So just watched Gentleman's Agreement on TCM. It's a 1947 film in which Gregory Peck plays a writer on a magazine who decides to pretend to be Jewish in order to expose the anti-Semitism of the time that excluded Jews from certain neighborhoods, hotels, jobs, club, and subjected them to insults and stereotyping.

The film is clunky, objectionable, and flawed - for a lot of reasons. Hollywood apparently believed that the film had to have a non-Jewish character experience anti-Semitism for it to resonate with the audience. There's the fact that two years after World War II - in a film about anti-Semitism in America - there's not one mention of the six million Jews who were just murdered in Europe. Not a mention of the camps - of the virulent form of anti-Semitism that allowed those murders. The anti-Semitism depicted is humiliating and disturbing, but there's no hint that it's dangerous - that this kind of prejudice lays the foundation for genocide. There's also the fact that the film doesn't have any element or discussion of Jewish culture or Jewish history - just the idea that Jews pray in synagogues instead of churches. There's a lot of discussion of Jews being the subject of prejudice, but nothing to celebrate the richness of Jewish life.

Then there's the fact that the movies is incredibly dated, to the extent that it's almost painful to watch. It's preachy rather than dramatic. There's stilted dialogue: characters say "gosh" and "gee whiz" and other slang of the day that is just laughable.  There's the smart, funny career woman who is great as a best friend, but passed over as a love interest for a soft, whinny, very traditional and incredibly boring woman, quite apart from the fact that she's a closet anti-Semite. Finally there's the phony tacked-on happy ending - where the society woman and closet anti-Semite realizes that she has been enabling anti-Semitism, does something that shows how she's really not as anti-Semitic as she's been depicted through the film, and gets the fake-Jewish guy after all.

Nevertheless, there are some interesting moments that are relevant to today. The theme - that it's not the overt anti-Semites, the ones yelling kike or denying Jews entry to hotels that are the real problem - it's the polite and educated liberals who disapprove of anti-Semitism but go along with it, keeping their mouths shut at anti-Semitic jokes but continuing to go to hotels that exclude Jews, living in areas that don't allow Jews to rent - that hits home today.

In today's world, while anti-Semitism exists and Jews are still attacked, it's not on the level that it was in 1947. It's hard for many Jews to realize just how bad it was for us in this country not that long ago. Still, we Jews - or at least we white Jews (yes, there are Jews of color)- share in the privilege of the white world. We can hide our identities - people who don't want to be known as Jewish can change their names, join a church - and blend in - unless of course, the new Nazis take over and start tracing Jewish lineage so they can kill all of us with at least two Jewish grandparents. But the central theme of the film remains true: that the real obstacle to equality for marginalized people (people of color who don't have the luxury of "passing" that Jews can enjoy) is not the overt racism practiced by the KKK or their ilk, but the polite and quiet people who would never dream of using a racist taunt, but are enjoying the benefits of a racist system - and don't flip over the table when someone tells a racist joke, excludes people of color, or stereotypes someone based on their race.

The one Jewish character depicted in the film said that anti-Semitism isn't a Jewish problem, it's a Christian problem. The same is true of racism - it's a white problem.

Sunday morning, and It's currently a bracing 14 degrees outside at my home in Vermont. I know I'm mentally back in Vermont, after over a month visiting my kids in Los Angeles and New Jersey, because the 14 degrees now seems comfortable. But then it was eleven below Friday, when we arrived. We hurried ourselves and our cats inside, and my husband looked at me with the expression of - you wanted Vermont? It was so cold that even with the furnace going and a wood fire to supplement, we were shivering despite huddling in sweaters and blankets. The cats, miniature heat seeking missiles that they are, never left our laps until we locked them out of the bedroom and then they cried all night. I felt guilty, but not guilty enough to put a foot on the cold floor and and traipse down the freezing stairs to let them into the room.

More on the cats in a minute.

We arrived the day after a big snowstorm, and the roads were terrible, probably because of the subzero temperatures.The satellite didn't work, and I trudged through high drift to knock accumulated snow off the dish while losing feeling in my fingers.  Since then we've had about seven inches of snow more. It's beautiful, but I have a feeling that by April, I'm going to very sick of it. This is the first winter I've spent up here since we moved here. Every other winter, we have fled in early December and returned in March, just in time for mud season. This year is different. We will be here - because Lizzie our cranky black cat needs too much care to be left with a cat sitter and might not survive the travel to Florida. For our visits to Los Angeles, my husband and I went separately, so that one of us would be available to babysit the cat. Last year, we left her with our son for January through March, but under the present circumstances our son didn't have the time or the interest to take on the Lizzie project for two months.. He did it for two days, but that was enough.  

So the good things about being home: I can finally get back to writing. And to comedy. (Nothing more hilarious than being in Vermont in the middle of January, is there?) I'd taken a break from both while traveling and while freaking out over Lizzie - an update on Lizzie coming. Promise. And the good thing about being here in Vermont when the high temperature is 14 degrees, is that I don't have much temptation to do other things. While I do like cross country skiing, I like the temperature to be over 20. (I'm so picky.) Not much temptation to go out to dinner or a movie. Not much temptation to go anywhere much, as a matter of fact. 

Of course, my main distractions tend to be on line - and I'm very bad about it. But I at least have my desk. I have my notes. And I now have a lot of incentive to get to work. Two comedy gigs coming up. As for the novel writing, well, no spoilers, but I will be sharing news soon.

I actually pulled up the draft of the novel I'm rewriting and reread the beginning. It's not bad. Will share the beginning here soon. I even wrote a new sentence. I'm back! I also put my comedy notebook on my lap, on the thought that maybe some jokes will ooze through the paper and jeans and be absorbed into my essence. So far, not noticing much increase in funniness, but it's early going.

SO I just have to decide which I'm working on at any particular time. I just have to ask myself whether I feel like torturing and killing people (writing thrillers) or making jokes. It's possible to combine the two. Maybe down the road. Right now, the comedy and thriller writing are separate paths.

As long as I'm working on either comedy or thrillers - I'm good.

Update on Lizzie: if you've been following my blogs or posts, you would know about Lizzie, my 16 year old cat with renal disease. Back in November, she'd stopped eating, and I was afraid it was the end. It wasn't. She still needs pills twice a day and fluids twice a week, but she's eating a normal amount, sometimes with a lot of coaxing and sometimes, like yesterday, she gets downright pissed that I won't feed her more than her two cans. I don't know how long she'll go on, but then I don't know that about myself either. For now, she's good - and I'm good.  

I wrote a blog on hating New Years two years ago when I was a member of Rogue Women Writers. The news channels are showing the best of 2019, I was having these same thoughts again - of loathing the count down, the forced gaiety - everything in fact - and considering writing another blog along the same lines. But I'd already written it - so why reinvent the wheel? 

Enjoy.

I hate the New Year’s holiday. Always have. Well, not always. When I was a kid, it was the one day in the year when I got to stay up until midnight. I’d eat potato chips with onion dip and watch the stupid ball come down, usually with a babysitter because my parents were usually at a New Year’s party. I envisioned an elegant, fun filled evening of romance – an illusion I kept of New Year’s parties until I hit dating age and the pressure of having a special someone for the holidays – which I rarely did until I met my husband in my late 20s.
 
Now, much older and happily married, I still dislike the New Year’s holiday. As someone who tends to be a bit on the depressive side, I just get worse around New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. So, at this time of year, with everyone making lists, time to make my list – of ten things I most loathe about this holiday.
 

1. Television news listing the most significant events of the past year. I know that journalists, like the rest of us, want to take the week off between Christmas and New Year’s, but this is just lazy. And, yeah, yeah, I know Trump won, and Aleppo was destroyed.  I don’t need to be informed that these were significant events. I’m already aware. Which leads me to…

 

1. The annual listing of the people who died in the calendar year. Can you spell d-e-p-r-e-s-s-i-n-g? Or morbid? They died. I’m sad. I’m still mourning Carrie Fisher and now her mother. I have a black patch on my Jedi robe for Carrie Fisher, and a black patch on my umbrella for Debbie Reynolds, famous for Singing in the Rain, an oldie favorite. But please, do we really need the parade of the dead that we get every end of the year?  Wasn’t it sad enough to hear it once?

 

1. On a lighter note – New Year’s hats. They’re stupid looking. Enough said.

 

1. Restaurant dining on New Year’s Eve. So, maybe you give in to the idea that you should do something to welcome the fact that you’ll be writing the wrong year on your checks – if you still use checks – for about a month and decide to go out to your favorite restaurant for your favorite meal. Only your favorite restaurant isn’t serving your favorite meal. It’s serving a $200 per person New Year’s Eve special. With Champaign – which is supposed to make up for the fact that your meal is $180 more than you wanted to pay. And you have to drink Champaign – leading us into number 5….

 

1. Champaign. It’s expensive. It’s festive. We’re supposed to love it. I don’t. As generally served, it’s a sweet fizzy drink. If I want a drink, I’ll take Scotch. Glen Livet is very festive. If I want sweet, I’ll have a milkshake. But we’re supposed to drink Champaign, because that’s what we’re supposed to do. Kind of circular, but there you are.

 

1. The forced gaiety. This is especially true at parties, where you tend to not know half the people. The music is ear-shatteringly loud, and people who don’t know how to dance are bumping and grinding into each other. You’re supposed to be dancing along with them, with a brief period of kissing everyone within reach when the clock ticks down to the new year, even though you just want to flee for fresh air. Then there’s the forced gaiety of the people you see crowded into Times Square waiting for the stupid ball to come down as it does every year. Those smiles you see on the faces of people in the crowd on television – they’re either too drunk and stoned to know what’s happening or they figure this will be the last image their loved ones have of them.  Hence the grins to fool the families into thinking their last moments were good ones.

 

1. People shooting guns or fireworks at midnight. Usually happens just after I’ve fallen into a deep sleep, having resisted the social pressure to stay up past my usual bedtime. Scares the dogs. Scares me, especially when idiots fire actual bullets into the sky, and yes, people sometimes do fire actual rounds into sky.  Don’t people realize that what goes up….

 

1. New Year’s resolutions. No, I don’t make them. Why set myself up for almost certain failure once a year? I do that all the time. Don’t need to make a big thing about it.

 

1. The darkness after the holiday. After New Year’s Day, all the decorations come down. The trees, the strings of lights, even the scary Christmas balloons, they all disappear until next year.  It’s the lights, bright colors or even just strings of white lights shining in the dark, that I especially miss. They disappear, and we’re left with the coldest, darkest, and most depressing month of the year. January just goes on and on until it turns into February, the second most depressing month of the year. We could use some festive lights, at least until Valentine’s Day. And some more presents. Make every Friday in January a day to give one present to someone you love. Only not chocolate – I’ll still be fat from not having made a New Year’s resolution to lose the holiday weight. Books make really good January presents.

 

1.  Finally, let’s get to the essence of the holiday. New Year’s marks just how quickly time goes by and how fleeting our lives really are. This may in fact be the core of my whole shtick about New Year’s – because the holiday just underscores what I already know – “what heart heard of, ghost guessed: it is the blight that man was born for….” We are mortal. Time is short. Yada yada. All the hats and the Champaign and the fireworks and the forced gaiety are just trying to conceal that truly terrifying fact. 

 
 
So, yay, another year gone. Take a deep breath and plunge. May the coming year be, well, tolerable.
 

It's a week until Thanksgiving. Here in Vermont, the rain turned into a driving snow while I was out searching for more varieties of cat food to tempt my sick cat. She has kidney disease that will kill her sooner or later. Three weeks ago, she stopped eating, and I thought it was the end, but with an appetite stimulant and some meds for nausea, she started eating again, although it's stop and go. She's refusing to eat the prescription diet, and I have an ever growing stock of foods that, while not prescription, are lower in phosphorus and protein than the average cat food, because if she doesn't eat, she'll die even more quickly. Some days she eats pretty well, others not so much.  

I'm not writing my thrillers. I'm neither performing nor writing comedy. I've been rewriting the same chapter in a thriller for the past three weeks - and having trouble watching any television show where people or animals die. This, in fact, is the first long piece I've written in weeks. My life is now consumed by nursing this cat. I'm giving her fish oil and B12 supplements, and every three days, sub-q fluids. I'm coaxing her to eat another bite, opening cans until I can find something she'll tolerate. Today, she's not eating as well, so I upped the meds, and if she doesn't eat later, I'll rub the appetite stimulant onto her ear.

I found her in our window well in Trenton when she was two weeks old, on a cold May night, and she probably would have died if we hadn't brought her in. I bottle fed her. I wiped her little behind with wet paper towels because mother cats lick their babies to stimulate the passing of waste. She adores my husband who didn't wipe her behind and didn't want another cat, and she tolerates me most of the time. In the sixteen years that she's been a member our family, she's bitten me, my son, my daughter - but rarely my husband. She's had three close calls up to now, a fungus that grew on her brain  - that nearly killed her twice - and then she had an encounter with a ribbon that required surgery. The vet says now that she could have anywhere from three months to two years. I doubt the two years, but we'll see.

Since I've been an adult, I've had four dogs and five cats, and part of the pet experience, is that they will die all too soon. The dogs are gone and three cats: we now have Lizzie, 16 years old, and Xiao, 9. It's never been easy when a beloved pet get close to the end, but it seems particularly hard now, with this cat that loves my husband more than she loves me.  I keep thinking if I just do the right thing, give her the right supplements, the right food, she'll keep going. Maybe we'll get the two years. My kids and my husband tell me I'm feeling too much responsibility for keeping her alive, that my anxiety and guilt are not rational.

I also know it's not rational, and I'm planning to see the therapist who helped me when my mother died. Somehow facing Lizzie's mortality has brought up all the guilt I felt and still feel because I wasn't there when my mother died - and all the guilt I feel at being unable to save my father from dying of Alzheimers.  Then there's the thoughts of my own mortality and that of my husband - thoughts which most of the time I manage to keep locked away in the back of my mind. After all, my mother lived to 88; my father to 95 - and I'm very healthy and very active. so is Jim. Still, I'm feeling that cold fear and the panic.

And yet Lizzie is still here. So am I. So is my husband. It'd be nice to enjoy whatever time we do have, wouldn't it?

I have to remember that Lizzie isn't the only one with a disease. Anxiety is also an illness, but there are treatments. Maybe my therapist will help. I know one thing he'll suggest: doing things where I can be totally present - the way I am when I write. Maybe that's why I decided to write this blog.  And maybe tomorrow I'll try writing something else. 

Wish me luck.



  

Good morning. It is Yom Kippur. So, I am proudly Jewish but not a believer in the God that is depicted in the Torah and Bible. I go to services for community and in an acknowledgement of my people's long history and heritage. So in Jewish mythology, every year, God opens a great book on Rosh Hashanah and in it writes the fate of every living being for the next year. The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are supposed to be days of reflection and repentance to change God's mind should He/She have written down you down for a bad end. On Yom Kippur, Jews fast in an act of purification, and at the end of the day, the book is closed and sealed for the year.

My favorite story about Yom Kippur involves a very famous rabbi who every year would disappear from the congregation, and the congregation believed that he ascended to heaven to argue for them. One Yom Kippur, a man who didn't believe the story decided to secretly follow the rabbi. The rabbi himself dressed as a peasant, went into the woods and chopped firewood, (btw, it is strictly forbidden on Yom Kippur to do such work) and then carried the wood to the home of a sick old woman who could not afford wood and built her a fire. When the man who had secretly followed the rabbi returned to the congregation and was asked if the rabbi had ascended to heaven, he replied, "The rabbi went even higher."

So for all those who believe and those who don't (like me), I nevertheless wish you the traditional greeting of this day: May you be written in the Book of Life. 

Many of us who become writers do so because we find imaginary worlds, maybe even imaginary friends, to be not only fascinating but compelling. Speaking from my personal experience, I love immersing myself in my novels and find myself almost disappointed when I finish writing and editing a book.  Because generally I am more comfortable in my imagination than in real life.

I was painfully shy as a younger person. No one who now knows me, believes me - but it's true. As a teenager, I would go to parties and hide under tables - so I'd be there but not have to interact except with someone equally shy, also hiding under the table with me. I would still do that, but it's too hard now to get up from the damn floor. 

I still have social anxiety. I still worry about saying or doing the wrong thing, over whether people like me or whether I'm annoying them. l find socializing - while more enjoyable than I did as a child or teenager - to be exhausting. And, yes, I do stand-up. And yes, if you've seen me at any of the writer conferences, you've probably seen me acting like a social butterfly. I use the word "act" deliberately. It both instances, the social butterfly, the stand-up comedian, it is an act.

I'm pretty happy sitting here at my desk, writing, editing, and making snarky comments on Facebook. In other words, like many writers, I am definitely on the introvert spectrum, some days, pretty far along the spectrum. But the truth of the book business these days - is that if you want to be a successful author in terms of selling books, you can't just write. You have to sell your books, and as a sideline, yourself. 

Oy.

​So I am hoping my first novel will be out next year, and I'm already dreading, just a little, what I'll have to do to help sell it. I've thought of combining a stand-up act with selling my spy thriller. They have nothing to do with each other, except for my role in writing both novels and comedy and the fact that both marketing and the stand-up are an act. It's a thought. 

So, my fellow writers, do you consider yourselves to be extroverts or introverts? Which is the harder role for you - writing or the selling? If you are, like me, an extroverted introvert, how do you get through the marketing part of being an author? Please feel free to comment below or on my Facebook page. 

Quick update from an earlier blog: Rosh Hashanah is in two weeks. I am more than half-way through learning my Torah portion. I am trying to do a line or two a day, and I'm hopeful that with two weeks to go, I'll make it through. Still spend time every day asking myself, what-did-I do? 

So, if you've been reading my posts either here or on Rogue Women, you would know that I am a proud if not particularly religious Jew. I debated writing this post because I know that readers of thrillers come from all political spectrums, and I don't want to alienate someone who might buy my books. On the other hand,  I couldn't let this pass. 

One of the greatest slanders against Jews has been that we are disloyal to the country we live in - that we owe allegiance to some secret Jewish cabal rather than to the United States, or to Germany, or to France. It was that slander that began the Dreyfus affair in France, where a loyal French Jewish Officer was wrongfully convicted of treason and crowds roamed the streets, screaming death to the Jews. It was a primary accusation by Hitler and the Nazis - that Jews were disloyal to Germany - and that accusation led to the gas chambers, to mass shootings on the edge of pits, to six million Jews, two thirds of all the Jews in Europe, murdered.

 Trump's assertion this past week that our prime allegiance is to Israel and Jews and that Jews who vote Democratic are disloyal raises those specters. And he makes no such statements about other groups. Are those of Irish descent disloyal if they don't vote for the Republicans? Catholics? Baptists? No, it's only the Jews.

But Trump's comments about Jews this week go back even further than the Dreyfus affair and the Holocaust. Trump's retweeting the idea that he is King of Israel and the second coming of God combined with his assertions that Jews who vote Democratic are disloyal - insane though it may be - is a terrifying reminder of the main reason we Jews have been persecuted for two thousand years. The title King Of Israel and the reference to a Second Coming - are direct references to Jesus. The reason we were burned at the stake, murdered by Crusaders, exiled from country after country, is that we do not believe in the divinity of Jesus, nor do we accept him as the Messiah.  For Trump, it may have been a statement to appeal to his evangelical base. For most rational people, Trump laying claim to be the second coming of God verges on the insane. But what I heard - and what many Jews heard - was an echo of two thousand years of hatred.

Jews in America overwhelmingly - seventy to eighty percent - vote Democratic, so according to Trump's rhetoric this week, we are overwhelmingly "disloyal" to Judaism, to Israel, and to him - the "King of Israel." These times are very scary, especially for minorities. For Jews, anti-Semitism has now risen to a level that I have not seen in my lifetime. The hatred that allowed the Nazis to murder so many of us had, for the past fifty years, become embarrassing, shameful, but now it's emerging again in full force. In the past year, there have been two shootings in synagogues. Within the last two weeks, a man was arrested who was planning to attack a Jewish Center in Ohio. How long until some demented neo-Nazis take the language - that Jews are disloyal - that Jews betray the "King of Israel", and go on rampages? The High Holy Days are coming up soon, and I'm a little scared of what could happen. 

Jews are a more diverse group than many believe. We have different political beliefs, we are not universally white,  and we often practice Judaism (or don't practice) in different ways. Those of us living in the United States, however, are proud Americans and that is our primary loyalty, whatever the level of our support for Israel.  (And just for the record, not all Israelis support Netanyahu either. He didn't even win a clear majority in the last election. Are those who voted against him disloyal to Israel?) I may disagree with friends or family who support different candidates or policies than I do - but I would never call them disloyal.  To attack any American as "disloyal" for supporting a different political party than the President of the United States is in itself a profoundly unAmerican idea.

There's a saying: revenge is a dish best served cold. I tried to look up the origin of the phrase- and came to the conclusion that no-one knows. Still, it's a well-known and loved phrase: probably because we all daydream of getting back at people we think "done us wrong" - even if it's only daydreaming of being rich and famous and "they'll be sorry." And revenge is the plot of so many novels, films, and television shows from the Count of Monte Cristo to the Godfather to television soap opera by that name a few years ago.  The espionage series by Daniel Silva with the Israeli spy, Gabriel Allon, has as its opening premise - the exacting of revenge against the terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics.

Whether the person seeking revenge is the villain or the hero depends on the perspective, the level of culpability of the person against whom revenge is sought, and whether the punishment fits the crime. For example, a young girl who is teased and embarrassed - who seeks revenge by socially humiliating the person who teased her - can probably remain the hero of the story. However, if that same young girl takes an ax and dismembers her teaser - we now have a completely different kind of story - one written by Stephen King, perhaps.

Generally, though, in fiction as in life, revenge is a losing proposition. Edmond Dantes starts out as a victim but becomes more an anti-hero than a hero - he gets his revenge but innocent people die along the way. And the exacting of revenge, no matter how justified, can be a blemish on a character.

So if you're a thriller writer and you want to use a revenge plot, be careful. It's a good motivator for a villain - I'm about to do an extensive re-write and edit of a book where the villain is seeking revenge. A villain seeking revenge for the betrayal of a friendship may still be a villain but at least he's understandable.  If, however, your protagonist is seeking revenge - and you want him/her/they to remain sympathetic, the revenge has to be proportionate to the crime. 

And in real life? 

There's another saying: the best revenge is living well. Well maybe. But stand-up works too.. Alternatively, the best revenge may be sticking someone in your thriller novel - and making them the villain.

 

Have you ever said yes and then regretted it? I don't mean the big issues - sex, love, marriage, children. I mean the small things - when someone asks you to help out or to do something that seemed like it wasn't that big a deal -  just something that you thought you could do - had the time to do - and then found yourself wondering, what the hell have I done? And wishing you could take it back - but being too proud and kind of embarrassed to say so?

I did that recently. I am a member of the JCOGS, the  Jewish Community Center of Greater Stowe, Vermont, and in July, I was asked to do something that I'm now really regretting.

Before I go further, a little background. When I moved to Vermont, I thought there were four Jews in the whole state. Me, Ben and Jerry of the ice cream fame, and Bernie Sanders. I was wrong, of course. There are Jews in Vermont, just not as many as in New Jersey, where I lived before.  There is a reform temple in Montpelier, half an hour away, There is a Chabad House in Burlington, where the orthodox hang out and into which a young woman to whom I mistakenly said, Shabbat Shalom tried to drag me one Saturday afternoon. Then, there's JCOGS in Stowe, a vibrant congregation of maybe 200 people - some of whom are only part-time residents, but still they're members. Ironically, before World War II, Stowe was a restricted town. Jews were not allowed to buy real estate, and were excluded from staying at hotels or variously lodgings for tourists.

I am very proud of my Jewish heritage, but I am not religious. I was raised in a Conservative Jewish synagogue, but my current religious beliefs are somewhere between agnostic and believing in something that is best described as "the Force". (See Star Wars.) 

I hadn't been a member of a synagogue since I lived at home with my parents. I joined JCOGS in the aftermath of Charlottesville, when Nazis marched with tiki torches, chanting, Jews Shall Not Replace US.  Joining JCOGS was my way to defy those chants. Joining JCOGS was my way of standing with my fellow Jews.

There's also the fact that since I lost both my parents, I have gone to services a few times a year, not because I really believe, but to honor their memories. In Judaism, on the anniversary of the death of a close relative - parent, child, spouse, sibling - one is supposed to light a candle that burns for 24 hours (a Yarzeit candle) and to say Kaddish, a prayer for the dead. My parents would have wanted me to say Kaddish for them. I don't really think that they know I'm doing it, but I do so in their memory. I also go to services for the High Holy Days, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippour, Day of Atonement - for the same reason I go to services on the anniversaries of my parents' deaths.

So, back to my original story: saying yes and regretting it. In early July, I was at a JCOGS function, chatting with Claudia, the woman who sets up part of the service, and she asked me to be one of the readers of the Torah for the  High Holy Days.

Now, for all of you unfamiliar with Judaism, the Torah is the sacred first five books of Moses. A Torah scroll is written in Hebrew by hand, with a quill, on a special type of parchment, which can take a year and a half. A new Torah can cost upwards of $30,000, and the Torah, as both sacred and expensive, is kept in a special enclosure at the front of the synagogue, and to be taken out on the Sabbath (Shabbat) and designated holidays (like Rosh Hashanah). The day's selected portion is chanted in front of the congregation, and readings are spaced out so that the entire Torah is read every year. The holiday Simcha Torah celebrates the conclusion of the year's cycle and the beginning of the new cycle of reading.

So back to my story: I was asked to "read" ( really, I wouldn't be reading, I'd be chanting) one of the Torah readings for Rosh Hashanah. Now, I did go to Hebrew school for six years; I did have the celebration of my formal entry as an adult into the congregation at the age of 13 - otherwise known as a Bat Mitzvah. I still remember enough to be able to follow the Hebrew prayer book, even if I only understand a few of the words. So, when asked to read the Torah, while I was a bit hesitant, I thought I could maybe do it. With work.

Claudia, who organizes the Torah readings, chanted a few words and asked me if I could repeat it. I did. She complimented my voice, and said she could make a tape of the portion I'd have to chant, and she would really appreciate my agreeing. She was having trouble finding enough readers.

Couple other points on Judaism: Reading the Torah is one of the biggest honors that you can receive in the synagogue, but I'd never done it, not even back in my sort of religious days after my Bat Mitzvah. Why? I'm female. There are three branches of Judaism:Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform. (There are subsets of each, but this is a blog not a treatise.) In Orthodox Judaism, there are a lot of rules about what you can eat, what you can do on holidays (ie. driving, no-no), and on the role of women. Women not only do not read the Torah, they do not sit with men. Depending on how strict the congregation is, the women either sit behind a wall but can actually see the service, or somewhere so restrictive they can't see anything (or, more importantly, be seen). The reform movement was the equivalent of Jewish hippies. The services had more English than Hebrew (at least in my childhood) services were cut down from three hours, give or take, to about an hour, employed instruments, and by 1972, women could become rabbis. As previously stated, I grew up Conservative - somewhere in between reform and orthodox - and which kept most of the prayer formats and rituals but was much less restrictive. When I was young, while women and men sat together, women were not rabbis and did not read from the Torah. That has all changed - within Conservative Judaism. Women are rabbis and have equal status.

JCOGS welcomes all denominations of Jews - but does have the equality of women and men within its services.

The idea of reading from the Torah, something forbidden to me as a young woman, was appealing. Claudia's compliments on my voice were an added inducement, as was the idea of calling up people on the orthodox side of my family, and saying guess what.

I said yes.

Now, here I am, almost two months before Rosh Hashanah, trying desperately to learn the Hebrew and the chants - and thinking, what have I done? I have a novel to edit - I am participating in a stand-up contest at the end of August and have to work on my act. I am also trying to write a least one blog a week. And what am I doing? I am listening over and over to a taped rendition of the portion I am supposed to read, and not convinced that even with two months to go, I'll get it down.

If I believed in G-d (note - it's a very Jewish thing to not put the O in the word for the Supreme Being, even if one does not believe in said Supreme Being), I might believe that He (She) is having a good laugh at me right now. 

I'd back out, but Claudia just sent out an email, asking if anyone wants to read a second portion. She still doesn't have enough readers. I'd back out, but then I'd have to quit JCOGS, and I don't want to quit. 

So, I guess I'm going to do it. Kvetching (complaining) all the way. Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.  

It's almost August, and the summer is quickly disappearing. What did you plan to do this summer? Write? Edit? Learn a new language? Plant a garden? What did you actually accomplish?  

I'll start. I had planned to edit an old novel for publication, finish writing a new novel, polish a couple stand-up routines, and continue working on my guitar and learning French. What have I accomplished? Hmm. Not much.  I'm forty pages into my edit. I haven't written anything new, except posts. I have rough drafts of a couple stand-up sets, but they DO need work. Lots of work. Pas de French. Also pas de guitar. Not nearly what I'd hoped to accomplish.

So where did the time go?

Granted, the surgery that has had me recuperating on my couch for longer than I'd thought it would - threw me off. As did leaving Rogue Women Writers - which pushed me into revamping my website and rethinking my social media presence and was a distraction in other ways. But still, I'm disappointed in how little I've gotten done versus what I'd planned.

I've spent way too much time watching old movies, watching news, and reading - both novels and articles. I've spent way too much time on Facebook, obsessing over national craziness and personal slights. And, I know if I weren't stuck on this couch, I'd be out walking in the beautiful Vermont summer, and taking photos. Oh, wait, photography. Something else I'd planned to do that I haven't done. (I have way too many interests and hobbies.)

So once again, I wind up disappointed in myself - and blaming myself for not working harder. Not focusing. (I do have ADHD -another topic.) And this is a familiar - and circular - dynamic. I set goals. I don't meet the goals. I'm disgusted at myself for not meeting the goals - which makes it harder to focus on those goals because, after all, what's the point, just going to mess up.

Setting goals for the summer seems a sure fire path to failure.

Is the solution not to have goals? Not to have any goals seems defeatist as well. To have fewer goals? Or maybe trying not to look so far ahead?  Yes, it's very human to try to plan far ahead, but as the Yiddish saying goes, Man plans, God laughs.

So maybe - just set a daily goal. It could be small. It should be specific. Edit ten pages.  Do one rewrite of a stand-up. Write a blog post. Stay the hell off Facebook. And at the end of the summer, maybe I can look back on the small day-by-day accomplishments - and say, hey, that didn't suck.

Or not.

What do you think?