It's My TV….It's My Peanut Butter

I’ve always said I’m grateful to have had a brother (even though growing up there were plenty of times I wasn’t grateful to have my brother) because I think I understand the opposite sex much better than girls who grow up without them. There’s something about spending that much time in a nonsexual relationship with a member of the opposite sex that is very educational and helps you avoid certain misunderstandings if you start dating the opposite sex when you grow up. Now my brother and I are six years apart and even though we have a good relationship we weren’t super close, so I’m sure there are plenty of things I still don’t understand about guys, but I still find myself from time to time explaining male behavior to friends who’ve done more dating than I have, just because they don’t get men.

Tonight I was reminded of just exactly how much women can remain a mystery to men without sisters. I’m often amused to discover that my male friends actually believed certain movie stereotypes about women; for example, they’re often disappointed to learn that at slumber parties we don’t sit around in our underwear braiding each others’ hair (apologies to our male readers if I just shattered any fantasies). But I had never encountered the particular delusion my friend K suffered from until tonight.

K is at a special disadvantage in that he has no sisters, he works in a male dominated profession, and he’s gay. He’s spent seriously limited time around women. Tonight a bunch of us were drinking some apocalypse cocktails (don’t ask) and one of our mutual friends left, leaving behind a skirt she had just been given. We realized it after she left and there was a lot of joking about what to do with it. Someone offered it to me, as the lone remaining female, but I quickly demurred on the grounds that the lime green color would make me look like I was suffering from a liver disease. Then K picked it up and pretended like he was going to put it on. He looked inside and said, “Wait, where are the pants?”

We all looked back at him blankly, not knowing what he meant and he said, “It’s just a tube of fabric.” We pointed out that’s what all skirts are and he looked totally confused. He motioned to me (I was wearing a skirt and tights) and said, “Yours has pants attached to it.” I shook my head and stated that I was simply wearing tights underneath my skirt. “But you have short type things under the skirt,” he insisted. I shook my head. “So if I looked under your skirt I would see your underwear?” “Sort of.” I tried not to look too offended when he shivered at the prospect.

Turns out that he believed all skirts were skorts or that they were made like dance skirts with trunks attached. Poor boy had just never had occasion to put one on take one off, or look underneath one. I guess us ladies retain more mystery than we think.

If any of you have been trying to connect with me this week you have probably failed.  There’s a good reason.  I’ve been kidnapped by this week’s Time Vampire:  Academic Conferences.

Now don’t get me wrong; I love academic conferences.  It’s like a vacation to nerd town.  What’s more, it’s your neighborhood of nerd town.  It’s a place where you can make a joke about an obscure theory and have people laugh at it.  It’s hours and hours of people talking about the things to which you’ve decided to dedicate your life.

The downside?

It’s hours and hours of people talking about the things to which you’ve decided to dedicate your life.

Which means you want to be in the thick of things all the time.  And that massive project due in one week you’ve barely started?  That stack of papers you’re supposed to be grading?  That medieval saint’s life you were supposed to read?  That blog you help run?

All fall by the wayside.  Which means you’ll be scrambling like mad next week to catch up.

In the midst of this you’re circulating and networking and trying to secure a career for yourself once you graduate.  And serving as a representative of the groups you’re already affiliated with.  Oh yeah, and you’re in a city you’ve never visited and may never visit again, trying to actually see something besides the interior of the overpriced hotel.

And this says nothing about the preparation.  Writing your presentation.  Packing.  Oh packing.  Trying to find the outfits that will best help you represent yourself to people you only see every year or so.  That may be hiring you in a year or so.  Dying your roots, because you’re about to see people you only see every year or so and don’t want them to know how much grey hair you have.

Oh yeah, and as much fun as it is, it’s also exhausting, so it will take you a couple weeks to physically recover.

Seriously.  I’m having an amazing time, but I also feel like this conference has stuck its pointy teeth (incidentally, in my field we actually have panels on vampires.  And colloquial expressions, like “time vampires”) into my life and is just slurping away the next month of it.