It plays tricks with the eye. The painters are starting on my room soon, so I had to take everything off my walls. That's right, boys and girls. My walls full of post cards and door full of magazine cutouts has finally come down. I'm sure that, to most of you, this doesn't mean anything, but to those of you who've seen the damn thing, you know what I'm talking about. As I was ripping tape off my walls, I started to reflect (Of course I started to reflect. When has there ever been a time in my life when I don't reflect?!). So here are my musings as the almost-22 year-old me takes down what the 12-14 year-old me created:

• I used many advertisements from teen magazines and Entertainment Weekly to create my collage. These slogans which I plastered up--"Design Your Dream," "Guts, Nerves of Steel: That's What Little Girls Are Made Of," "Man-eater"--came from lipstick and shampoo ads. I tried to define myself through visual culture. I can't say that I actually believed I had nerves of steel or that my 14 year-old self could ever have been considered a man-eater, but I was trying to define who I wanted to be. I wanted to be someone strong and impenetrable, someone who hurt others before they could hurt her. I don't think my adolescent self was atypical, but it's certainly not a happy thing to think about.



• I love post cards! Love love LOVE post cards! I have strict rules for post cards, though, so don't go buying me any. You'll probably get in wrong. That said, my favorite place to purchase post cards, along with other paper goods, is the Centre Pompidou. Ironically, I can't stand the Centre Pompidou as a museum, but their gift shop is fab-u-lous.



• I have an inordinate amount of post cards from the Musée Rodin. I have a rule that, every time I visit the museum, I have to buy a post card of Eternal Idol. Consequently, I now have four Eternal Idols, two La Danaïde, five Le Baiser in various sizes and formats, two Iris, and more views of Le Penseur than is healthy. But give me credit; I do not have any Balzac. Bleh.



• Yves Klein is really interesting. Why haven't I been able to make it back to the Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain in Nice?