to return.

Over time I began to pick up on davening, and now I can keep up easily. I have been invited by wonderful families to stay with them for Shabbos so that I can walk to shul instead of drive (a prohibited activity), and each week I learn more about the dynamics and history of the community. I’ve made friends, and even dated one of the popular single men (although we were forced to cut off contact as part of my conversion).

Being Orthodox isn’t easy. It’s hard going to Metblogs meetups and not being able to eat. It’s hard not being able to try new restaurants, a previous favorite pastime. It’s hard not using my Blackberry on Shabbos!

But I’ve also found remarkable rewards. I now feel part of a community, and feel more a part of that community each week. The practice of mitzvos, the Jewish ritual laws, enhance my life in a way I never expected. My life feels organized and spiritual for the first time. It’s not for everyone, that’s for sure, and I can’t say I would encourage anyone to pursue it unless they were really committed to it. But it’s fascinating, challenging, and rewarding for me. For me, it works, and it’s worth it.

So that’s it for my little series on being Orthodox in Seattle. Questions? Ask away! I look forward to keeping you updated on what it’s like converting in Seattle as my conversion progresses.