August 30, 2005 | Filed Under Blog | 3 Comments
Well, I’m here.
Finished my 1177 mile drive last night. My key to my apartment still works.
It’s humid, I had to get up early this morning to move my car so I wouldn’t get a ticket, all the coffee shops charge actual money for you to use their wireless.
I have spent the day excavating my belongings from the closets and crannies in which I had hidden them, and attempting to get things back in order. Not there yet, but many hours of labor later it’s getting there.
I’m throwing a lot away. Doubles of photographs and their negatives, old letters that have followed me enough times from apartment to apartment, tchotchkes of which* I can’t remember why I have them our how I acquired them in the first place. I’m giving away about a third of my clothes, I think. I can stand to do laundry more often and have less stuff.
I love my apartment. It’s a fantastic apartment. It helps a lot with the fact that I’m back in this city. Nothing against the people in it (ok, well, some of them) but this is sadly, simply, not my city. I still have two more years of learning to do here, though.
I have painted my toenails Evil Knievelish, shiny lime-yellow with a dark blue racing stripe down the middle and silver polka dots on the stripe.
Now it’s time to go buy a semester’s worth of groceries.
*grammar police, do your worst with this sentence.
August 24, 2005 | Filed Under Blog | 1 Comment
I’m packing up to drive back down all the waaaaay down to my city of (permanent-ish) residence tomorrow. I am one with the I-5.
It’s kind of a bummer that I didn’t make it up to Vancouver (though there was some excellent playtime on Mt. Ranier this weekend) or down to–oh, I forget where. But I’m very close to having done all of the 5, certainly almost all of it that’s in the US. I think ultimately I’d like to have better Impressive Things to my name, though. As much as I love my car, well–road trips are fun when you’re on the way TO somewhere and have lots of time to stop places and hang out and take long lunches in tiny pockets of cultural randomness. But the going-back-because-you-have-stuff-to-do is more like, driving as means business. There are a lot of bad escapist novels in my iPod now, plus some liturgy stuff I need to learn, plus whatever other nine gazillion albums have wound up in there that I never listen to because I’m always hitting that one playlist over and over again. I plan to make good time. Tomorrow is going to be many many hours of driving. I’ll have like 18 to do overall, more if my brother is in fact in town and I detour to visit. Thankfully I’ll do Shabbos at a friend’s on the way, because 18 all together in a row is too many hours of driving a car. A new semester starts a week from tomorrow. *blink*
Now there is laundry and packing. Later there will be a trip to the grocery for provisions, and then tomorrow early I will be back on the road. Today I should also buy my plane ticket(s) for my High Holy Day gigs (I’ll get reimbursed). I just made travel arrangements for a different gig at the end of October on the East Coast. There may be even more travel in my slightly later future, still working on that–could be cool, but even more quality time with my suitcase. This rock and roll lifestyle….
In related news, I have a new hobby: throwing things away. My default state for years and years has been, “oh, I might find some use for that.” And half the time the old t-shirt then gets made into a headband and the pants get turned into legwarmers, or whatever. But the time has arrived. I just threw out most of my tapes (!!), which had been living in my car for who knows how long. But the time has come. I saved a couple of mixes from high school or early college that might still be entertaining (my car has a tapedeck but no CD player) but many of the great greats of my era–Sonic Youth, The Replacements, Bob Mould, the Specials, random old Chicago local punk that I loved once–it’s gone. Trash can. I’m not going to save it for posterity, I’m not going to assume I might listen to it again. I have a bunch of stuff on disc and if there’s anything else that I find I’m desperately craving, I can go track it down. Though frankly, I’ve got a little too much crappy Israeli pop going on now to really worry about whatever happened to Screeching Weasel or Prophets of Rage. And when I get back to SoCa–ooh, I can’t wait. My clothes closet is going DOWN. I’m a clothes-swapper from way back, and the propensity to just take something vaguely cute that a friend is giving away, because it’s there and it’s free, even if it’s not 100% my style or fits me kind of funny is too great, and I’ve accumulated wayyy too much useless junk. A year of living relatively light has been a good reality check–if I haven’t worn the velvet dress I inherited in 1999 up ’till now, why would I start today? If I have a need for red carpet gear, I’m sure I’ll be able to acquire something adequate in time.
I cannot wait to go back to my apartment, though. My real, big-girl, settled-into apartment. Will be interesting to see what state it’s in post-subletters and post-family-of-a-friend-in-town-visiting being there.
I just like the idea of getting to be unpacked, at least for a little while.
August 19, 2005 | Filed Under Blog | No Comments
The Alaya Institute, run by Frank Ostaseski of Zen Hospice, is now taking applicants for a low-residence end of life counselor program for doctors, nurses, social workers, clergy, chaplains, therapists and the like. The faculty includes a couple of my own teachers, which is how I came to hear about it. It’s pricey, but I recokon some employers could be convinced to pay for it, which would be a good thing.
Their links list is pretty good, too.
August 17, 2005 | Filed Under Blog | 6 Comments
I feel that it’s appropriate to say something about the hitnatkut (withdrawl from Gaza). But I don’t know what. People are shooting other people, lighting themselves on fire, destroying their cars and all their belongings. And I think it’s only going to get worse in the next few days.
I’m praying that everybody will try to stay safe and get through this with as little trauma as possible.
I’m also praying that this shakes down in such a way that it leaves more open (as opposed to less open) the much bigger, and messier issue: the West Bank. We’re going to have to give that back too, at some point. I hope people realize this.
ETA: Oh, it’s just so painful. Very wrenching photos here.
August 17, 2005 | Filed Under Blog | 3 Comments
Just got back from my gig at CAJE. The panel went well–there were like 85 people in the room, and it turned out I did have something to say on the subject of edumuficating teenagers, and I had fun saying it. I not only got to describe my intro lesson for the Jewish sexual ethics class I got to teach (which mostly involved forcing the kids to define sex and articulate their understanding of sexual ethics by being really specific about the acts they were arguing fit in such-and-such category) and to give my patented rant about teacher-student boundaries (yes, you should have some.) It was great to see my friends from the Bay Area who had invited me to be on the panel, and of course, as happens at these professionally Jewy events, I ran into a lot more people that I knew (including a friend who is, it turns out, 7 months pregnant, yay).
It should also be noted that I ran into J.T. Waldman, a friend of a friend with whom I had emailed about something a while back, who was debuting his INCREDIBLE and GORGEOUS comic book rendition of Megillat Esther, now available for sale here. No, really, it’s astoundingly beautiful and cool with a few surprises in there (like the book suddenly has to be read upside-down halfway through).
And then there was the schwag bag. This was a Jewish educator’s conference, not the Emmys–it’s not like the schwag was so life-changing, but man was there a lot of it. My shoulders still hurt from schlepping the thing around all day. Some of it was interesting and/or useful, some was just plain weird. I’m going to list a bunch of it and let you decide for yourself what was which thing. It came in a big bag, a reusable thing with the logo printed on, and included the local Jewish paper, maps of Seattle, random ads for random stuff, a two-part video on VHS (!) called Great Achievements of the Jewish People from an organization “helping to keep our children Jewish”, pens, magnets, a hot pink and bright blue t-shirt that seems to be left over from the Seattle Jewish Festival, one Hershey’s kiss, two informational leaflets about hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, a few more ads, a thing of post-it notes, a bookmark, a book of coupons, a 15-minute DVD “presentation” on how to teach Hebrew with such-and-such company’s products, some more ads, a CAJE magazine on the subject of “Jewish Values for Growing Exceptional Jewish Children,” a gigantic book with all the conference session information, a thick book of sources and study guides for traditional chevruta text learning, a copy of Moment magazine with a CD of Jewish music in it*, a copy of Jewish Education News magazine, a map of the universtiy, lots more ads, a copy of Lilith magazine, a calendar for the year 2004-2005, a sticker from Jewish Partisans of a woman from the Polish resistence done Obey Giant-style (I couldn’t find something just online, but you can download the image here.)
I am so tired. Why am I so tired? I think the shmoozing is part of it. I have kind of a love-hate relationship with these events–it is my universe, and sometimes they energize and thrill me, and sometimes they make me want to hide under a couch, where nobody can find me to talk about work. I’m not sure that I’ll go to any of the sessions tomorrow–will take a look at the book and decide, probably not now. I have plenty of work to do over here, and precious few days left of my summer in which to do it. Sigh.
And on that note, I think it’s time to call it a night.
*Note that I did not say “good” music. Why, oh why do people insist on propegating the myth that just because a shred of pop culture has “Jew’ “Israel” or Hebrew in it that it’s worthwhile in some way? The organized Jewish community could do to raise its aesthetic standards a smidge. I will admit to being pleased by the band name “The Baal Shem Tones”. But the song wasn’t any good, so you know, clever only gets you so far.
August 16, 2005 | Filed Under Blog | No Comments
Hellooooo. Greeting from 10 Av. Woke up this morning and did a post-fast protein binge, of the eggs-and-black-beans variety. It was so so good, especially when augmented by smoothie and black tea. There was a big nap today, I think the heat and the fasting hit me harder than I noticed. It is so bloody hot out, and my apartment has the great misfortune of poor air circulation and no fans. But I’m out of here shortly, and rumor has it there’s a free air conditioner headed my way when I get back down to L.A. At the very least, I have good air circulation AND several fans in my apartment.
Oh, I am so excited to go back to my apartment. It is all nice, and there are lots of my belongings in it. I’m over living out of a suitcase. It will be nice to be able to spread out a little. Though I think I’m going to have to get rid of a lot of useless junk, it’s apparent how much I don’t need all the stuff I have after not having seen it for well over a year. Who am I kidding? I am going to be very happy to play with all my random stuff. The white beaded sweater AND the black one. Or whatever.
A few items:
Am knee-deep in High Holy Day prep now. I am a d’var Torah-writing machine. Well, I’m not. But I’m noodling around with ideas, and trying to collect lots of other bits and bobs for other parts of the service. I have a list. I’m so organized. it will all get done, probably not by the time school starts as I would have liked, but I think I’ll have the bulk of the major work done by then, which is good.
Tomorrow I’m on a panel on teaching teenagers at the annual CAJE conference, a thing for Jewish educators. Two former bosses are organizing the thing, and since the conference is in Seattle, they asked if I wanted to be on it. I’m not exactly the most sophisticated pedagogue—mostly I make stuff up, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it’s a disaster—so it’ll be interesting to see how this all works, given that they’re going to make me do roleplays and stuff. I think I’m going to talk a lot about teaching about “hard stuff,” like sex and politics and prayer, in a way that tells the truth and doesn’t talk down to a perfectly intelligent 16 year-old who’s not going to be satisfied with some party line. Anyway, it should be interesting to see how I hold up against the real educators, and fun to see some old friends.
And now, where I was all last week:
As it turned out, the conference at Dartmouth was a lot of ass-kicking goodness.
There were 40-ish people, roughly half doing Islamic Studies, half doing Jewish studies, and plenty of people working on stuff that addressed pieces of both. About a third were grad students. There were two or three men, only—I think a few more were invited but couldn’t make it. People were flown in from Cairo, Izmir, Turkey, the West Bank, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Frankfurt, Berlin and many places in North America. A lot of Arabic and a lot of Hebrew was spoken, since a heavy chunk of people, even if they lived on this side of the big water, had learned for their studies, lived abroad, and/or learned growing up. Some had both. Man, do I have to learn Arabic. It is so past time.
Everybody was pretty fantastic, and there were lots of conversations during which the iceberg tip was just barely located. We had a lot of time to socialize, what with meals and receptions and going to the bars afterwards and such, and/though I’m proud to report that I think this is the first conference I’ve ever attended during which I actually, like, attended every session. And wanted to.
The sessions were hot. I mean, not all of them equally, but I got something good out of just about all of them. The topics were often broad—feminism in Islamic studies, gender studies at Middle East universities, orientalism and reverse orientalism, gender, popular religion and civil society, etc—but it was a chance for people to talk about their work and experiences, and for us all most of the time to get into discussion mode but serious. (With most of them, two people each presented for 10-15 min. and then we moved into discussion.)
Dude, Muslim feminists rock so hard. I knew this already, but having the chance to really hash out deeply with some extraordinary people about similarities and differences with what I do was amazing. Some of it was just thinking about parallels—how to interpret and/or reinterpret religious law? How to read sacred scripture? How to manage issues of authority and community consent? Because Jewish feminism has had a few years’ head start on Muslim feminism, in some ways the road over here is more paved. A lot of the IS grad students approached me at some point looking for book recommendations on various issues in JS to help them think through questions of Islamic law, theology, etc. And yet, perhaps we’ve been at this longer, in some ways I can see how we over in Jewville have gotten soft—it’s clear in the kinds of questions we were asking and that they were. Even when the questions are similar and applicible over here–can one deploy agency in choosing to submit to a patriarchal power structure? If so, what does that mean? I think we’ve gotten sloppy and started to assume that we know the answers (regardless of which position you would take) and could use having to re-investigate the questions from anew.
And despite the similarities in some ways, in other ways Muslim feminists are dealing with a very different ball of wax, given the role of Islam (and Muslims) in the global picture. There are issues of state building and control and fundamentalism, of women’s participation in the political process, in the development of Third World countries with which Jewish feminists have the luxury of not contending. Any attempt to make an analogy between the (privileged) position of various groups of women in Israel with those of women in rural Bangladesh, for example—there’s no comparison. It was humbling to regain a little perspective on my work.
I’m also glad that I was there as a religious Jewish voice. I was certainly the most traditionally observant of the bunch, the most engaged in conversations about halakha and the like. I was glad to be there to represent not only in terms of information about halakhic process (which some of the other participants also had, in spades) but also to engage an abstract conversation about prayer from the POV of a Jew who prays, to give a little on-the-ground report on the state of Orthodox feminism, to remind a colleague that, though she may think that the rabbis of the Talmud are “from a very long time ago and don’t impact our contemporary world,” for a great many people, that’s not the case at all—they are living, now, and influential, today.
Tuesday night, when a bunch of us were hanging out late in the basement of our little dormitory, running Radio Lebanon off a coupxle of laptops (one wasn’t enough b/c of their puny speakers) and taking turns dancing and drumming on tables, I reflected on what a pity it was that it’s still a too-little known secret just how dang sexy feminists are. These chicas could dance.
It was a good week. We ate dinners at this long, wide, clear pond, sorted out questions from our work under trees, made stupid jokes that only a select group of people could understand, and asked curious questions about how we as individuals understood what we do, how we do it, why. I hope there’s follow-up, and grateful for what’s already been.
A few links related to projects people are working on:
The Feminist Sexual Ethics Project at Brandeis University
The Women and Memory Forum at Cairo University
The Insan Center for Gender and Women’s Studies at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis
August 5, 2005 | Filed Under Blog | 1 Comment
for the four Israeli Arabs just killed in the North. By a militant religious Jewish army deserter, one of those freaking Kahane people.
I’m so angry there aren’t words.
And also scared for how this is going to affect the rest of the hitnatkut (Gaza withdrawl).
Argh.
May the souls of the murdered innocent, as always, on all sides, rest in peace.
August 3, 2005 | Filed Under Blog | 2 Comments
I know posting’s been pretty slow this summer, I just haven’t been in the mindframe. I’m mostly spending my days working on some writing projects, and it’s not stuff I’m ready to talk publicly about, so… you know, that’s where my brain’s been. And there’s something about focusing on writing that tends to turn, at least for me, the focus inward, so I’m not really paying so much attention to a lot of the conversations that’ve been happening out there in the big world, and arguably even less on the blogosphere. I suspect once the semester starts up and I’m more in input mode, I’ll have all sorts of random bits of spillage to share, more goofy Talmud stories and assorted rants. But for now I’m mostly thinking about how to structure paragraphs, and not feeling so chatty.
It’s been amazing, having this time. I can’t think of the last time I’ve had this kind of unmitigated writing time. Oh, yes, I can–fall 2000. I did one semester of an MFA program (holy bad experience, Batman) and was working on my anthology. But it’s been a while, since then. It took me a little while to get into the groove this time ’round, and now that I’m there, there’s sort of a panicy feeling about the fact that I have so little time left. Really–there’s this week, and then motzei Shabbos I fly off to New Hampshire for a week of talking gender with the Judaic Studies and Islamic Studies people–should be amazing, I think–and then I’ll have one week left before my summer kind of wraps up. And I’ve still got crazy amounts of work to do on preparing for the High Holy Days, and a couple of other things are also happening over the next few weeks. So I’m not even sure how much work time I really do have left. As much as I enjoy learning, I do admit that it’s going to be really hard to let go of this time and go back to the full-time student grind. I like writing all day. It’s good for me. Even when it makes me insane because I’ve hit some block that I have to figure out–I’d rather have that kind of crazy than a lot of other brands of sane.
Plus I get to go running in a forest. Yesterday, I was trucking my way through the magical green path, listening to a mix titled, “I am 16″, when (and I had forgotten this was on there) The Cure’s “A Forest” came on. It was damn cool–that is a bass line with trees all over it.
That’s about it for the moment. More when I pull my head up out of my navel.
