I listen to non-recorded music during sefiras haomer and I think its a BS heter. I just don’t buy it, but I can’t go without music for that long. Originally I made my own music heter by saying that I would only listen to Ipod shuffle – I went 300 songs in and needed a change, then I broke my own heter.
This is the first sefira that I did not shave at all, even for rosh chodesh. I decided that my hair was shaggy enough for me to sport the half grown in pedophile beard, I call it that because I just look skeazy with the beard and I like it. My mustache and goatee aren’t bad but put that together with shaggy hair coming over my ears and I look like a bear just out of hibernation.
Chofetz chaim has this thing where you can shave on Fridays, another heter out of nowhere for guys who went to yeshiva at one of their branches. Is this heter counted if your branch (Rochester) was kicked out of the chofetz chaim system?
I also decided to move back to New York to increase my suffering during sefira. Not only did I move to the city I love to hate, I moved in with my dad and new stepmom who live in Far Rockaway which is by far the worst area of NY. My morning commute is by far the bumpiest of them all – the Belt Parkway and the Nassau Expressway are the worst roads in the world – and they are making suffer tons during sefira.
Someone sent me this hilarious list of chumros you can take on for sefira in order to show how frum you are. There 49 chumros and its brillaint.