What is art?

On Saturday, I met up with my friends Robert, Maria and Pete for a visit to the modern wing of the Art Institute of Chicago and dinner. Robert, Maria and I worked together, Pete is Maria's very nice and very patient husband who comes along on our adventures. He's a lot of fun so it's nice when he joins us. We settled on the Art Institute because we thought it would be a nice indoor place where we didn't have to be completely quiet and we could take our time or just stop for a while and talk without worrying about holding up a table or disturbing others. Then again, we probably disturb others just a bit, but too bad.

About a year ago The Art Institute opened a modern wing. We headed right for it.

What we found was very interesting, to say the least. It's interesting what can be defined as art. I tend to have an open mind about things. That's not to say that I don't have an opinion, and I'll let you know what it is, but I don't profess to be the authority on art. Yet I can't help but question some of it.

Take for example an exhibit in one of the rooms that consisted of a long, oval shaped installation that hung from the ceiling. On the exterior were fluorescant tube lights, arranged in a staggared pattern. It was about 25 feet long from end to end. Standing at one end, inside you saw all of the transformer boxes and wires. From a distnce it looked like a big sling. It hung in a room that had drywall flooring that was broken in spots (like a city street with potholes all over). For whatever reason, this is art. Or is it?

There was another room that was about architecture. In it were framed blueprints and sketches of famous buildings all over the country, some were the actual plans, some were just ideas, but you could see where those ideas lead. They had a number of scale models too. Is this art?

Then there was the room with the odd things hanging in it. There's me studying one of those odd things now. It's a piece of steel with a piece of yellow silk hanging inside of it. The name of the piece? Steel and silk. Art?


Another room had white metal panels affixed to the wall. The walls were white, the panels were white. Below is Robert, he's pondering all the white. Does he think this is art?


One of the most intersting installations was this room, it had a wedding dress standing in the center of it. Below is Maria posing behind the dress. Her boobs aren't quite that big. The wallpaper was a repeating pattern of someone sleeping in a bit paired with someone hanging from a tree. The description on the wall talked about prejudice and opression, marriage, gay marriage and death. The artist had a vision and shared exactly what they were thinking. Art.




When I think of art, I think of Michaelangelo, Rembrandt, Monet, Degas, Renoir, Seurat, Hopper. Picasso and Warhold are more modern but are well known. At one point, they were all "modern." But at any time, did someone walk up to "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" and question it's worthiness as a piece of art? Were people confused by Monet's waterlillies? One wonders.

I guess art is something that stirs the soul, makes you think, and causes discussion. I may not agree with it, but it gave us all something to bond over, to study, to discuss and talk about over dinner and drinks. And as far as I'm concerned, I've turned drinking into an art form.

Cheers!

Snot

I have a sinus infection. I've had it for about 10 days. I've been fighting it. I've been hoping it would just work it's way thru my system and go away. They usually do. This one is stubborn.



I feel pretty good. I'm just stuffy and occasionally, ugly snot comes out of my nose, or I cough up something ugly. Saturday I had a couple nose bleeds. My head was hurting on and off. Not too bad, I mean it doesn't feel like I've been smacked with a tire iron, just a dull ache. It hasn't stopped me from enjoying my weekend. But enough is enough.



I work in a hospital. I had the receptionist call me when my doctor showed up to see patients. I told him how I was feeling and he yelled at me for waiting so long. I don't like taking antibiotics. I'm not one of those people who runs to get a prescription when I get the sniffles. My body needs to fight things on its own. That way when I'm really sick and need an antibiotic, it'll actually work.



I was given a prescription for an antibiotic, which I will take for 10 days. I took my first pill about an hour ago.

This isn't going to be fun. Already my stomach is making weird noises.

Oh, and I can't drink. That means NO vodka.


*sigh* It's just 10 days, right? I will be able to drink again by the 18th. :)

Creature of Habit

(I've decided this is a good time to discontinue the "File Under" sub-heading of each post. I don't like to file and doing so with this post seems appropriate)

I am a creature of habit. Many of the things I do are done on a routine basis or on a schedule.

Work has structured me to do things on a schedule. I process payroll, our cycyle is biweekly so every two weeks, I repeat the same process. During that cycle, I issue payroll reports on the same days. There are managers who I know will forget about their reports, so I know to call them to remind them to complete their reports.

Because I run two offices, I have to post a schedule on my door to let everybody know where I'll be each day. If you were to look at my schedule, you would see that it's the same repeating 10 day pattern.

Outside of work, I have a number of tasks that I do on a regular basis. Most Monday evenings I do laundry. Sometimes I'll do laundry on a Tuesday, rarely will I do it any later than Wednesday. It definitely needs to be done on a weekly basis. The remaining weeknights I go to the gym.

Every morning, I begin my journey at Starbucks for coffee. I have a commuter mug. They know me at Starbucks, I've been coming here for 15 years. My order never changes. Tall coffee (it's a grande mug, they just fill it 2/3 full. Sometimes they fill it higher, I pour some out). The only change to my order is if it's orientation (2nd Monday of each month), I'll add a scone. I do this because I don't have time when I get to work to have my usual breakfast, a bowl of oatmeal.

When I do orientation, I present benefits. It's from a script, which I wrote. There's really no way to embellish benefits to make it fun so I stick to the script. When I ad-lib, I throw in the same jokes or quips that I throw in every month. I get the same labored laugh from the class every time. At the end, they ask the same questions.

Away from work, my routine is pretty steady. Friday comes around, and I can most often be found at my local watering hole. I go to the same bartender, Mark, and he makes me my same drink (which, get this! I recently switched to vanilla vodka with diet coke - watching carbs). Mark just asks if I'm having the usual, then fixes it. Saturday night, I'm usually there again. If I'm not there, it's because I've been invited over to Dan and Luis' house for something. It's been a while since something completely different has kept me out of the bar. My daytime routine is the same, too. Out of the house by noon, off to the gym, then lunch then wandering the neighborhood or doing housework.

With all that said, I don't mind being a creature of habit. It works for me. It's comforting and comfortable. Often it seems when I try to shake things up, something goes wrong.

So tell me about you? Are you a creature of habit? Do you have a routine you stick with or do you fly by the seat of your pants?

The Colors of Pride

File under: There's Always Room

Tina made these for our post-parade festivities. Aren't they pretty? They were potent, too!

Just for David

File Under: Too Much Booze

See?


July, 2006.

Patsy Turns 40

File Under: Friends

Last week, my friend Patrick turned 40. His best friend Gillian asked me to be coconspirator in the planning of his surprise birthday party. Over the past 3 weeks we exchanged numerous emails, discussed different menus and decorations and put together a rather lovely party. Gillian hosted it and did most of the work. I created a collage of pictures, Phyllis did a lot of legwork. The end result was a very successful event. Patrick was surprised and everybody had a lovely time. Here are some pictures from the event.

The Guest of honor arrives and is greeted by Gillian:

Lesley and Phyllis:

Happy guests:

Look...BOOZE! Fun Nancy and Patrick and a giant bottle of Effen vodka:

The collage:

Happy 40th Birthday, Patrick!

The Week in Review

File Under: I should have bought stock in Kleenex

I had a pretty decent week, last week. My friend Andy, who lives in Dayton, was in town on business. We have never met in person, we became friends online through the Go-Go's message board and our other message board, QTS (Queens Talking Shit). It was really nice to finally meet Andy in person and we had lots of laughs as I toured him around Chicago. Monday evening we drove around most of the time. I showed him my Chicago, taking him to my neighborhood, pointing out some of the landmarks that I have mentioned over the years on the message board. He appreciated putting the pictures with the names. On Tuesday, we met up and we decided to go someplace to have a couple drinks. We went to Sidetrack, a bar in Lakeview (Boystown). It was quiet and we had a very enjoyable time sitting and chatting and watching videos. Our friend Anthony joined us. It was a lovely evening.

Then, the cold came on. The scratchy throat had been a factor since Monday but wasn't much of an issue. As of Wednesday afternoon, I began to sneeze and my nose began to run. I was still calling it allergies since I was in denial mode. I knew it was a cold but I did my best to ignore it in the hopes that it would just go away. It didn't.

Friday was the worst day, my nose was in full running mode. I was tired and cranky but couldn't be for long because Vahona had purchased tickets for us to see The Kids in the Hall. The show was in Merrillville so I had to drive to Indiana. The drive was nice, and for some reason, when I'm outside my sinuses behave so I felt okay. The show was great, we laughed our asses off but I was tired when I got home so I didn't go out afterwards. I stayed up about a half hour longer (long enough to have one drink) then I went to bed.

So, back to the reference I made about having stock in Kleenex. Dan was sick with a cold. I talked to him on Saturday. I made a joke about something, causing him to laugh which caused him to launch into a coughing fit that lasted close to a minute. Vahona was sick with a cold, too. Hers is a chest cold and she had passed the major coughing phase so at least we weren't in chorus at the show Friday night. I talked to two other friends who also had colds.

Saturday I felt much better and was able to enjoy the great Springtime weather we've been having. I hit the gym then walked around and did a bit of shopping. Today was pretty much the same thing.

One word of caution, don't mix vodka and Sudafed PE Sinus and Allergy medicine. I went out last night and was fine after the first drink, but somewhere into the second one, the booze really took effect. I think I held my own okay and even though I was spinning, I didn't have any dramatic face dives into the bar and I made it home safely. :)

Right now I'm formatting a new external hard drive for my computer. I decided it was time to back up some important files, like my 3000+ songs in my iTunes library and all of my pictures.

The Question

File Under: Questions People Ask

I went out last night. I rarely sit home on a Saturday night. Especially now, when the weather has been so bad and the weeknights are spent home because I don't want to lose my parking spot, the weekends are my opportunity to combat cabin fever. I went to my local hangout, Jackhammer. It's a comfortable little bar, it's close enough to home that I can walk there, the crowds are interesting and I know some of the bartenders so they take care of me. Last night some new faces were in the bar and on two occasions, I found myself in a conversation with nice guys. In both cases, I was asked "Do you have a boyfriend?" I said no. Then THE QUESTION "Why?"

After a momentary blank stare, my answer was the same as it always is, "I have no idea."

It's not like I'm not trying. I go out, I'm social. I put myself in situations where I should meet people. Some may say that I'm going to the wrong places. If that were true, then the places I'm going to would be empty because some people are meeting others in those places. I signed up for match.com. Dr. Phil's guarantee was that in 6 months I would meet someone. That'll teach me to trust Dr. Phil.

I suppose eventually I'll meet someone. I'll admit that I have high standards. I'm not going to lower them. I see no reason to settle just for the sake of having a boyfriend. But until I meet someone, I would prefer not to be asked why I don't have one.