Discomfort Zone
Trying Something Completely New Can Provide a Welcome Jolt to the System

By Rachel Machacek
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, August 17, 2008

We love our routines: Wake up, brush teeth, update Facebook status about brushing teeth, work, go to the gym, update Facebook status about going to the gym. Can you sense a rut here?

It's easy to get stuck in the rotation of everyday life, but every now and then you have to thrust yourself out of it and dabble your tootsies in fresh waters. Just as working out pushes your body to be stronger, faster and healthier, trying something outside your comfort zone can provide a much-needed jolt to the brain. Your perspective dilates. Confidence puffs. Possibilities abound. And -- this is the biggie -- studies have found that trying new activities (especially when you're older) establishes new neural connections, a process that could eventually help counter the effects of Alzheimer's disease says Joseph Mancusi, a clinical psychologist and president of the Center for Organizational Excellence in Sterling. "The old theory that the brain is frozen and doesn't change after age 7 is really going downhill really rapidly," Mancusi says.

Here's another good reason to ditch your routine: Truly successful people explore beyond the couch-potato life and readily take on new challenges, Mancusi says. Which might be why the successful Washingtonians I approached about trying something new were game to explore uncharted territory. I got a ballerina, a chef, a drag queen/actor and a news anchor to agree to reach beyond their uber-accomplished cushion. Just for fun. Just to see what would happen.

Cinderella Takes Aim

"Pull!" Brianne Bland yells, and an orange clay target flies from the trees. Her bicep bulges as she squeezes the trigger on the 20-gauge semiautomatic Italian Beretta pressed against her shoulder. Orange shrapnel scatters. Bland, 30, has never held a gun before (she's a 10-year veteran of the Washington Ballet and has been dancing since she was a tot, for Pete's sake), but she blows the target to bits. And pieces. On her first try. She's a ringer.

"You're a great shot," Rhys Arthur, the chief instructor at Prince George's County Trap and Skeet Center in Glenn Dale, says with a high-five.

"Maybe I missed my calling," Bland responds with a giggle. She's one of those quick-to-laugh types. Behind her plastic goggles, she's exactly how you'd expect a fairy-tale princess to look. After all, she just wrapped a run of "Cinderella" the night before (she was the lead).

But don't be fooled by appearances. Bland is an adventurista. (When she was growing up, her parents exposed her and her sister to a bunch of activities, including whitewater rafting and hiking.) Still, even while toting a shotgun she retains a certain sweetness, with her hair tucked into pig tails and one of those expressive faces that could make the people in the nosebleeds weep.

Bland is also a perfectionist, and not just about ballet. "There's a part of me that always wants to be good at what I try," the Cleveland Park resident says. She's definitely good at shooting. Arthur's high-fives keep coming to reward her dead-eye aim.

But unless she's cast as the lead in "Annie Get Your Gun," this is probably Bland's first and last time bustin' caps in clay targets. "I was reassured that I do like to try new things, and it's nice that you've done something new and can share that experience with people," she says, "but I wouldn't do it again, honestly." And that's okay. The effort is what counts.

Watch Bland perform with the Washington Ballet in "Genius2." Oct. 22-26. Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater, 2700 F St. NW. 202-467-4600. http://www.washingtonballet.org. $20-$120; single tickets go on sale Sept. 5.

Shoot a gun! Prince George's County Trap and Skeet Center, 10400 Good Luck Rd., Glenn Dale. 301-577-7178. http://www.pgtonline.org. $75 for an hour of one-on-one instruction, plus ammunition (about $7 a box) and targets (skeet and trap $5.50 for 25).

Recipe for a Masterpiece

Chef Barton Seaver may never have painted before, but after a quick briefing on technique in Dana Ellyn's acrylic painting class near Chinatown, he dives right in. Wielding brushes like a pro, he paints a sunflower from a photograph he brought with him. As he works, he talks about color saturation, self-determination and British colonialism (really), all the while holding a mini hair dryer over his jeans. (He got caught in a downpour on the scooter ride over.)

Multi-tasking clearly comes easily to Seaver, 29. He has helmed restaurant kitchens across the District (most recently at Hook in Georgetown) and now has his hands in a couple of pots: a cookbook and the seafood sustainability movement. To be honest, finding something out of this Dupont Circle resident's comfort zone sent me into needle-in-haystack territory. (As with Bland, his parents were into him keeping him active and, ahem, away from the TV.)

Seaver seems so at home with the artistic task, I ask him whether painting is like cooking. Indeed. "You have the raw materials in front of you and apply techniques to it, hoping for a result that you were aiming for," he says.

Ninety minutes later, he has a fairly impressive representation of his sunflower, though he did take artistic license, changing the brown stem to a mossy green.

"I think the key to accomplishing anything is humbling yourself to the goal, not to the process," he says. "Art is no longer as daunting to me as it was."

So much so that it's his new hobby. Last we spoke, Seaver's girlfriend had bought him paints of his own, and he planned to attempt a portrait of her.

Keep up with Seaver's projects at www.bartonseaver.org.

Paint! Dana Ellyn Studio, 916 G St. NW. 202-737-6161. http://www.dcpaintingclasses.com. $50 (includes materials) for a two-hour session with a six-class commitment.

Drag Queen at the Drag Races

"Lots of noise. That's what I'm talking about!" Jeffrey Johnson is almost giddy as he cheers on a burgundy speedster splitting eardrums at the starting line of the Capitol Raceway in Crofton. It might seem like a stretch, but the drag queen, actor and artistic director of Ganymede Arts, the District's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered arts company, is kind of at home sitting on the blistering hot aluminum bleachers watching Marylanders with mullets zip their pimped-out rides down the track.

"It reminded me a lot of my childhood, and the people that were there were kind of reminding me of the people I grew up with," Johnson, 40, who lives in Dupont Circle, says later. He was a record-holding swimmer in New York state before turning in his Speedo and goggles for the fuchsia wig and four-inch stilettos worn by his alter ego, drag queen Special Agent Galactica.

On this day Johnson decides to forgo the fashions favored by Galactica.

"If I was sitting there in a tiny little dress and a bunch of make up, I would have been uncomfortable. One, because it was hot, and two, because that would just be a little too odd," he says. Generally it takes a truly bizarre experience for him to be daunted, like the time he judged a drag queen competition that ended in a nail-file brawl.

But did he like the drag racing? Yep, he actually did. "I've never done anything like that before," he says. "It was really cool to see what it's all about. You see it on TV, but it's a different experience in person."

See Special Agent Galactica perform Sept. 27 during the Ganymede Arts GLBT Fall Arts Festival, Church Street Theater, 1742 Church St. NW. 202-390-1502. http://www.ganymedearts.org. $15, students $10.

Go to the races! Capitol Raceway, Capitol Raceway Road off Route 3 in Crofton. 410-721-7281. http://www.capitolraceway.com. Admission price varies.

All the News That's Fit to Sing

"I'm safety-zone girl," Lesli Foster tells me with a straight face. It's a little tough to believe given that she banters live on air as a WUSA (Channel 9) news co-anchor twice every weeknight in front of tens of thousands of viewers.

"You don't see your audience, and you're not getting feedback from them instantly," insists Foster, 33. Fair enough. Still, she has agreed to be thrust in front of a live crowd for karaoke at Cafe Japone in Dupont Circle.

There's no stage at the restaurant, so Foster, who looks downright sassy in an off-the-shoulder number and is much smaller than I thought (she sits on a pillow when she's in front of the camera), simply stands up when her song comes on, grabs the mike from the sushi bar and starts singing, occasionally peeking at the lyrics on the teleprompter two feet away. Despite her nerves (and without an ounce of liquid courage), she choreographs her own dance moves and works the drunk and drunker crowd through not one but two songs ("Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "Stop! In the Name of Love"). And she sounds good.

Would she do it again? Well . . . probably not. Foster also agrees that you grow when you do something you find uncomfortable. But even though she enjoyed karaoke ("when it was over," she adds), I got the feeling that if she had another weekend pass from her husband and 2-year-old daughter, the Bethesda resident wouldn't trade in her Saturday brunches and days in the park for another chance to expose her melodic jugular. E v er.

Tune in to watch Foster live (but not in front of a crowd) at 6 and 11 p.m. on WUSA (Channel 9).

Sing karaoke! Daily at 9:30 p.m. Cafe Japone, 2032 P St. NW. 202-223-1573. No cover, but there's a $15 minimum per person for food and drink.