December 3, 2007

• Sunday Home

  Ever had a sort of day that you feel completely happy and at home in? Well, today was like that for me and I’m a little more than bummed that it is coming to a close. Not only am I dreading the start of the work week, in all its hokey office “Bagel Monday” glory, but today was just so…good. I could live inside just this one day for a while. It is the sort of day that if, upon my death, my soul can roam through time freely, I will rerun in an instant.

  When I woke this morning, my bleary eyes blinked in the morning light streaming through the window. The light was the color of a dejected gym sock, the color of a snowy sky. I pulled up the blinds and smiled to see the first snowfall of the year.

  With the crisp start of wintertime (weirdly punctual in its first weekend of December arrival) fueling me, I moved my tired bones to the shower and brewed some warm coffee. My body was achy from building this yesterday:

  

  In the last few weeks, Shaun built this:

  

  This:

  
  A cute futon cover (black w/ colorful, swirly spots) is on its way in the mail to us. Yay!

  This:
  
  And this:

  
  There are actually two desks in our home now; one for me (above) and one for Shaun (messy!). It’s like a Room of One’s Own, except we couldn’t splurge on a whole room – a desk seems suffice enough.

  Not to mention a cute kitchen island that I forgot to take a picture of. So it was time for me to contribute a little manual labor. It was great to wake up this Sunday morning to an apartment that was no longer a sea of boxed books. We are unpacked at last. We are home.

  After getting ready this morning, we were off to enjoy the reopening of the New Museum at its new location on Bowery St. The museum was incredible! And not just because they were celebrating their opening with free admission this weekend. Their current exhibition, Unmonumental, explored collage and mixed media in contemporary art. Collage has historically blossomed in times of cultural, political, and societal unrest; it is all abloom in today’s contemporary art.

  

  I love how a good exhibition really engages me, reminds me of things in my own life, in the world at large. I like how a good exhibition encourages connections that might not otherwise have been made. I also like to listen to chit chat amongst patrons. I like to hold hands with my partner. I like to love new things that I’ve never seen before.

  My favorite pieces were from Elliot Hundley. He created two large, intricate, sculptural collages entitled The Wreck (2005) and Proscenium (2006) that entranced me. The sculptures were so solid and defined, yet the construction of them, with bamboo and thin wood sticks, was made visible. Photographs and cocktail umbrellas and colorful papers collaborated to pull the eye in, arresting the viewer. The tangled mess of it all, the crazy bounty pleased me a great deal.

  The New Museum also has an incredible space called “Museum as Hub,” a public space for special projects, research and public discourse. Exhibited in that space, was my other favorite work, The Last Tourist in Cairo (2006) by Jan Rothuizen. For the project, the artist spent some time in Cairo and documented her impressions of the city in poster-sized maps. The maps detail the location of interviews with people she met there, which are printed on the side, along with news-clippings of events that happened while she was there, and short scenes describing things she witnessed. The last Tourist in Cairo is actually a set of seven poster maps, but only three were on display. I liked The Emptiness of a Busy City and The Anonymous Impossibility of Social Coherence best.

  Winding our way up to the top floor of the museum, we were happily surprised to find that the museum free weekend sponsor Target had also set up a free candy buffet for patrons to take some sweets away with them. We filled up bags with gummies and fancy M&M’s in crazy colors like mauve and lavender.

  Feeling hungry for more than a sugar rush, we headed over to Cafe Habana for some cheap, delicious lunch. We talked about books, writing, and the weird things we did as little kids while sipping strong Cuban coffee and sharing heaping plates of molletes and chilaquiles.

  With full bellies, we moseyed into  McNally Robinson, an independent bookseller, and found ourselves picking up some fun Christmas gifts. After that, we browsed the Young Designers Market, which happens every Saturday and Sunday and has some truly cool wares. We bought a few more Christmas items there and I coveted a cool $200 dress that looked more like a weird sculpture than clothes.

  With full minds, full bellies, full bags, and a home to come home to, I smiled the whole subway ride home. I am a lucky, lucky girl. But I don’t want Monday to arrive.

  About to sign off of Xanga-land for the evening, I was suddenly struck by a memory of my brother Anthony, 15 years ago. While being tucked into bed as an angel haired little boy, snuggled into his Thomas the Train footie pajamas, he used to declare with ripe enthusiasm, “tomorrow’s another day!” before trying to soothe himself into sleep (which, oddly enough, he did by bashing his head into his pillow repeatedly and humming to himself, earning him the family nickname, Hammer).

  So instead of being sad that today is drawing to a close (well, its already past midnight, so any illusion of stopping time has already been shattered), I shall think about reliving it in my (hopefully far away) future as a ghost and adopt the philosophy that my brother used to espouse when he was four: tomorrow is another day. Might as well make the best of it.
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  On a scale of 1 to 10, how was your Sunday?

  ::Random Tangent::
  I’ve got a new post up at Naptime in the City that Never Sleeps, if anyone is interested in seeing pictures of the pretty buildings around my office neighborhood.
  
          

  • 12:35 am
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