The time draws nigh!
May 13, 2008
I set my alarm for 7:55 this morning, the earliest all semester. I woke up at 9:30. Damn that frustrates me, but that’s still pretty early considering.
I got into Armstrong library at 10:30 and worked on my Political Geography final / paper / thing until 1:20ish when I went to lunch until about 2. From 2 – 7:30 I was back in the library! I finished it, I believe, and while it’s not superb it is done, which is something. I don’t know about straight A’s again this semester, sorry Bumdaddy!
Well that leaves just one more paper! And it’s for Women’s and Gender Studies (WAGS), to boot. It’ll be a delight to write. We read the novel “Egalia’s Daughters,” the first novel I’ve read in college (I’d forgotten how quickly fiction reads, as opposed to journal articles! blech.) It’s a sort of utopia / dystopia book, depicting a parallel world in which the “wim” are the empowered gender and the “menwim” are the submissive, passive, and gentle gender. “Menwim” are biologically what we’d call men, and they’re all as straight as we are (however straight that is), the roles are simply reversed. Wim are given pay bonuses for maternity leave. Menwim stay at home and cook etc. It was interesting brain-bender. I’m writing my paper on the language the author invented (“wim” and all the corresponding pronouns, the philosophers Clara Sparks and Sigma Floyd (haha…), the unit of currency is a “dollable,” things like that) as an outlet for my linguistic cravings. It should be a fun and easy paper.
I’ve got some things to do before Saturday! I need to clean out my gym and music lockers, return my skiis to the alpine shop (pretty sure they’re 2 weeks overdue… shit.), unplug the fridge before it molds, sell my books, buy some books, fill out a nothing-in-my-room-is-damaged form, and clean up everything and pack it up. In a few minutes I’m headed to the “Otter Nonsense” show – this is the college’s improv group. My good friend Ken is in it this semester, but I haven’t seen any shows this spring so I’m excited. Afterwards, there’s Midnight Breakfast, which is always offered during finals week but which I’ve never had enough energy to go to. I still don’t have any energy, but I figure I should make an appearance at least once.
I got another call from the Cambridge office for the Campaign to Save the Environment. My other boss, Sarah (different Sarah!), was just checking to see if I had any other questions. The only one I really had was where the office is. So I have an address and directions! While I’m excited for the job, I’m going to RELISH the 10 days of pure vacation I have between college and work.
I keep asking Sarah (the girlfriend) whether or not I should invite her to the family reunion in June. As the date approaches it looks unlikely, mostly for financial reasons. Maybe next time.
I don’t expect you to make all A’s everytime…all work and no play makes for dull lives and would be too hard on my wallet to boot! Glad you had a happy 19th.Congratulations. I took a course in women’s studies in Cambridge University, England, summer of 1983 and enjoyed it. Read Va. Wolfe’s A Room Of One’s Own,” etc. Hope Sarah can come but understand about finances.Ann and I went on Mother’s Day to see Tchaikovsky’s ballet, Sleeping Beauty, performed by Research Triangle Youth Ballet Co. and the kids, mostly high school age, were wonderful and the choreography and the NC Symphony orchestra were supurb. I know some snobby critics consider Tchaikovsky too sentimental, but I love his melodies and musicality…he was the first composer of real ballet music. We saw his Swan Lake by a professional S. Korean troup some years ago and liked the local kids better. Certainly Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony and The 1812 Overture ,or even Marche Slave aren’t soft, sweet, and sentimental. We’re looking forward to whatever musical renditions you and Marion have planned for us, but as I told Molly, I hoped you don’t feel compelled to be too unctious or deferential, altho I do hope to be spared rap and hiphop el crapo. I like melody, harmony, sentiment if not sentimentality and clever lyrics and play on words, etc. and not excessive riotous racket.
You made a cryptic remark about the men in the role reversal novel being straight(“however straight that is”). It is my belief that both men and women on a scale of 1-10…the one being the straightest and 10 being pretty flaming…would register some where above one and considerably below a ten, with many coming in at about a three or four, and beyond a certain age, as people decide who they are and want to be, wind up compensating and adapting to societal norms. Which means that normal homosexual feelings and interests are supplemented, subordinated to, rationalized and accommodated through friendships, common interests and projected and focused upon other things. Once curiosity and taboos are satisfied or overcome, most “normal” men and women, having moved on past early to mid teens, settle down and come down on the side of heterosexuality as being the choice they prefer. I don’t doubt that there are some people who from an early age, for whatever reason,don’t believe they ever had a choice, and maybe they didn’t. And there are people who have swung both ways and then made a choice one way or the other. Most people wonder about it some, don’t experiment, and just let it go. Others do experiment and then decide, “nah, that’s not for me,” and others go wherever their beliefs, lack of inhibitions, or inclination takes them. Even those who hover in the 5 zone usually don’t act out what they sometimes consider. But one can certainly love a friend of the same sex and enjoy the company of both men and women without being self conscious about it or branding oneself with a label. It is to a large degree a psychological thing. As someone else has observed, a person’s most important sexual organ is his/her brain. A lot of traditional male and female behavior, which isn’t really sexual, is culturally derived, different in Europe than in America. One can see Asian youths walk down the street holding hands and there is nothing sexual about it. If the “average” American young man did that over here, eye brows would be raised.
Men and women differ too; women often sublimate their affection for each other by openly hugging and embracing, going to the ladies room together to comb their hair, etc. Men almost never do that, although a good natured enthusiastic hug between male friends after a good performance(whether it be athletic, musical, project completed, whatever) is increasingly and unselfconsciously practiced today, especially in the Gen. X and Next crowd.
I know the prevailing thought today is that real homosexuals are “hard wired” from birth, but I have always had some reservtions about that, but neither do I think it is a simple free choice. To state is rather bluntly, the male instinct is to place and put, the female to accept and receive, and both find such an arrangement more physically and psychologically satisfying and pleasurable than any other. Most , that is, some others may not, and thankfully society has finally reached the point where it’s OK to be what one wants to be, as an old song ca 1946 observed, “To each, his own.”
Now you see what your mother and Uncles David and Phil had to put up with whenever they made what I thought was a cryptic comment. Our family always just talked about everything, as I was growing up: no subject taboo and everyone entitled to an opinion, regardless of what it was, but ofcourse, that was always asking for discussion, if not an argument, and often invasion of one’s privacy. Ann came from an entirely different backgrounmd, but she soon learned although she often is inclined to tell people, and esp. me, to mind my own business. and you’re free to do the same, Grandson. but my reply will probably be, “deal with it.”
Love, Bumdaddy
Haha, I don’t mind at all. The 1-10 scale was exactly what I was getting at.
Good grief. (re: Bumdaddy’s length, not topic choice or content)
Fix “too boot” and “wright.”
Love,
Mama