I rode a shabes elevator

Never Done: I rode a shabes elevator

(Only it was called a shabbat elevator.) I had gone to drop Pam's bike off at the triathlon transition area, which involved a few miles of riding, including a test ride up the very steep bike start (which wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be -- at least not without 3000 other athletes) ... and all that was after a massage. So I was a little sticky. Luckily, I work 3 blocks from the bike transition area, and there are showers where I work, so I dashed up to the JCC for a shower before going on with the rest of my day.

I've been there before on a Saturday, but never thought to take the shabes elevator. The shabes elevator, for secular Jews and gentiles out there, is an elevator that is pre-programmed to stop on every floor, so if you are observant, you don't have to push a button to call it. Basically it's a workaround to help observant Jews get around Jewish law pertaining to the sabbath. What the hell, I thought. I should take it. Never done.

It turns out that the shabes elevator takes a lot of patience. You are standing right next to three other elevators that you could call and they would arrive much more quickly, but you wait. And wait. And when it finally comes, it goes down to the basement before going back up again, stopping again on every floor. Just like the sabbath, when we're supposed to slow down, the elevator slows us down too. For a secular Jew, this seems to be about choice. I am sure that for some observant Jews, this is less so, and more just the way things are.

I thought about that while I showered, and then took the "normal" elevator back down -- thinking I had closed this experience out for the day. However, I went to visit a friend later at Beth Israel hospital, and guess what I saw:



It makes sense that at a hospital they would run express in one direction -- hospital people have more reason to rush than JCC people. Even on the sabbath.

I attented my New York Nautica triathlon orientation

Never Done: I attended my New York Nautica triathlon orientation

To get your triathlon registration packet, you have to first sit in a 30-minute orientation where they tell you helpful things like "Since we are doing a new time-trial start have no idea what time you will get in the water, so you need to be the extra early." Then you get a hand stamp to prove you were there, and that hand let's you get in a long line to pick up your packet with your numbers (my number is 1091) and get your wrist band. If you are an elite athlete you get to stand in the very short Champions line. If you are a larger than average (but I don't know by whose standards) athlete you go to the Clydesdales or Athena line. You are on your lunch break. Your line moves slowly. You didn't realize there would be a giant expo with sports vendors hawking their wares. You almost skip it but then realize that's where you are going to get your string bag and official t-shirt, and also where you can get body marked - with your race number on your upper arm and hand and your age on your shin. After you get body marked you remember you are getting a massage tomorrow and the Sharpie is gonna smear all over with the warm oil. You go back to work. Some people ask about your numbers but mostly you just work. Your wrist band is too tight. You go to therapy. Therapy happens to be 4 blocks from the triathlon headquarters. You decide to see if they will loosen your band. You expect them to be annoyed but a nice woman says that if she can help with the little things she is happy to. Your new wrist band is way better because in addition to being looser, it's smaller. On your way out, you look at the Expo just a little. A t-shirt catches your eye. It says Nautica New York City Tri on a background of the NYC skyline made out of participants' names. It is beautiful. You almost leave without it, but you see your mentor looking at the same shirt, looking for her name. You almost leave without saying hello. Then you tell yourself - but she's your mentor and she's been great. You go back. You say hi. You find your name. You buy the shirt. You make a plan to go to the triathlon together Sunday morning. You leave the hotel, feeling a little more connected -- both by the graphic on the t-shirt and your relationship with your mentor.

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 set a world record

Never Done: I set a world record

Dan Rollman is a very cool guy who founded RecordSetter, a social platform for world records, built on a belief that everyone can be the world's best at something. When an article about Madhu Kaza's bedtime story art project, Here Is Where We Meet, appeared in Brooklyn Based and featured an interview with me (because Madhu had come to my house and read to me) and mentioned my Never Done year, Dan got in touch with me and suggested I should set a world record. Of course, I immediately knew he was right.

His idea is that it's hard to set the record in something that lots of people have tried to set the record in, but if you make your endeavor specific and quantifiable enough, you can probably corner the market on it. Since Dan reached out to me, I've been thinking about records to set and records to break. I've had big schemes and little ones. I've thought about records to set with large groups of friends, and all by myself. I've thought of records that mean something, and some that are just silly. I was pretty sure that my first one would mean something. And then I got home, extra tired, at the end of a long day in which two of my four meetings canceled, but I didn't find out about one til I was already there, and the other one was the geographical bridge meeting between the remaining two, and without it, I had to travel from the flower district to the Upper West Side and back to Flatiron and back to the UWS in the space of 2 hours. It's not like I was harnessing and mounting my own camel or anything -- just taking the subway and reading Bossypants. But anyhow, I got tired, and when I got home I hadn't done a Never Done activity yet. I mean, I had done plenty, but they were boring, and I'm trying hard not to be repetitive and boring. So as I lay on the couch after dinner, whining about how I hadn't done a Never Done activity yet, Josh brainstormed. I passed on a couple ideas, but then he suggested the hula hoop.

Great. Now, what to do with the hula hoop? Records must be quantifiable, breakable, and include indisputable media evidence. Ideas I rejected but that I knew I could do: most hula hoop rotations while drinking tea out of a dainty teacup; most hula hoop rotations while mending some torn shorts; most hula hoop rotations while listening to a particular song. Ooh, that one got me closer. I Googled "Hula Hoop song" and got a couple strange ones before I got Teresa Brewer's 1958 classic. I liked that, but it didn't seem like I would be doing enough. That's when Josh came up with the idea of my playing the ukelele and singing it at the same time as hooping. Genius. I spent about 1.5 minutes learning the refrain, and practiced the ukelele-hooping-singing combo once, and out came the iPhone.

The rest, as they say, is indisputable media evidence. Except that it's not. Once I was done, I realized how incredibly easy this record is going to be to break, and I toyed with the idea of doing it again -- singing much slower or hooping much faster. But then, and this is the ethical part of the exercise, I realized it would be much more fun for me if someone WOULD attempt to break my record. Why set a bar so high that everyone is intimidated? Why not set it at a place which inspires people to take out their ukeleles and swivel? And so I left it at 23 rotations, and invite any of you with a healthy competitive streak to beat me. Just watch out -- I might come right back after you.

So then I filled in my online form and uploaded my video. Once I did, I received this note in the mail:

Dear Jenny, Thanks for submitting your World Record attempt. Nice one! To ensure the quality of the submissions we post, we verify every feat that comes in. Due to the volume we're currently receiving, this process can sometimes take a few days. Thanks for your patience. Once your submission goes live, I’ll send you an email with a link to your feat. Thanks a ton for getting involved with our project. You'll be hearing again from me soon.

And just a few hours later, they did get back to me, and here is the link to my official world-record-setting hula hooping.

I attended an officially-recognized New York gay marriage

Never Done: I attended an officially-recognized New York gay marriage

The first time Andrew and Casey got married, five years ago in a gorgeous Colorado mountains ceremony, I wept and wept (with joy.) When they got legally married in a civil ceremony in the New York city clerk building, I laughed and laughed. For one thing, because they now have a rambunctious 2 1/2 year-old son, Phinneas, who wanted to juggle the rings he was supposed to bear. For another thing, because in the heat and humidity of New York, trying to "slip" the rings over each others' swollen knuckles elevated the exchange of rings to high physical comedy.

Just before the ceremony, Andrew and Casey realized they wanted something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue -- and ended up borrowing some ChapStik from their friend Alex and a lozenge from me. Now this alone was funny, but 15 minutes later, when they couldn't get the rings on, and Casey remembered that he had some ChapStik, he executed a perfect joke recall that completely struck my funny bone, and sent me into a new round of laughter.

Eventually it came off without a hitch (pun intended*) and the wedding party, which also included Casey's sister Kelly -- the official marital witness, and her two daughters Parker and Barrett -- flower girls without an aisle -- all tumbled out of the wedding chapel chambers, picking up desiccated flower petals and pennies (stuff Phin had been playing with) as we went.

This all didn't happen in a vacuum though. There were city employees involved at every step of the way, and it really stood out how they were delighted with and supportive of these weddings. I don't know what I expected, but I think I expected people to be more jaded -- to feel overburdened by all the extra work. But that is not the sense I got at all. From the woman who checked our IDs to the City Clerk, Teresa, who married Andrew and Casey, people were warm and congratulatory and contributed to a general climate of enthusiasm. A climate that included commercialism for sure -- like the "I got married in NYC" T-shirts, magnets, mugs, and onesies (which are a little creepy, don't you think?) -- but why should gay marriage be any less commercial than straight marriage?

I for one was thrilled to be there to reconfirm my support for this particular marriage, but also to take part in the New York moment, which we can hopefully leverage to become a national moment. In the meantime, mazl tov to Andrew and Casey, to all the newly married couples, and to everyone who worked so hard to pass marriage equality legislation in New York!!!

AND NOW, AN INCIDENTAL WEDDING ALBUM

New York says "I do"

Constant motion machine

Posing

Not posing

Random commercial swag

Stuck

Married


*Pun courtesy of Josh

I got an email from Dan Bern

Never Done: I got an email from Dan Bern

I got an email from Dan Bern. Not out of the blue -- I wrote to him first. I asked him if I might hire him to do a show (and maybe some other cool stuff; stay tuned) at the JCC next Spring. That email was a toss to the wind -- via his website but to an address that seemed likely to be his own, but still, you never know what will interest someone, and he has a kid now, and I had no idea if he would be touring next Spring, or if the JCC would be his choice of NYC venue, or any number of other factors. But nothing ventured nothing gained, and I do actually have a job now in which I get to call up or email performers I love without being weird and stalky, but instead to dream up cool programs and hire talented people to bring them to life. Maybe I'll get used to it, which Casey wondered aloud when I got the email. Depending on what "it" is, I either hope I do or hope I don't. If "it" is having access to people I think are wonderfully talented, then I feel like I'm already used to that.

(My structure just broke down. I tried three times to write other sentences that start with if "it" is ... but the truth is that the next concept is about getting used to something, and not about "it.") Rhetorical constructs aside, the point I want to make is that I hope I never get used to appreciating how talented people are. And I hope I never become a sycophant. I like where I am, with a strong sense of self, combined with a strong appreciation for great artistry.

I used my new cherry pitter

Never Done: I used my new cherry pitter

Many months ago a friend made a cherry clafouti and I was surprised at how intact the cherries were, because whenever I make things with cherries, the cherries end up destroyed. She told me she had used a cherry pitter. I didn't even know they existed! Not only do they exist, but there is an entire website devoted to reviewing them.

I wanted one. I wanted one bad. I wanted to pit cherries, and I really wanted to pit olives. I don't have a lot of kitchen gadgets, because I usually find I can do just fine with my fingers and a knife. For example, I don't have any tools to help with garlic, and I don't have any tools to core things, or to slice things (other than knives.) Knives, what's not to love? Well, mashed-up, chopped-up, shredded cherries and olives. That's what.

Josh heard me say I wanted one, and I think he took particular note because it's so rare for me to get a crush on a gadget. Many months went by, and then one day when I woke up, there was a cherry pitter and a note on the counter:

I gave my love a cherry which had no stone
I gave my love a chicken which had no bone
I gave my love a story which has no end

... and then it veered off into its own narrative -- a story that went like this:



and ended like this: