Dec. 9th, 2002 10:38 am
Dreamy Sunday
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muckefuckYesterday was like a dream, from beginning to end. I don't know where the time went, so stealthily did it creep away. I felt I slept enough, yet I was also somewhat groggy--at times, too sleepy to read. Monshu and I had a wonderful time rolling around together and then rinsing off all the sweat and stickiness in the shower. Then he put me to work proofreading a presentation for his upcoming class while he did finances. I suggested some changes and we got off on a discussion of Roman education, particularly the cursus honorum, and of historical change in general. He talked a little wistfully of going back to school when he retires--though he probably can't afford to ever retire--and studying the syncretism of pagan and Christian scholarship in the late Empire.
I spent some time at the computer doing work on a Li Bai poem from a scroll Monshu was thinking of buying and got the satisfaction of recognising that both English translations we had had completely bolloxed the first line. A beautiful image apparently comparing sunlight on the mist rising from a waterfall to smoke rising from a fire of fresh kindling (my Chinese isn't that competent) is nowhere to be found in either adaptation. (Oddly, when searching for alternative translations, I found those in foreign languages outnumbered those in English.)
For lunch, I reheated some of the hearty turkey barley soup he'd made the previous night with the carcass from the weekend before. Afterwards, we napped. I only slept a half-hour, but somehow it seemed much, much longer than that. He puttered a bit more and mid-afternoon we set out for Boul Mich to pick up a book from Borders, dine at Bandera, and--at long last--catch The Ring. Conscious of the fact that my lingering at Borders is what caused us to miss this movie the last time we'd tried to see it, I stood outside while he hunted down a copy of The name of the rose. There was no line at Bandera and I marvelled at how quiet it was, given that the interior seemed to harbour the same hard surfaces that are de rigueur in trendy Chicago restaurants. I don't think I'd been back since the groomsmen's lunch for my brother's wedding. He had tasty lamb and I some firm-fleshed Hawai'ian fish called, oddly enough, opa. Dessert was a sort of deconstructed banana cream pie.
Then came the real surprise: Monshu treated me--in return, he said, for the work I had put in on his course and for being so understanding of the time he was spending on it. I was amazed; as my neglected friends know, we've had more time together the last few weeks than for months. Maybe it doesn't seem like time together to him, since he's bent over his labtop for much of it, but it spawns these fascinating discussions that are the best part of dating a former doctoral student. I remembered how some months ago I told a friend in SF that Monshu and I were working together to catalogue his scroll collection. He responded with envy; he couldn't have seen himself and his recently departed boyfriend collaborating on a project like that.
And the current work does feel like collaboration, despite the fact that he's the nationally-known published author in the field of library science and I don't even have a degree. He's even asked me to give a presentation to his class about the classification system I use, since it's different from the one he knows best. I said I might feel differently in the spring, once he actually starts teaching, but that I wasn't feeling at all neglected now. I think that, subconsciously, he works harder at making time when he's devoted to a project.
We had a little time to kill after dinner, so we spent it in Virgin mocking sale albums. The theatre was nearly empty. I thought the movie's scariness had been exaggerated, but it was so well-crafted that I wasn't in the least disappointed; Monshu loved it, too. On the walk to the bus stop, I was gabbling on to him about other treatments of the same theme (like "The Bottle Imp"). And that has got to be the best false ending I've seen in years! The boy's incredulous response to his mother's "help" kept recurring to me throughout the evening. But, when it came time to sleep, I had no trouble. After all, I don't even have a television at my place. I felt so contented, warm, and safe, it was like I'd never left my bed that morning
I spent some time at the computer doing work on a Li Bai poem from a scroll Monshu was thinking of buying and got the satisfaction of recognising that both English translations we had had completely bolloxed the first line. A beautiful image apparently comparing sunlight on the mist rising from a waterfall to smoke rising from a fire of fresh kindling (my Chinese isn't that competent) is nowhere to be found in either adaptation. (Oddly, when searching for alternative translations, I found those in foreign languages outnumbered those in English.)
For lunch, I reheated some of the hearty turkey barley soup he'd made the previous night with the carcass from the weekend before. Afterwards, we napped. I only slept a half-hour, but somehow it seemed much, much longer than that. He puttered a bit more and mid-afternoon we set out for Boul Mich to pick up a book from Borders, dine at Bandera, and--at long last--catch The Ring. Conscious of the fact that my lingering at Borders is what caused us to miss this movie the last time we'd tried to see it, I stood outside while he hunted down a copy of The name of the rose. There was no line at Bandera and I marvelled at how quiet it was, given that the interior seemed to harbour the same hard surfaces that are de rigueur in trendy Chicago restaurants. I don't think I'd been back since the groomsmen's lunch for my brother's wedding. He had tasty lamb and I some firm-fleshed Hawai'ian fish called, oddly enough, opa. Dessert was a sort of deconstructed banana cream pie.
Then came the real surprise: Monshu treated me--in return, he said, for the work I had put in on his course and for being so understanding of the time he was spending on it. I was amazed; as my neglected friends know, we've had more time together the last few weeks than for months. Maybe it doesn't seem like time together to him, since he's bent over his labtop for much of it, but it spawns these fascinating discussions that are the best part of dating a former doctoral student. I remembered how some months ago I told a friend in SF that Monshu and I were working together to catalogue his scroll collection. He responded with envy; he couldn't have seen himself and his recently departed boyfriend collaborating on a project like that.
And the current work does feel like collaboration, despite the fact that he's the nationally-known published author in the field of library science and I don't even have a degree. He's even asked me to give a presentation to his class about the classification system I use, since it's different from the one he knows best. I said I might feel differently in the spring, once he actually starts teaching, but that I wasn't feeling at all neglected now. I think that, subconsciously, he works harder at making time when he's devoted to a project.
We had a little time to kill after dinner, so we spent it in Virgin mocking sale albums. The theatre was nearly empty. I thought the movie's scariness had been exaggerated, but it was so well-crafted that I wasn't in the least disappointed; Monshu loved it, too. On the walk to the bus stop, I was gabbling on to him about other treatments of the same theme (like "The Bottle Imp"). And that has got to be the best false ending I've seen in years! The boy's incredulous response to his mother's "help" kept recurring to me throughout the evening. But, when it came time to sleep, I had no trouble. After all, I don't even have a television at my place. I felt so contented, warm, and safe, it was like I'd never left my bed that morning
Tags: