First Impressions

I’ve been working on a project with this guy for over a month, but we were in touch only by email, phone, and fax. Until this afternoon we’d never met in person. I went to his office to give him some stuff, and get things to bring back to my office. On first meeting he exclaimed to his colleague, “Look at this baal t’shuvah, with the earrings and the kippah!” I tried to say, no, I wasn’t baal t’shuvah, that I was unaffiliated. He then said he knew what I was, I was “a second generation Carlebacher, with Jerry Garcia thrown in.” Huh, not quite… Before I left his office, he told me that “there are a lot of your type at JTS… they smoke a little [he mimed puffing on a joint], doven, and sing.” I just smiled, and nodded. (Him and his colleagues are also Jewish, in case that wasn’t clear.)

So I found it amusing, because I don’t think my “look” is that unusual. I’m dressed fairly typically today: a blue Oxford shirt, sleeves rolled up as I got hot walking to his office; khaki shorts that go below my knees and are far more work-place-suitable than, say, cargo shorts, as they don’t have pockets and have a sharp crease down the front; brown leather sandals, because it’s still technically summer and, darnit!, I’m going to dress for the season; kippah, watch, and glasses.

Now I’m not quite sure how that translates to “Orthodox + Phish/Dead-head,” but hey - maybe I just see myself differently from the way the rest of you see me.

Pedal harrrrd

I biked to work this morning. I pit-stopped at the bookstore to get two more textbooks for school. Which, you know, was smart thinking given that I’ll now be lugging them around all day, whilst biking. The point of biking was so that I could run a particular errand at work today. Biking from the office to the errand would be far more convenient than walking or taking a couple buses. Unfortunately, I arrived at the office to find an email asking me to do it tomorrow instead.

Since my declaration to bike 10 km/day x 3 days/week, I’ve biked a total of 685km. So that’s 685km in 6 weeks (as I was out of town for two weeks, sans vélo), or 114.1666km/week on my low-ride cruiser. Far surpassed my goal!

And yet, I’m still sweating profusely, breathing far too hard, and giving pep talks to my heart (you can do it! pump that blood! don’t stop!).

(And, though it wasn’t a goal, I’ve also walked almost as far: 667km in the same time frame. Again, I didn’t count any walking while on vacation. Nor do I count little walks, like going to the store, or walking to/from the metro/bus.)

1000 words?

I’ve posted some photos from the ‘tute on flickr.

A few more from Talya & Josh’s wedding.

And some great dorks.

Tu b'Av

Hello from the ‘tute!

Today is Tu b’Av: I can hear the rejoicing of the klezmer jam wafting in through my dorm-room window: the moon is full and bright; I laid in the dewy grass and watched the stars, some of which were amazingly orange. The only thing missing is love…

The ‘tute is off to a running start. After my overnight travels, and long wait at the airport, I finally arrived at Franklin Pierce College just in time to rush to my Everett fellow orientation session. Then to the “new and newer” orientation, then to the opening program… By which point I was feeling nauseous, with a killer headache, due to exhaustion. So I went to bed. At 6:30pm. And slept ’til morning. (With the exception of waking when my roommate returned from the night’s programming, to have a nice chat.)

I’m so used to dovening on my own each morning, that I completely forgot about community. I put on my tefillin, in my room, and prayed this morning. Then had breakfast, walked through the woods a bit, and made my way to Shacharit (morning) services… where my fellow congregants were donning tefillin and tallitim. Oops. (Though, really, it can’t be an “oops” if you over-pray.)

It’s nice to be in a group of people, whether the fellow Everetts, the folks in my classes or workshops, or the people at the ‘tute in general, who are struggling with the concept of finding/creating/having a Jewish community and the concept/actuality/practice of meaningful prayer. They’re also all really pro-Hebrew College, which is encouraging since I’m accustom to giving an explanation of what it is, what “transdenominational” means, etc.

So this update might be more for me than for you, and for that I apologise.