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...andthegreyinyourhairisjustrighttouchmyheadwiththatbeautifulhandthatyouwave
aroundandgodifyoucrackyourfingersanymoreimighthavetoputoneinmymouth...

(excerpts from an email)

hey dude,

well...i would say "guess where i was?" but then you'd guess and i'd still be here wanting to write it, and it would be a big ol' retarded mess, so i'll just tell you. i just spent a lovely 1 and a half hours in the office of everybody's favourite (well, my favourite) intellectual, herr doktor hottie. i got my paper back and was all blushy as he told me how good it was. dude, he's heavy-handed with the 87%s, because that's what i got, too. and heeeeyyy, weren't you stoned for half of your paper? no fair! mine was written sheerly under the influence of loooove, not drugs! surely i get morality points for that?

anyhoo...after we "rapped" about how great i am, he gave me a bunch of addresses of colleagues he met/worked with in poland, since i told him i was going to warsaw this summer and might want to look up....stuff? (shout-out to ralph wiggum) i didn't expect him to bust out his rolodex and give me these professor's cellphone numbers, but hey...i'll take it! besides, it makes me look all smartified and dedicated to the task of uncovering historical truths and intellectual blah blah blah blah. like i said, i was trying to keep him talking so maybe he would notice how lovely my eyes happen to be today (though i'm sure he'd be more inclined to notice how crazed they look - damn allergies/allergy medication).

THEN i talked about my big ol' independent research thingy (hey, it's gotta come in handy for something!) and basically told him that i was inbred. ummmm, well, how can i put this. i told him that EVERYONE in that town did a little double dipping in the ol' gene pool, and that my mom and i talked about how my dad's cousin was missing her eye teeth, a very telling marker of the inbred mutant (i didn't use those words, either). but that i was ok, since my dad married my mom, and she was from england let alone the next town, so i'm safe. no banjo-playin' here.

THEN as if that wasn't enough, we got onto the subject of my dad being a diplomat, and my whole "i was born here, and then we moved here, and then we moved here, and then we moved here..." thing. and just as that was getting interesting, who should appear at his door, but X, who i always thought had a thing for him, too (and was trying to trap me into saying i had a thing for him). we looked at each other like two cats headed towards the same dead mouse. or something. smile, nod, "hey!' yeah. then hottie, being the gentleman that he is, offered to get her a chair, and i could hear her protesting (prostest more, dammit!) but he got her a chair and there she was. so we chatted a little bit more (hottie told her that i was planning on doing some research, and i had to suddenly come up with a reason why...i couldn't. i said "for fun." hey, it happens.) and then i made my exit. but not before forgetting my bike seat.

the end.

so now i have a crazy headache (this has happened before!) and i biked away from the building so quickly that i forgot i had something i needed to take to the college registrar. damn that girl and her meddling ways!

i didn't see any evidence of "family" photos or kid's artwork in his office, but for some odd reason he had a spiderman pencilcase on his desk. hmm. well, i carried a barbie pencilcase for the better part of my adult life. maybe we have a pencilcase connection, too.

anyhoo. he told me to give one of the people he listed for me a call, so now if i don't, it's going to look VERY suspicious! or at least terribly irresponsible of me, so i'd better come up with a graduate thesis, fast! haaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaa! (me going crazy under the weight of my own tawdry scheme)

did you ever think that i was this insane? you know, seeing me in class, being all keen and shit - did you ever perceive that my wee brain could be concocting such innane plans and formulations, borne from obsession and maniacal craziness?

or maybe i'm not that insane. maybe that X is there right now telling him that she wants to write a holocaust novel, and needs his help. or something. i'm not crazy. i'm not.....

so yeah. let's drink!

sorethroat

(my face was burning for a good 30 minutes as we were talking. and i kept telling myself, "be cool. be cool, man." because it was just so nice to be chit-chatting with him, like it was nothing unusual, and i *wasn't* a crazed stalker....it felt much better than the hyperventilating weirdness that i had been feeling, like "should i end my relationship because in another parallel universe, Prof. Hottie is interested in me?" visiting the parallel universe is ok; making decisions based on it is NOT.)