This past week marked the first anniversary of my coming out as gay (by the reckoning of the Hebrew calendar, that is). I celebrated on Tuesday by taking a really long, enjoyable hike, and maybe I'll write about it a bit later. I'd just like to take the opportunity to look back and take stock of how good this past year has been for me. It's felt like the process of recovering from a long bitter illness. After the fever finally breaks, it takes a little while before you're strong enough to get up out of bed and roaming around, and there's still a period after that in which you're still gaining back your original strength. And after that, you can even learn how to live more healthfully than ever before.

With a charming bit of synchronicity, I stumbled upon the perfect quote to commemorate this occasion: "The isolation and secrecy were harder to bear than the malady itself." I found this in an article that was quite unrelated to the topic, but it struck me as a fitting way to describe my past life.

So on that note, I'll point out a few other articles by Jonathan Rauch that I read this past weekend that I found a lot more interesting. I'll start with "Gay Marriage 5: It's Good for Kids", which sums up what I think is the best case for gay marriage I've encountered so far. Dad, I'd like if you'd print that out for Mom to read, as I'd like to hear her sound off her opinion on the topic. I'll recommend "Will Frankenfood Save the Planet?" for Jonathan to read to inspire him in his studies, and for Rebecca to read to maybe balance out her opinions on genetically modified foods a little more. And finally, "Caring for Your Introvert" is good advice for anyone who wants to deal with me.

So I'm sitting around in the downtown Tel Aviv apartment of the guy I'm dating, hacking on the computer while he's away at work, when suddenly amid the traffic noises outside the window I hear the sound of high-pitched male voices melodically chanting "Na Nach Nachma Nachman Me'uman" to the accompaniment of electronic, heavy-beat, dance club music. Blasted out of automobile speakers. At top volume. I laughed not because this could be considered a strange occurrence in my life, but because I realized that events such as this have become part of my version of normalcy. Baruch habah la'aretz.

I've been quite negligent in my writing duties lately, gentle reader. So let me quickly scribe for you the latest news in my life. First of all, my brother Seth proposed to his girlfriend, Rachel Siegel, on the night of Valentine's day, and she accepted. Requisite link to OnlySimchas. Huge mazal tov! My own love life has been creeping forward lately too. Through JDate.com, I met a nice guy named Moshe who's living in Tel Aviv. Due to recent end-of-winter illnesses and general busyness, we've only seen each other a few times in the past month, but we've been phoning and emailing frequently. I hope to see more of Moshe in the near future. And that's about all that's newsworthy lately.