I’ve been on a cleaning rampage in my old room, going through boxes and boxes of old stuff that I haven’t brought myself to throw away, like papers I wrote for high-school English. The overwrought, Rushmore-like titles I devised for these two-page trifles are pretty amusing. Here are some gems from the 1992-93 sophomore year: “Internal Foes: The Enemy in Knowles’ A Separate Peace and the Beast in Golding’s Lord of the Flies,” “The Monster Begot upon Itself: Othello and Iago as Victims of Jealousy in Shakespeare’s Othello,” and “Do I Dare?: Insecurity as Motif in Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” As you can tell, I was really into subtitles. I suppose if I were really motivated, I could go back to a few of these and develop them into full-fledged essays. Or what’s more likely is I could just throw them back into the box for another rainy day read.
I also came across an Out magazine cover which I’d saved. It’s the January 1999 “Out 100” issue with Rufus on the cover, looking wild and dapper in his earflap hat. I thought the cover had been lost and gone forever, so I’m pleased as punch I found it. When I get back to D.C., I’ll have to remember to get it matted and framed.