Day 148: College girls, hot professors and me

When you are almost 36 years old, as I will be tomorrow, you only go back to school if you are really freaking serious. There’s no way in hell you’d otherwise subject yourself to being surrounded by empty-eyed eighteen-year olds all day every day. I have a friend who amuses herself by trying to convince me that the girls on our campus are hot, but I refuse to play the role of the lecherous old dyke. That’s just wrong, y’all.

And anyway, when I see these nubile young things lolling about on the quad like so many sun-baked hounds, I think one thing above all:

I want to turn the hose on them.

Clearly I’m getting more curmudgeonly by the day.
(Word recommends “curmudgeonlier” –thoughts on that, anyone?)

But older women, now that’s a different story. I have a professor we’ll call HC (short for Head Crush - Karen shout out #1). This woman is so smart it hurts to look at her. Also, she is funny, harsh, lovely, neurotic, desperately uncool, unbelievably difficult and – to me – just one of the hottest things around. And I know we all learn differently, I know about “multiple intelligences” and all that, but I’ve noticed that there’s something to be said for a touch of the erotic in pedagogy. It works on my own students, too (these are college students, ok, I’m not advocating flirting with middle schoolers). But because this woman is so hot, I kick my own ass to impress her. I can’t hand in a pile of shite if she’s going to read it, right? I don’t want her to think I’m stupid; if she thinks I’m smart, I might get to keep flirting with her, in spite of the fact that she seems completely unaware of it. (Shout out #2 to Karen, who referred to this woman’s oblivion as “her Helen Keller way”.)

Which acknowledgement of Karen’s fine phrasing brings me to my own how-I-met-Karen story. I met her in January through Craigslist, while perusing the w4w ads looking for a place to watch the L Word. (please note that I’m not claiming not to read Craigslist ads at other times.) If any of you have ventured into that women’s personals territory, you are probably now (if you weren’t already) rabid tax-and-spend liberals, at least when it comes to education –

because the women in this city CANNOT WRITE OR SPELL. jesucristo, people. It’s unbelievable.

OK, but there was a post called “The difference between ‘you’re’ and ‘your’”. Now that kind of snottiness is irresistible, as bad spelling and grammar are huge turnoffs but also cause for hilarity, right? (the reverse, or inverse, or chiasmus or whatever is also true). Oh man. And I wish I could quote it here but don’t remember, except that it did lay out rules for usage and then propose, in a wonderfully cheerful tone, that people “try it in a sentence”! I had to respond. My first contact with the lovely Ms. K began, “Dear Literate Craigslist User”. She wrote back and told me that being called literate turned her on. Flirtation ensued, then abated. Eventually we met, we clicked, we watched the L Word and laughed our asses off, we walked, we talked on the phone about our obsessions, I fell wildly in love with her dogs…
and, having lived here only since August, I feel especially lucky to have met this one so quickly. And if you aren’t lucky enough to live in LA, or you’ve only met Karen through this blog, or you’ve met Karen but you haven’t seen her in a while, you should know this: the girl is looking good.

and that's what's up.