The Goddess of Pleasure and Salt–College Memoirs: Life At Roanoke–March 1995, Part 9

Catherine and I wrote dream visions for Chaucer class, based on Romance of the Rose, which Chaucer translated.

Mine was “Romance of the Rosebud,” including a character named Lord Cugan.  Catherine loved being the “goddess of pleasure and salt” in my story, especially the following:

“Goddess of Pleasure and Salt?” I said.  “Do those two things go together?”

[Catherine said,] “They do if you throw salt all over your body and have your man lick it off.  Of course, you’d better keep plenty of water on hand for him.”

She often proudly told people that I made up that title myself.  It was based on her always telling people at lunch that she was the goddess of salt so they must ask her permission to use it, or at other times that she was Venus.

Her character’s humor was raunchy, just like the real Catherine.  Then it cut off right in the middle of the Reeve’s perverted Canterbury Tale, which Catherine began to tell, and said, “And here the manuscript breaks off, the rest of it lost to history.”  Read The Romance of the Rosebud here.

Catherine’s dream vision included both Sir Stimp-a-lot and Lord Cugan.  Sir Stimp-a-lot (based on my casual boyfriend Stimpy) was a bungler vying with Lord Cugan for the attentions of a fair maiden, and Cugan won.

She also included a wall, such as in Romance of the Rose.  She used real teachers, putting virtuous ones inside the wall and “bad” ones outside or on the wall.

I forget where she put Counselor Dude, but he was included.  Our Chaucer teacher Christina was probably included, and put inside.

Christina apparently read my story first, because she wrote on Catherine’s paper, “I’ve seen this name ‘Lord Cugan’ before; it seems to be a popular name.”

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Brad wrote on Monday, March 20,

You said you are perverted at times [when joking].  That is a great trait.  It confused the ones around you.  Make people wonder what you mean.  Add a little of vagueness [sic] so people wonder if you are perverted or just misunderstood.

On probably that same day, Cugan and I saw Pulp Fiction.  I was surprised to find it still playing, since it came out months before, when I read a bad review of it.

Cugan and I and another young couple were the only ones in the theater, so Cugan and I lounged in the seats with our feet on the backs of the seats in front of us.  I thought the movie had bombed.  I couldn’t figure out why as it played.

I sat there laughing and enjoying the whole movie (though parts were gross and I didn’t like what happened to John Travolta’s character).

Despite my laughter, with the cussing and references to sex, Cugan kept saying, “I’m sorry!  I’m sorry!  I didn’t know it would be this way.”  And I kept saying to him, “Don’t worry about it!”

We both loved it, and thought it, not Forrest Gump, should have won the Oscar the two contended for that year.  Cugan figured Forrest Gump won because it was about values and such and not a bunch of people cussing and shooting, but Pulp Fiction was more fun.

Index 
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991: