100 Days — VALERIE MONROE

He sculpted for sure, and for sure he painted, and maybe he made love to both men and women: versatile guy. I didn't know he was also a prolific poet, producing more than 300 sonnets. One, extended six lines longer than standard, describes his extreme discomfort while he painted the Sistine Chapel. Now I'm thinking not only about the painting but about what it felt like to be up there on your back or your side or kneeling or crouching as Michelangelo was in 1509 when he wrote: "...My haunches are grinding into my guts, my poor ass strains to work as a counterweight..." Paint dripped onto his face, his skin both stretched and wrinkled, his back bent and he feared he was developing a goiter. (Likely not.)

He was just a man in a vulnerable, aching body. Just a man!

The exhibit is up till February 12.

Days Three through 100…maybe when the beloved Met opens again fulltime.

Membership used to be less expensive if you live outside a 60 mile radius of the New York metropolitan area. (Too late, all you hicks! Your discount is gone!) But happily there is no premium for living just across the park. I plunked down my credit card for a membership and received two tickets. Since I was alone, I turned to the woman behind me in line. Be my guest, I said, handing her the extra ticket and wading quickly into the maelstrom that is the Great Hall. Which way to go? The stony Greeks and Romans? The superstitious Egyptians? Or did I want the more colorful, wide-eyed perspective of Medieval art? As I moved through the crowd, dense with people heat, all manner of faces, expressions—and breath—I turned to the west wall. And in that exact moment there for only a second under the heading MEMBERS COUNT flashed my name, big block letters in white light.

It was thrilling, the serendipity of seeing my name on that limestone wall, as if the museum had called me out, VAL! VAL! This place belongs to you, too. My rehab. My Greeks. My Romans. My Medieval friends.

And next, My Michelangelo’s Sorry Ass.