Aren't artists a funny bunch? Grandma gave me this book. "Van Gogh" by Ingo F. Walther was published in 2001. Most of it was about his artistic development, and some of it was a summary of his (kinda pathetic) life. I know, I maybe shouldn't judge the guy, and maybe he really did have a serious mental/emotional illness, but I just get the feeling that if he could have had a productive job instead of just painting, perhaps he wouldn't have chosen suicide. I already knew most of Mr. Van Gogh's story before reading this book, but it was interesting to see some of the paintings that I'd never seen before, and it was also interesting to see what was going on in his life when each painting was done. I will say that we had a couple of Van Gogh prints in my dorm room in my first couple of years in college, so I guess that makes me somewhat cultured. I believe we started with "The Starry Night", which was Danielle's, and then I got "Le Chambre à Arles". I liked it because...well...mostly because I thought it was depressing. Besides, it's cool to have a picture of a room within a room. Says me. Anyway, this book was alright, although I found some of the artsy discussions to be a bit stuffy and wordy.

So I'm off today to Fresno for Lynn's wedding tomorrow. I'll be in the air during the Super Bowl, which is kinda sad, but I've never flown during a Super Bowl before, so... I wonder if the pilot will be watching it in the cockpit. So we made it to February. January was fairly dull. I gained 7 pounds in one week. That was kinda hard to explain. And I of course haven't lost it yet. I'm not sure what to do with me. But I guess my body is just extremely efficient, and I should be thankful for that. I have concluded, in my twisted thinking, that if we womenfolk were constantly producing babies and feeding them, then we would probably be able to eat the same as a man who is working hard, which would mean in my book Total Equality of the Sexes. Because I don't care much about workplace equality or military equality. I just want food consumption and metabolization equality. Or maybe I just need to be a starving artist like Van Gogh.