The hour badly spent

Leave it to an English professor to use a high-minded subject like medieval literature as an excuse to flirt with students and fixate on sex, thus guaranteeing a captive audience.

"I’m a big geek," she said, going on to prove it by explaining that she watched the special features on her Lord of the Rings DVDs, which gave her insight into armor worn by medieval knights. Hell yeah that’s hot, and that’s not all.

Today’s topic was the lais (songs performed in 13th and 14th century Europe) written by Marie de France. What are lais usually about? Matlock explained by means of what she called a bad joke: "A lai is basically a brief romance." Actually that was an excellent joke.

One lai was about Lanval, a knight in King Arthur’s court. Depressed, Lanval went off into the forest and fell in love with a magic pixie dream girl. She loved him back and blessed him with wealth. Lanval grew generous at court, and people started to like him.

Once Lanval’s status rose among his peers, Queen Guinivere went after his nuts (and failed). Matlock made kissey noises to illustrate her point.

Later we discussed Tristan and Isolde, a timeless tale illustrating the pleasure of adulterous lovers being together. Matlock was satisfied that the movie "had pretty people." (We like when teachers take backhanded swipes at subject matter).

By the end of the class, there was more material to examine, but not enough time for it. "I skipped the part about celibacy," she said. "You can read that by yourself if you’re interested."

Did she just tell us to go masturbate? We were going to do that anyway.

I asked him why he doesn’t date the Chinese girl who tutors him in English. He told me he prefers girls with big chests. He called it "volume up."

As we float towards autumn I can’t help but be reminded of that feeling of being newly in love. The whole world is so beautiful, everything a delight. Winter snow feels like warm summer nights; every outing precious and magical. Even every second you spend alone is surging and overflowing with anticipation, for that next time you meet.

It’s like that night she was in your car, that old 95 Mitsubishi, driving up through the hills with the windows down and the radio way up, and you pretended to sing along to punk rock songs you didn’t know just to impress her. And maybe it worked, because she didn’t mind one bit when you put your hand on her thigh; you even thought you could see her blushing and trying to hide it. Or maybe you were still too shy to touch her but she gave you that look, when you dropped her off, that smile both happy and not really innocent, and you told yourself next time you shouldn’t be so shy.
 
No, I’m not dating anyone. I’m just back in Manhattan, that’s all.

Puzzling.

I thought They Hate Our Freedoms. So why would they exercise them?

So I tried to ponder some terrorists.

Yes, there was that business in New York. But there have been other things, too. Tim McVeigh, for instance, struck me as fairly wingnutty. So maybe it’s not traditional acts of terrorism that make you a terrorist. Maybe it’s just the state of being a Democrat. Maybe all Democrats are terrorists! John Edwards does kind of have a wild look in his eye. Perhaps the only way to prove your loyalty to the Constitution and your respect for the rule of law is to join a party with a non-violent platform, like the Communists.