In Which We Are Arty

 

When we were in Paris in April (and I love any story where I'm able to casually mention I was in Paris recently. Ooh la la.) anyway, when I was in Paris recently, Diane von Austinburg and I went to this huge exhibit of Mark Rothko.  He is my favorite artist in the world, bar none. His big canvases of brilliant shimmering color just thrill me. 

I think that is sort of the point of abstract art, it wants to bypass the rational part of your brain and strike straight into your emotions.  It doesn't want to tell a story or force you to figure out what all the bits mean.  You don't have to think "what does the sheep symbolize?" "Where are the shadows coming from?"  "Why is that guy got a horns on his head?" Even the most straightforward, realistic painting has an immediate effect on your emotions. The colors are bright or they're drab and dark and you respond to that, then you can get down to figuring out why Jesus is pointing the way he is.  Abstract art just does away with all that homework.

So anyway.  I really wanted a poster from the show since I will never be able to own an actual Rothko. We stopped in at the gift shop and Diane asked the cashier about the poster.  In that very snooty way that Parisians have and which I am convinced they are taught in school, she just sneered "No." So no poster for mrpeenee.

After a few weeks of brooding, I realized I could just make an end run around the the disdainful clerk and buy one on the internet.  I'll show her.  But when I went shopping, there were posters but none were for sale.  Haughty French bitches win again.  But while I was digging through all the results, I ran across a painter who would create copies of Rothkos.  She wasn't forging them or trying to pass them off as the real thing, it was just a copy, painted with acrylic on a canvas just like Mark boy did. 

Of course I bought one and it got back from the framers yesterday.  It's gorgeous.  The guy delivering it installed it for me, thank God, and also moved a mirror which was previously hanging where I wanted the Rothko.  I have now reached Maximum Art Capacity, there is simply no empty space on any wall for any more art.  If I ever buy another painting, it will have to go in the shower.

I tried to take a picture of the painting on the wall, but it's in the front hall and I couldn't get an angle that would work, the hall is too narrow and the picture too big.  So just for you naughty pusses, I took it down, hauled its big ass into the living room to take the picture at the top of this post, but trust me, it actually looks better in the hall with the full light from the pic window across from it and on a white wall (above.)

Guys who would also look good installed in my apartment:

Naked cooking gives me second-hand creeps.

Hit the beach while it's still hot enough to run around nekkid.

Blonde and studly Matt Dubbe.

I gotta go, my ride's here.

What is this guy looking at over his shoulder like that?

If you're bad, mrpeenee has no choice but to make you stand in the corner.

Everybody loves beefy boys.

In Which We're Calling It In

In the middle of an unnecessarily annoying and complicated day last week, my phone decided to commit suicide. I was Ubering along playing Yahtzee on my phone, as I am wont to do, and I got a Yahtzee.  Yay.  I was in the front seat and turned around to show my friends my fabulous big score, but the Uber driver seemed unimpressed.  That was when I noticed my phone was incredibly hot and then the back popped open and it stopped working.  I was convinced it was about to burst into flames, which might have been exciting, but I was sort of busy that afternoon. Exhibiting my usual cool level-headedness I shrieked "Fuck." I then also shrieked "fuckfuckfuck." The Uber driver continued to be unimpressed.

I was able to spend more than an hour at the phone store, which, golly gee, was so very much fun.  Why does it take so long to buy a stupid phone?  Since my old phone was now some kind of techno slag, I was unable to transfer my pictures (oh well) or my apps (considerably more disappointing.) I have spent the week since then reloading apps and trying and failing to remember the passwords for them.

One of the worst parts was that I lost the Uber app; standing outside the phone store, I couldn't get it to load and work so I  had to trudge home on foot.  It's not a terribly long walk and almost all of it was downhill.  But here's the problem with being a creaky old man: I often forget that I am a creaky old man.  Instead I still have the mindset of a fairly healthy middle-aged man who walked a lot.  A. Lot.  So a hike that would have been no big deal to 40 year old mrpeenee exhausted me now.  By the time I got home I felt like hazardous waste.  Ugh

Another disappointment?  Losing the app for the word game I've been playing for years now.  How humbling for the score I had been keeping to revert to zero when I reloaded the app.  Mostly I play it so I can gripe to Diane von Austinburg about the ludicrous words, it demands and the perfectly sensible ones it refuses.  Stupid dumb game.  Worse, as part of the game you accrue tokens that you can then buy hints with if you get stuck.  I almost never had to use them because I am so absolutely Kick-Ass in that game (not to brag or anything) but when I lost the app, my fortune in tokens disappeared.  I was ruined.

But the cruelest blow of all?  The pictures of naked guys I feature here so prominently (and believe me, I know you guys are not tuning in for my pearls of wisdom) were stored in my pictures on the phone and all of those, poof, gone.  Nevertheless, I've been able to scramble up a few choice bits.  Here you go: 

Vadim Farrell and his lovely eyes.  Did you even notice his eyes?

Unless you are welding or in the middle of giving a blow job, turn your hat around the right way.

I wish phone stores were staffed by guys this cute.

I don't appreciate random tattoos splattered around, but I am willing to overlook them in this case.

Shapely.

The lovely John Bronco, just enjoying hanging around with his dick out.

Thick hair, thick lips, thick muscles, thick cock.  It's quite a combo.

Sorry, the internet ran out of naked guys.