Museum Day!

I like paintings.

When I got to Mae’s this morning, she asked me what I liked, and what I wanted to see at the museums today. I told her I wanted to see anything and everything, because I’m too ignorant to have a preference. She was willing to oblige.

The only areas open at the IMA are the European and African areas, due to construction. We spent the first couple of hours in the European section, where I found myself lost in the minute details of many of the paintings, studying proportions, musculature, and hands. I found myself shying away from more Romantic and impressionist art and the dotted art (Neo-Impressionist?) of Seurat. In the African collection, I oogled the few paintings and all the intricate carvings and glanced over the clothing. Guess I have a preference after all.

When we hit the Eiteljorg, I found the differences in the art styles amazing. The American art, primarily from the settling of the West, was mostly watercolor, and had a very different feel to it than the oil paintings at the IMA. As I was driving back to the Haute, I looked over the ridiculously flat land around the highway, and could easily see why an artist would use water colors rather than the sharper colors and lines of oil. Very eye-opening.

Now I want to go back to the IMA and oogle their paintings again. I’m in awe. I’ve got to get Mae to go with me to the Chicago Art Institute.

The only downfall to the day was the ride back. I’m driving, and dancing, and singing to stay awake and keep my mind off my agonizing back, and start to notice my car is making an odd noise when I press on the accelerator. Not zesty. Then, my car refuses to accelerate, and begins losing speed, so I have to pull off the road. At this point, my car is smoking something fierce, and I’m wondering if my damn car is going to explode. So I get the hell out and lock shit up. I’m twenty fucking miles from the Haute, and maybe ten miles to the next town of Brazil, and it’s nearing dark. So I start hoofing it, car still steaming and a bunch of liquid on the ground under the engine. Luckily, a nice Hautian lady stops when I’m not a quarter-mile up from my car and gives me a ride back to campus. But my car… my sexy beast of a car… There’s no temperature reading on the dash, but I think it may have just overheated. I couldn’t risk sitting out there in the approaching dark to find out, however. Twenty fucking miles! I’m mad as hell. Now I have to have it towed (cha-ching), I have to get Nikolai to take my ass back out there, and I have a spend a day of my much-wanted R & R on this shit. And that’s the minimum, assuming there’s nothing serious wrong.

I would pay someone good damn money for a back massage right now so that I could chill out and get some sleep. A hot shower shall have to suffice.