Sourcing and the future. Or, the way we were.

I'm slowly being squeezed to death by gender theory. Simultaneously, I am being force fed Foucault and Butler. Two separate classes, teaching the same theorists. No one else knows this pain, the gradual tightening of the noose of gender theory.
I'm realizing that there are some things in life you just don't want to understand. I don't want to think more about it. It is what it is, I want to write on the paper that's due Thursday. It is what it is and what I think doesn't matter now and won't ever.
But that's not why we throw money at education, is it?
I'd like to have learned something useful; been forced to take classes about resume building and interviewing, ideas of lives well-led. The journeys that the professors themselves have been on to get to where they are today.
Not everyone skyrockets straight to the top, but they don't tell you that.
They string you along and then dump you, indebted and lonely, a twenty two year old graduate with a bachelor's degree in something you thought you'd love. Then what?

I found a quote that I loved, in a memoir by a transsexual. I love this book. I started it last night. I relate to this woman (not sexuality-wise) but I love her life and her observations and her humor and her narrative voice.

"Briefly I was a journalist in my twenties, although not a very good one. I didn't quite grasp the whole concept of accuracy. Whenever I needed a quote, I'd just make one up and attribute it to an 'anonymous source.' On one occasion, I alleged that something had been stated 'according to someone that would know.'"
-From She's Not There, by Jennifer Boylan.


This morning in the pouring rain, a very soaked me was handed the free newspaper. I accepted, then remember, shit, now you're obligated to tip. She's a nice lady, she stands there every morning. I shrugged when she asked me if I had any change and then dug in my pockets.
"It's fresh from the closet," I said apologetically. She laughed in a good natured way. Then I turned and  ran into a man while waiting to cross Sheridan Rd. He asked me if I was a Taurus, to which I replied yes. He showed me his Illinois state ID. May 18, same birthday as me. I told him so.
"You play sports?" he asked. I laughed and shook my head. "You've got the legs for it." I laughed again.
He told me something about his fingernails, then asked me if I was a smoker. "It was bad nail polish," I said defensively. (I currently have yellow nails stained from the dark red nail polish of last week.)
"Brittle," he replied.
True.
He told me he was a musician, "like the Beatles," and then proceeded to keep talking as I crossed the street. "My brother....KRS-One....rap artist...." I heard as the light changed and I walked away.

I'm going to miss mornings like that. I'm not quite sure that Denver will have them.