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.