Normal families go shopping the day after Christmas, mine goes to art museums.

Life has gotten more interesting chez Ella.  My youngests brother and sister are home from university, and my brother will be here through January, my sister leaves on the 3rd for an Interim (Winter Break) class in Venice (yes, that Venice).  I still don't have a job, which is incredibly frustrating when I was told two weeks ago by an employment agency I'd registered with (and applied for a W4 with) about an opportunity but then it never came to fruition.  So it's back to square one I guess.

Christmas was about the same as it always is for me; not as disappointing as previous years but because of my (stupidly) high expectations about the holiday I still wasn't as content.  But then again, I haven't had a Christmas to my expectations since I was 10.  So there's that.  I did get one thing I wanted though, so I'm not as bitter as I've been in previous years.  But I'll stop whining now.  I'm just happy my parents can finally afford to have a good Christmas.  It's been far too long.  That and the fact that I've felt the love that you're supposed to feel at Christmastime for other reasons, so complaining is pointless.  Overall, it's been a wonderful holiday.

Yesterday we drove two hours south to Atlanta, Georgia in order to check out the "From Picasso to Warhol" exhibit at the High Museum of Art.  It's an exhibition of paintings of on loan from the MoMA in NYC of painters of twentieth century art including Fernand Léger, Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp, Louise Bourgeois, Jackson Pollack, Jasper Johns, and others with the theme of "graphic art".  While the rest of the High doesn't have as impressive a collection, the special exhibit was impressive.  It was probably the next best thing to going to the MoMA in Manhattan, where I still have never been and yes, it eats at me constantly.  I've written about my background in art appreciation a few times, and while I can't say I'm an expert in amateur art appreciation, I like to think I've seen enough world-renowned paintings in person to be able to say that I know my fine art (Velázquez's Las Meninas and El Greco's El Entierro del Conde de Orgaz are life-changing in person, as are Dalí's El Gran Masturbador and Girl in the Window as well as  Picasso's Guernica).  And because the buildings that house major modern art galleries are designed specifically for that purpose, I can feel like I'm a millionaire just by looking closely into Mondrian's Trafalgar Square hung on a white plaster wall.  Right now, I feel like I could walk into the Mies van der Rohe pavilion in Montjuïc and feel like I could own the place.  That building is actually what I'd love to model my dream house on, if I ever had the money.  But that's another story for another day.

So really, as much as I like to complain about the current state of my life, self-inflicting or not, with a little less laziness and a little more assertiveness, I think I really could own everything I could be and should be.

But before I forget, I've jumped on the Spotify bandwagon.  Click the button below to check out my profile and some of the playlists I've created!  There's a "Barcelona Summer Nights" one that I'm really excited about.


/shameless plug