We started Season 6 of
The Big Bang Theory
last week. That means I know what happens in the season opener and you don’t. Hahaha. But seriously, it means my work year has started.
It also means the following:
1. The end of Mama being home. For my older son, it’s harder to lose me to work than for my younger, since the younger really only has this summer as part of his collective toddler memory. For him, Mama works and goes away and comes back and Dada is so awesome it’s all good. The older one gives long kisses when I go and tight hugs and he looks deeply into my eyes and says he loves me and he runs out to the car for one more kiss and hug and it’s hard. Working is hard. And I love that we homeschool because their schedule can then be as flexible as mine, but it’s also hard to know how much fun I miss out on around the house and neighborhood and park and so on.
2. Emmy season is upon us. In another seven weeks, your beloved Kveller writer we all loved as Blossom will walk the red carpet at the first awards show for which she has been nominated. I will return to referring to myself in the first person and say that I am very nervous and very excited to be nominated. It’s unbelievable and the weeks leading up to September 23 (yes, the Emmys fall right smack between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur this year!) will be filled with parties, red carpet appearances, interviews, and wardrobe fittings up the
tzniusdik
wazoo. It’s fun for my stylist (the fantastic Alison M. Kahn) and it’s stressful for me. But thanks to her and my dedicated rock-n-roll publicist and my totally normal awesome hair/make-up artist, we four have a good time getting ready for all of this stuff. Teaser: we are having a piece of jewelry designed for me to wear Emmy night… stay tuned!
3. The gym. I decided it’s time to go to the gym. It’s been eight years. I have joined the Warner Brother gym literally a 30 second walk from the stage where we film. I have fallen in love with the gym all over again. My days as a student at UCLA were spent in the weight room, grunting and sweating and getting buff. Then I had kids and my body turned to virtual Jell-O (the kosher vegan kind, mind you). I am again sweating and toning and grunting, wearing a Nano stocked with Adele and Erik Hutchinson (I need to add music when I figure out how) and my awesome workout skirt (teaser: it doubles as a very special swimsuit). I feel really focused and strong already. I feel like I am doing something for myself. It’s about freakin’ time.
4. Back to learning, Jewish style. The summer put a real dent in any semblance of schedule, so my Jewish learning really took a vacation. It’s time to get back to learning. Especially with a high-intensity job and social dynamics in this industry, I need and love the grounding of learning. I study with my Partner in Torah (she’s known as Jewinthecity.com online) and we are set to start an English translation of Ein Yaakov, stories and morals of the Talmud. I study with my awesome cousin who made
aliyah
(10 p.m. LA time is 8 a.m. Israel time!) and we are starting Rav Kook’s collections of poetry, prose, and legal discussions. I study with a few fellow Baal Teshuvot (formely non-observant, now observant Jews) industry people (and by a few I mean two) and we are finishing Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan’s Inner Space and will move on to something equally intense, profound, and earth-shattering. I can’t wait for all of it.
It’s the end of my summer, but the start of a wonderful opportunity to love my children in yet another year of this life, to succeed in my profession without losing my humility and sense of wonder, to regain parts of myself that were lost, and to reach closer and closer to the Source of it all.
May your starts be blessed this August, whatever they are!
For more tales from The Big Bang Theory, read about pumping on the set, studying Torah on the set, and behind the scenes of Amy’s “Oh, it’s a tiara!” moment.
