Metamorphosism

Melancholia

He woke with an earache and a sore throat. The radio said cold, and storm winds and snow in the mountains. He didn't know about the snow but the radio was right about everything else.

He fed the cats. He got the big girl up and then he got the little one up and fed them and loaded them into the car and drove the big one to the train station. He drove the little one home and she said what shall we do and he said what about eat a proper breakfast and she wasn't interested. She wanted to play a game. She had money burning a hole in her pocket and she wanted to go to the local store and spend it so they dressed warmly and went to the local store.

"I sure like this brand-new goose down anorak," he said. "It sure is warm."

He got a newspaper and a lottery ticket and she got some sort of yogurt product with crackly chocolate bits and probably pink glitter. Everything she gets has pink glitter. Then the low-fuel light came on in the car and he drove them to the gas station to fill the tank. He filled the tank with diesel and was topping it off, getting a drop more in and another drop and when he pulled the nozzle out of the tank it was dripping fuel and a gust of wind blew diesel fuel onto his brand-new goose down jacket. Just a few drops on the sleeve.

He said, fuck.

He went into the station to pay.

The lady rang up his purchase. "Get some on you, did you?"

"A bit."

"Better soak that fast, or you'll never get it out," she said.

He said he would. On his way out, he noticed he'd gotten more on himself than he'd originally thought. It was all over the front of his anorak. It was all over his Doc Martens.

Fuck, he thought. He could really go for a cigarette right now, he thought.

Then he thought, maybe not such a good idea.

He drove them home and hand-washed his anorak in warm water with a gentle soap, as per instructions. It was the first time in his life he'd ever paid attention to those instructions.

It still smelled like diesel so he moved the jacket upstairs into the bathtub and washed it again but it still smelled like diesel. At that point he noticed he had diesel on his jeans and on his sweater. He got undressed and found diesel on his t-shirt as well. His socks and underpants were okay, though.

He washed his clothes. He washed his anorak again just for the sheer fun of it. His mother-in-law and father-in-law came over to pick up the little one and asked why he was washing clothes. He told them the truth, taking care to frame the story in such a way that he looked as intelligent as possible.

He blamed it on the wind.

After they left with the little one he didn't have much time to go shopping so he just went back to the local shop and bought a few things, forgetting things like toothpaste and floss, and hair gel and after shave. Then he had to hurry to the local school to pick up a friend of the big one -- yes, that friend -- and rush her to Vienna to meet the big one who had bought three tickets to the Albrecht Dürer exhibition at the Albertina museum. Dürer being his all-time favorite artist and the friend being artistically-inclined and talented, for a 14-year-old.

She was no where to be found at the school. He stood in the cold wind and looked around. Three day weekend coming up and tons of parents picking their kids up at school for outings. Chaos. He called his daughter in Vienna and asked her to call her friend and find out what was up. She called back and said her friend was not answering her phone.

He looked some more and found her getting onto a bus. He asked her, want to go to the exhibition? Didn't anyone tell you we were taking you today? You didn't even know? Want to go anyway? We have tickets already.

Okay, she said.

He thinks, I'd be a pretty good kidnapper. At least of my children's friends.

Turns out, the misunderstanding hinged on different understandings of the word "mention." His wife had mentioned the exhibition, and going today, to the friend a week before. The friend had thought mention meant mention. Wife thought mention meant, you know, mention the car's dirty and it gets warshed. Mention the garbage is full and it gets taken out, or else.

On the way into Vienna he tries to think of something to talk about that's not stupidly school-related.

"You can put in a different CD if you want," he says.

"Oh, that's okay," she says.

Only 45 minutes later, they're ready to pull into the parking garage at the State Opera. Red sign flashes, "FULL". He thinks, man.

No other parking far and wide. But then someone leaves the garage and they get a good spot.

They meet daughter.

They drink coffee at Strabucsk.

They go look at pitchers. Long line waiting to buy tickets. They jump line. People grumble. He thinks, fuck you bitches, I have a ticket.

The ticket-holders' line is about 25 minutes long. They get inside. Another line. Dürer is the big German-language master, right. This is the second-to-last day of the exhibition. Everyone who'd been putting it off is here today. It's like the Louvre in front of the Mona Lisa, only everywhere.

He learns three things:

1. Dürer's graphics are as beautiful as he'd thought. Dürer was the master in this regard.
   
2. His graphics (etchings, woodcuts mostly) were smaller than he'd thought. His folio-sized woodcuts (?and etchings?) were the exception, not the rule.
   
3. His paintings got better as he got older and spent more time in Italy (he imported the Italian renaissance to Germany, I think, sort of on the cusp of Medieval and Renaissance in Germany, while the R. was already in full swing in Italy) but the Italians were better than he was.
   
4. Same with his drawings. Great drawings, but when the man and the two girls left the Dürer exhibition they saw some drawings by Raphael and Michelangelo on the way out, not to mention even Rubens etc and the Italians were clearly better. Softer, looser. Even Rubens was looser. Etc.

At the end of the exhibition, he's still got his earache, his sore throat and now also Stendahl syndrome. Dürer drew faces very fluidly, in terms of where he placed the features and how he did the proportions. So now he's noticing the features of the people around him. How ears are *not* in the middle of the side of the head, but in the rear third. And so on. He has Stendahl syndrome and he realizes this as they wend their way through the gift shoppe on their way out.

You have any idea how many pretty art books there are? Humans are a prolific race, art-wise. Or, at least, art-book-wise.

But he makes it out with a single postcard of the Dürer etching "Melancholia" and a single small gift to send a friend for Xmas. He's always liked "Melancholia" and the exhibition mentioned something about Dürer/the artist making it through melancholy to artistic creativity and he thought, I can relate to that. Dürer was depressive, according to some people who may have been simplifying things.

They drop friend off at her house, pick small one up at grandparents.

He checks his new goose-down anorak in the dryer. The goose down has formed, like, golf-ball-sized balls of wet down in each compartment. He tries to break up the balls and sticks it back into the dryer, on low. Tumble. Extra-gentle.

After the little one is in bed, he does a little housecleaning because the cleaning lady couldn't come because she said, I probably don't have tuberculosis but a work colleague has it and should I come or not and he said, nah.

He checks his anorak in the dryer. The balls are looking a little fluffier. He makes an aspirin drink for his earache.

Posted at December 6, 2003 09:07 PM