Dan Brown = Le Suck

Langdon had always considered the Tuileries to be sacred ground. These were the gardens in which Claude Monet had experimented with form and colour, and literally inspired the birth of the Impressionist movement.*headdesk*Dear Dan Brown:Although the term "Impressionist" was derived from a work by Claude Monet (Impression, Sunrise, exhibited in 1874 along with a number of other works by artists such as Sisley, Renoir, Pisarro, Morisot and Degas), the inspiration for the "birth" of the Impressionist movement would more accurately be attributed to Eduard Manet, if anyone. His work reflects a changing manner of painting, with visible brushstrokes and sketch-like, atmospheric style. The rejection of his Luncheon on the Grass by the Paris Salon in 1863 in part led to the creation of the Salon des Refuses (Salon of the Rejected), through which Monet, etc., were able to exhibit their works in the next decade.Also, Manet did a ton of sketches of the Tuileries Gardens, and one of his major early works is Music in the Tuileries.Please take an art history course.Thanks ever so,Pained ReaderPS: Claude Monet experimented with light, open spaces, and brushstrokes WAY more than form.PPS: Monet also studied Turner in England, whose work is also clearly a foundation for the Impressionist movement.PPPS: You suck.Now I remember why I didn't finish The Da Vinci Code in the first place. Urge to spork... rising...ETA: ...an arrow-like widow's peak that divided his jutting brow and preceded him like the prow of a battleship. As he advanced, his dark eyes seemed to scorch the earth before him, radiating a fiery clarity that forecast his repuation for unblinking severity in all matters.Okay, be honest now: who else has an image of a guy with really pointy hair sticking straight out of his forehead and lasers shooting from his eyes? And WTF does that last clause really mean, anyway?lizbee, I do prefer Phryne.

Depression...

Depression is such a quagmire. It takes hold of you and sometimes it seems like the more you struggle to escape, the faster you find yourself submerged in the anxiety, the hurt, the self-doubt.The real problem is when you stop wondering how quickly you can get out of the bog, and start wondering how long it will take to sink into it entirely.

Well, ...

Well, the moving day is Monday, March 13, after which I shall be officially relocated to the greater Houston area.Naturally, I've tons of packing and preparation left to do. But what else did you expect?Tonight I quit all the packing and trashing and organizing to go out for sushi with Hope and Dawn -- our last night of sushi together, at least until I come back to visit. It was fun, but sad as well.Saturday is my last day at Starbucks South Lamar, and though I plan to have a great old time telling off customers on their cell phones, I'm not looking forward to it as much as I once was. I'm starting to get really nervous and melancholy about the move. I love Austin, I love the friends I have here, the life I have here. I know that it's time for a change for me -- but I am so very upset to leave everything in this town. It's been my heart and home for the first of my adult years. In a way, I finished growing up here.Everything seems kind of topsy-turvy in me right now. I don't know how everything is going to go from here, whereas before I had a vague plan in my head. I'm not lost, per se, but the path ahead of me is a bit obscured in the fog, and I'm not at all sure what lies in the distance. I just have to trust that God knows and will guide me; that he's prepared the right way for me, if I let him lead me there.That is my biggest struggle in the Christian life. I can't hand myself over, I can't easily trust in God's will. I want to completely plan, control and manipulate my situations too much, and I have difficulty dealing with what life hands me if it's not what I want -- particularly if something in which I invest a lot of time, emotion or thought doesn't come to fruition. I'm sure this is true to some extent of everyone, but it's especially prevalent in my life. I have to fight it consciously, all the time, to remain remotely at peace.I am still fighting though.I have an appointment with my therapist on Wednesday so I can talk some of this out before the move actually happens. I think it unwise to let it just sit and fester the whole time.On another medical note, I'd like to take a moment to rant about the medication I'm on for my complexion. The stuff dries out my skin like nothing else -- never in my life have I peeled or flaked like this: I'm shedding skin like a snake. And it's painful! And my skin is all tight and weird-feeling! And my lips are chapped ALL THE TIME!And to make matters worse, I don't really see much difference, aside from the excessively dry, flaky skin. The price of a clear complexion is entirely too high.

I had a glance at the calendar, and I'd like to know:

Man, why does my birthday always gotta fall on Good Friday? *grumps*