What I'm learning THIS Wednesday night

It’s after 7:00pm on Wednesday night. If I was where I wanted to be, I’d be in a beit midrash style class, learning Talmud with like-minded friends and an incredible “resource person” (read: teacher). Rob, the resource person/teacher is quite knowledgeable, has a great sense of humor, and most importantly to me, has a wonderful teaching style that involves asking question after question and leading you, the student, to his point through your own answers. It involves quick give-and-take, a single-minded intent to reach a logical conclusion, and frequently, a sharp wit.

I’d like to think that, at least when I’m healthy and well-rested, I have all three. I could be wrong.

But that’s not where I am right now. Right now, I’m home with a sore throat and no voice. The bad news is that there’s a good chance I’m coming down with something. Again. (Someone in my family has been sick nearly every day since August 8th.) The good news is that I might get some more writing done.

Or reading. E-mail, specifically.

I just recently joined another e-mail list (for procrastinators, listserv is spelled D-A-N-G-E-R), this one for SAHM/WAHMs who write. Yes, there are quite a few other masochists like me who wondered what they could do while being at home with their children and thought, Hey! I could write books!

This particular list, which is new, has turned out to be quite chatty. I like it that way, especially since another writing list I’m on is heavily moderated. For those refugees from the much-talked about Other E-mail List for Moms Who Write, this is yet ANOTHER heavily-moderated writing list. The moderator not only moderates for compliance with rules and for content, but anything that might be construed as religiously pluralistic or potentially offensive to the conservative religious (which, between the two, describes a good deal of what I might post). So, having a friendly, chatty e-mail list about writing and parenting is quite a delight.

It’s also generating about 150+ e-mail messages a day.

And, oddly enough, greater motivation and inspiration to resume blogging, to journal more, and to work on AS IN DAYS OF OLD.

All in all, a good thing!

BTW, on said new chatty e-mail list, we had an assignment to do a writing exercise about a household object. I started it, about a headboard that Husby and I used for quite a few years, then stored in our basement for a while. We finally decided to find someone else who could use it and gave it away (check freecylce.org for a free exchange near you), only to find that the two women we gave it to had dumped it on the side of the street not two blocks from our house…in the pouring rain!

I was SO mad!

I rescued the headboard, thinking all the while about how it had been abandoned (by these two women whom I hope I never see again or I will likely say something horrible and insulting, if I can figure out what words to use), and betrayed (by me, for letting this happen to it in the first place).

After some journaling on the topic, I finally came to the realization that the headboard was ME and there were just a few issues I needed to work through. Some people consider this a sign of weakness. I, personally, feel a sense of accomplishment that I am doing my part, and then some, to keep the psychotherapists in business.

The writing exercise became something quite different and while it was written down, it will never leave the confines of my journal. Sorry. I have to draw my limits somewhere.

Meanwhile, I have just been informed by Husby that Law & Order is showing an episode tonight having something to do with whether or not a Torah scroll is more sacred than a human life. Do we really NEED to ask this question? Again? Shouldn’t the law of pikuach nefesh (saving a human life is more important than almost anything else in Judaism) be enough?

Argh.

I might just have to comment on that episode after seeing it.

And coming next: is it a Christmas tree or a Holiday tree? Some humble opinions on where the tree came from, where it’s going, and whether we really want to be politically correct about it after all.