She has trouble acting normal

Dear Barcelona Weather Forecasters,

FUCK YOU. You're fucking up my plans and soaking my pants with your overoptimistic weather lies. 'Chance of rain' means bring an umbrella, not brace yourself for the fucking apocalypse. I went to a former convent turned museum today, but I'm so wet and grumpy right now I don't even wanta talk about it. After the convent I was planning to go to this palace, but by the time I was about halfway there I realized I was too wet to enjoy anything touristy and too full of rage to do anything besides throw a fit or drink. So I seeked (suck?) shelter in this overpriced restaurant where I'm sitting right now. Wine in the afternoon usually feels decadent; right now it feels absolutely necessary. I'm cold; my pants and feet are soaked; and now that I'm finally over my six-week-long cold, I'll probably wake up tomorrow with another one. I checked the weather four hours ago--if I'd known it was gonna rain buckets I would have done something else today. I think something must be wired wrong in my brain. I try to keep it together, I really do. But I'm just incapable of acting like a rational person when the weather's bad. I can't not anthropomorphize heavy rain as a hateful, angry being, and I take it personally and want to fight back. Maybe I need to be medicated.

Anyway, the convent. Churches freak me out sometimes, but I've always kind of liked convents and monasteries. What bothers me about organized religion is the power it often yields and the inevitable abuses of such power. I picture monks and, to a lesser degree, nuns, as being more removed from all of that; whether it's true or not, to me they represent a purer form of the good that religion can represent. Nothing I can begin to relate to, but I guess they inspire in me a certain respect. This particular convent was built in the 12th century, and has only been a former convent/museum since 1983.

When you walk in, the building opens up into an open courtyard; it's really beautiful and I'd love to show you pictures, but my camera cable still hasn't presented itself. The different rooms were mostly small chapels and individual nuns' rooms. They also had the kitchen and dining room preserved. The dining room was this very big, very plain room whose only real decoration was a painting of the crucifixion. Apparently the nuns weren't permitted to talk while they ate, except for one who read aloud from the bible. (This is reminding me of the movie The Magdalene Sisters, which was very good but terribly disturbing. Not all nuns are good. I knew that; my mom taught me that. I take back what I wrote before about nuns being pure.) Anyway, the convent also has a small museum with its art collection. I was happy to see that the early stuff was more Flemish than Italian (I hate Italian Renaissance art, and I don't care if it makes me uncultured), and that the Catalan artists seemed to take after the Flemish (i.e., proper noses and no flat faces). Also of note were the choral books, which contained the hymns and stuff for church services and, for reasons the museum left unexplained, were about 3 feet tall. And I got a kick out of the following quote about the convent's 16th century art acquisitions: "Despite their grave financial difficulties, the nuns continued to acquire new artworks in accordance with devotional needs and changes in taste." Interesting priorities.

Sundays always seem to find me unhappily dragging myself to a museum in the rain. It always ends up being worth it, but today was a closer call than usual.