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Though my nose be not golden
Nov. 14th, 2004 11:40 pmIt always struck me as odd that Tycho Brahe died from a burst bladder because he was too polite to excuse himself from the dinner table. It makes more sense to me now: tonight, I ate dinner at the home of the president of Oberlin, sitting beside her no less, with three of the other six people at the table being deans or dean-sweeties. It was no mistake; we all had place-cards and everything. For the first time in my life I had to surreptitiously glance around to see what fork I should be using.
This makes it sound like an unpleasant experience, and it wasn't at all, although I did feel more affinity for the bartender and the servers (who were, as always seems to be the case at these events, irresistably cute) than the other guests. But Nancy (the president, and incidentally a good friend of Al Bloom) seemed to enjoy talking to me—she laughed a lot at things I said, anyway—which may have just been good hostessing but seemed genuine. We talked about squirrels.
The dinner was in honor of a donor who'd very kindly given a million and change to the Classics Department to create a professorship (not for K., alas). Seemed like a nice enough fellow, an internet tycoon type, and he had a really nice camera. (I guess this makes sense, given his millionaireness and all.) After dinner there were dogs, a basset and an English lab, released to snuffle about our ankles and beg for the food they thought we hadn't eaten yet. Dumb ol' dogs.
This makes it sound like an unpleasant experience, and it wasn't at all, although I did feel more affinity for the bartender and the servers (who were, as always seems to be the case at these events, irresistably cute) than the other guests. But Nancy (the president, and incidentally a good friend of Al Bloom) seemed to enjoy talking to me—she laughed a lot at things I said, anyway—which may have just been good hostessing but seemed genuine. We talked about squirrels.
The dinner was in honor of a donor who'd very kindly given a million and change to the Classics Department to create a professorship (not for K., alas). Seemed like a nice enough fellow, an internet tycoon type, and he had a really nice camera. (I guess this makes sense, given his millionaireness and all.) After dinner there were dogs, a basset and an English lab, released to snuffle about our ankles and beg for the food they thought we hadn't eaten yet. Dumb ol' dogs.
