Goodness Me, Where to Start?

So this past weekend was a little crazy, but it was so great I have to tell you about it. (Pictures to come when I'm home on my own computer)
Friday- I went to the Taste of Chicago. I go every year, but this year (like last) was a bit of a disappointment (2nd smallest on record). Since we were done early, my friend Leah and I decided to knock something off my Life List and go to the observation deck of Willis Tower. Yeah, we went on the ledges and I have the pictures to prove it (like I said, I'll post them next week!)
Saturday- almost time for Jamie's wedding!! Met some friends for brunch then got mani/pedis at this place at our mall. I'd never had one before, but I'll swear by them now! Seriously, the chair was a massage-y chair and the lady got my feet all skin colored and stuff! Plus- it was only $29 (which I was told was cheap, and it was totally worth it). Then I finally got to meet the groomsmen at the rehearsal dinner. I kind of loved the best man, he was awesome (don't get excited, he has a long-term girlfriend, whom I also loved).
Sunday- Wedding day!!! Pictures and longer post to come next week
Monday- Fourth of July is my favorite holiday, I love everything about it. Hope you enjoyed my patriotic videos and had a safe and awesome holiday!
Tuesday- It's my birthday! I turned 29, got my first massage (oh was that nice!), and got to go out with some of my best friends for tapas. Afterwards my friend J drove me home, and somehow I was concerned that we would have nothing to talk about (we've never spent any time alone, yet I count him among my closest friends!), but of course we had fun and found things to talk about.
Wednesday- BORING back to work
Thursday- Goodness! I went out for supper with Sarah, but the creperie we intended on going to was closed (sad!) and we had to go somewhere else. Which worked out in our favor when we got to sample free new muffins they won't really be releasing until next week. It pays to be a picky, regular customer apparently!

Creepy Train Guy

Tuesday afternoon I got off work at one so I could do my week’s grocery shopping, change clothes, and catch the train to Chicago for my book signing. I left for the train in plenty of time and SHOULD have made it well before the train arrived. Instead, I got stuck on the wrong side of the train station as the train pulled up, stuck behind the train crossing thing. I called Kristin who was supposed to be meeting me, to tell her that I wasn’t going to make that train so she wouldn’t get on (there was another train that would get us there in time). She didn’t answer, and I left her a voicemail telling her not to get on the train. A few seconds later she called me back and asked where I was because she had gotten on the train JUST as it pulled away and she wanted to find me. We agreed that she would continue on and I would catch the next train. We would just meet at the Newberry where the book signing was going to be held.
I didn’t leave the train station, since I didn’t really have that much time before the next train. Instead I sat in my new car and read until it was almost time for the train to arrive. At first my train ride was fairly normal. I sat on the second level, where I always sit when I’m alone. I put in my earbuds to listen to a comedy program and enjoy my ride. Except…there was this guy. He had checked me out at the station while we were standing around waiting for the train, but since I was in my cute going out clothes, I was flattered not worried. However, the guy followed me and sat upstairs but on the opposite side from me. Still, not creepy enough for this to be a story about a creepy guy on a train. No, what makes this a creepy guy story is what happened next. I was sitting there, listening to my music when I noticed Creepy guy’s (CG) reflection. Staring at me.
I didn’t say anything, I didn’t look at him, I just turned the music up and kept an eye on him via the reflection. He never looked away. He just kept looking at me. All the way from Elgin to Galewood. According to Metra, it’s a trip of 54 minutes. Fifty four minutes CG just watched. Can you even imagine??? Anyway, just after the train pulled out from Galewood, CG got down from sitting across from me. I pulled out an earbud so I could be more attuned to what he was doing. People, we was moving across the train to sit by me!
Since we were nowhere near a station and I was pretty well stranded, I thought quickly. I was dressed up, in fancy jewelry and everything. I slipped my big fancy ring from my right hand onto my left and put my earbud back in before he made it up the stairs and sat down two seats away from me (the seat right by me was full of my purse and bookbag). The problem was, my MP3 player died right then. And since it was clipped to my coat, he saw it turn off. And he started talking to me. I’m not great with confrontation, and I can’t tell a guy to take a hike, so I did the next best thing. I flashed my shiny ring and fidgeted with it hoping he’d take the message. He did not.
His opening gambit was “I like you.” Uh…no you don’t buddy. You think I’m hot and you want to know if I will sleep with you. HUGE difference. I tell him that’s very nice, chuckle and open my book. He asks if I have kids. I tell him no, and that I don’t want any. “You don’t mean that,” he says, “You’d make such pretty babies. Especially mixed babies.” Uh…Creepy Guy, get the heck away from me! He’s quiet for awhile before he tries to talk to me again, just about random stuff. So I chat politely for a minute, really ramping up the fidgeting with my ring. Then I ask him “Do you like my new ring? My boyfriend, oops I mean fiancée just gave it to me this weekend.” Even after that he still told me he “likes” me two more times, and asked for my number just as we pulled into Union Station. I told him that my fiancée wouldn’t like it if I gave my number to a random guy on a train, and he literally asked me “Why? What would happen? Would you fight? Would you still be together?” I’m not even kidding from there he told me I should break up with my fiancée so he could call me. I told him I loved my fiancée and got off the train.
People, he followed me! I literally had to go into the ladies room to loss him! Even then, when I came out of the washroom he was waiting for me. I slipped out so he wouldn’t notice me and then practically ran to the cabs out front just to lose him. It was RIDICULOUS!
Next time I write, I’ll tell you about the actual book signing, and share some cool pics.

Art??

Today I took the train into Chicago. I intended on wandering the Art Institute for a few hours and then going to Skydeck (the observation deck of Sears Willis Tower). I did go to the Art Institute, but I didn’t really want to go to Skydeck alone. Somehow I decided I would go back to Chicago tomorrow and see the other half of the Asian exhibit, which is my favorite. I only saw about half of it today because I wanted to the Modern Art without Kristin who really only likes to point and laugh at modern art, and go to Skydeck then. However, what I really wanted to tell you about, is the modern art wing at the AIC. Believe me people, sometimes art is cool, or challenging, or disturbing, and sometimes it’s just NOT art. Let me explain…

Mortar and Pestle by Janine Antoni-



Disturbing, and weird? Check! Art? I’ll let you decide. Then there was…

Untitled (Portrait of Ross in LA) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Sorry, I can’t post an actual picture as it is LITERALLY a pile of wrapped hard candies stacked in the corner of a room.
According to the description posted, the artist also calls it “Ideal weight 175 lbs”. You see his lover died of an AIDS related illness. The candies start out as a pile ideally weighing about 175 lbs (the lover's ideal weight) and instructions are given that adult visitors may eat one piece of candy so that the weight of the pile slowly deteriorates like the artist’s lover did in his final illness. Instructions are also given that the candies should be replenished when they run low, thus “giving the piece and the man [I think the lover] eternal existence”. I can assemble candy in a corner. But can I give it meaning? It did make me think, it challenged my preconceptions of what I was looking at, it even challenged my ideas of what art is. I was tempted to write it off as “not art” but I can’t. At least I’ll still think about this one.

The one I won’t think about (except in outrage that someone deemed it “art") is called Distorted Circle Within A Square by Robert Mangold. It is literally a rough black circle drawn on a plain, grey painted square canvas. I could literally make the exact same thing. Shoot, I have three year olds who have to do the exact same thing (draw a circle, not paint a square) as a test to make sure they are developmentally where they ought to be. NOT ART!

However, there is always my favorite thing in the modern wing to go to when I’m outraged. (Despite my comments above, I have been there before and I do enjoy it.) It’s a painting called White Crucifixion by Chagall.



This is a painting of the crucifixion of Jesus done in 1938 Europe (France). Above Jesus are the Jewish matriarchs and patriarchs, and below him are representations of the pogroms so prevalent at the time. Here Jesus is not murdered by the Jews as in the prevelent, contemporary view, but rather a Jewish martyr like so many others. It is moving, challenging, hard to really look at, and it is art. There is nothing challenging to drawing a misshapen circle inside a square, no reason for me to really look at it and nothing to make me truly think.

Perhaps I really will go back tomorrow (I’m a teacher, so I get free admission and I still have my weekend pass for the train…). If I do you can guarantee I will finish the other half of the Asian exhibit. I might even check out the Chagall again. But I promise you I will skip the plain black canvas with nothing on it someone deemed art. Also if I go, I really am going to Skydeck.

Meat is DELICIOUS!

Internet, I went to the Taste of Chicago today, and it was GREAT. I love the Taste and have gone on the third the last several years. We started going on the third because I LOVE fireworks and this way we see Chicago’s on the third and Freeport’s on the fourth and it. is. awesome. Sadly, this year Chicago didn’t do July third fireworks (boo!! hiss!!) so I only get one display. Also the Taste was oddly small with fewer restaurants than usual and no shops. I love the world market style shops where you can buy a sarong for twenty dollars, tax free. Anyway, we ate goat (yummmm) and ribs (I love bbq sauce) and tempura veggies and other vegetarian choices (it doesn’t count if I only ate about five bites of meat right?). Then we got bored and tried to think of things to do that were cheap. Did you know the Skydeck (now with ledges!) at Willis Tower is sixteen dollars??? Like what the heck Willis Tower people? So we decided that we’d save up for that and do it another day (assuming the stars align so that we have money, time, and a clear day all on day when we’re in Chicago). Then we thought about the Art Institute but no one wanted to spend fourteen dollars for like an hour of entertainment. So we walked to the Borders on Michigan Ave. Or, we tried to walk to the Borders on Michigan Ave, but for some reason we gave up after like forty miles of walking when it was about three blocks away and decided to walk to the Borders on State St. If only people listened to me, this would be a story about going to Borders. Instead, this is a story about sitting in a Dunkin Donuts drinking $0.99 iced coffee bitching about how far the train station was (about a ten minute walk). I told them if Borders is between Randalf and (some other street I can’t remember) State St HAS to run perpendicular to those streets and thus parallel to the street we were on, we should go down Randalf, turn left onto State and we’ll find Borders. Instead we continued on the street we were on until it became clear I was right, turned on another street and passed State two blocks and five iced coffees later. We missed our planned train by like ten minutes, stood in line fifteen feet from the train we wanted on until five minutes before it was supposed to leave when they finally let us board and then promptly realized we were hungry again. So we went out for chicken sandwiches. I am clearly a terrible vegetarian. :)
Okay, I really am leaving town in a few hours, so I won’t be blogging the rest of the week. Pictues when I get back! Have a SAFE and happy holiday!!