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It's not what you do; it's how often you do it.

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I had a revelation a couple months ago. It was while I was looking at the Mona Lisa. Anne and I had gone to the Louve to pay homage to the Winged Victory of Samothrace, who felt in some way like our queen mother, locked in granite, probably wondering why they took her head.

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We'd wound through rooms and got swept up in a wave of elbowing, blowsy tourist types and finally ended up in her room. I'd picked my way through the crowd of flashing cameras and Asian tourist groups and finally I was standing at the front, a mere twenty feet away from her.

She was looking at a spot just over my head and seemed tuckered out from years of unquestioning adoration. This sheet of glass was nailed to the wall over her and there was a velvet rope as thick as my arm looped around her spot of floor. Other paintings by masters hung on the huge walls around us, famous and ancient, and none of us even saw them. This Asian guy was already subtly digging an elbow into my back, signaling that my turn at the front of the crowd was fast drawing to a close, but he was six inches shorter than me and I completely blew him off.
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I kept looking at her and she looked just like all the pictures I've ever seen of her looked, and she kept looking just over my head, and while I was trying to convince myself that this was a momentous occasion in my life I suddenly realized what she was smirking about. I thought to her, I am only here staring at you because someone else told me that I should, and I think that's a pretty serious mistake. I decided to stop doing that.