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Subject:  intellectual intercourse |
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Author: Jessie |
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Date Posted: 01:12:59 05/03/05 Tue Yearning. That is what I have been feeling lately. It seems the more I come to have in my life, the more I begin to desire. Amidst four-page handwritten letters detailing why she loves me, I crave not only her lips, but also the lips of other women. It is not a desire for sex with other women, but for intimacy with them. I crave the sensation of their heartbeats, the feeling of their chests pressed against mine-- I want to know that they are alive, that I am alive. I want to feel their desire pulse through my body, and mine through theirs. I want to feel the interconnectedness of our thoughts through the slightest touch of our bodies. As I explore theories of ekphrasis and articulate the possibility of the impossible deconstruction of hierarchical paradigms in Midwestern, mid-afternoon office hours in the center of campus, the center of the physical manifestation of knowledge, all I crave is more. I find my way into the office of the director of the undergraduate gender studies program, and I tell her I am not learning enough. I tell her the 1,000 pages I struggle, each weak, to appropriate into my body of working knowledge, cannot satisfy me. All I do is read and discuss, articulate and type, Sedgwick, Bryson, Citron, and Halberstam, they keep me company in the wee hours of the morning, them in my lap as I lie in Michelle's. Their theory is too slow for me, to cumbersome. I feel my mind racing to the arguments on page 389 before I reach page 100. I know what they are going to say; I feel as if I have read it before. I want more. I want to do field research and write my own text. But I'm an undergraduate sophomore. They tell me to wait. Don't they know who I am? Only one professor does. The same professor who waved the requirements of her class four quarters ago, and let my 18-year-old self into her 390 all-senior discussion forum. She laughed at my naiveté but never questioned me; she indulged my questions: "what does hegemony mean?" I see. Mental note. Use it tomorrow. Paper topic. "Write an epistemological analysis of..." Stay after class. "Professor, what does epistemological mean?" Discursive note. It's going to be a long weekend. Five gender studies courses later I don't know what they have left to offer me. Two more years here. Then I go for my PhD. I don't know what awaits me. All I know is that I long for intellectual intercourse. The desire for knowledge inextricably linked with the desire of the body. I crave it mostly with the texts. But sometimes I crave it with her. Perhaps because of the way she embodies what I crave to learn; the way, when she opens her mouth, her words are not wasted. Not superfluous. When she speaks I am silent. She is one of the few people I have ever encountered who can awe me into passive listening-- although she prefers when I counter back and problematize. So I do. I treat our discourse as a challenge; a sweaty battle of my mind against hers. I think a part of her wants to let me win, wants to surrender to me. After being perpetually in control, perpetually dominant, it is only natural that she would want to surrender completely into someone else's arms (or should I say the arms of the mind). In contrast to her, I am used to surrendering and long to be in control. Perhaps I am compelled to play this out with her because she is the one woman in my life I know I cannot control. I allow my girlfriend to top me because I know that if I fought with her, I could win. No need to resist. No need to struggle for control that could easily be mine. I only want to fight for what I don't know that I can have. I only want to fight the uphill battle. Only strive to accomplish the impossible. I only want to do what no one has else has ever done, what no one else can do. I ignore intermediary steps. I do not like practice. I only like the show. I would rather stumble while running than be caught with training wheels. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| Subject | Author | Date |
| You | LR | 13:36:13 05/03/05 Tue |