Khunrum emails: Alex is passe’ brother Luke. Start rockin’ with the Jews. Maybe you can switch “disciplines”. M. Cohen-Nehemia will undoubtedly give you a Yiddisha Discount. Actually bro you’ve gone far enough. It’s time to rake in the cash. Start your own thing. Combine the Alexander with Yoga, call it Yogander and begin gathering disciples. It’s all a bunch of $%#@& anyway.
The Mitzvah Technique is a dynamic method designed to improve posture and release tension and stress through exercises and therapeutic table work. It is based on the “Mitzvah Mechanism”, an upward rippling motion that gently reinforces the body
I’m a 43-year old man and I’m not paying my bills. I’m just sinking deeper into debt every month.
I’ve paid for another seven weeks of Alexander Technique classes. That will leave me six weeks short of the halfway point of getting accredited as an Alexander Technique teacher. That’s about $14,500 in tuition left for me to pay.
I have $2600 in the bank. My living expenses are $2000 a month and my credit card payments are $600 a month.
For the past 13 months, I’ve been fitting my work around my Alexander Technique training.
If I can’t come up with a better way of financing myself, I’m going to abandon my Alexander Technique teacher training in seven weeks and concentrate on finding the best-paying full-time work.
I don’t like putting my dream of becoming an Alexander teacher on hold.
I feel like I am halfway to getting a real skill for which I can earn real money ($50 a lesson is normal).
I feel like I am failing as a man by failing to pay my bills every month (I pay them, but by taking on more debt).
The freelance writing work I used to do, the rewriting of real estate brochures, the consultations on internet reputation management, have fallen by the wayside the past six months.
I’m so scared right now because since 1pm today I’ve repeatedly told myself, “I’m so scared right now.”
My fright has overwhelmed all other emotions. I’m not even horny right now. I don’t want to play around. I hear about other people’s troubles and I have little concern. I’m mainly thinking about myself.
I’ve got therapy tomorrow and I’m wondering if I should walk in and burst into tears and say, “I’m so scared right now.”
Perhaps I should walk in with erect posture and talk about the wonderful challenge ahead of me and how it will make me a man.
No more excuses. Full bore ahead. No more early morning Talmud classes and long praying to God. Just say the minimum required by Jewish law as quickly as I can at home and then go full bore into blogging on refinance and other schemes.
Good God, I’m a wimp. I will now berate myself most sternly to show you how manly I am, how underneath my girlish writing beats the heart of a rugged caveman.
Good God, I’ve been borrowing money from people with families to support. I’m 43 years old for God’s sake. I should grow up. I should take action against my sea of troubles.
While taking pauses from my vigorous manly action, I’ve been listening to a book on CD — “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell.
It talks about billionaire investor George Soros. He does a lot of his investing decisions based on pains in his back.
I’m a master of the Alexander Technique so I know all about the back. It sometimes holds a lot of fear and clenching and downward pressure. Sometimes the pains in our back will tell us things that our conscious mind must scramble to understand. We can get flashes of insight from the pains in our back.
I’m stiff and scared right now. I’m flooded with fear. All thoughts aside from work, money-making and money-borrowing have fled from me. I’m bloody rigid. I’m an automaton. I’m a money-making machine.
I could pretend to be all empathetic right now about your troubles but the tension in my body is shouting I mainly care about my survival right now.
These are not unfamiliar feelings. I think they go back to my earliest childhood when I was moving from home to home and learning to survive.
It’s Sunday night. A lot of people I know get depressed on Sunday nights because they know that on Monday morning, they must return to work they dislike.
I hate doing work I don’t like. I’ve tried to design my life to follow my passions. Well, it’s not working out so bloody well right now.
I know people who do the same Alexander Technique teacher training work that I do and they hold down 40-hours a week of jobs on the side. Now that’s manly. They don’t codge loans. They just put their heads down and work. I could learn a lesson from them. But first I want to get my beauty sleep.
D. emails: “Listen well and listen good, Sunny Jim! I’ve had it with your fair-dinkum whinging and hand-wringing. You brought on your own problems. The main one of which is your fascination with the quackery of Alexander Technique. You may as well be throwing away your money on learning phrenology or some other pseudoscience. What a pathetic and gullible lad you are! What next? Throwing away your last penny on some magic beans? I ought to crack your skull and shove a burst cane toad down your gullet, mate, although I doubt that would help knock any sense into you. You had better stop this childish self-pitying, by cracky, and try getting a real job. If you were half the “writer” you think you are, maybe you’d be making some money doing that, but, obviously, you have abysmal talent in that department and as far as I can see, there’s not much need for a copy-and-paste boy in today’s hurly-burly world. Be more like your brother Paul, you little ponce. Now, there’s a lad that makes a father proud!”
Anonymous emails:
Hi Luke,
Hope this receives you well. At least better than the way you were probably feeling when you typed out the “Scared” blurb on your blog.
I fell on your blog via youtube.com (was looking up talks by Strauss and Bloom and fell on you — indeed, a fall).
I felt a kind word, some advice would do you well.
After reading deeper into your blog I wasn’t sure I wanted to write. But you need help. And I couldn’t help but feel like you were a brother in need. I would write, but anonymously–a prophylactic. You understand. You hurt people. You’re good at hurting people but bad at earning a living. Which is sad, because you write well. Try instead making people feel good, and as for the weaklings you expose, help them, let them know how you work on your foibles and how they may be able to help themselves. You never know, maybe there’s a living in that for you.
Here’s my advice: You can’t live in two worlds: Decide which one it is: gossip and rumormongering or Judaism. They don’t mix.
If you are still reading my words: Choose Judaism. Follow the instincts that brought you in the first place to make such a change in your life (assuming you saw the truth and peace in it I do, and not as a sick ploy to infiltrate the Jewish world and hurt some more. Unfortunately, reading over your blog I am still uncertain. I give you the benefit of the doubt for this email).
Maimonides advice in cases of serious rehab: Go “extreme” to the side of holiness. You’ll be able to find balance in your life after that.
Finish your Alexander Technique course. If it is good for others, it will be good for you. You can make a living making people feel better, instead of what you have done till now.
Get out of LA. You’re a marked man there. Besides, LA is empty. I know, I lived in Santa Monica and Malibu. It is beautiful and fun…and empty. If you stay there you will be back to porn and gossip. LA caters to crap. And dump the net site. It’s who you are now. And from what I can read your not happy with that.
Still feeling Jewish? Find out if their is a market for the Alexander Technique in Israel. This is part of the go “extreme” advice above.
Made it to Israel (it is heaven on this earth, despite what the morons in the media say), find a wife. There are so many terrific Jewish women in Israel. You can modify terrific as you wish, but it includes beautiful, brilliant, caring, etc. I married a terrific woman over twenty years ago (I am only a few years your senior).
My intention was not to talk down to you. You really need to make a change for the good in your life. You are young, smart, and have your whole life in front of you.
Don’t waste another moment. Stop writing about how scared you are.
Stop prodding into others weaknesses and affairs, you have your own to attend to.
On Friday, Feb. 5, 2010, I spoke with construction guru Mike Foreman of ConstructionGuru.com about tainted drywall that’s causing thousands of people (mainly in Florida) serious health problems:
Luke: ‘What is Chinese drywall?’
Mike: ‘It’s a gypsum-based product commonly known as drywall. It’s manufactured under a process that allows it to meet an ASTM 1396 standard.
‘Chinese drywall is a product manufactured in China with contaminants in it that are out-gassing different gases such as hydrogen sulfide, carbonal sulfide, etc. It’s (out gassing vapors) eating up copper components and affecting galvanized components. There are also boards sold in the United States as though they were made in the United States under a different label. You can’t always say that this contaminated drywall is Chinese drywall. That term has been abused. I’m not fond of all the problems we’re having from products sent to us from China but in this case the bulk of tainted and corrosive drywall boards are coming from China, but not all of it. I prefer the terms ‘tainted’ or ‘corrosive’ drywall rather than ‘Chinese drywall.”
Luke: ‘When did this tainted drywall become a big deal?’
Mike: ‘It became apparent to me in August of 2008 when I started getting phone calls from lawyers and clients. I’m a forensic construction consultant. We specialize in construction issues.
‘It peaked my interest after I analyzed about 25 houses. I was opening up the air conditioning units and scratching my head and thinking, ‘I can’t believe this developer is installing used units.’ That’s how bad they looked. They looked 16-18 years old. According to the owner, they were 12-24 months old. I checked the equipment model and serial numbers and sure enough, it was 18-24 months old.
‘By the end of 2008, I had analyzed about 100 homes and tried to figure out what the common element was. I finally realized that the drywall was the only thing that was common in the houses. That’s when I started doing a lot of research.’
Luke: ‘How does one know if one is using this tainted form of drywall?’
Mike: ‘It shows itself on the components and equipment with-in the structure. My company has a proprietary protocol that we’ve perfected. It’s an NDE ‘ non-destructive examination. The easiest way for a home owner to start checking the structure is the coil unit of the air conditioning system. It should be copper or have a green patina. It should have little if any rust on the galvanized components. If what they think should be copper is black, or has a blistered or textured surface, they’re infected.’
Luke: ‘How serious a health threat is this tainted drywall?’
Mike: ‘My company put out a factual health data sheet March 2009 on our web site (constructionguru.com). Everybody wants to reference different guidelines. We’re in a residential environment. If you start talking to me about OSHA and their PELs (permissible exposure levels), it doesn’t apply because that’s workplace, where you have a TWA (time weighted average). How long have you been exposed? When you talk about PELs for residential, there are no levels established or validated research, to-date. Nobody has done any studies.
‘The average housewife spends far more than 40 hours a week in the house. Most women are in the house 12-18 hours a day, seven days a week, that equals over 84 – 126 hours per week. That can obviously and easily run up to three times the acceptable exposure levels based on OSHA Guidelines.
‘The EPA Standards or Guidelines do not apply to it either. They have no documentation on it. When the “HOT POTATO” or corrosive drywall was passed around these various agencies, it ended up with the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC).
‘A lot of people are trying to sell expensive equipment to diagnose corrosive drywall’ The CPSC has been finding that a lot of it lacks definitive answers and doesn’t work. The CPSC has recently (last week) come out with an NDE protocol, which is similar to the protocol my company has implemented and used since January 2009. We sent our protocol to them (CPSC) to help them elaborate on their protocol.’
Luke: ‘What are the health effects of this tainted drywall?’
Mike reads me off a long list (refer to “Factual Health Data Sheet” from our web site constructionguru.com). ‘Nobody knows. These are short-term effects. Once you move out of the house, within 30, 60 or 90 days, you progressively get back to a normal life. They (chemicals) get out of your system. No one knows the long-term health effects. That will take a lot of testing, research, and validating documentation. I expect it (findings) will be something similar to asbestos.
‘I tell my clients, if you can afford, take a two-or-three week vacation. Go some place and keep a log on how you feel. Notice what is different. Notice if your energy level goes up. Notice if you’re not having irritated eyes. Your nose is not bothering you. You’re not having the wheezing and the shortness of breath. When you move back into the house, tell me what happens.
‘Consistently, they come back from their vacations energized, positive and clear-thinking. Within a few days of being back in the house, their symptoms return and they realize the difference. Most of them move out permanently.’
Luke: ‘How expensive is it to get rid of this tainted drywall?’
Mike: ‘The original protocols (by others) didn’t work. One company in the testing business is promoting a lot of additional testing. We don’t believe in that. You can’t cost effectively test a house by testing drywall samples.
‘It’s expensive to fix this problem. You have to take the major bulk of construction components and appliances, not to mention the occupants personal property and furniture out of a house and it has to be treated.
‘There are multiple types of construction. In Florida, we have concrete block and wood frame with a little bit of metal stud. In California, you have a lot of wood with metal studs. In Virginia, you have a combination of wood studs and metal. You have different veneer exteriors on all these different types of building materials. You have to have a separate protocol for each type of structure.
‘Once the structure is “demo’d and preped, there’s a treatment and a time-frame and testing cycle we do to confirm and validate. Then we cut the contractor loose to start putting the house back together. Square foot costs can range from $30 to $100 per square foot, depending on the size of the house, the number type and level of finishes, and what has to be removed demo’d to make it right. A 1,000 square foot house might cost $40,000 to take care of the problem. The average consumer residence or structure is in the $60 per square foot range. My competitors systems are significantly more.’
Luke: ‘Why are the so-called experts so often wrong when it comes to discussing Chinese drywall?’
Mike: ‘There are no degrees for tainted drywall. It’s not something that’s taught in schools, colleges, or even trade schools. It’s so new that there is no formal education on it. Many of my compadres on this are getting an education on it from me and other guys in the field. We have a lot of home inspectors who are out there who have enough information and knowledge to be dangerous. I was the guest speaker to the 2009 local ASHI (American Society of Home Inspectors) meeting in Sarasota, Florida. They had no clue about what was going on. I gave them enough information for them to be dangerous. They jumped on the bandwagon to make it an income stream for them. I have no problem with people making money but you have to know what you’re diagnosing. Chlorine vapors will give you a different diagnosis that looks similar to this. If you open up the air conditioning unit and it looks black but is really dark grey, and you have no other symptoms in the house, that doesn’t mean you have it, even though home inspectors were diagnosing it that way because the coils were black or grey or discolored. We found consistently that these homes were misdiagnosed until the real estate community got involved. You and I both know that you don’t want to come between a realtor and his or her commission check. They don’t get paid until the job closes. These home inspectors were queering their deals and giving a bad diagnosis and people (consultants / experts) like me were having to come in and clean the mess up. It got to the point where the home inspectors were no longer trusted.
‘Not every house is 100% tainted or corrosive drywall. You could have ten boards in the house and it would take about 24 months to show up.
‘If you’ve got a new house 24-36 months old, and you haven’t developed any symptoms, you’re going to be diagnosed safe. You’re not infected. You’re going to notice it with-in 12-24 months after occupancy, and no more than 36 months after occupancy, whether it be one board or 50 boards.’
Luke: ‘How long has this tainted drywall been coming into the United States?’
Mike: ‘I’ve found it installed as early as 2001.’
Luke: ‘What else should people know about this?’
Mike: ‘You need to talk to your doctor if you start having symptoms.
‘Not all of the tainted drywall is out-gassing a vapor you can smell or at detectable levels. Just because your house doesn’t smell, does not mean you don’t have it.
‘If you start developing symptoms that you never had before, that’s your first red flag that something is not right.
‘With the efficient air-tight houses we’ve created, created over the last several years, we’re seeing more of these types of problems. You don’t have the air exchange you’d have in a house 20 years ago that you and I would say was very poor as far as energy efficiency.
‘If you’ve got the problem, move aggressively on it.
‘The government has been slow to move on this. The government wants to come up with a one-size-fits-all solution. They are finding out rapidly that just isn’t going to work. With all the variables, there’s not going to be such a solution in the near future. They’re going to have to start regionalizing corrective protocols and specifying different situations. It’s going to get complicated.
‘We live in the best possible government in the world, but if you are waiting on the government to do something about this, it’s going to be a long time coming. The court system is going through motions where they are trying to sue Chinese manufacturers.
‘The lawyers are going after Chinese companies such as Taishan. That company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Chinese government. If you think you are going to prevail in a court in the United States and get a judgment and be able to invoke it on a Chinese company and collect money on the judgement in the near future, I wish you luck, but I think you need to go see a therapist and have a serious talk with them about your actions. I just don’t see it happening.
‘I’ve talked to numerous attorneys involved in this class action and they’re probably going to get a settlement from a company named Knauf, which manufactures in three different facilities in China. The most popular one is Knauf -Tianjin. That company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of a German company Knauf, who manufactures numerous construction materials, and types of construction products.
‘I know that in class-action lawsuits such as these, the consumer never gets what’s necessary to be whole. The lawyers make a lot of money.
‘My company fights for consumers. We’re consumer advocates. I anticipate that consumers will get about 10% of what it costs to actually fix the problem. That’s what bothers me about this and other class actions. The consumer’s getting hung out to dry. It’s not whether you are right or wrong in our court system. It’s how much money you have and the lawyer you’ve hired.
‘If you’ve got a problem, call me. We travel all over the United States. My website is constructionguru.com or ForemanandAssociates.com. We’ll try to give you good directions (advice) and try to help you from being taken advantage of any further. They’re (homeowners) already victims. I don’t want them to be victimized more by the charlatans out there.
‘There’s a company out there that will tent your house and pump it full of chlorine deoxide, which is similar to what they use when they kill your termites. The problem is that it does not penetrate through the drywall and get into the backside or wall cavity. They wanted my firm to endorse their product and I couldn’t because I couldn’t get any positive results from it.
‘I don’t know how many people I’ve had who’ve told me they can paint the walls and it solves the problem. Another company has an ozonator that changes the air molecules and supposedly solves your problem. It’s just a cover-up. It’s like putting a lipstick on a pig, you still have a pig, or perfume on a person who has not showered for a month, the smell is still their, just covered-up. It will cover it up for a time, but as soon as you take the good fragrance away, it’s going to come back.
‘We’ve been through hell and back with these get-rich-quick schemes and snake-oil salesman. We’ve got this snake oil and it can do this and that.
‘You’re going to hear the term ‘defective’ when we talk about tainted drywall. It is not defective. It may be tainted, but it is not defective. The percentage of tainted material in the board that is causing the problem is 1-3%, and to-date “ALL” drywall or gypsum board meets ASTM 1396 Standards.
‘China does not have one mine that supplies “ALL” the manufacturers or factories day after day. No mines materials are consistent and no mines materials are identical. You have different components coming out mixed with the gypsum. There are no less than 20 manufacturing processes on how to make gypsum or drywall boards. Some of the problems are based on the drywall manufacturing processes and recycled water being used in those processes. There were problems years ago with mold and mildew. That had to do with the reprocessed water not being properly treated and cleaned and it didn’t take but a little bit of moisture and boom, the drywall or gypsum board started molding up. The mold was already there, it just got activated by a little bit of moisture, providing the food source for activation or growth.
‘When you start talking to me about one size fits all, I’m looking at three major components that are never going to allow that to happen. One ‘ the mined components are all different. Two ‘ the manufacturing processes are all different. Three ‘ you don’t have one type of construction. You have multiple types of construction, multiple types of building materials, multiple building envelopes.’
Chinese-made drywall has been alleged to have high levels of sulfur that can cause corrosion on piping and wiring. Those with the tainted drywall also have reported health concerns such as upper respiratory issues and nosebleeds.
…Last year, construction consultant Michael Foreman of Foreman & Associates began hosting educational seminars to help real estate agents in the area better understand the problem.
The seminars address common signs of corrosion in homes with tainted drywall, the importance of homeowners getting multiple drywall analysis conducted and what a proper analysis to detect Chinese drywall entails.
‘We’re educating the Realtors because they’re the first line of defense or the first line of contact to the client,’ Foreman said. ‘We’re trying to make them understand the details that need to be looked at.’
Foreman & Associates, which specializes in Chinese drywall analysis, hosted at least six seminars last year, the most recent about two months ago in which 120 agents from the Sarasota Association of Realtors attended.
The firm explains to Realtors its home analysis starts with a questionnaire for the previous homeowners that looks for potential health issues. Then the firm inspects the home’s copper piping and components, electrical wiring and outlets and takes interior and exterior wall readings to examine for Chinese drywall.
NEW YORK (JTA) — Another month, another round of recriminations in the Modern Orthodox community.
Two months ago it was a breakaway rabbinic organization established, in part, to promote decentralized conversion standards. Last month it was a public forum on homosexuality in the Orthodox community.
The latest controversy centers on the decision by two rabbis to bestow the title of rabba, a feminized version of rabbi, on a woman previously ordained with the title of Maharat.
Public pronouncements followed by denouncements that generate name-calling and more rhetoric: chilul Hashem (desecration of God’s name). Conservative. Post Orthodox. Fundamentalist. Haredi. Beyond the pale. Off the reservation.
Original
There once was a wise Maharat
Who said, “Shas and poskim I’ve got
Though I’ve studied those tomes
With two X chromosomes
An Orthodox Rabbi I’m not.”
Revised
She now seems more clever than wise
The Maharat title just a disguise.
Proving she and her mentor
Are far far left of center
To ordain Orthodox female rabbis.
Y. Aharon posts: Thee best that can be said of R’ Pruzansky’s post is that it’s not as ignorant as the editorial in the American Yated. I note also that he is melamed zechut on those who believe that income tax evasion or having a kept woman is permissible according to halacha. Interesting that he can see the other side on ethical and moral issues, but not on issues of equity.
I note that Gil appears to equate melacha on shabbat with ordaining women rabbis, whatever their official title. That is a highly questionable comparison even if we only consider amira le’acum which is forbidden rabbinically (i.e. explicitly assur, not just a question of novelty). I wish the Conservative movement would have adopted busing congregants to shul on shabbat instead of having them drive themselves. That would have been an halachic approach to a distance problem (even if some like RYBS may have demurred). Instead, they opted for overt chilul shabbat compounded by a so-called ruling that perverted halacha. By the way, the issue primarily involves turning on and feeding fuel to a combustion (not combustible) engine. In fact, I don’t understand why RYBS would object to busing by a Gentile driver since that would constitute zarchei rabim which is normally permitted, to my knowledge – as opposed to the Conservative congregants violating grave issurei de’oraita to attend services.
I don’t have strong feelings about the game. I don’t care much about either of the teams.
I hope something controversial happens so I can provide some scintillating blogging about it and get oodles of hits.
I just had a long talk with a close friend. I’ve been so caught up in my own life that I have not been registering the struggles of a lot of people close to me. I get pretty tunnel-visioned and selfish.
I returned to yoga this morning for the first time in 11 days (even if I only did about 20% of the class). For the first time in ages, I’m feeling a little zip of energy.
PS. I’m looking at Saints receiver Marques Colston drop an easy ball for a first down. I wonder if Alexander Technique would help with this sort of concentration? The habitual desire to turn away from the ball to check out who’s going to hit you is really strong and the whole nervous system has to be reprogrammed to watch the ball all the way into your hands before taking your eye off it to look at who’s going to hit you.
KhunDiddy: you watching the game…I’m in and out but right now I want to see if these old WHO geezers can cut the mustard
KhunDiddy: Pete has a cap on to hide the bald dome…good idea
KhunDiddy: He was getting flack this past week for his Kiddy Porn bust a few years ago hahahaa!
KhunDiddy: guys in their 60’s singing about Teenage Wasteland…hahahaa!
KhunDiddy: poor Pete looks a little shakey…his arthritas must be acting up
KhunDiddy: that was underwhelming at best
I’m told: There are many aspects to this and I do not believe that any one or two people can change things on their own. Orthodox Judaism is a religion of consensus. Sometimes ideas are discussed for decades before they are acted upon (and sometimes more than decades). Even when a new idea is started by a small group and acted upon immediately, the people are scholars of world class, see Rabbi Hildesheimer in Berlin in the 19th Century. For an activist of fourth rank scholarship such as R. Avi Weiss to make this kind of radical change is unheard of.
Now the issues:
What is the job of a rabbi? It is clear that the contemporary “Rabbi” is not the same as the traditional Rav (or Chacham in the Sephardic world). The Rav was primarily a Judge and Posek. Today that is almost never done by the pulpit Rabbi. So the question is what are we having this woman do? Is she being ordained to have all of the functions of a Rabbi or Rav? This has not been spelled out so it is impossible to answer from a halachic point of view. It is clear that there are things that a woman can do and things that she cannot do. Have they worked this out?
From DennisPrager.com: “Dennis talks to Lori Gottleib, widely published journalist who is frequent commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered. Her new book is Marry Him. She was on the show in April of 2008 for an article in Atlantic Magazine article which she has turned into her new book.”
I had high hopes for this interview but was disappointed by how often Dennis interrupted her.
As I listen to the interview for a second time, I realize she got enough time in the first segment.
Lori talks about the trivial reasons many women use for disqualifying a guy for a second date. According to a survey, men gave three reasons for not going on a second date with a woman (not cute enough or nice enough or interesting enough), while women listed 300 reasons for not going on a second date (he ordered tap water at the restaurant, he wore a brown belt with black shoes, etc).
Lori says the guy she’s currently seeing was not initially attractive to her on his match.com profile because he was shorter than she wanted, he did not appear creative (he worked in real estate), and he wore a bow tie (she thought it was dorky).
Lori: “The Atlantic article was my opinion. The book is not my opinion. I’m a journalist. I went out and spoke to a lot of people.”
JJ: Describe what you mean by settling.
LG: Settling is what our culture defines as getting less than everything we want. We think that settling is compromising our soul. But what most people consider settling is actually like the catch
I associate “relationship” with having to do a lot of things you don’t want to do. In exchange for this hard work, your partner has to do a lot of things she doesn’t want to do. You get to make demands on each. If you don’t want out, you can get fused and lose your own integrity.
That’s what I was used to.
Then along came a no-demands relationship. “I want you to come to shul with me,” I said.
“Why would you want me to do something I don’t want to do?” she said.
“Because that’s how I understand relationships,” I said.
And then I racked my brain for examples of when she had asked me to do things I didn’t want to do. And in a year together, I could not come up with a single example. For instance, even though she hated the beard, she never asked me to shave it.
She said she couldn’t even conceive of asking me to do anything I didn’t want to do.
So this was all very new to me.
We didn’t really develop a bank account with each other whereby if I do these things for you, I develop chits in my account and I can trade them in to get you to do things you don’t want to do.
A no-demands relationship was not easy. We each had to earn our way every time we got together. When we were apart, we felt insecure. Was the other partner looking for someone else? On the other hand, we stayed on our best behavior with each other every time we got together because we realized things could end any day.
We never got sloppy. We never took the other person for granted. We never surrendered our integrity and our goals. We didn’t dissolve ourselves into the relationship. We were just two adults who got together, on average, two nights a week and were really nice to each other.
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff)
Prager Interruptus
From DennisPrager.com: “Dennis talks to Lori Gottleib, widely published journalist who is frequent commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered. Her new book is Marry Him. She was on the show in April of 2008 for an article in Atlantic Magazine article which she has turned into her new book.”
I had high hopes for this interview but was disappointed by how often Dennis interrupted her.
As I listen to the interview for a second time, I realize she got enough time in the first segment.
Lori talks about the trivial reasons many women use for disqualifying a guy for a second date. According to a survey, men gave three reasons for not going on a second date with a woman (not cute enough or nice enough or interesting enough), while women listed 300 reasons for not going on a second date (he ordered tap water at the restaurant, he wore a brown belt with black shoes, etc).
Lori says the guy she’s currently seeing was not initially attractive to her on his match.com profile because he was shorter than she wanted, he did not appear creative (he worked in real estate), and he wore a bow tie (she thought it was dorky).
Lori: “The Atlantic article was my opinion. The book is not my opinion. I’m a journalist. I went out and spoke to a lot of people.”
The Jewish Journal’s Danielle Berrin interviews Lori: