i started to walk down wabash, but it seemed dark lonely and introspective under the el tracks. so i went up michigan ave instead. i stopped at the raindog cafe, and agonized over overpriced used books. i almost bought tale of two cities, but dickens seemed so long winded, i didn't feel quite up to it. tom wolfe was apealing in a tangerine colored way, but i didn't feel ready- both that and zen and the art of motorcycle maintainance seemed very masculine and looking for me to care. i ended up getting sir gawain and the green knight, which asks for no emotional committment, reads fast, is skinny, and makes me look academic and inteligent (the author is a contemporary of chauncer!) when really, i'm just reading fairy tales. my iced chai, cranberry scone, sir gawain and i sat on the side walk, basking in the sunshine, and texting laura. we planned a beautiful day- photographs in milennium park, the art institute, lunch at su vans, shopping at waxmans, a disco nap at my place, then dressing up and going out to big chicks. it was really ideal. afterwards i popped in savvy traveler, but picked up a book on cycling in germany, and there was this photo of a street in munster that was so tut bisch deutschland, i started to cry with longing. i put it down, left, and focused on the task at hand.
i didn't have enough money to go to the big fancy toulouse-lautrec exhibit, but i always have fun on my pocket change general admission. to go along with t-l, i guess, the main photography exhibit was on paris
it was fun comparing the 19th c ones with the 20th c ones, and there was a man ray and a lee miller. i gotta find more of her work! but sadly, only 4 of the room were surrealistic... but the best ones were in a side exhibit, called "camera obscura." 
this is such a lame example. this guy makes hotel rooms with great views into camera obscuras by blocking all but a small dot of a lens in the windows. then he takes photos of the resulting image. so there will be, say, this hotel room in paris, a bed with a poster of the eiffel tower above it- and projected all over it is the real eiffel tower, upside down. i LOVED them, but as i was leaving, a mother and her little boy walked in. i heard her say, "i don't like the upside down ones" in that "i don't understand modern art" tone. i wanted to take the kid and say, "look, this is how it works- he's turning his room INTO a camera, isn't that cool? this is what the camera sees-what it's like to be inside a camera. he didn't turn it upside down to be cool, that's how nature made it. isn't that awesome?" the children's museum is also downstairs, and they were having an exhibition of caldicott illustrations. it was almost as cool as the gallery at celestiall seasonings. it reminded me of g, of course, and her work. (more of that here) filled me with longing- i want to be able to do that. some amazing watercolors- it's so, so small. there was this beautiful one, a gentle story of a cat and dog, i wish i could remember their names, so i could put in a link. they were so soft and fuzzy, brush strokes to small to see. and originals of olivia were there- the only one i recognized. another fabulous one was the three little pigs:
i was all sucked in. and i haven't even gone upstairs to the galleries yet!so the grand staircase goes 2 different directions- usally with company i go to 19th and 20th century art, with the famous rainy day paris street.
but i was just there, it seems, with leah, so since i was alone i went towards el greco instead 
and worked backwards through time to the 10th c or so. i love how the timeline just ENDS. you're wondering what comes before all this gold guilding 
(is the earliest image i think they have online)... and you're spit out in the middle of monet. 
after that, i headed over to surrealism to see if i could get leah's beloved joseph cornell boxes. 
i'm getting better at the suspention of understanding, but i gotta say, it would be easier for me if they were brighter colored.i went straight downstairs then, and much to my surprise found sculptures from my favourite missing gallery! they've turned the east asia gallery into the t-l gift shop, and so i didn't know where to find my favourite indian works. but there were east indian religious sculptures at the bottom of the staircase- buddahs and dancing shiva
and my personal favourite, ganisha. 
he's the god of auspicious beginnings. and a ps to a: the hand signs that the gods make are called "mudras," so if you want to learn what they mean you can probably look them up from that.i left feeling alive and the need to create. once i got off at granville, i decided to explore the neighborhood east of my place. i found left of center bookstore, and a cute coffee shop- good to know for visitors. then of course comes the lake. i walked under the el tracks at rosemont and it made me sad for hyde park- there the viaducts are covered in crumbling murals, and this was just so very white. it hurts my soul- as i was just telling laura, part of my mission statement in life is to infuse the world with color.
and i don't thing typing a blog has quite filled the creativeness i need to expel. so if you will excuse me, i'm going to go make a pastel drawing of the radishes in my fridge.
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