These past couple days have been really fun. Well, kind of. Brock and I got into teensy weensy squabble yesterday (aka WWIII) and so the day sucked until about 3pm, at which point we grew up and got over ourselves :) At 2pm I had THE INTERVIEW with Greenpeace and....I got the job! I'm really excited for it. Hopefully I can get hours that work around Brock's schedule. I also have an interview lined up tomorrow with Mark Shale, which is a men's clothing store on the ritzy Magnificent Mile. I can't believe how easy it is to find work here...I've been here barely a week and a half and have already had three interviews. The Big Man Upstairs is looking out for me!
After my interview, Brock and I went downtown to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which offers free admission on Tuesdays. They had some pretty cool photography, but nothing as cool as what we saw at the Museum of Contemporary Photography. The best part was a collection of Alexander Calder mobiles up on the fourth floor. I love Alexander Calder. His art is so original, simple, and pure. It doesn't seem to try too hard, and you're never searching for meaning. It is what it is.
There was also a huge exhibit of this one guy, Buckminster Fullerton, who was a complete visionary. He wasn't necessarily so much of an artist as he was an architect, but still...his stuff was mind-blowing. After the death of his daughter, he was about to commit suicide when he decided that it would be better to devote his life to the greater good. So he did. Everything he did afterwards focused on improving the human condition and world as a whole. One of his main objectives was to build buildings with the least amount of material possible, and he had crazy ideas for teardrop-shaped buildings (which would trap heat better and be more energy efficient), hexagonal houses and all sort of other stuff. Stuff you yourself would never imagine in a million years. It was all so out-of-the-box, but as soon as you looked at it you were like, "Huh. What hasn't anyone thought of that before?"
On the main floor was where all the weird stuff was. You know, the stuff that comes to mind when you think of "contemporary" art. For example, a darkened room with one spotlight shining down in the center, and mists of water falling down. A stark white room with a fan hanging from the middle of the ceiling, revolving around in a big, looping circle.
So yeah...some of that contemporary stuff was really dumb lol. But some of it was really cool, too! Cool as in trippy, I'm-on-acid cool. I honestly wouldn't be able to describe it to you--but just trust me :)
After the Museum of Contemporary Art we grabbed a peanut butter sundae at Ghirardelli's, which was delicious. I have to admit: this Ghirardelli's was not nearly as good as the one in San Francisco, but dude...it's Ghirardelli's! You can't complain much!
On our bike ride home we passed the Taste of Chicago, which had a free concert going on in Grant Park...the BARENAKED LADIES!! Ok, ok...so they're washed up. So they're about 10 years past their prime. But it was still way fun! The lead singer was always joking around and their music is just chill and fun. They probably wouldn't be nearly as good in some huge venue, but for an intimate park setting? Perfect. And talk about a trip down memory lane!! All their hits came out when Brock and I were in like junior high, so it was just fun to sing along and be like "I remember looking up these lyrics online when I was like 12 years old!" haha. They played all their good stuff: "One Week," "If I Had a Million Dollars," "Pinch Me," and some awesome songs we'd never heard before. It was so funny, during "One Week" the lead singer looks over at the sign language interpreter during the bridge of the song and he's like "There's a lot of words in this one. You having trouble keeping up?" and she laughed and signed "Screw you!"
Anyway, after that we went home and finished watching "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" which I loved. What an incredible story and movie. There's nothing like a well-made movie. They don't come around very often, but when they do it's one of those small pleasures that enriches your life and makes you feel human. Same with books. I guess the reason why this movie was so good was because it was based off a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. You can never go wrong with F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was, in my opinion, the greatest writer of the 20th century.
Today: We woke up this morning to mist. Not rain. Mist. It was divine. We stayed inside for a good portion of the morning and played our favorite card game: speed. I had been on this huge winning streak the past couple days, but I've definitely lost my mojo! We kept playing best-of-five series, and I lost probably four series in a row lol. I HATE TO LOSE!! Seriously, I'm such a baby. There's probably nothing I hate more than losing! So we kept playing until I won :)
After that we went on a run, which felt amazing what with the cool, misty weather. We headed down south a little bit to the Prairie Avenue District, which used to be the place to live in Chicago during the 1870s-1890s. I think something like 77 millionaires lived there. Anyway, we saw the oldest building in Chicago (a mansion) and the oldest church, too. Once again: stunning architecture. I wish we could have spent more time there, but we didn't want to go inside any buildings because we looked like scrubs.
These days, Prairie Avenue is a quiet part of town. But its foregone splendor seeps through the cracks in the sidewalks so richly that you almost feel as though you're intruding. There are gorgeous parks and lawns where you can imagine dozens of Jay Gatsbys throwing garden parties for the bourgeois to hob-knob as they drink champagne. One party thrown there in the late 19th-century cost $75,000. Can you believe that?! That's a ton of money now! Think of how mind-boggling that would have been in 1890.
When we got home, we found out that Brock is allergic to cocoa butter. Before our run, I had put cocoa butter lotion on his back because his sunburn was peeling, and when we got home he'd broken out in...something! Not hives. I've honestly never seen anything like it before. It's a bunch of tiny bumps all over his skin that look like they're filled with water. Hopefully they go away in the next couple of days.
morning mist sounds incredible :)
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