Monet/I feel much better.

What I really need is someone to kick me in the butt and get me out of the house, even when the weather is bad. I had a beautiful afternoon (even though the clouds never thinned or parted). I decided to go to the Marmottan Museum because, while I swear I have been to every other museum in Paris at some point over the last 20 years, I had not been to this one. My guide said that it had a nice collection of Monets (yes, I have been known to call Monet boring) but it actually has a lot of other stuff too.

About Monet being boring... I totally respect the way he blasted through the convensions of the art world and talked about light and mood, shadow and form when this was considered outragous. I love that. But when I look at his skillfully crafted images, all I see is pretty. I am not that interested in pretty. I want pretty, i can look in the mirror ;-) or go see some real flowers that are alive right at this moment. (I like things that are alive now.) But, well, I also want to see and do everything. And he is a really good painter. So, that necesitated seeing this museum.

It is so incredible that a person can learn to speak in brushstrokes like that. It's like another language in another dimension. I makes me think of friends who can paint -- when asked what languages they speak they should say "English, German, and I paint with watercolors" (thinking of Grayson because it is his birthday today). Monet spoke about light, color, form and hue with amazing articulateness, but I don't think he had much sense of people or emotion. At the same museum, they have a nice collection of Berthe Morisot, Jean Puy, and a couple paintings by a smattering of other impressionists. While Morisot's sensitivity to light does not hold a candle to Monet's sun, she captures a glance, a pouting lip, the turn of a shoulder in a way that Monet never did. Yet there is a fluidity in both their brush strokes that resembles each other.

I hadn't seen Monet's painting of agapanthes before, and for such a common flower (in CA anyway), I like them more than the waterlilies (my namesake!). Quand j'etais petite I used to scorn common flowers, the ones that grew on hedges or in front of apartment buildings. I didn't really consider them flowers, the thing that I love. Now, I find beauty in the common flowers, possibly more than the exotic. I don't know what this means... am I growing old and inflexible? Is it a buddhist thing? Does it mean I might someday be happy with stability? Am I getting boring?

Looking at all those paintings of that pond at Giverny, I wondered how Monet didn't get bored with it. That same Japanese bridge over and over, Monet examining carefully for changes in the reflected light. I would become stir crazy, even in a garden. Of course, he was in his 80s by the time he was going full-swing on that series. Maybe I will have more patience in another 50 years.

For a long time now I have known that I wanted to get back into doing portraits -- drawing people. It's just hard to find a time and get people to cooperate and I guess I am too timid to ask usually. I should start with some self-portraits so as not to waste anyones time while I get back into the swing of it. My paintings are flat like Gaugin....

After the museum... well... there was this manual merry-go-round, which I took a picture of, which is absolutely extraordinary. I guess I will leave it to the photo to describe later. I wonder about pictures and their allegorical thousand words. Doesn't each word also have a thousand pictures? If it were a database, and you know how I love databases, it would certainly be a many-to-many relationship.

Then I went to a cafe and got a grand chocolat chaud, and had the nicest waiter I have ever had. Juliette would call it charm, but I think that we instantly had a deep and spiritual connection (me and the waiter, but also the hot chocolate). It was the best hot chocolate I have had outside of my home, ever! (and you would be surprised by the crappy ones I have been served in france, the supposed culinary capital of the world -- more on that another time.) I sat and wrote in my journal until the cafe closed (some of the stuff you have read here) and the new waiter/love-of-my-life (kidding) helped me get my coat on.

I strolled the beautiful, shop-lined, lit-up for xmas, winding streets of the uber-fancy 16th arrondissement until I _stumbled_ upon - can you believe it - the eiffel tower! I am thinking of buying a new pair of boots. The other thing I want to mention is that throughout today I spoke French with, and mostly understood, everyone I interacted with. Hurray.

Tomorrow, Gitte is taking us to the Danish Christmas Bazar.... Tomorrow night, I am meeting J&G's friend Pierre for I am not sure what but I told him it has to be strictly Parisien, creative, and alternative. But for tonight I am just an internet geek.