Thoughts about thinking

Hmmm. I didn't post for a while because I had nothing to say. I doubt you would have been interested in reading about my visit to the doctor, my treks to and from John Lewis in search of the ultimate soap dish, or even how my contract at work has now been extended to four days a week for a further three months.

Now I have some news. Specfically about my conversion. Nothing mammoth, but every journey starts with a whole lot of procrastination and this journey has had its share of procrastination and finding new ways to insert my head in the sand to avoid hearing or experiencing things I'd prefer not. And whilst I'm at it (procrastinating, that is) - have you seen Jibjab.com? I hadn't (maybe the only person in the free world...) but at an outsourcing presentation on Thursday evening I saw the BigBoxMart spoof. Really funny - and if you haven't seen them already you should go and check out all the other material. Make sure you turn the volume up nice and loud.

Anyway, this news. I'm not sure if you know but I'm very competitive. I set myself very high standards and usually fail to meet them, so I get cross and annoyed with myself and have been known to completely lose it and throw my toys out of the pram in the attractive way only a 29-year-old can do. Now, conversion isn't something you can compete at. I know because I've been trying to for about a year. I compare myself against people who have been on the course for significantly longer than me (never against the newer people) and in everything. Synagogue attendance, who reads more of the books for book group, who can follow the prayerbook in hebrew more fluently - seriously, I do mean everything.

But I digress and use too many examples. Basically I set stupid and arbitrary goals and then go postal when I don't meet them. I drive my poor fiance nuts at the same time. I compare myself to others which is silly enough anyway but I don't even compare like with like. A few things have happened recently which have made me realise that my conversion isn't for anyone else and therefore I shouldn't start comparing myself to anyone else. I have been asked a couple of times if I can make an exception to my "no socialising on Shabbat" rule. I have been told that jewish people known to the other person who are seriously religious used to go out on the occasional Friday night out, so why can't I? I have also been told that I'm not going to be considered to be jewish once I've converted - by a friend who isn't jewish.

A few of my friends are interested in my conversion, and most of those are interested in what I am thinking as I progress along the path. After this recent selection of interesting attitudes I had to make a decision. I am not doing this for anyone else apart from for Wonderman and myself (the soon to be Mrs Wonderman). I have to do what seems right, to me and to us, and not to anyone else. The amount of different views and opinions I've experienced recently has meant that I could end up running between pillar and post, trying to project the image others want to see, rather than actually getting on with living and being secure that we (as a unit) are doing the best we can do. If I disagree with someone I want to be able to tell them I don't agree rather than meekly try to appease. That way madness lies. It's hard enough to work out what I believe in to start with, without questioning it everytime someone expresses a view I disagree with, or trying to accomodate an opinion I don't regard as valid.

So, for someone who finds her identity by comparing herself against other people in all manner of ways (whose finger nails are longer/ better shaped/ prettily painted - and that's only the comparisons going on with finger nails...), I now find myself having to compare my behaviour against my beliefs. Not anyone else's beliefs, and not what anyone else wants to see me doing. This might be seen as liberating when I've got over the initial terror of having to rely on my own judgement. I hate relying on my own judgement.

This means, in rather a long-winded way, that soon I will be sitting down and taking stock of everything and working out (a) what I believe in; and (b) how I need to behave to not compromise those beliefs.

Then of course I'll be blogging about it. You were warned!

It's official: my subconscious hates me

My fiance really upset me last night. He said he was considering dumping me and going out with some tall blonde girl.

I probably should mention before I go much further that this was dream-fiance not real fiance. I got very angry (wrong emotion perhaps?) and told him if he did dump me I'd chop his arms off. Nice. Apparently I woke up to berate him during the night (and I remember nothing of this at all) so when I woke at the ungodly hour of 6 and told him I was annoyed with him, he said I had already told him. He also apologised for dream-fiance's behaviour.

I don't like these dreams very much. Last time I had a bad dream, my fiance dumped me for a friend who had grown about 8 inches and just won a downhill ski race. Mind you, at my old job I used to have dreams in which I died. In one vivid one, I was dying in a hospital bed in France and couldn't remember the verb "to die" (mourir, and I've never forgotten it since). Since I've stopped working in that job, and indeed in that area of law, I've stopped dreaming I'm dying. I wish I didn't dream about being ditched, but on balance those dreams are slightly less unsettling than waking up and having the feeling I've risen from the dead.

Why does this blog read like a reading list?

I finished a book by Amos Oz who grew up in Jerusalem and then, after his mother committed suicide, left his father and went to live on a kibbutz. The reason I was reading the book in the first place was for my book group. I have one meeting every month or so, and what with needing to order the book I only really get about three weeks to read it. Which is fine if the book is relatively light, but you try reading Martin Gilbert's 600-page-plus history of the state of Israel, or Rabbi Louis Jacobs' on the theology of Judaism. This month's book was a novel, and I can usually get through one of those in a day or two. Even if they are 500 pages long. Somehow however, the lateast offering by Marian Keyes tends to get consumed a lot faster.

I was like that at school too (but it got worse at university. and leveled out at law school) in that I'd have a book to read, or some homework or preparation to do, and it would take me until the day before the deadline for me to start writing it. I remember my first term at university - I did 75% of all my history essays for one course in the last week of term. Every time I leave something to the last minute I regret it. And this time it's not just affecting me - the wonderful person in my life says that there's not much point him attending bok group if I've not given him the book until the day before. Did I mention I finished the book this morning and book group is Tuesday?

When we get the next book I'll definitely read it as soon as it arrives. I promise.

On the bright side however, the flat is clean and tidy (barring the bedroom which is coated in dust from the bathroom works), my shoes are polished and the washing up is all done.

Why can't I find a reading list containing the entire works of PK Dick, Harry Harrison, Isaac Asimov, Iain M Banks, Christopher Brookmyre and Marian Keyes?