Long Lost

I had just completed an interview I did for an article I'm writing for my old gig and was watching Ellen interrogate Malena about her choice of mates from "Average Joe" when the phone rang.

On the other end was my friend Kim, someone I've known now for 12 years. Jesus Christ. Anyway, we met the summer before our freshman year at Chico State and lived together our sophomore year. We lost touch and found each other again a couple of years ago, only to lose touch again. Well she found me today and it was an awesome surprise.

After Kim and I got off the phone, I procrastinated no longer. I got dressed and went to the Tea Lounge to read. I didn't get much done, because I was reading the text really slow. It's Denise Riley's "Does a Sex Have a History." It's one of about four texts I have to read for my paper -- due in six days -- on post-structuralism. It may be the beginning of my thesis. Speaking of which, last night, in my statement-of-purpose-writing hell, I was looking for a quote (a suggestion of Cornelia's) to put at the top of the statement. I looked through Virginia Woolf's Orlando and found:

… This mysterious composition which we call society, is nothing absolutely good or bad in itself, but has a spirit in it, volatile but potent, which either makes you drunk when you think it, as Orlando thought it, delightful, or gives you a headache when you think it, as Orlando thought it, repulsive.”

As I perused other parts of the book, I found passages concerning gender around Orlando's switch from a man to a woman. Then it dawned on me that, perhaps, I can do a post-structuralist analysis (with some modification by me) on the two gendered figures in Hedwig and Orlando for my thesis. I'm going to read the book after I raise from hell next week to see if I want to pursue that idea.  But for now, I'm getting back to my statement.