Oh, how I wish this were a different kind of blog. A diary blog would be nice right now. I had a long day, a good day, a day in which I was very much aware of how fortunate I am in my friendships, how much I love my pediatrician, the fact that every once in a while--when it is 68 degrees in the middle of February--I secretly don't mind global warming--I could go on and on in this vein, but I won't, as that last one is pretty horrendous, and I just remembered that Tuesday, on my way to vote, I passed a neighbor returning from the voting booths. "How was it?" I asked. "There's nobody there," she said, with what I later realized was meant to be shared rue. "That's fantastic!" I beamed, thinking, of course, that I would not have to wait in line. Later, as I thought about the moment, I realized she was expressing dismay that so few people had showed up to vote. I, instead of commiserating, had put my own impatience ahead of the entire history of democracy in America.

Ah, now I know what I can write about! You see, I did not when I started. This is another thing I can add to my list (which is so incomplete--I almost can't stand it! I want to talk about my day! And about politics! And how much I love John Stewart! And the fact that Mitt Romney said outright that a vote for a Democrat is a vote in support of terror! And how much I love the term "omittuary!"). That period was very hard, but necessary. What I will make myself write about, as I was saying before the explanation point explosion, is the way we--and by we I mean humans--are such the stars in our own life shows. What I mean by this is that I have never been so aware, for a variety of reasons, how completely I view the world and everyone and everything in it through my own eyes, my own perspective, my own accumulated baggage and wisdom and biases and insight--and that everyone else does too. This means--and forgive me if this has seemed so obvious to everyone else from the time they were 5, and I'm just really late to the party--that we are bound to bang up against each other nearly constantly, doomed to exist in a perpetual state of raised eyebrows or even utter confusion at the most elemental things other people think.

Doomed is actually a terrible word. Because sometimes our lack of understanding dooms us, of course, or at least makes life unpleasant, but it is equally true that the banging up is perhaps the only thing that makes life interesting, causes us to ultimately question what we thought initially, or even--miracle of all miracles--change. This revelation, which I now think I may have had in smaller doses, at other times, is related to something else I have realized lately: how much I love, relish, am thrilled bone-deep by those moments when other people surprise me. Like most of us, I think it is fair to say, I make snap judgments--and larger scale ones too--all the time. I do it about strangers, acquaintances, my closets friends and loved ones. But, okay--here's an example. The menacing teenager in the empty subway station approaches as I realize my Metro card is empty and I have no cash and the credit card machine has a huge sign taped to it that says "broken"--and I clench up a little inside and start to plan my escape route and he reaches into his pocket and pulls out...his own Metro card and gestures with it to the turnstyle. "I have no money on me," I say, hesitating, and he smiles, a sweet smile that makes him look about 6. "That's okay, lady," he says. "You'll do it for someone else next time." And I will. And it makes my whole week.

Actually, it happened three weeks ago, and I still think about it every day. And the fact that I now wonder if every single time that kid approaches a woman wearing a nice coat and carrying a nice handbag if they see what I saw--a menacing teenager and not a good samaritan--and how that affects every single minute of every single day of that kid's life and who he is--that fact can only be good. For me, and--I hope--for him. Because certainly I am not the only one he's helped, smiled at like that.

That's a good one, but the bad ones too--the admired, presumed enlightened colleague who years ago once made an offhand anti-Semitic comment--serve such a purpose for me. I know it sounds earnest or maybe even more annoying than that--but I love having my assumptions proven wrong. It's as though as life itself is saying to me: "Ha! so you think you had her all figured out. Well, think again!" I love it, I love it so much that I feel a little shiver down my spine writing about it, and no, it's not from slouching. And more than the fact that I love it, I think it's important.

I wonder if I like being surprised by people because it gives me hope that other people are giving me the freedom, sometimes anyway, to exist outside the mold of their own perception of me, to let what they think or feel bang up against what I think or feel and to have something interesting or important happen because of it. There are a lot of vague "its" in this entry, and I know myself well enough to know when I'm starting to get in the way of my own train of thought. Am tempted to sign off with a flourish again--it feels right--but I'll let that impulse go. Tomorrow could be a good day too--I will go to sleep on that.