"Mommy, am I famous yet?"
3/04/2007
The Absent Professor
Yesterday morning, Max and I went to take a tour of the house we'll be living in next year. Yes, I somehow managed to wrangle up a housing situation consisting almost entirely of Interactive Media people -- two girls, two dudes, and me -- but truly, I struck gold with it.
"It belongs to a professor," explained one of the girls when she first described it to me, "so overall it's in better condition than the other houses around here -- and also partially furnished -- but he's currently on sabbatical." She went on to describe how nice the house was, with "a lovely garden in the back." The price was right, and the people seemed cool, and anyway my housing situation was becoming dire, so I dived in without even having visited it.
Friday morning, though, Max and I got to see it for the first time. The property manager let us in and showed us around, and my knees grew weak as she pointed out luxury after luxury -- a garden where I could read, windows with eastern light, heating, air conditioning, a dishwasher, an indoor laundry machine that didn't even require quarters!
"The art on the walls belongs to the professor," the property manager was saying, "so you have to leave that there. We really want you to take good care of this house, so it'll be nice for him when he gets back."
"You can count on us," I said, based on no evidence, as I looked around trying to guess what kind of person the professor was. I liked the art on the walls -- Japanese prints of birds, and some interesting-looking tribal art. A professor of anthropology, perhaps?
It was only then that it even occurred to me to ask: "Who is this professor, anyway?"
The property manager said, "His name is Walter Williams."
I tried to remember where I'd heard that name before. Then, suddenly, I remembered. I nearly fainted.
"Walter Williams," I said, "the professor of Gender Studies? The author of The Spirit and the Flesh?"
"Yes, that's him!" she said. "Do you know him?"
I didn't think she'd be interested to know that back during the first semester of my freshman year, he'd held a seminar called "THE TRUTH ABOUT COWBOYS: The Gay Roots of the Wild West," and that I'd attended, and that afterward I bought his book, and he autographed it and we had a nice chat, and I blogged the whole thing, and it was then that I began to contemplate declaring a minor in Gender Studies, and I still have the book...and suddenly, without even knowing it, I was going to be living in his house.
Instead I just said, "It's a very small world."
- posted by Frankie @ 2:59 AM
Yesterday morning, Max and I went to take a tour of the house we'll be living in next year. Yes, I somehow managed to wrangle up a housing situation consisting almost entirely of Interactive Media people -- two girls, two dudes, and me -- but truly, I struck gold with it.
"It belongs to a professor," explained one of the girls when she first described it to me, "so overall it's in better condition than the other houses around here -- and also partially furnished -- but he's currently on sabbatical." She went on to describe how nice the house was, with "a lovely garden in the back." The price was right, and the people seemed cool, and anyway my housing situation was becoming dire, so I dived in without even having visited it.
Friday morning, though, Max and I got to see it for the first time. The property manager let us in and showed us around, and my knees grew weak as she pointed out luxury after luxury -- a garden where I could read, windows with eastern light, heating, air conditioning, a dishwasher, an indoor laundry machine that didn't even require quarters!
"The art on the walls belongs to the professor," the property manager was saying, "so you have to leave that there. We really want you to take good care of this house, so it'll be nice for him when he gets back."
"You can count on us," I said, based on no evidence, as I looked around trying to guess what kind of person the professor was. I liked the art on the walls -- Japanese prints of birds, and some interesting-looking tribal art. A professor of anthropology, perhaps?
It was only then that it even occurred to me to ask: "Who is this professor, anyway?"
The property manager said, "His name is Walter Williams."
I tried to remember where I'd heard that name before. Then, suddenly, I remembered. I nearly fainted.
"Walter Williams," I said, "the professor of Gender Studies? The author of The Spirit and the Flesh?"
"Yes, that's him!" she said. "Do you know him?"
I didn't think she'd be interested to know that back during the first semester of my freshman year, he'd held a seminar called "THE TRUTH ABOUT COWBOYS: The Gay Roots of the Wild West," and that I'd attended, and that afterward I bought his book, and he autographed it and we had a nice chat, and I blogged the whole thing, and it was then that I began to contemplate declaring a minor in Gender Studies, and I still have the book...and suddenly, without even knowing it, I was going to be living in his house.
Instead I just said, "It's a very small world."
- posted by Frankie @ 2:59 AM
