Even cowboys

It's Friday evening and the kitchen is currently hosted by a band of brothers, a gang of boys. They're peeling potatoes, and trying to make sense of something I would probably refer to as the matter of homosexuality and hegemonic masculinity:

- That is so gay. One is so obviously gay, looking like that.
- No, there’s no such thing as 'looking gay'. You can never tell! Have you not seen Brokeback Mountain!?

Ouch

Ape is gone and all is darkness. Proof of the darkness was earlier today provided by tiny, who were convinced that the sole reason Spotify was malfunctioning was because Ape had left the country. And me, I've been forced to socialize with people who aren’t Ape. It proved difficult. Yesterday night, an *acquaintance* approached me and, apropos of nothing:

- You damn imperialist swine!
- What…? I thought we were friends!?
- That’s only on Facebook.
- Oh.

Lättköpt.

- Hej det är Lydia från Bonniers
- Från vad?
- Eh... va?
- Från vad sa du?
- Bonniers!
- Bonniers?
- Ja, Bonniers.
- Mm. Bra.
- Jag har ett riktigt toppenerbjudande här till dig! Du får två nummer av en av tre tidningar plus ett knivset utan kostnad som i handeln skulle kosta dig 399 kronor! Du betalar bara 69 kronor och du kan säga upp prenumerationen direkt efter att du fått de två första tidningarna.
- M-hm. Vad är det för tidningar då?
- Du kan välja mellan är PC för alla, Aktiv Träning eller National Geographics.
- Okej…
- Ja… Det är ett jättebra erbjudande!
- Jag läser inte någon av de där tidningarna.
- Nehe…
(…)
- Men jag vill verkligen ha knivar.

Successfully aborted in the 16oo's.

Me and Ape have been in class together many times, but never voluntarily so. Drawn together in high school, we were struggling just to survive to lunch break or the end of the day. There were moments of extreme joy, no doubt. But the feeling you get when you choose to study something out of pure interest and inclination and you find yourself doing just that, and now together with a friend, is frickin' awesome.

It doesn’t matter that the current lecturer is best described as a person who seems to be making a bad impersonation of someone with an absolute lack of charisma and authority but really, and sadly, is only that. We had two goals as we entered the classroom. The first was to convince the class that reading Woolf’s Orlando was a good idea. The person without charisma proved helpful in this quest and we soon won great success. Our next goal was to get Wednesdays for the Woolf-group. We got Tuesdays. Why? Because the Aggressive-Sixties’-Feminism seminar group wanted Tuesdays and we didn’t feel like picking a fight with this lot and thus risk reviving certain tedious and old-fashioned preconceptions. We’re unbiased and we’ll stay unbiased. Tuesdays.

Actually, we sort of had a third goal going on as well. We thought it would be appropriate, almost expected, to dress up like “feminist classics”, as it WAS the name of the class. Turns out it wasn’t. Expected. But we still felt strangely appropriate in our light versions of butch/femme outfits.

............................

Lecturer: So, any more suggestions…? Yes?
Cuba boy: I want to read something a little more modern. Maybe social constructivist…
Ape: Judith Butler.
*Mousse looks at Ape with terror*
(...)
Lecturer: Judith Butler is a good idea.
Mousse (silently): No, it isn’t! *hits Ape*

Torsdag

I kassan på Åhléns:

Jag betalar för något medan Ape står tyst bredvid och kollar på för att sedan plötsligt dela med sig av en lysande idé:

- Vi går ner till Hemköp och köper vaselin sen!
- JA!

En blick från kassörskan och vi ångrar vår överentusiasm.