Meeting Lesley Reece
Apr. 4th, 2005 08:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akirluThere is a metaphor for my relationship with fanzine fandom in this, really. Something about occupying parallel universes that only touch at certain points.
I keep running into Lesley Reece around campus. It's semi-inevitable: she works here, I work here. What makes it weird is that I know who she is, but not vice versa. I'd read her writing in Apparatchik of course, and seen her at a distance at one or two of the Seattle conventions of yore. So I knew her by sight. But she seems to have fallen away from the local fandom since before I moved up; maybe she was never that into fandom in the first place, really. So there's not that much reason she would know me. And she doesn't. So when we pass on the street I keep wanting to smile and say, "hi" as if we know each other. Up 'til now I've restrained myself, because of something akin to the instinct that prevents me from calling attention to myself in the serendipitous presence of celebrities trying to go about their daily lives.
But today we wound up being the only two people waiting for the same crosswalk light, and it seemed like it would be at least as weird to stand around not saying anything as it would to introduce myself. So I turned to her and said, "We've got to stop meeting like this. I keep meaning to write a fanzine article about it." I got a gratifying double-take over the mention of fanzines, and we ended up chatting away all the way up the hill to Savery. No idea if anything much will come of meeting properly, but at least now she shouldn't think I'm stalking her if I say hello on the street.
I keep running into Lesley Reece around campus. It's semi-inevitable: she works here, I work here. What makes it weird is that I know who she is, but not vice versa. I'd read her writing in Apparatchik of course, and seen her at a distance at one or two of the Seattle conventions of yore. So I knew her by sight. But she seems to have fallen away from the local fandom since before I moved up; maybe she was never that into fandom in the first place, really. So there's not that much reason she would know me. And she doesn't. So when we pass on the street I keep wanting to smile and say, "hi" as if we know each other. Up 'til now I've restrained myself, because of something akin to the instinct that prevents me from calling attention to myself in the serendipitous presence of celebrities trying to go about their daily lives.
But today we wound up being the only two people waiting for the same crosswalk light, and it seemed like it would be at least as weird to stand around not saying anything as it would to introduce myself. So I turned to her and said, "We've got to stop meeting like this. I keep meaning to write a fanzine article about it." I got a gratifying double-take over the mention of fanzines, and we ended up chatting away all the way up the hill to Savery. No idea if anything much will come of meeting properly, but at least now she shouldn't think I'm stalking her if I say hello on the street.
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