The German-Jew who ate Ham at Passover.

My life has been one of exceptions. Things that don't really fit, yet somehow have been crammed into being against the will of all that is natural and holy. To that end, I've never really understood my own heritage. I know my Mother's side of the family is of Jewish decent. (I'm not even sure if that is the correct terminology. Can you be of the decent of a religion? I suppose, as there is a specific gene that can be traced along Yiddish speaking lineage.) All I know is that one of the few times in my life that I was guaranteed to get to stay up past my bedtime was when there was a movie of the week on television about the Nazi Concentration camps. If it were one where the prisoners escaped, I didn't even have a choice. I had to watch. Alas, it is a part of my history I still know far too little about. I have, however, been told by a practicing Jewish friend of mine that I "look Jewish" ever since the moment we met? Apparently they know their own. Same tribe, I guess?

My Father's side of the family, on the other hand, were German descent, Church of the Brethren, protestant, Christians. I never though much of it, until I was watching the History Channel one night in my mid-twenties, and they were profiling some heinous World War II criminal from the Nazi party. As "luck" would have it, (and I use the term luck very loosely)...we happened to share the same last name. Apparently, Otto von Grieser was some evil anti-Semitic monster who may, or may not, have lain waste to a significant number of relatives on the other half of my double helix. Makes for an interesting basis for the ever-evolving theory of my great internal conflict. The true miracle is that, thanks in no small part to the 1970's and the strength of the Hippy Movement, my parents never really cared what the tags said, and just put on the outfit that fit. Four years later, enter the walking human dichotomy that is Me.

Either way, I have always felt as though there were something about me that did not dial in. I am a walking contradiction, and I have always been keenly aware that my brain does not work like a normal brain. My hopes and dreams are not like normal hopes and dreams. My heart is not like a normal heart. I am the human liaison for the Literal Land Of Misfit Toys....

I used to watch that cartoon every Christmas, and be all too aware of the fact that there was a tragic flaw in the plot line. So, the elf wanted to be a dentist. Big deal. It's not as though the elf were sitting at the work bench dreaming of the day he could fulfill his dream of becoming the producer of elf snuff films. He wanted to bring bright shiny teeth, and joy, to the world. A fairly noble career choice if you ask me. Yet, he was labeled a misfit. Why? Because he didn't want to sit at some bench making toys like the rest of the drone elven masses. Who really wants to sit and make sure all the Polly Pee Pee Pants Dolls are fully functional??? What kind of a life is that? I think of what this cartoon was saying to kids, and it pisses me off. "Hey you! Yeah...you! You with the missing arm, or the broken spring. You with the missing eye! You! The one who wants to be a dentist...You are not normal. You need to be shipped to an island of your freakish peers where maybe, just maybe, some goodwill ambassador of the "normal people" will come and take pity on your pathetic soul by farming you out as a charity case." Maybe it hits home because I'm still waiting for the ambassador who never showed. You know...the big guy in the sleigh who was supposed to carry me off to a place where everyone was like me. Everyone was eccentric. Everyone felt left out, and made fun of. Everyone felt unattractive, and unsure. Everyone had some tragic insecurity that they covered with enough bells and whistles that they truly believed no one noticed. Mine was not a white night. Mine was an obese man in red velvet. Yet...here I sit. Surrounded by Jews, and war criminals, and orally fixated elves, and a one armed Jack In The Box, waiting for a fat guy to land in a sleigh and take us all to a place where someone will love us unconditionally.

So the point was that here I sit this Good Friday. Alone at a computer at a 3rd shift job, eating a ham sandwich, watching the clock tick until August, when I can leave to be a 32 year old college freshman at a tiny college in Northern Indiana. I sit here tonight while the Jews have their Sader, and the Catholics reluctantly take their 800th bite of trout in 38 days, all the while praying for the Great Easter Ham to come and save their day...I sit here, and I wonder if there really IS some grown-up version of the Island of Misfit Toys? A place where I can be a little bit Jewish, a little bit German, a little bit eccentric, a little bit depressed, a little bit white girl who sings the blues, and a little bit thirty-two year old college freshman...and I suddenly realize I don't have much choice. The Island of Misfit Toys is everywhere I am, and everything I am to be.

Bring on the Fat Man.