Hot Enough

3:32 PM - Just had a great talk with a dear - since childhood - friend; there isn't anything like that.

You ever have to do something that the odds are you'll feel good after doing, but you fear doing it? Well I'm standing before one of those things right now. I hope that my next post comes from the other side.

3:54 PM - Feels good on the other side. The waters great. I recommend jumping in!

3:59 PM - Just a professionally related phone call. No biggie. Done (message left).

4:05 PM - Mountains behind mountains: I'm ready for my next call/professional responsibility.

5:01 PM - Since we spoke last I called a Dr's office about my foot, which I hurt when I fell at a funeral almost a year ago to the day.

Last night I wrote that I'm into being aware of the personality type of yourself and others. I just remembered another classification of types that Rav Noach Weinberg - Z"TL - was fond of. He said that there are head people, hand people, and heart people. (Of course there can be combinations of each, but as with all of these groupings we're talking about where the weight rests.) (If your first reaction was , "Well you could be more than one", my guess is you're in the head category.) Head people make their decisions based on their thinking, they want to be convinced - just the facts. Hand people define their life by activity and experience, this is what touches them. Heart people's pivots are their feelings and inner intuition and that's what they lead with in their lives.

5:34 PM - Just started revisiting Life's Journeys According to Mister Rogers. In the forward, his wife Joanne, quotes Fred's lyrics,"When the day turns into night, and you're way beyond my sight, I think of you." She writes, "Even though he's 'way beyond my sight,' I'm still being nourished by his words. It's such a comfort to know that others are too."

9:45 PM - I had a lovely visit from a (former) student and his friend. We drank tea and talked stories, poetry, life; there's nothing like it.

10:20 PM - I didn't catch her name but I once read a profile of a prolific writer who was proud of the laundry strewn around her home. She said that the many mystery novels she wrote wouldn't have happened if she'd put in the needed time to put away laundry and do all that which laundry metaphorically represents. I know that there's a middle road. And yet I respect her committed abandon and unabashed pride. I think about this now, and I think about it often. I originally wrote this anecdote is this long and comment filled post. As much as I relate to this writer's POV I am going to do some ordering of my apartment and not write here again until I can report that I've done some organizing.

11:25 PM - I organized/put away laundry. It's amazing how unfulfilled that leaves me.

I wrote an essay for The Jewish Week in their issue of July 3, 2012. It's not in their online archives (as best as I can tell). For some reason I didn't cut and paste it at the time. At some point I'd like to transcribe or summarize it.

It's been really hot lately, which is hard for me. I'm highly sensitive. Not only to words and feeling but also to noise, caffeine, lack of sleep, and temperature. That's another categorization. You can take a test here regarding your level of sensitivity.

Here's the poem of the day.

Goodnight, and may G-d bless and keep well my dad and anyone else who might read this.

New York - 94 Degrees

Heat is an outdoor prison
It tastes like cigarette ash
It sounds like a tired moan
It smells like worn sneakers
It looks like a brisk breeze
It feels like a sucker punch