We have friends whose indulgence embarrasses us. They keep inviting us and we keep failing to reciprocate.

"Gee," we always vow after another lovely dinner, "we should have them over soon."

Which we'd gladly do, except that our house is such a disaster.

See, a housepainter we recently hired suddenly quit in the middle of the job (and by "quit" I mean "failed to show up").

This left us with some naked walls and woodwork, which we have no time to tackle ourselves.

The thing is, when I say the painter quit "recently," what I mean is "two-plus years ago."

Maybe you know how it is: A condition once considered unacceptable in your house becomes, over time and with inertia, a given.

Soon, you don't even see it anymore, whatever "it" is.

This explains mauve and gray bedspreads. This might even be why your home office has teetering piles of paper dating to the Carter White House.

This is certainly why an unfinished paint job has made us horrible dinner guests.

And I think this phenomenon explains the irate call I took the other day from a guy who identified himself only as Jerry.

"Hey," he barked, and after one word I knew he was cross. "D'ya read Rolling Stone?"

I still tend to think of Squeeze as "new" music, so I guess not.

"Yeah, well, you should see what David Gergen said. He called us a 'war zone!'•"

In a Rolling Stone post-election Q&A, the political insider-analyst who recently lectured here said this: "Ohio is the best hope for the future of Democrats. Here's a state that is a bellwether state. They're feeling the effects of globalization, especially in northern Ohio. I was in Toledo 10 days ago, and it's like, 'Whoa, it looks like a war zone.'•"

That's not the end of the quote. Mr. Gergen said some other stuff - "economic squeeze," politicians not "paying attention," "scandals at the statehouse" - but it was the war-zone comparison that stopped Jerry cold.

"I bet that guy didn't even see the museum," Jerry protested, "or any of our other jewels."

Jerry, I feel your pain. Honest.

It is hard to live in a place where a truly noteworthy art museum is just down the street from abandoned, boarded-up apartment buildings that are starting to bear an unfortunate resemblance to - wait for it, here it is - yes, a war zone.

Jerry, we live here. We see the city not for what it is, but for what we want it to be or what it once was. We drive along Monroe Street with an eye that seeks out the incandescently lovely new Glass Pavilion or the grand old Victorian mansions.

That same eye tends to skip over any offending blight, just as I barely glance at my bare walls and woodwork. How many of us, though, noticed that some of those boarded-up apartments west of the museum were lived in not so very long ago?

And don't even get me started on the empty businesses and decrepit buildings that once housed factories. Face it, Jerry: We can't fix what we can't - or don't - see.

By the way, you ever done any painting?

First Published November 30, 2006, 9:45 a.m.