All Art, All the Time

Perhaps the oddest thing for me about grad school is that I am only hanging out with art historians and art students. Until now I've really only had one good art history friend who was my age, and through some weirdness we only had one class together, and it wasn't until our senior year. So I've never really had that many people my own age to gush about art historical stuff with, or even to study with.

That's kind of all changed now. We definitely talk about things other than art, of course, but the talk always seems to morph into that, even when we're having beers at The Vid (The Vid being, other than the Mojos, the dive-ist bar I've ever been in. Clean, certainly, but dive-y, also yes.) This could become a problem down the road, I think. I really like having friends who are interested in other things, so I'm worried that I'll get stuck in a rut here. I love art history, don't get me wrong, but I don't want to think about it ALL the TIME. Happily, most of the other students seem to be in the same mindset, so hopefully it won't be too constraining. And I have my other, closer (if not necessarily in distance) friends to keep me grounded in the real world, and thank goodness for that!

The nice thing is that I feel less like an enthusiastic art freak, which is sometimes how I felt in undergrad. I sometimes felt like I had to tamp down my responses in class to seem not quite so engaged or excited. Which is silly. I feel like the nerd factor is higher here, but I'm also not alone in it. Some examples:

on the bus:
My friend: Look at that VW.
Me: What a weird color! It looks kind of like a shimmery oil spill.
My friend: I think it looks like that sleeve in the Allegory of Painting.
Me: Oh, true that. Especially that purple-y bit.
Other friend: Yo, nerd alert, you two. Remember, we're on the bus.

Another friend, to me: That's a cute cardigan. You know what the feather design reminds me of? Daphne's leaf-hands.

Me: did you get a mocha?
Another friend: Nah, I just got a regular coffee. I'm avoiding temptation. Like St Jerome.
Me: Did you just make a Jerome reference?!
(note: that fact that someone other than me is making Jerome references in normal conversation is very refreshing. I try not to do that too often.)

Me, walking into the art building before an Islamic test: Hey.
Another friend: Hey. Hazarbaf. Define, ready...go!

And these are the things I'm remembering from the past 3 days. But at least it's reassuring that when I start living at the library, as will be happening over the next few weeks, these people will be there with me.