Sundry Sunday Thoughts

12:21 PM - I'm writing in the usual setting of a blogpost for me of sitting around a table with others.  Talking while writing.  The Yellow Wallpaper just came up in conjunction with Gaslight and the concept of gaslighting. I mentioned the (like so many routines not really a funny but insightful) line I once heard from a comedian: "Ask any woman why a relationship ended and she'll tell you a long story, as a men and they'll all say the same thing: "She was crazy."  Heavy stuff. To me it's not something men do exclusively.  Women do it too. Call me crazy but I think labeling another person as crazy is unacceptably wrong.

4:12 PM - Still among friends, soon to head out on the long journey home.  That reminds me of the poems The Journey by May Oliver that someone read aloud last night. I was on a poetry weekend.  I shared/read several of mine that were well received - one which I know by heart and carry with me always and five from my summer at the Kotel in 2006 .  Looks like my party is leaving.  More later, please G-d.

8:48 PM - After being on the road for about four hours just walked through my door.  I've put on the radio and Chilly Gonzales is on WNYC. He's talking about playing the piano as a trained drummer.  Talent, nothing like it.

This weekend I find out another side of the story of why a friend is so passionate about the book, Tinkers. The author was her teacher and is also, now, her dear friend.  The NY Times reviewed it and then decided not to run the review.  Then they ate crow. He did not believe the news, thought it was a joke being played on him when he googled Pulitzer and his name came up.  His wife didn't believe him when he called her with the news. His is an amazing story.

9:17 PM - Settling in to my space after being gone for Shabbos plus. I think long and often about the differences between an extrovert and introvert, along with the other Meyers-Briggs letters.  I'm an introvert, as I need to cocoon to recharge. I don't know so much about all of the letters and my full Myers-Briggs (package (INFP). I do know that I'm all about intuition, empathy, and caring, more than into justice, judgement, and what "they" say.

I need to tend to life matters other than blogging.  But first -

In the sermon I heard over Shabbos the rabbi opened by referencing the financial cliff negotiations and asserting that an interesting sidebar was that both parties agreed to subsidize milk so that the price wouldn't double.  This is an example, he said, which highlights that milk is a staple.  Then he went on to describe slowly and in great detail the first ever Got Milk commercial.  Then he wondered aloud, "What does this have to do with Parshat Shemot?" (to which the man sitting to my left said, "Good question"). The rabbi proceeded to point out that Shmot is the first parsha to include the expression "Eretz zavat chalav u'devash." He quoted Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein's explanation that milk is essential, while honey is an enhancement.  Israel (and Torah, which in Shir HaShirim is described the same way) has both aspects.  Then he quoted Rabbi Soloveichik who said that Hashem convinced Moshe that the Jews were worth saving despite how they looked on the outside and noted that Rashi says this too. I think, perhaps, the most memorable part of the speech for me was an aside that took a fraction of a second to say: Har Sinai might have been so named because it's related to the word sneh, the bush on the mountain on which G-d appeared Moshe.