Being in school provides such a concrete framework for me to play in. I know it’s not supposed to be playing, but that is what it feels like. Grad school, at this point is like having a new toy box to pull from. Maybe toolbox is a more sophisticated metaphor, but I’m about to start having a lot of fun. Why? Well, here’s an example:
Me and Sigmund Freud are chillin at the coffee shop by the lake. He’s sipping tea, I’m sipping shots. He’s trying to convince me that what I physically express in my external sexual behaviors is really the exact opposite of what resides within my psyche. I am dubious. I tell him his shit only makes sense in his particular class, in his particular city, in his particular time. He may think he is describing the human mind, but it might as well be an alien to me. There is nothing universally applicable about his findings.
“We’ve moved on,” I tell him.
He scoffs at my dismissal, “So you think.”
“What?” I say, “It’s true, and besides you were wrong about almost all of your patients.”
Offended, he challenges me, “Fine, then, let me analyze you.” He holds his teacup close to his face, just on the brink of sipping, watching me, dying to go into shrink mode.
“Sure,” I say, never one to back away from a dare. “Go’head, knock your Victorian delusional self out.”
“I invented that word, you know,” one last bit of snark before he assumes the proper demeanor for analysis.
He asks me several very specific questions about my sexual preferences, experiences, dreams, fantasies and partners, demanding very explicit and specific answers. He takes notes, only a few words jotted on paper. He stops asking, pauses, then declares, “You are a classic case of inversion.”
“What? No I’m not. I mean it would be cool if I were, but I’m not homosexual.”
“Based upon how you have sex, your partner preferences, and the kinds of fantasies you have: I have decided that you are actually a gay man. When you have sex with men, you are in fact acting out an inversion. Thus, it is only when you are attracted to women that you are expressing heterosexual tendencies. And based upon both the men and women you are attracted to, I would say you are a gay black man at that.”
I blink at him rapidly. He picks lint of his sleeve, finishes his tea, looking a little smug, allowing me to process the wisdom he has bestowed upon me.
“Wow, hanging out with you is such a mind fuck,” I say shaking my head at him.
“I made up that phrase too,” he informs me snippily, as I put him in my bookbag.
Now how is that not fun? I’m having little moments like these continuously… And it’s only the first month!!