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What does a day look like in my new apartment? Like this:
I woke late this morning, the day after the fast of Yom Kippur, to the sound of my roommate's boyfriend playing klezmer (a type of Eastern European Jewish traditional music) on his accordion. It was actually a pleasant sound -- it reminded me of old Sunday mornings, when I was a ten-year-old member of the synagogue choir and the accordion was played by our cantor. My other roommate and her boyfriend were davening Shacharit (saying morning prayers). I set up brunch with the leftover bagels and kugel from last night's breaking-the-fast. It was about as Jewish as life ever gets.
Roommate #2 and boyfriend #2 headed to Hillel to help build their sukkah (sort of a ritual portable tent thing we use during next week's holiday). Roommate #1 and boyfriend #1 dared San Francisco's Folsom Street Fair, an event in which, to quote boyfriend #1, "All these gay guys walk around in leather with their butts hanging out." I stayed home to do laundry and grade papers; much clothing was washed and few papers were graded. After some hours, the roommates, minus boyfriends, returned. Roommate #2 had minor injuries, but they were from the morning bagels, not from the sukkah building. Roommate #1 had a catalog of very interesting and moderately frightening objects, few of which were anatomically compatible with the actual residents of the apartment. Roommates #1 and 2 happily discussed said objects; I was trying (and mostly failing) to focus on research papers about Puritans.
The roommates succeeded in completely distracting me when they placed Hedwig and the Angry Inch in the DVD player. I tried to listen to the music while reading the papers, but there was no hope for me. Within twenty minutes I was staring at the screen. Within thirty I was muttering about Plato's Symposium. By the end I was performing close reading on the gender dynamics of the film and their culmination in the final reunification of the splintered self that was Hedwig/Tommy, and my roommates were trying to shut up the jargon machine.
Me: I wonder how many queer theory papers have been written about this movie.
Roommate #1: You were just writing one as we sat here.
Me: I'm sorry, it's hard-wired into the brain cells!
Roommate #1: I kinda gathered.
We sat there happily singing "I Put On Some Makeup" along with the credits for a while. Sadly, when we turned the TV off, we discovered that the neighbors had turned on competing music. It's 1 AM on a Monday, and we're all doomed to listen to the Backstreet Boys. And my papers are not graded. Typical.
I woke late this morning, the day after the fast of Yom Kippur, to the sound of my roommate's boyfriend playing klezmer (a type of Eastern European Jewish traditional music) on his accordion. It was actually a pleasant sound -- it reminded me of old Sunday mornings, when I was a ten-year-old member of the synagogue choir and the accordion was played by our cantor. My other roommate and her boyfriend were davening Shacharit (saying morning prayers). I set up brunch with the leftover bagels and kugel from last night's breaking-the-fast. It was about as Jewish as life ever gets.
Roommate #2 and boyfriend #2 headed to Hillel to help build their sukkah (sort of a ritual portable tent thing we use during next week's holiday). Roommate #1 and boyfriend #1 dared San Francisco's Folsom Street Fair, an event in which, to quote boyfriend #1, "All these gay guys walk around in leather with their butts hanging out." I stayed home to do laundry and grade papers; much clothing was washed and few papers were graded. After some hours, the roommates, minus boyfriends, returned. Roommate #2 had minor injuries, but they were from the morning bagels, not from the sukkah building. Roommate #1 had a catalog of very interesting and moderately frightening objects, few of which were anatomically compatible with the actual residents of the apartment. Roommates #1 and 2 happily discussed said objects; I was trying (and mostly failing) to focus on research papers about Puritans.
The roommates succeeded in completely distracting me when they placed Hedwig and the Angry Inch in the DVD player. I tried to listen to the music while reading the papers, but there was no hope for me. Within twenty minutes I was staring at the screen. Within thirty I was muttering about Plato's Symposium. By the end I was performing close reading on the gender dynamics of the film and their culmination in the final reunification of the splintered self that was Hedwig/Tommy, and my roommates were trying to shut up the jargon machine.
Me: I wonder how many queer theory papers have been written about this movie.
Roommate #1: You were just writing one as we sat here.
Me: I'm sorry, it's hard-wired into the brain cells!
Roommate #1: I kinda gathered.
We sat there happily singing "I Put On Some Makeup" along with the credits for a while. Sadly, when we turned the TV off, we discovered that the neighbors had turned on competing music. It's 1 AM on a Monday, and we're all doomed to listen to the Backstreet Boys. And my papers are not graded. Typical.
