Long time no post

[bironic]

Writing feels onerous these days, even emails and comment replies, which is unsettling for someone who has considered herself a writer for 25 years. There has also been some of that periodic "What am I doing? What is this career? What are these hobbies?" mixed in.

I am thinking about small, non-intimidating items to post about.

1. You can take the girl out of school, but...

(Note: mentions [wanted] touch from a male authority figure)

Today I went to an awards ceremony honoring a professor I occasionally work with. When I said congratulations at the cocktail reception, he gave me a hug. This was unexpected but quite welcome, as I have a tiny work crush on him. It was a highlight of the day. It also got me thinking again about student/teacher dynamics and how I haven't yet grown out of wanting to please teachers and professors and be among their favorites. Not that I am a favorite of this particular guy, but it evoked the same rush of pleasure.

Plus, it once again highlighted how I need pleasant touch from fellow humans more often. (To be distinguished from things like the press of strangers' elbows and knees on the bus, which are to be avoided whenever possible.) Continuing on the office theme, one of my editors, a woman I like a lot, put her hand on my shoulder the other week for several seconds while maneuvering around some chairs, and it felt so nice. The last time I recall something similar was a couple of years ago, and I think it was actually the same professor as today. Sometimes when hugs from friends and visits from cuddle-able houseguests don't quite fill the quota, I think about getting a pet. There's a reason I wrote John Sheppard like that in Forty Years and Eight Pounds.

2. Nerds tour Cambridge

Some of you might remember my Finnish friend A. from when we both lived in DC, who now lives in Germany? On Friday her husband V. emailed to say he and two of his students were going to be in Boston the next day on their way to a meeting, and we ended up spending all of Saturday together. Being a bunch of fellow nerds, they wanted to see the Harvard and MIT campuses, so I showed them what I could between bouts of drizzle. The students -- one Spanish and one Italian -- delighted in the diner-style Veggie Galaxy, complete with milkshakes and plain red ketchup bottles. We talked politics and science and idioms and culture and personal stories, gazed at the beautiful old houses on brick-lined streets, paused at coffee shops and riverside benches and the Kendall rooftop garden, and to top off the evening, V. traumatized his students by holding up a pair of women's shorts and shaking his hips at the Gap. (We went to the mall. Apparently jeans are five times cheaper here.)

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, even though it made me miss A. and V. more keenly.

Two things make a post. Let's pretend this didn't take an hour. One day soon maybe we can talk about Wonder Woman and Doctor Who (speaking of student/teacher tropes) and American Gods and fannish projects and the announcement that Vividcon is ending, and and and.

Comments

[stultiloquentia]

You're coming to movie night on Sat? Don't take the chair. I'm parking myself next to you and claiming cuddles. I will even shower that morning.

[bironic]

An irony of this lifelong situation is that I am physically reserved around most people and don't often initiate this kind of thing, and also don't want to send the wrong signals. I hope I am feeling brave enough on Saturday to partake of your invitation in the group setting, because it is a wonderful offer that made my heart go all squishy when I read it. <3

>>I will even shower that morning.

Ha!

[vidderkidder]

I found your post (1) interesting and wondered if the asking of permission for such intended physical contact would diminish or enhance the impact of such physical contact for you?

[selki]

Here via your recent post. I hadn't read that before b/c I didn't know much about Stargate:Atlantis (though I'd seen a fair bit of the original series). Now I've read Jo Graham's *Death Games* and read your story at just the right time. I loved it. I sometimes call my sweetheart a touch evangelist; we had dinner this week with a friend of mine from the local tickle community (local tickle get-togethers often have a lot of cuddling; I'm more into the gentle type of tickling, though there are those who are more aggressive), and we talked about how so many folks are just touch-starved and how society would be better off if more folks were at ease with friendly touch.