Hi, Val. Sounds like you had a great time at Thanksgiving, turkey or not. Your mom sounds like a pretty cool person too. At this point I've had so much turkey ANY kind of red meat sounds great. I'm feeling a little sad about our discontinuation of mutual massage. Did I cross a boundary some how, or make you feel uncomfortable? I admit to having some ambiguous feelings the last time I saw you. Actually, they weren't ambiguous at all: I am very clearly attracted to you. But I DO think (having given it some serious attention over the break) that I prefer a loving friendship with you rather than a sexual relationship. Given your feelings about Val, the fact that you really want an "old fashioned" (as you said) relationship, the difficulty of having relationships with colleagues, and my already full (so to speak) plate, I just think we would be asking for more complexity than we need if we wandered (or leapt, as I was very tempted to do the last time I saw you) into sex. Anyway, I'm sorry if I did overstep a boundary. I love you, Val; I think you're a very talented and beautiful (spiritually and physically) person. Dear me, all this serious sentiment, and before lunch too. The dyke bar for a girls' moment sounds cool to me; I'll check it out with Liz and Jonathan. The place I had in mind is actually a "gay" place called the Inner Belt (known affectionately as the inner thigh), which caters to both men and women and is just an all-around great place for dancing. At least it was two years ago. I haven't been there since then, so I don't know. Like most bars, the place changes character all the time. I've been writing this in between meetings with advisees, and now there's another one hovering in my peripheral, so I suppose I should ring off, as the Brits say, only when they're on the telly. (No, that's television. Or is that the "tube"? Or is the tube the subway? Language is so cumbersome.) One of my first-years said you were a dynamite (his exact word) teacher today. Were your ears burning? see you soon - Karen Karen J. Taylor Associate Professor Dept. of History College of Wooster Wooster, Oh. 44691 330-263-2451 [log in to unmask]