Tolerance and Forbidden Fruits

This weekend's vice
I wrote several blogs that I didn't post this weekend. Yesterday I focused on our collective love for Forbidden Fruit (not what you think). My friend Pam wrote about this temptation for her knitting blog, In Stitches. For many of us buying something we need definitely don't need, like more yarn, is biting into a forbidden fruit. You know it's wrong but you do it anyway.  I spent the weekend knitting from yarn of the forbidden fruit (except the yarn was spun from a monastery's wool by Monks - hardly the double-F). The same day NPR had a segment on Resistance Training for temptation. It all really got thinking about the forbidden fruits of my life.

I have many!  Ice cream, Thai Food (try to resist Phad Thai - I dare you!), watching TV when I should be doing other "things", nostalgia, this blog...or simply procrastinating. And Facebook. If you are my Facebook friend, you know that's probably my biggest vice of all!

Which leads to the blog I wrote on Saturday. I was really, really mad. On Friday evening I got into a "discussion" with someone on my Facebook wall about the school district. I was critical - and perhaps exaggerated a bit - when I said that schools on one side of town are less crowded than the other partly because 7 of 9 BOE members send their children to the less crowded school (and don't experience the crowding the way we on this side do). In her attempt to make me look bad, the commentator brought up another issue from earlier this year, and she got a little too personal (not to mention that the earlier issue wasn't any of her business) so I deleted the entire exchange. The following morning (Saturday) I got an invitation to be friends with a certain BOE member. I couldn't believe that the timing of the invitation was simply coincidence. We've both had Facebook for years. Call me skeptical or cynical and I'll plead guilty, but I don't trust the motive of the BOE member who clearly wants to know what I'm saying, not to genuinely stay in touch with me. I haven't replied to the request. What should I say? My Dad always says "when in doubt, do nothing." So I didn't responded. It's surprisingly easy to get into trouble when your biggest vice is the Forbidden Fruits found on Facebook. (Again, this time it's gossip, not what you traditionally think of as Forbidden Fruit, even though Facebook has PLENTY).

But there are other kinds of Forbidden Fruits - that plenty of people in Bridgewater take part in. Saying things (or thinking things) that you wouldn't want your mother to hear, or your

Today, Tolerance in Bridgewater (or lack thereof) made the New York Times editorial and I had to repost it! I've blogged about religion before, and I've expressed my views on Bridgewater's Mosque privately. I've also expressed (publicly) my feelings on mixing the School District's interests and the Mosque issue. I don't want to spend District money to fight the Township, nor do I find it appropriate. There are plenty of children in the district whose parents agree with me, even though they aren't vocal. Still, despite the fact that we aren't physically far from New York City, I was surprised when the NY Times caught wind of our town's biggest issue and wrote about it today! I can't believe someone had the guts to publish this!!! Bridgewater is the only place I've ever lived where it's actually PC to be against freedom of religion and citizens support spending over $100K of our tax dollars happily to prevent religious freedom.

Is yarn a vice? When it's $$$ it is
I have lots of vices. I impulse buying expensive silk or cashmere yarns (sometimes they run $30 for a skein (a ball of yarn)), Eggs Benedict, reminiscing about old times with my girlfriends, coffee, wine, gossip. Facebook.

Speaking my mind the Forbidden Fruit is the hardest temptation to resist. I never learned how to bite my tongue. People are supposed to keep their thoughts on sex, politics and religion to themselves. While I have several close seconds, keeping quiet it is the hardest fruit to resist. Even harder than wine! Harder to resist than flirting - harder than candy or cake, chips or yarn.

What's your forbidden fruit?

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