gyro?

I think I may be drunk.* In Florence, bitches. (I just wrote "in Florence, itches," which may refer to my very first cold sore** breakout in Rome after 30 years of no cold sores and 6 months of celibacy. Which sucks, let me tell you. I mean, if I get cold sores then I should at least have done something ENJOYABLE to deserve them, right? None of this "I have no idea where they came from" crap. Because I am hideously vain, I retouched EVERY single picture of myself from Rome. Crusty face wounds are not so attractive.)

Otherwise, Florence is great. I've climbed up to the VERY TOP of the Palazzo Vecchio, have rambled around the restricted vaults of the Duomo (in between the ceiling vaults and the timber roof, pictured--it's like a moonscape), trundled up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, gone to Positano on the Amalfi coast, fortuitously run into the Giro d'Italia, and visited Rome for 5 days. Amazing!


*Expansion of comment on Bee-spot.
**Yeah, face herpes.

Guess who's studying in Florence over the summer?

Your favorite blogger (ME), that's who. For four weeks. FUNDED (I hope). In MAY AND JUNE. Oh yeah.

The last time I was in Florence I was whizzing around on the back of a scooter driven by a soccer-mad Italian man named Domenico.

Check. It. Out.:

READING FLORENCE AND TUSCAN ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM: AN INTRODUCTION
May 18-June 13, 2009
As an introduction to the buildings and public spaces of medieval and early Renaissance Florence, the brilliant architectural culture that between the 1290s and c. 1470 led all Europe. This course is conducted entirely on site in the buildings, streets, and squares of the city. Beyond fostering factual knowledge, we develop skills in archaeological, formal, iconographic, contextual, and site analysis. These skills potentially address not only Florentine studies, but the history of architecture in general. Emphasis is placed on the way buildings are situated, initiated, grow and change through time; the evolution of the classical tradition in Florence; the role of individual architects vs. collaborations; the materials and detailing of buildings, all media included; the form and function of public space, including perspectivism as well as religious, political, and economic use; the expansion and development of the city. Sites include the Baptistery, S. Miniato al Monte, S. Maria Novella, S. Croce, the Cathedral and Campanile, Orsanmichele, the Palazzo Vecchio, S. Lorenzo, the Pazzi Chapel, the Ospedale degli Innocenti, S. Spirito, the Palazzo Medici, and other aspects of the city, among them the walls and key vernacular works, in every case, studied in the context of their spatial environment. Access to parts of major buildings not normally open to the public is gained whenever possible. In addition, several field trips take the class outside Florence, for example to Siena, Pienza, and Montepulciano.

Words can not express how thrilled I am.

hypomania doesn't clean the apartment

It seems not taking prescription uppers for the past three days means that I have lost any filtering mechanisms and all my patience. It also means that I am constantly engaged in either:
a) falling asleep on things,
or
b) dancing around the apartment and leaping over chairs and cats at 100mph to this song:

So mainly I just skank around the apartment jumping around and scaring the cats and then I pass out on the bed. And then I wake up and do it again. This is pretty much all I've been doing all day long. I'm telling you, ADD is no joke, and when you have to clean the apartment, it does NOT help get the job done.

off the record

Yeah, so I'm busy. I work all the time, have too many papers to write, etc etc. Blah blah blah.

It's too bad, really, since there is SO MUCH that I want to post on the blog but that the never-entirely-anonymous nature of blogging is preventing me from writing. Shame. Because otherwise I would tell you that, last Monday, I very stupidly decided to go to class on migraine meds. Not only did I almost pass out on the walk there, but I arrived late, which ensured that the ENTIRE CLASS witnessed me walk into a closet door--thus creating an enormous lump in the middle of my forehead (which blossomed into a bruise later in the week). Not my finest hour.

I would also tell you that on Friday there happened to be yet another encounter with the elusive Rebound from last year, in which the following conversation took place at approximately midnight:
Me: "Are you seeing anyone?"
Him: "Uh, no."
Me: "Well. Do you want to see me?"
Him: "Ok."*
[There may have been partial nudity involved. Maybe.] I would confide in you that the migraine that seemed to have gone away on Tuesday returned so forcefully Saturday morning that I had to go beg at the health center for a shot of medication I hadn't had to resort to since 2003, after which I went home, split a bottle of Lindeman's Framboise with my fabulous roommate who made me pigs in blankets, and slept until about 5 minutes before going to work on Sunday. I would also tell you that, on Sunday morning, the heat and hot water were out, which meant that I hadn't showered for about three days** when, Sunday night at the gallery--less than 48 hours after seeing the Rebound and approximately 56 hours since my last shower--I got asked out on a date by an attractive man.

...IF I were to post about all this on my blog--and this is NOT EVEN COUNTING the making out with fellow students, the debilitating inability to get to bed before 2am which is seriously f*cking up my life, the very ambiguous email flirting with professors (which may just be in my own mind), the not-so-ambiguous flirting with artists, the annoying cigarette habit I seem to have developed over the summer which has proved obnoxiously hard to quit, the encounters with ex-boyfriends, etc.--alls I would be saying (if I were to be saying this, you understand) is that these must be some DAMN strong pheromones I'm pumping out. And also, that the dude I'm meeting up with on Wednesday is clearly blind. But I'm cool with that.


* I am not known for my subtlety.
** Okay, seriously, if you don't sweat all that much and the hair isn't too greasy, then it's not that big a deal. ...Unfortunately, I sweat a lot and my hair gets gross after about 36 hours. So, clearly: dude is blind.

And we now return to our regularly scheduled hibernation.
See you in January!

new header

Check out the new header! Most of the images are courtesy of Rex Parker's Pop Sensation, which also sports a header designed by yours truly. Thanks, Rex!

I am art historian, hear me roar

After about a full week of working for about 12 hours a day on it (and during my Spring Break, no less), I turned the first of my two qualifying papers in yesterday. Thank goodness.


P.S. Tigers are pretty darn cute. Especially this one:Seriously, that is the cutest picture of a tiger EVER.

Originally posted March 26, 2008.