I love the smell of rain. Coming home last night, listening to my new Corinne Bailey Rae CD with my windows down, with no one on the road at 12:30 a.m.? That smell was the perfect accompaniment.

Great conversation at dinner last night. Some additional thoughts I had on the way home:

I don't believe that sitting in synagogue on the Day of Atonement actually absolves me of my wrongdoings of the past year. I do, however, like the ritual of needing to think about my wrongdoings and being expected to make them right -- with myself, with the people I may have wronged, and with God in whatever way I may (or may not) believe in that construct -- and planning to do better next year. In the temple I attend, the service does not suggest that one is absolved at the end of the holy day. I hope that most people don't think it gives them some sort of free pass for the coming year ... but I suppose some folks do, just as some Catholics think that a few Hail Marys and a couple of Our Fathers clean the slate entirely. I don't believe it's quite that simple, even if you do believe in God or Jesus or whomever.

I think there are a lot of people for whom religion isn't a major part of their lives, but who do identify on some level with their religious faith or who feel they have some belief in a spiritual world which may or may not affect their daily lives. I'm not willing to judge these folks on their beliefs, particularly when those beliefs don't affect my interactions with them or their observable behaviors. I will, however, judge freely when those beliefs become part of our interactions and I would expect the same in return. We all make these sorts of judgments every day on any number of behaviors and views when deciding with whom to spend our precious time.

Unless you're a proselytizer, there are very few views you can espouse that will turn me off entirely, but if you're looking for a surefire way to turn me off, just be intolerant of any notion of social justice and equality. Believe that issues are entirely black and white without leaving room for shades of grey. Believe that your way is the only way and that anyone who doesn't see it that way is the enemy. Behave with malice toward others who have done nothing to you. Express rage over things that are objectively (and truly) inconsequential.

When I make a decision about whether a behavior (my own or someone else's) is right or wrong, I never think "This is wrong because Judaism says it is wrong" or "the Bible says it is wrong." One might say that my ideas about right and wrong were influenced by my religious education (Sunday/Hebrew school, etc.) but ultimately I learned about right and wrong from a combination of my parents, teachers, community (including synagogue), friends, books, and self-examination.

My head hurts. No, not from all the deep thoughts -- from the weather, I think. I need to take some sinus headache medicine and ingest a little caffeine or else I may be migraine-bound today.

I love the early stages in a friendship where you're still discovering new things about each other all the time, and you are excited to keep talking and learning more. The best relationships (friendships and otherwise, new and more established) are the ones where we learn at least as much about ourselves as about one another as we talk and challenge and laugh and reveal ourselves.

I really need to clean my apartment. Olivia rediscovered one of her long lost plush mice yesterday under the couch, along with a dust bunny the size of Cleveland. It's nice for her to have friends, too, but I think this might be a little excessive.