I didn't go on vacation

Never Done: I didn't go on vacation

I was supposed to leave for vacation after work today but something else came up instead. In a word, but without actually using too many words, instead of vacation mode, I've landed in medical mode -- and spent the day doing my best to make the best of it. Squeezing together on a little bed, side by side by laptop, Josh composing and me giving dramaturgical feedback on a performance I recently saw. Josh looking up at the acoustic ceiling tile and pretending it looks like birch bark. Me breaking out the macarons and Scrabble. (Josh is winning.)

Talk about Patience: Do not aggravate a situation with wasted grief. Am I disappointed that I am not currently at the Durrant's farm on East Bare Hill Road, and then on my way to Maine? You bet I am. Am I dwelling on it? I am actually not, and the extent to which I am not dwelling on it truly feels like a testament to a year of Mussar practice.

As the year draws to a close, and I am in a mode of assessing my life, and my responsibilities, and my relationships, I am also assessing my relationship to my Mussar practice. While I don't think I practice it as deeply as I hope to, I have been steady for an entire year in this writing practice -- the public, ethical examination of at least one activity I have never done before -- and it's been transformative. Having a public conversation in and of itself has been transformative -- not just for me, but for some of you who have written to tell me the ways this has changed you. One good friend has started learning something new every day, and another is inspired to start her own blog about retirement, aging, and activism.

Would you take the time to comment about the ways this blog and my practice have transformed you? It would be a great gift to me, especially during this week of reflection and changed plans.

I went to the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop

Never Done: I went to the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop

Boy, did I want to stay in bed. But boy did I have to get up to get to work for the JCC's 10th anniversary open house. So I dragged myself up and out and to the Upper West Side where I served as the outdoor stage manager all morning until the early afternoon. It went really well, and was even pretty fun to work, but it became funner still (for me) when Karen and Andy showed up and we started hoofing it around town. We started out a few blocks away to Luke's for a lobster roll, and then into Central Park and all the way down to 59th Street, and then southwest to the High Line at 30th Street and 11th Avenue, and then down the High Line (god, I love the High Line) to 14th Street, and then east east east to the East Village, to 7th Street between 2nd and 1st, to the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop. You see, I gave Karen a Groupon to the BGIC truck well before they opened the shop, and she actually planned her trip, in part, with a trip to the BGIC truck in mind. So when we found out that the truck wasn't out this weekend because the shop was busy, and that the shop wasn't taking the Groupon, do you think we were daunted? Hell no. (You know we weren't, because I already told you we marathoned there from the Upper West Side for her first gay confection.) When we arrived, I told the incredibly friendly guys who were working there that my friends were in from Chicago, and that I'd given them a Groupon, and that the truck isn't out, and would hey consider honoring the Groupon. The guy at the register was on it. "How long are you in town?" "Until 6" I said, which was true. It was 5:15. He asked Karen for the Groupon. He wasted no time; just made it happen. At the same time, he let me know that they'd be accepting the Groupon at the store starting October 1. I liked how clear he was, and how completely he exhibiting Decisiveness: When you have made a decision, act without hesitation, and Patience: Do not aggravate a situation with wasted grief. Also, he exhibited great ice cream cones -- among us we had a Salty Pimp; vanilla with olive oil, sea salt, and fig sauce; and a new thing involving pretzels and chocolate whose name I can't remember. It was great. It tasted almost as good as the exact same thing tastes coming from the truck. The only thing missing was a Big Gay Bench to sit on (do you think if I make them one I'll get a choinkwich lifetime supply?) but we sat on the Butter Lane cupcake bench instead and thoroughly enjoyed the best soft serve in town. (What is in there? What makes it taste so good?) And then I walked with Karen and Andy back to their hotel, and then took two trains and a shuttle bus home, and then crashed my bones onto the couch and didn't move til the Emmy's were over. (And yes, I was thrilled that Kyle Chandler won for his role as Coach Taylor in Friday Night Lights.) Some days it is completely worth it to drag my bones out of bed. (But now do I have to do it again?)

I organized things neatly

Never Done: I organized things neatly

I don't know how I got so far in life without Things Organized Neatly or Extreme Tidying Up. I also don't know how to capitalize on my foibles. I do know how to make community out of my foibles; I met Andrew -- one of my now closest friends -- at the breakfast seating of a B&B, and I noticed he was alphabetizing the tea bags. Man after my own heart! Five years later, when he and his partner got married, I made them a beautiful decorated wooden box filled with alphabetized tea bags. (I wasn't able to find a tea starting with Q so I made one up: Queer Wedding Blend.)

Anyhow, when I discovered these people who make art out of their hyper-organization, I fell in love all over again. (And sent the links to Andrew.) I also went home to try it. I looked at my shelves to see what did I have, and what might benefit from order, and what could be pretty. Or, put another way:

!
&
(((
)))
-----
:::
;
'''
,,,,,,,,
.........
AAAA
BBB
D
F
IIIIIIIIIIIIIII
M
N
O
QQ
W
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
bbbbbbbbbbbb
ccccccc
dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
fffffffffffffffff
ggggggggggggg
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
kkkkkkkk
llllllllllllllllllllllllll
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
pppppppppp
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
ssssssssssssssssssssssssss
tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
uuuuuuuuuu
vvvvvvv
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
x
yyyyyyyyyyyyy
zzzzz
E
N
O
TT
U
aa
dd
eeee
ggg
h 
iiii
l
m
nnn
p
rr
s
tt
x
yy
z

I swam before work

Never Done: I swam before work

It is hard to spend two hours commuting and still have time to work out. Even, I admit, with a gym and a pool in the building. Once the day gets going, I have so much to do at work that I find it near impossible to dash down for a swim, even though that is just what I did when I first started. So I set the alarm an hour earlier than usual (5:30 instead of 6:30) and was out the door by 6:40 and on the train by 7, and I should have been at my office by 7:35 and in the pool by 7:45 and at my desk by 8:30 but at 42nd Street, a yelling man got on the train, in my packed subway car. The yelling man yelled, "You can't touch. Me, that's it, that's my right, I gotta go where I'm going, that's it! Don't touch me! Call whoever you gotta call, just don't touch me!" The entire train car tensed up. People started looking at their watches. The woman next to me said, "Just get him off." I couldn't stop thinking about all the iterations of self and other. I felt compassion for him, the other, because it sounded like a cop had grabbed him. I also felt frustration that he was holding up a couple thousand people's commutes (also the others) and in particular, mine (I'm the other too.)

I realized that I was feeling a lot of fear -- fear that he might go off in some extra violent way if he was pushed too hard. Fear that he would be physically removed from the train. I also was afraid that I would be late, and that I'd miss my me time. When he finally got off the train, still yelling but not removed physically, the entire car exhaled a collective sigh of relief. Including me.

There is just much opportunity to not aggravate a situation with wasted grief. I want (need) more sleep, I want to spend more time with Josh, I want time to talk with friends, I want to clean the apartment, I need to reprocess the tomato sauce I made because I forgot to boil the jars in a hot water bath, I want to watch Friday Night Lights and US Open tennis, I want to read my book (whatever is the current book), I want to go shoe shopping with L, I want to spend more time outside, I want (need) to find a new apartment that is big enough to adopt in, I want to adopt (and then we'll see if I have time to get to the pool!), and so much more. I actually thought of all these things when I woke up at 5:30 so that I could get to the pool by 8, but I told myself to be patient and not aggravate the situation by dwelling on everything I was giving up, but rather to focus on what I had chosen. I did not have that awareness a year ago. Thanks to my Mussar practice I now do.

I got up and went to work the day after doing an Olympic-length triathlon

Never Done: I got up and went to work the day after doing an Olympic-length triathlon

Is that too much of a cheat? How about I got fasting blood work done the morning after doing an Olympic-length triathlon? How about I returned the bike I borrowed for the Olympic-length triathlon? How about I typed "Olympic-length triathlon" five times in under a minute?

It was a lovely day. I enjoyed the aftermath of the triathlon. I am just a little bit sore -- not as sore as after many much less strenuous endeavors. One person at work said that it will probably hit me tomorrow. Everyone else was duly supportive and encouraging. I thought I was going to want to completely crash afterwards, but I found it quite pleasurable to just be normal today -- and to enjoy my body in a resting state. Not a lethargic state -- I was actually quite energized.

There is a school of drama theory that says that contrast is at the heart of drama, and I think what was lovely about today was that it could only have been so enjoyable in contrast with yesterday. Which is to say that I don't think I an the kind of person who has an every-day appreciation for "normal" days -- and I think one of the great things about doing something so remarkably big is that it allows me to appreciate what comes after. Even the act of blogging (which I do every day now and sometimes feel is a burden on my already-full days feels) was a welcome routine. But not one I am going to extend beyond this word.

I uploaded most of my Fall JCC performing arts program online

Never Done: I uploaded most of my Fall JCC performing arts program online

Some days you set world records, and some days you do data entry. And strangely, some days you feel as good about one accomplishment as the other. The last thing hanging over my head that I've been struggling to learn at work has been a website management program called Program Manager. (Version 3! Woohoo!) Someone tried to teach it to me on my second day, and my brain froze up. Then someone tried to teach it to me during my second week, and my brain froze up. Then I didn't do anything with it until the woman who does the marketing for my department gently reminded me that I need to get my programs up online. So backed up against an actual deadline, I opened the program and tried to figure it out. I'm not going to do a blow-by-blow on this one, except that it required enormous humility. I probably got up and asked D for help 25 times today -- sometimes I knew I was asking questions she had just answered. But she answered me again -- with patience, and clarity, and equanimity when I put in the wrong program code and we had to delete the entire whatzit before re-entering it into another wherezit, and the line break was after this word when it was really supposed to be after that word. You get what I'm saying -- boring shit. But boring shit that makes my programming go up online -- here.

What's that you say? Why is it a confusing mess? Because I haven't learned how to do it all correctly yet, and also because we haven't separated out what is actually in my season vs what is a theater rental. But all this media management in good time my friends, all this in good time. (And by the way, I recommend that if you are in NYC, you click on Monajat -- and buy some tickets to come see Galeet Dardashti, because she's fantastic -- and how often do you get a chance to hear incredible Persian Jewish music?) (Ooh, another Never Done -- a plug for my program in my blog.)

So I guess this is a post about balance. In order to program a good season, I need to have a fully developed right brain, but in order for anyone to know about it, I need to have a fully exercised left brain. And I really can't fall into the trap of valuing one over the other.

I got allergy testing

Never Done: I got allergy testing

First of all, when a nurse is looking at your name on your chart, you would think she might try harder to pronounce it right. "Jane Levinson?" Second of all, when you the only person in the waiting room, you would think she would look up, realize it's probably you, and ask with an inflection that indicates that she realizes it's probably you, but she has to be sure, rather than a robotic, head-down, let's-get-this-one-corralled-into-the-next-room attitude. And once she has you in the next room, when she asks you why you are here, and you say that you were referred by one of the doctors in the same practice (subtly and perhaps passive aggressively indicating that it should be in your chart) and you go on to tell about your breathing issues, and she interrupts to say it doesn't matter who referred you, and you take a deep breath and turn around so you won't say something inappropriate, it is time to practice Patience: Do not aggravate a situation with wasted grief.

I'm happy to say it worked. I transformed my relationship with Debbie pretty quickly from throttle to cooperation, which was especially good because she chatted with me while taking my blood pressure so the mechanized machine couldn't read me correctly and re-inflated two times before capturing my most excellent blood pressure of 97/56, at which point she casually said she shouldn't have made me talk because the machine always does that when she talks with people and who wants the cuff to inflate more than once? She then went on to prick my arms with 60 allergens and leave them to incubate for 15 minutes, and as she left the room (door open) she said "Just call if you need anything. My name is Debbie but I'll answer to anything if you scream loud enough. Those things can get itchy!"

I didn't see Debbie again. Instead, the doctor came in when my timer went off, and once again, I went over the breathing, the questionable asthma, the reflux, the triathlon, the lung infections, the sudden onset if it all. Maybe it's because he's an allergist, but he thinks I have allergies. The prick test showed reactions to a random variety of trees, to dust mites, and to, of all things, rabbits. (Rabbits? Who's allergic to rabbits? I thought they were the go-to pets for people who are allergic to cats and dogs.) They weren't huge reactions. I certainly wasn't calling for Debbie, nor was I going into anaphylactic shock. I got a few bumps. I got a little itchy. It didn't seem like a big deal to me. I went to work.

As I write this, I am trying to figure out what makes it particularly part of an ethical practice, aside from the way I handled myself with a nurse who had less attention for me than I had for her. I think it might be that I am acting with such persistence to solve my breathing problems. That I haven't given up on myself. That I am leaving no stone unturned. That I am committed to my own health for my own sake and the sake of the people who love me. In some ways it would be easier not to, and when the doctor told me that today was Part 1 of allergy testing, I nearly spit. It turns out that I have to go back on Thursday morning so they can inject the allergens under my skin (woohoo!) for a better diagnosis. At least I'll know that I'll need to have my Patience game on before I walk in the door.

I changed a flat tire (on my bike)

Never Done: I changed a flat tire (on my bike)

I am a person who believes that as much as possible we should know how to do things for ourselves. It gives us a lot of choice and power -- we can still ask for help, but we can also do it on our own if we want to or need to. After a million years of riding a bike -- including once 5 days around Novia Scotia and another time across Ireland, I have never actually gotten a flat on the road -- until a couple weeks ago when I couldn't avoid a pothole, about 3 seconds from my apartment, in Windsor Terrace.

Did I go right home and learn how to change the tube? No. I brought the bike home, and parked it in the hallway, and took out a different bike. Because I have become a person with multiple bikes and multiple pairs of running shoes, all hanging out in the hallway. The bike that got the flat was one of the two bikes that aren't mine, and it's not the one I'm riding in the triathlon. It's the one that I was hoping to ride, but is too small for me. But also, I didn't know how to fix the flat.

Which sort of embarrassed me. I took a car maintenance class while I was in college, and I later became a carpenter, in part because I thought it was important, as a feminist act, to know how to master the physical world. I've wired rooms for electricity, I've figured out how to change the labels in the Food Coop pricing scale, and after riding a bike since I was 4, I have never learned how to fix a flat. It was time.

And it's part of our triathlon training. So I brought the bike with the flat over to Prospect Park, with a new tube and some tire tools, and watched as my coach deflated his own tire, dissembled it, and put it back together, and then tried to do it on my own. But right from the start, something was different about mine. It was hard, and stuck, and crumbling. In other words, it was old, and had dried-up, crumbling rim tape to which the tire had become pretty strongly bonded. I was tempted to give right up, and in fact my coach suggested I don't even bother trying to learn on that tire, but one of my teammates came over and gently encouraged -- and taught -- me, so I stuck it out.

I pried the stuck tire off the wheel. I got the busted tube out of the tire. I checked the tire for cracks or glass or nails. I put a new tube into the tire. I inflated the tube with a CO2 cartridge. I put the tire and tube back into the wheel. I mounted the wheel back on the bike. Sounds easy, right? But oh, there are so many little things to remember. And to go wrong. But with José's help, I stuck with it. And I realized what I've realized so many times before -- I can do pretty much anything I am physically strong or agile enough to do. It just takes Patience, Practice, and Persistence.

I time traveled

Never Done: I time traveled (but really I read When You Reach Me)

A couple of weeks ago I finished reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which I loved (and which I meant to blog about but didn't.) When I got done, I wanted to preserve the experience of immersion in a book, but I also wanted to honor summer and read something light and easy, yet still worth it. I didn't have anything like that around the house, and I didn't know what it was I wanted, and so I had the idea to ask my Soup Swap group if they wanted to add a Book Swap layer to our weekly gatherings. They did! So last Sunday, we all came to Soup Swap with a selection of good summer reading, and I chose a children's book by Rebecca Stead, called When You Reach Me. It won the won the Newbury Medal for children's literature.

As is often the case when I want to write about a work of art -- a film, a book, something with a plot -- I don't want to write about it in a way that would spoil it for anyone who might also want to go see it or hear it or read it. Sometimes I throw up my hands and just warn everyone that I'm going to write spoilers, but sometimes I try a different approach: interesting vagueness. That's what I'm choosing this time. First, from the jacket flap:

By Sixth grade, Miranda and her best friend, Sal, know how to navigate their New York City neighborhood. They know where it's safe to go, like the local grocery store, and they know who to avoid, like the crazy guy on the corner. But things start to unravel. Sal gets punched by a kid on the street for what seems like no reason, and he shuts Miranda out of his life. The apartment key that Miranda's mom keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen. And then a mysterious note arrives, scrawled on a tiny slip of paper.

I am coming to save your friends' life, and my own. I ask two favors. First, you must write me a letter.

The notes keep coming, and Miranda slowly realizes that whoever is leaving them knows things no one should know. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Until the final note makes her thing she's too late. This remarkable novel takes place in the real world but holds a fantastic puzzle at its heart. When You Reach Me is an original, and a brilliant and profound delight.

So now you know what the author wanted you to know before you read the book, and now I get to write what I want to tell, which has to do with what it's like to be an adult reading a children's novel. This novel plays with the concept of time travel. There, I've already said more about the plot than I would normally have. But it's true -- that's what the blurb means when it says it's set in the real world but holds a fantastic puzzle at its heart. (BTW, the book is very cool in this way -- it reads 99% like a wonderful teen novel, but it does bring in a fantastic element, but it doesn't read like a fantasy book.) So anyhow, we're adults, and this book is for children, and it has something to do with time travel, which is something you learn pretty early in the novel, only you don't learn what it has to do with time travel til the end. But ... you're and adult reading a children's novel, so you catch the clues earlier than most younger readers will, and in that way you get to experience another layer of the book -- you get to feel like you're time traveling within your own reading of the novel, because the end hasn't happened yet, but you can see how it might happen, while at the same time you can remember how you would have read this book as a child -- transport yourself to your eleven-year-old reading experience while simultaneously having a deeply satisfying contemporary reading experience.

It might have helped my time travel that the book is set over the course of one girl's sixth grade year -- 1978/1979 -- just four years after I was in sixth grade. I'm not even sure how Rebecca had transmitted those details to me, because she doesn't name the year 'til most of the way through the book, but I had already felt it enough so that when Josh asked me if the book is contemporary, I said it seemed like it was set in the 1970s sometime, even though there was actually nothing solid to know for sure. I wonder if someone twenty years older or younger than me would also have felt that it was set in their teenage era (because she writes so well about the sixth grade experience) or if in fact it's infused with details I picked up on without being distracted away from the story. Either way, if you're an adult, and you want to time travel, I recommend this book.

PS. I read it in a day. If you have a subway commute or a day off, you could too.

I called the MTA and got them to fix a light in my subway stop

Never Done: I called the MTA and got them to fix a light in my subway stop

There's been a light out in the stairwell coming up from my subway stop for weeks. If you come home at night, it's so dark that you can't even see where your foot should go to land on the step. And that means that you can't see if someone's waiting there to grab you, or if someone's done something on the stairs that you wouldn't like to step in. (Like that euphemism?) Usually I just get off a stop earlier, and walk home further. But the night before last was late and I was tired, and I was carrying extra bags, and I thought that maybe by now they'd fixed it, so I took the train to my stop (Prospect Park/15th Street) and the light was still out, and I was actually quite scared coming up the stairs. It was 9:35PM, and so I called 3-1-1. After I waded through their system, a 3-1-1 agent transferred me to MTA.

And then I started a whole new round of pushing 1 if I wanted to complain about the bus. Pushing 2 if I wanted to complain about the fares. Pushing 3 if I wanted to compliment the train conductors on their diction. OK, not really, but finally I got to push 0 to speak with an agent, and then I got put on hold for another 15 minutes or so. Until 10:02, to be exact. At which point I got a message saying that the office was open until 10PM and I should call back during business hours.

I laughed, I complained, I found it ridiculous, and I hoped I would find time to call the next day. And as luck would have it, my morning commute (I tried the F train again -- bad idea) took 90 minutes just to get to Columbus Circle, so rather than transfer to yet another train that could travel the speed of a rowboat, I hopped off and walked -- and called the MTA back. This time I waited about 10 minutes for an agent, and when I told her that the light is out at my station and that it is dangerous, and that the MTA should fix it, she ambled into the conversation. "A light? Where" In the stairwell? Hmmm, OK." But eventually she gathered all the info, and she thanked me and told me she would "note my concern." I didn't have high expectations for her noting, and I forgot about it until I was on the train home while it was still light out, when it still feels safe to get off at the stop with the broken light, which I expected to be still broken.

But lo and behold! The light was fixed! My call (or maybe someone else's? Or a combination?) had produced results! I had practiced Patience: Do not aggravate a situation with wasted grief, and participated in the civic process and done my part to keep the city safer (and our shoes cleaner.)

I rode a Ferris wheel

Never Done: I rode a Ferris wheel

And not just any Ferris wheel -- the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island. Actually, it was my very first carnival ride, and I went because Abigail, Mich, and I were celebrating Mich's last night in Brooklyn. I just stumbled over the word celebrate, because I don't want to make it sound like I'm excited that Mich is leaving town. So I looked up the word in Miriam Webster's dictionary, which includes the following definitions:

To perform (a sacrament or solemn ceremony) publicly and with appropriate rites

To honor (as a holiday) especially by solemn ceremonies or by refraining from ordinary business

To mark (as an anniversary) by festivities or other deviation from routine

To observe a notable occasion with festivities

And I can now confidently say that we were celebrating Mich's last night in Brooklyn with a spin around the Wonder Wheel. I even remembered to say the Shehekhianu as we ascended, and as all of Coney Island, and then the Atlantic Ocean, and then all of Brooklyn and even Manhattan came into view. For me personally, aside from the celebratory nature of the outing, the thing that made a big impression on me was how, after a lifetime of not riding a carnival ride, it was so easy to climb into a little cage, shut the door, and put my life in the hands of a couple gruff carnies who were also smoking and eating their dinners at the same time as presumably running the machinery that was simultaneously entertaining me and keeping me alive. Surprisingly easy!

Once I crossed the threshold (climbed into the little cage) I just gave myself over to the experience, and enjoyed my time with my friends. Partly this was about Patience: Don't aggravate a situation with wasted grief (why worry when everything is actually going fine?) and partly it was about focusing as much on the group experience as my individual experience, and partly it was that once we were at the Wonder Wheel, it just didn't feel scary. Maybe it helped that we could easily look over and compare it to rides in the Scream Zone. Rides that none of us had any interest in riding. Rides that made our slow steady tour look like a stroll in the park. And maybe it helped that thousands and thousands of people had ridden the Wonder Wheel before us, presumably without getting hurt. And maybe it actually helped that the carnies seemed so bored.

But ultimately what interested me the most was to think of our ride as a metaphor for Mich's journey. It will probably be scary to get in the car and set out, but not that scary. And ultimately we all know that it's actually safe, and will bring her to new heights, and give her new perspective, and will be best when shared with good friends.

I swam in the Hudson River

Never Done: I swam in the Hudson River

I wanted to get in the Hudson River well before the triathlon so I could get a feel for what it is like to swim in the river before I do the triathlon in August. I knew of course that it would be a lot colder now than then, but I wanted to feel the chop, and the pull of the tide, and most of all -- what it is like to swim in a wetsuit -- so I signed up for three open water swims this summer -- the Great Hudson River Swim in the Hudson, a The Pancake spring triathlon in Raritan Bay, and the Brooklyn Bridge Swim in the East River.

The Great Hudson River Swim is a "beginner-friendly" (as per the NYC Swim website) 1.6 miles in the Hudson, from Christopher Street Pier 45 to Battery Park City. I was was worried about it being cold, and worried about what it would be like to swim in a wetsuit, and quite nervous about the start, when I'd been told people would jump in and swim on top of me -- but I was pretty confident about the swim itself. I've swim long distances before, I love the open water, I am in great shape right now -- and doing especially well in the pool.

Still, as I approached the sign-in area at 6 AM, I had knots in my stomach. I wasn't sure why I was nervous, because this wasn't a race for me; it was an experiment. My nerves calmed down as I signed in (first person to get my number: 208) penned in Sharpie onto the backs of my hands. They calmed down more as I waited an hour and a half for the swim to start, put on my wetsuit, and joked and talked with other swimmers.

Finally it was time to jump off the Pier, into the Hudson. Everyone says that the hardest part is the beginning, when other people are jumping in on top of you, so I made a deal with the person in front of me and behind me -- told them I wouldn't jump on them, and they shouldn't jump on me. It loosened things up a little bit, and made me feel better to have that level of human connection about the scariest part.

I was in the second wave of swimmers, so I got to see other people jump in and gather together to wait for the start. When my turn came, it felt otherworldly. I was on the edge of the dock, I was told to jump in, I hesitated for maybe 1 second and the man running the show told me to hurry, and so I jumped -- over my own natural tendency to take a little more time -- but I jumped. My goggles stayed on, and the water was chilly but not unbearably cold. (I had a sleeveless wetsuit, and that was just fine.) We waited a good 10 minutes in the water before our heat took off, and during that time I talked with the other swimmers, and waved to Josh who was supporting me from the pier, and thought cockily to myself, Well the hardest part is over. Nobody jumped on top of me, and this water is not too cold.

Finally we heard the countdown and the horn, and we were off -- and it immediately got hard. I set out nice and slow, and within a minute someone was swimming on top of me. I just pulled aside to let them pass, and started again -- and again, someone started to flail on top of me. It felt strange -- there was plenty of room for us to spread out, so I wasn't sure why they were on me, unless they couldn't see or they were panicking or they were assholes. (Probably it was at least one of those reasons.)

Meanwhile, I already hated the wetsuit. It was tight around my neck, and I was having a tough time breathing. Not from exertion -- I had barely exerted yet -- but I think from the compression of the wetsuit combined with my already-compromised lungs combined with the water temperature combined with my reaction to other people swimming on top of me. I couldn't take a significant breath, and I just wanted to rip the wetsuit off from around my neck and chest. I slowed down and let everyone pass, and just tested out what it was like to swim without anyone around. The strokes felt fine, but I could not breathe right. I didn't feel panicked at all -- I just knew that without breath, I wouldn't be able to swim a mile and a half. With a sinking feeling (metaphorically, not literally) I swam over to one of the rescue kayaks and told the guy in it that I shouldn't do this. I felt really disappointed, and also realistic.

He pointed me to the big rescue motor boat, and asked if I needed help getting there. I didn't -- I could swim over there just fine. (I mean, as fine as you are when you can't get a breath and you want to rip off your wetsuit, but really actually fine.) On my way over, it occurred to me that I could take off my wetsuit and get back in the water -- that this didn't actually mean the swim was over for me. So when I got up on the boat, I took off my suit, and asked the rescue captain if that was fine. He wasn't actually a race official, so didn't really care one way or the other. So I did it -- I jumped back into the Hudson without a wetsuit, and set back out on the course. Again, the water temp was fine on my limbs, and it felt great to be in my element without the wetsuit on, but I still couldn't get a breath. (In the end, all day and night passed without my being able to take a significant breath, so the fact that I couldn't get it in 62 degree water isn't a surprise.)

I went through the same process of disappointment and reality all over again, swam back to the rescue boat, and climbed back up. My Great Hudson River Swim was over. Lung fail.

But it turned out it wasn't over. Because I stayed on that boat -- with the two captains and the three other swimmers who got picked up -- for another 45 minutes. I tried to talk with the other swimmers, but they were pretty sulky. One of them had a cut hand, one of them was "off his game" and the other one wouldn't even talk. A sorry bunch, feeling sorry for themselves, while meanwhile, I felt surprisingly emotionally OK. I watched the swimmers in the water, and the rescue kayak culture -- trying to learn as much as I could from my unexpected vantage point. I felt a lot of appreciation for the boating support team. I watched the slow swimmers and noticed how good they were at taking their time, and also that they actually had support kayaks boating next to them. Had I understood that I would have had that level of close support, I would have stayed in the water, and while that increased my disappointment that I had gotten out, it also felt like it was still the point of doing the swim in the first place -- to experiment and to to learn.

In other words, I decided to practice Humility: Seek wisdom from others, and not to sink into humiliation.

Until later, once I was on land again, and I started to feel my confidence tank. If you've been around me over the past months, you've heard me sound pretty cocky about the swim -- saying again and again that the swimming part of the triathlon is no problem. I'm a great swimmer. My weak sports will be biking and running. Well damn, if I can't breathe in a wetsuit, it doesn't matter how good a swimmer I am.

I told Josh about all of this on the way home, and we discussed the etymological roots of the words humility and humiliation because I wanted to know how closely related the two things are. We weren't actually sure about the derivation, but Josh gave me a wonderful definition of what he felt I'd been through: Humiliation is being dragged kicking and screaming into a state of humility.

Later in day, he went out while I was napping, and came home with a beautiful spray freesias, and a redefinition of my entire race day. He said there were 6 waves of races: 5 waves of swimmers, and one boating wave. And then he said that I placed first in the boating wave, because I practiced so much equanimity and patience and humility.

Now I just have to keep practicing all three, as I strategize my way forward. Can I swim without a wetsuit? If I do that, do I just swim in my tri shorts and top? What about wearing a neoprine vest? Or maybe a one-piece trisuit? And maybe more importantly than all that, what is really going on with my lungs? Why does it feel like the rest of my body is getting stronger and stronger, while I can't get a full breath? I think it's time to practice diligence, and take my compromised lungs to the doctor. Onward.

Of wetsuits and toe clips

Never Done: I tried on a wetsuit
Never Done: I rode (a bike) in toe clips

One thing I like about training for the triathlon is that it pushes me up against physical challenges that are just a little bit of a stretch for me. Within reach, but a little bit of a stretch -- usually physically, and also usually mentally. Today's stretch was trying out toe clips for the first time. People say that everyone falls three times when they start riding with toe clips. (Toe clips are not the little cages you put your feet into, but the mechanisms that require special shoes that you actually clip onto the pedal, making it so if you need to stop riding, you have to make sure to get your foot unclipped first, or else ... fall over.)

I've always slightly feared riding with toe clips. I think it's just your garden-variety fear of being trapped, but it's kept me from it all these years. When I started training for the triathlon though, I was advised pretty quickly that I would want to use them, so I've been mentally preparing myself for a couple months. But mentally preparing and actually doing are two different things, and what is interesting for me is that (at least in this case) the fear actually drained away as soon as I stepped over the threshold and actually tried. It charted out like this:

Scared thinking about it
Scared thinking about it
Scared thinking about how I'd be doing it soon
Scared thinking about how I'd be doing it soon
I'm about to do it -- time to just figure it out and stop worrying
Doing it -- not actually scared at all

As is so often the case, doing something is easier than perseverating about doing something. Or, as we say in Mussar, Patience: don't aggravate a situation with wasted grief.

So let's see if I can internalize that lesson. I tried on a wetsuit today because a week from tomorrow I am going to swim in the Great Hudson River Swim. Here's what I've been perseverating about: I should have gotten one with sleeves, the water is going to be really cold, I am going to swallow too much water, I should get better goggles, how do I use Glide (this anti-chafing stuff that comes in a container that looks like deodorant,) what if the tide is going the wrong direction? Do you think maybe it's all going to be fine? Or if it isn't, that it's still going to be fine? I mean, I'm in really good shape. If something goes wrong, I can just stop. And the whole reason I am doing it is to get used to swimming in the Hudson before the triathlon. Also, because I thought it would be fun to swim in all the waters around NYC this summer. Hear that, psyche? Fun!

So in that spirit, I am going to try to spend the week anticipating the physical and mental challenge of the swim next weekend, and working up a head of giddy excitement that I am going to swim in the Hudson on Memorial Day weekend.

I kayaked in Jamaica Bay

Never Done: I kayaked in Jamaica Bay

Growing up in New England, I canoed on lots of ponds and rivers. Mostly we kept our canoe under our house, and easily hoisted it onto our orange Volvo station wagon when we wanted to bring it somewhere, but I remember for a period of time we kept it on someone's land (Barba's?) on Bare Hill Pond, so I could go out on the pond without my parents (before I knew how to drive.)

I canoed well into my early adulthood too; I remember once when I was in my twenties and living in Maine, I was canoeing with a friend on one of the Belgrade Lakes (about 1/2 mile from where I lived) when we paddled over a loon swimming below the surface. It was one of the most beautiful and other-worldly things I'd ever seen -- this was before I'd ever gone snorkeling, and understood what it's like to see the usually-hidden underwater dimension of our world.

Later, once I moved to Oregon, I discovered the delights of kayaking when I spent time on Sauvie Island. I remember the first time I paddled into a shallow marsh, where a canoe could never have gotten without getting caught on the bottom -- and I got to glide up to a bittern on the shore, without disturbing it. Since that day, I've rarely been back in a canoe, but I've gone kayaking dozens of times, always when I leave New York City -- usually in Maine or Oregon. Until Abigail and Josh and I went to the Sebago Canoe Club open house, and got to go out kayaking into Jamaica Bay.

Every year on Rosh Hashanah, I try to go somewhere beautiful and outdoors for reflection, and one year I went to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, where I remember gazing out at Jamaica Bay and wondering how I could get out there in a kayak. But I didn't pursue it until my Never Done Year, in which ... Mich brought Abigail into Brooklyn Soup Swap, and Abigail and I became friends, and Abigail invited me to Thanksgiving in April, where I met L, who took me hiking on Staten Island, and told me about Sebago Canoe Club. Voila! Getting out and doing stuff helps you get out and do stuff!

Except that it isn't in my back yard, Sebago feels like a big communal back yard with gardens and BBQ and boat storage and a dock. I tried to picture it on a day when it wasn't full of people (like me) checking it out, and then it felt even more like a communal back yard. And if you're wondering why I'm not talking about being out on the water yet, it's because our experience of being at Sebago was mostly about being on land -- we got there around noon, and signed up to go out on boats, and then hung out for 2 hours before our group was called. We hung out on the dock, we ate grilled meat, we sat on the grass, we met people, and finally we were called to get fit with life jackets and kayaks and get out on the water.

The first thing that happened when I got in my boat is that a man put my boat in the water facing the wrong way. I noticed it, but knew it would be no problem for me to back it out instead of paddle out front-ways. But when I got in, he had a little freak out. "Oh no, that isn't right. No, no, not like that." I reassured him that I would be just fine, that I could back the boat out. But it turned out he was trying to tell me that I hadn't gotten into the boat correctly. When I asked him how to correctly get into the boat, he couldn't actually articulate it, and just told me that I would have capsized if I'd gotten in the way I did (contradicting of course the fact that I just did get in that way and didn't capsize.) I told him I'd never gotten into a kayak from a dock before (true -- I've always gotten in from shore, although I've gotten into lots of canoes from docks) and told him I'd love to learn how. Instead of explaining, he got flustered, and pushed me off.

As soon as I got into the water, I was enveloped in a familiar calm. Maybe it was the negative ions from the water, or maybe just the physical memory of immersion, but I felt at home out there -- almost. It felt wonderful, but it looked and sounded urban. We were within sight of the Belt Parkway, with a steady stream of traffic -- and in fact we ended up paddling right under the Belt, as we entered into Jamaica Bay. When we got out into the Bay (and granted, we didn't get too far in) it felt to wild water as Prospect Park feels to wild woods. Yeah -- it felt like we were in a big, wonderful city park. Which, in fact I think we were.

I'm not sure which mide (middah) would be most appropriate to help me accept that I do actually live in one of the biggest cities in the world, and that it's not in fact a wild natural area, and that if I want to live in a wild natural area, I need to move away from New York City, but that if I want to live in New York City, I should probably stop trying to compare the parks and waterways to New England and Oregon natural forests and waterways. Patience? Equanimity? Truth?

Patience, I think: Do not aggravate a situation with wasted grief. Take in the sense of calm, the negative ions. Look out into the bay, and not over to the littered shore. Get qualified to kayak out to one of the islands and see if maybe the human impact is less obvious out there. Take trips out of the city as often as I can, and let them fill my soul for the times I am here.

I practiced this as best I could out on the water. And I did enjoy myself very much -- and practiced looking past the blemishes for the beauty. And just as I was starting to relax into that groove, it was time to turn around and go back.

When I reached the dock and was ready to get out of the kayak, I watched the people in front of me do it, so I could learn if there's anything special about getting out onto a dock. The woman who was helping me could not articulate what she wanted me to do, and kept saying "No, you go like this. No, like this." But she couldn't show me what part of my body she was trying to adjust. Finally, I did what I thought she was telling me, and easily got out onto the dock, but she was not happy with my dismount. I decided to practice Calmness: Words of the wise are gently stated, and Humility: Seek wisdom from everyone, and sat on the dock and asked her to show me what she had tried to show me. She did try, but she still couldn't articulate what she was trying to, so I did not in fact end up learning what she was trying to teach. But at least I didn't get unsettled about it; I just figured that I did something unorthodox, and the sun was out, a breeze was blowing, I had just kayaked in New York City, and I was safely on the dock.

I put up art in public places

Never Done: Made art and hung it up for people to see or take

Such a simple thing -- make some art, and put it out in public for everyone to see. It's hard to believe I have never done this, but I can't actually think of a time that I did. Avia and Christian came over for dinner, and my original idea was to do go yarn bombing with Avia, but we were getting together on the late side, so that idea will have to wait to share with a local knitty friend.

Instead, we took out paper, Sharpies, scissors, and whatever magazines I had around (dozens of New Yorkers, New York, and New York Times Magazines, and one Vanity Fair) and we started cutting up images and making simple little collages. Actually, I think the art concept started with my telling the others that Rufus Wainwright and his husband just had a baby, and the mother is Lorca Cohen -- the daughter of Leonard Cohen. (She really is the mother, not just the surrogate or the birth mother; the three of them are all parents, and intend to raise their daughter, Viva Katherine, together.)

Anyhow, I told this news to Avia, who loves Leonard Cohen, and on cue, she swooned. I told her about the deal my friends Karen and Andy have -- a celebrity exclusion, let's call it -- whereby each of them can pre-name one famous person to whom, if they happened to knock on the door and make a carnal offer, it would be OK to say yes. (I believe that you can change celebrities as often as you like, but you can only take the offer of the currently-named celebrity. I also believe that Scarlett Johansson and Johnny Depp have had no recent challengers.)

On the mention of Johnny Depp, our art project was born. Avia took a card, and wrote Johnny Depp Loves You on it, with a big red heart. We each then started making cards with similar messages. Prince Loves You. Lady Gaga is Gaga Over You.

Then I made one that says Alice Walker wrote a book about you, and I decorated it with a little collage made of the color purple. And then I made one that says Oprah thinks you're smart. And Christian dazzled the table with Cezanne Painted Me, Europe Loves You, and the one that melted my heart the most: simply, I Love You.

I had hoped we would all go out together and hang them and photograph them, but it was both late and dark, so we split them up (without looking, so we could neither intentionally choose our own or our favorites) and decided to hang them and photograph them in the morning. To be honest, it was hard to let the art pieces go -- I wanted to chaperone them all into the world. I wasn't very gracious about this either, when I woke up and found that Josh had taken some to put up. I completely understood why he had -- because I hadn't had the time to tell him I hoped we could do it together. It was an opportunity to practice many of the mides (middot) -- patience, order, and equanimity come to mind -- but I don't think I did a good job with any of them. Instead, I can reflect on what was so hard for me, and hopefully be more relaxed the next time.

I feel like the blog has gotten away from a Mussar perspective lately -- and this Never Done activity has brought me back, because it was such a wonderful combination of self and other. I thoroughly enjoyed making the art, and sharing the art making process with others, and being influenced by their ideas (humility.) And when I did go out and chaperone some pieces into the world, putting them up allowed me to think about how others might encounter them and be moved by them. It was both a public gift and also a private gift -- public art speaks to individual people, and so I tried to place them where everyone could see them, but knowing that certain people would relate to them in a special way. The most successful of these was when I hung I Love You on the fire station door frame. I also liked thinking about how they might be left or taken -- that I was giving individuals the opportunity to leave the art there for others, or to take it for themselves. And that it really wasn't up to me to know what was the right thing for any individual to decide to do.

I can see nearly now

Never Done: Got rad new wear-all-the-time glasses

They look great from the outside looking in, but so far they are terribly confusing from the inside looking out. I can sort of read with them. I can sort of see far with them. I can barely use the computer with them. The point, of course, is for me to seamlessly do all three. I was ready for how there would be little strata of vision, like sedimentary rock, and how I'd have to gently move my head up and down to find the right spot for the job. What I wasn't prepared for is how there would ALSO be a big bite out of each side, like two big bites, and how I can't ever move my head or eyes from side to side, and how even if I find the one teeny tiny place where I can see a three inch square of the screen, I still can't actually see it clearly.

Sometimes getting older sucks.

And it's hard to relate to the younger me who, when I had 20-20 vision, wanted glasses because I felt like I was missing out on a fashion opportunity. Which, let's face it, I was. But you know what else I was missing out on? Not being able to see. Pushing my glasses up off my nose. (I know, I have to go back to the store to get them adjusted.) Young men who don't yet need progressive lenses telling me how easy it is to adjust to them. Typos. Lots of typos. Not visual typos, because I don't look at the keyboard when I type, but something cognitive that comes from having a confused and wiggly visual experience. I keep inverting letters, and typing entirely wrong words. Like when I just went back to re-read this paragraph, I found I had written "mission out on" instead of "missing out on."

Supposedly my eyes will adjust to this. Supposedly, I should be able to sit in a meeting and read something, and then look up and see who I am talking to, without taking glasses my glasses off. Supposedly, I should also be able to work at the computer, and then check a hand-written note, and then look across the room at, I don't know, the Old Spice man riding a horse, and all of it will be clear. And supposedly, if I practice every day, starting first thing in the morning when my eyes are supposedly fresh, my eyes will supposedly get used to being trapped in a fun house mirror.

I think this one's gonna take the mides (middot) of patience and equanimity. Also maybe it would be good if we could place an ethical value on vanity, because I'm sure to be more motivated to stumble through my day in a confused blur if enough people tell me how great I look.

I walked a mile in another man's glittery suit

Never Done: Wore Taylor Mac's clothes to dinner

I went to an industry screening of The King's Speech, after which the screenwriter David Seidler spoke. David Seidler is 74, and has been working for many, many years without ever getting his breakout film. Until now. He went to Hollywood at the age of 40, when, as he puts it, most sane people are leaving Hollywood, and after writing Tucker, imagined he could write anything he wanted. He didn't count on Tucker bombing. But by then he had started working on this screenplay about King George VI and his stutter, or as they say in England, his stammer. Seidler was also a stutterer, and had been deeply inspired to overcome his by listening to the king's speeches during WWII. So he started the screenplay about 30 years ago, but wanted Queen Elizabeth's permission. The Queen wrote to him that she would prefer that the film would not be produced within her lifetime, as the events were still painful. He thought to himself, "Well, she's 75 years old, how long can she live, really?" 25 years later, he was still waiting, and writing, and rewriting. When the Queen Mother died in 2002, the film finally moved forward. (Note to self: that is patience.)

One of the great benefits of living in New York, and working in my industry is that I get to go to things like this -- free screenings and productions where I get to listen to artists talk about their work. Sometimes I take it for granted, but more often I think they take it for granted. Seidler treated the event with great respect -- possibly because he doesn't take his career for granted -- and possibly because he had just that morning received his first Oscar nomination.

Jennifer Ehle, on the other hand, who is most famous in my book for playing Elizabeth Bennett in the BBC mini series of Pride and Prejudice, which I watched dozens of times with my mother in her last years, was annoyingly self-referential and elusive, and I believe has no more place in this post other than serving as a jumping off point to what came next.

I ducked out of the Q and A once the attention had turned to Jennifer, and I checked in with Taylor, with whom I had a date. I had suggested we go into Union Square and give flowers away to strangers, or set up an advice booth. Instead, he made a reservation (his treat!) at the Union Square Café and asked me to meet him at his apartment first. When I got there, he looked over my "outfit" of jeans and snow shoes, and said, "Well, I've seen people get in there in jeans. You'll probably be OK. It's usually the men they ask to leave, anyway." I thought for a second, and then realized he must have a wardrobe full of beautiful dresses -- so I asked if I could put on something of his. He took me right to the closet and held up the beautiful green and teal sparkly suit his sister made for him to wear to the Obie's -- and laughed. "You could wear this!" And so I did.

When we walked into the restaurant, I felt like we were walking into a black and white movie, only I was colorized. The entire color scheme of the cafe, including that of the customers, is subdued. The servers wear light blue and white pinstriped button-down shirts, and dark pants. The customers wear black, white, and tan. The walls are beige, the tablecloths are white, the chairs are dark. The entire décor is designed not to offend. And then I walked in, wearing an oversized glittery suit, and a silent rush of excitement swept through the restaurant. People stared but pretended they weren't. It was easy to tell that people were just a little bit scared -- maybe because they thought I must be Important, and maybe because they were being busted out of their comfort zone, but it was also easy to tell that people were relieved and welcomed the influx of color and energy to the room.

I also noticed that I was completely comfortable. I was much more interested in my time together with Taylor (who is about to go on tour for 4 months, and so we really wanted a good catch up) than my outfit or the other people in the room. But at the same time, I was aware that I meant something to the other people in the room, and that it was mostly positive. When our server came over, she immediately complimented my outfit, and said something about it being a welcome change, and that it added needed color to the room. OK, so I had been right about people feeling relief. When we placed our orders, she recommended a salad made from cara cara oranges, with fennel vinaigrette, fresh mint, and shavings of ricotta salata. While it sounded wonderful, both Taylor and I really wanted greens, so we both ordered bibb lettuce salads. When she brought the salads, she also brought an order of the oranges for us, and said, "Because I can." When she left, Taylor laughed, and told me that it is not uncommon to get free stuff in exchange for bringing joy into the room.

So I hereby promise to dance more on subway platforms, and wear more fabulous outfits, and generally bring more visual delight into the world, all while making sure I am comfortable with myself, and not annoying to others.

I saw past the blemish to the beauty

Never Done: Saw a staged reading of a new opera of Enemies, A Love Story, by Isaac Bashevis Singer, with a new libretto by Nahma Sandrow

This is the second time in as many months that I have written that the thing I had never done before was to see a world premiere of a work that Nahma either translated or wrote, which has a lot more to say about what Nahma is out there accomplishing than what I am, except that I think that supporting and learning from our colleagues (Humility: Seek wisdom from everyone) is a vital part of the creative process. Really. I once took a master class in acting from Marian Seldes in which she spent as much time (literally) teaching about how to be a good audience member as she taught how to be a good actor. I will probably never forget her modeling how to sit in the audience, leaning slightly forward, in rapt attention -- her point being that the job of the audience member is to give as much attention and energy to the actor as the actor is giving to the audience. Her class reminded me that my friend Barbara teaches first graders how to listen, and they practice sitting across from each other making encouraging sounds like, "mhmm" and "oh." (I found this out because when I still lived in Portland I used to go help her take her class apart at the end of the year, and I found a piece of butcher paper with an illustrated three-step tutorial on how to be a good listener.)

This being New York, and the theater community being small, I later found myself in audiences with Marian, where I saw that she does, in fact, sit perfectly still -- fidgetless -- and completely attentive, with an interested look on her face. Unlike Edward Albee, who sat behind me recently during a Public Theater production that I thought was well above average, and also both politically and emotionally ambitious, and also had one of the best raised poor characters I've ever seen on stage, and he alternately slept and complained through the first act, and then didn't come back for the second. I myself usually fall somewhat in between. I aspire to be like Seldes, but I sometimes fight back the sleep, and sometimes I succumb.

I think I was a good (which as I think about it, means that I was an ethical) audience member at Enemies. I wasn't as still as Marian suggests, because I was still fighting off a sore throat, and needed to sip tea, and once to unwrap a vitamin C throat lozenge. But I paid close attention, and I gave the actors my energy and attention. And here's the thing: it wasn't necessarily so easy to do, because even though I was super interested in the libretto and the plotting, and even though a couple of the singers were wonderful, the guy who played the main character swallowed his words, making it really difficult to understand, and the music was ... well the music was ... well the music was ... I hated the music. There, I said it. I hated the music. It made me want to act out. It made me want to whisper judgmental things to the people I was with. But I didn't. (Unless I am right now. Which I am a little worried that I might be.) Instead, I sat and paid attention to the parts I was far more interested in, which took at least five mides (middot) to accomplish: patience, equanimity, humility, decisiveness, silence, and calmness. And diligence too. In the end, I think everyone was the better for it, but I know I was.

I live with someone who does this extremely well -- he sees right past the blemish to the beauty, whereas my mind tends to get stuck at the blemish. (There are some downsides to this -- cleanliness and order are not his strong suits, but they are mine.) I've been trying to get better at seeing the past the blemish to the beauty for years, and have started to see some real progress recently. I'll take my experience at Enemies as a success, and will keep building from there.