I spent the day with Eileen and her children. I’m now in my hotel room relaxing. I have a mug of yummy caffeine from the bucks of stars next to me and a few hours to pound away before Doolies wakes up. I haven’t had much time to talk with her over the last few days. She’s been very busy in Hong Kong and Taiwan while I’ve been busy with the NYC family and friends thing. With the time difference (which is even more extreme on the east coast), our schedules haven’t overlapped much. Hopefully that will change tonight. This leaves me still a few hours to wander around in my empty head to see if anything stuck over my fun-filled day (expect niece photos when I return).

I spoke with Doolies after finishing the first paragraph (I misjudged the few hours thing). When she called she was halfway between sleep and wakefulness. After chatting for a bit, she decided to return to sleep. I don’t know what that says about me.

The coffee isn’t doing much for me tonight. It was a long day. Tomorrow promises to be longer with the continuing education class. I chose a topic I know nothing about this year. I’m hoping that it will be more interesting because of that. In the past I usually chose topics that I was intimately familiar with from work, hoping that the class would add knowledge that would help me at work. Every one of those classes was terrible. We’ll see if attending classes with topics outside my comfort area will improve my concentration or interest, or if these types of classes in general are a natural waste of time (so says the David, he who is too smart to learn anything new. All hail the brilliant David).

Still nothing: no new ideas flirt with me. If I was an idea, I’m not sure how much flirting I would want to do with me either (can’t you just taste the overcomplicated sentence and what that means for my word padding?). Things are quiet in the hotel room except for the neighbor’s monsters. The monsters are the loud squealing type. When I’m not paying attention I don’t hear them. Give me a moment of quiet reflection, where the words stop flowing and an oversized cork wedges itself between my brain and my fingers, and I hear the monsters’ squeals and screams echoing through the halls and throughout my room.

My lips are chapped. I’m not used to the New York cold and I meant but failed to buy chapstick. I’ll rectify that tomorrow and report on all the waxy goodness. (Does my randomness ever end?)

Speaking of randomness, overall I’ve been happy with my writing output. I wish I wrote more stories and synopses, but overall it feels good to write something every day, even if that something is bland recordings of non-happenings or endless consternations about how terrible a writer I am and always will be. I figure when I run out of things to say about the day and the weather (which was surprisingly warm in NYC today) and the rest of the useless things I include in these silly musings, I’ll get back to the business of the day, storying. The television beckons me but I know better to resist than be drawn into its clutches this early in the night. I guess it’s not that early anymore if I look at east coast time.

I’m very popular today. I just got off the phone again. This is not conducive to my early word count. I’m heading into the final stretch, however. And I did think of something to write about. For better or worse I included all this filler before the meat. Mmm…filler filled meat.

Before heading to Eileen’s house this morning, my mother and I stopped along Coney Island Avenue to buy a menorah for the Castle. I haven’t owned a menorah in some time, since shifting away from Judaism in high school and then college. (My mother kept pushing menorahs on me, which I placed at the top of various closets in my geographically challenged homes.) As I’ve written about before, since Doolies and I have been going through the conversion classes, I’ve been slowly rediscovering my religion. Buying a menorah for the Castle was only the next step in this rediscovery.

The area we visited around Coney Island Avenue is a very Orthodox Jewish (or Observant Jewish, depending on who you speak to) area. The Jews there very much believe the old teachings of the ancient rabbis. They live a very orthodox life, e.g., the men, even the non-rabbis, wear yarmulkes (head coverings), pray three times a day, and the woman wear wigs or hats and long skirts, and usually have a cadre of children running around in skirts and dark suits. This is very similar to the much smaller community near where I live in Seattle (except for the suit thing—somehow the suit tradition didn’t make it to the west coast).

When we entered this five or so block radius (after struggling to find parking—that’s one thing I don’t miss about NYC, the constant circling and hunting for a place to stick your car for an hour), it’s like we entered a different world. All the restaurants, delis, butchers, i.e., any place that served food, was certified glatt kosher. As I’ve been experimenting with eating kosher (moving from a “kosher lite,” which included not mixing milk and meat together, and eating kosher-style meats (e.g., no pork), to a more heavy “kosher lite,” which includes only eating certified kosher meats, which means I eat only fish and dairy out in restaurants now and save my carnivore impulses for Castle meals), it was strange to see so many places that served kosher food. In Seattle, there are only a handful of kosher restaurants or even grocery stores that have a small section for kosher food. Here was an entire neighborhood that followed these strange and old rules and ideas.

My mother and I shopped in Eichler’s Juadaica store for the menorah. It’s a weird experience to be around so many Orthodox Jews, and only partly because I felt everyone of them as judging me (yes, I know that not one of them probably gave me a second thought—not everything revolves around me, me, me). Here were people who chose to live their lives in a specific way according to rules and customs set down thousands of years ago by rabbis. With my ego and authority problems, I’m not sure I can ever do that. I mean, who are these ancient rabbis who know more than the great and powerful David. (Down, ego. Down!)

The store had a decent sized book collection. What was not surprising was that every book they carried (at least as far I was able to determine) supported their world view. While I didn’t expect a section devoted to Christian teachings, it would have been interesting to have a section devoted to non-traditional Jewish teachings. The Judaica section in a mainstream bookstore is larger than Eichler’s store because it carries the works of not just Orthodox Jews but all Jews.

The Orthodox Jews live a very insular existence. I’ve done a lot of thinking about that choice. I don’t have any answers, though. Their insular existence protects them from the outside world and its very negative influences. There are many positives about this way of life, and I can see how the outside world threatens it. One of the books I thumbed through seemed to emphasize this point. I don’t remember the title, but the point of the book was to discuss the children of Orthodox Judaism who were moving away from the orthodoxy, and what to do about this modern exodus. My point isn’t to belittle or judge the Orthodox Jews’ choice but to understand it.

I didn’t arrive at where I wanted to go with this anecdote. There were so many questions and discussions ricocheting around in my brain about theology, and I didn’t touch any of it. It is getting late and I have an early class tomorrow. Maybe I’ll reach some of these issues later in the week. Or, better yet, turn some of these issues into a poorly written story. Wouldn’t that be swell?