Tonight I went to a lecture at Stanford entitled "Death and the Maiden: From Chaucer to Pearl Jam." It was hosted by the Medieval Studies department, featuring a top professor in the field visiting from USC, and the audience was mostly comprised of Chaucer's contemporaries. That's a bit of an exaggeration; there were a few graduate students in medieval studies there, as well as some more middle-aged professors from various departments and a smattering of what appeared to be interested non-academics. But, the elderly population was out in force; to my left was an old man with an elaborately carved walking stick replete with a serpent-head grip, and to my right was a woman who kept falling asleep and waking herself up with the force of her own half-snores. And my favorite quote came from a woman in front of me who, before the lecture, turned to her friend, pointed to the program, and asked "What is a pearl jam?"
Anyway, I'm glad that I went. The lecture topic was fascinating; the lecturer has been researching the interplay between depictions of virgins as holy and inviolate and the (sometimes simultaneous) depictions of virgins as objects of lust at the moment of death. While women in romance novels typically aren't virgins by the end (at least not in the ones I read, ha), there is a somewhat parallel trend in historical romance regarding the woman's purity before her defining relationship with the hero. I may write medieval romances someday, since they've always entertained me, so I took about four pages of notes even if I may never be able to work in much detail about virginal female saints' martyrdoms, artwork showing maidens embraced by Death, etc.
After the lecture, I came home and edited some PowerPoint (trust me, not exactly what I wanted to do, particularly since I have to have a short story for Saturday and I haven't started writing it yet). And tomorrow could be dicey -- around 10am this morning, I suddenly felt that weird, just-slightly-off feeling in my head that usually proceeds some vile illness. I've had a splitting headache the rest of the day, so I'm hoping that I'm not finally succumbing to the plagues that have spread through the office.
The bright spot, though, was lunch with Adit, Katrina, and their friend (and Iowan) Govind, who also works at my place of employment. It took my mind off my headache (even if I blame Katrina for giving it to me, since she was sick when we went out for dinner last Saturday), and we had a generally ridiculous time. There may be port in my future this weekend -- in which case, I would be better off contracting pneumonia.
Okay, it's bedtime if I'm going to make it to work tomorrow -- goodnight!
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