Spoon - I Summon You

Spoon's Gimme Fiction is one great album musically. I have been listening to it over and over. However, it is frustrating that the lyrics are so opaque. I can't tell if they are meant to be that way or are just bad. For instance --

The signal’s a cough
But that don’t get me off
I summon you to appear my love
Got the weight of the world
I summon you here my love

But you know, Britt Daniel sings this stuff so well that even the really mysterious lyrics come off as fraught with meaning I'm too simple to comprehend.

I am feeling woozy today but better as far as my achiness. I wonder if the Advil is to blame for the woozy feeling? I haven't taken medication in a long time.

Oh. I think Cindy Sheehan should shut up and stop whining. I am on MoveOn's mailing list, and when I got their emails asking for us to protest in solidarity with her, I rolled my eyes. I wish my political stands and opinions were so simple that they'd fit onto a t-shirt or bumper sticker, but they don't. I am not going to stand and protest in support of a woman who says that the war in Iraq is the fault of neo-conservative pro-Israel lobbyists, and then, when called on it, denies she ever said it. I'm not going to ask Bush to meet with this woman again. He already met with her once. And why should he meet with her again? So she can ask her stupid rhetorical question? I am sick of extremist simplistic leftists as much as I am of extremist simplistic rightists. I just want people to start being reasonable.

And another thing. I have decided that the "shul to which I do not go" is definitely Orthodox. I am never going to be THAT observant, but I think I ought to be more observant than I am. Meaning that I am typing this on Shabbat but I want to get to the point where I don't type stuff on Shabbat. I am starting to really feel that there is nothing for me in liberal/rational/Reconstructionist/Reform Judaism. Although some things about Aish Ha'Torah and Chabad irritate me, I am drawn to much of what they have to say in a way that isn't true of liberal Jewish stuff. And it's because liberal Judaism often ends up discarding mitzvot, deciding that practices are just silly, obsolete, indefensible. Things like kashrut, things that supposedly don't make sense, and well, if they don't make sense, we aren't going to do them. For me, G-d is especially present in weird commandments that don't make sense. When I wasn't practicing at all, I used to love ham. Since I became a vegetarian and then started practicing Judaism again five years ago, I haven't eaten anything trayfe, by which I mean pig or shellfish. And I love the taste of all pig products and I even like some seafood, especially squid. Why can't Jews eat this stuff? Who knows. It's certainly not for health reasons. It may be to make it hard for Jews and non-Jews to mingle. But that isn't as important as the fact that it's a commandment that I take on because it's part of being Jewish.

Now, I am not really trayfe-free. Because when you look a little closer, you'll see that I eat non-kosher cheese all the time. And challah that isn't really kosher. And non-kosher wine (though I doubt any pagans were involved in its making). But it's not that I don't think the idea of kosher cheese or wine or challah isn't mportant, it's just that I haven't got that far yet in my practice. It's the idea of working on doing more mitzvot as I can that's appealing to me. And I don't see anyone besides Orthodox (or Conservatives leaning towards Orthodox) with this sensibility. And the idea of Jewishness without mitzvot is appalling. While we may vary in our levels of observance, I guess I am pretty Orthodox in feeling that the 613 mitzvot are there for us to follow as best we can.

So this is my last day being 39. I'm not sure if this really means everything, and I certainly will listen to Carol and not act my age, but then I have the problem of deciding what age I should act. Older, younger?

I'd type more but my wrists are hurting. It's my age creeping up on me. :-)