I get impressed by fame and reputation. even before getting here I was in awe of him. and then I heard so much more of him after we got here, from him, that both of us developed a huge crush-awe on him (his has evaporated since but mine has not yet been normalized). my adult fascinations are so different from those adolescent ones, this is more a professional sense of admiration mixed with a fear of looking like a fool in front of (or to) him. I saw him many times but always in the distance and was never introduced, although once I felt him looking at us arguing somewhat. 

then about two and half years ago I finally met him. we were all taking the same flight and on the bus to boarding he came right next to us seated together, and thus I was introduced. he must have also heard about me from him. I was shy but shook his extended hand with mine, which had thus been fiddling and wrapping my neon rubber hairtie around my fingers. I didn't have the time to take it off; and wondered if he could feel it's texture in that brief handshake. 

two of us had bought tickets seperately, his officially sponsored, mine bought by me. so we weren't seated together. but as we boarded I realised I was across the aisle from the other him instead, seated with his family. the way things choose to happen scares me sometimes. a sign, fate, or a chemical force seating us so close. I was tongue tied and as a result aloof, maybe appearing to be rudely so.

in the next few days of the conference (that I wasn't a part of) stay, I felt him once trying to get close to me to have a conversation, when some of us were walking - which instinctively made me distance myself - and found him observing me a few times. by now I was talking quite a bit with his wife; I felt much easier with her. 

since then I've seen him a few more times, in the parking lot or at a seminar, and each time I've either squirmed in my seat (when he suddenly turned back at the sound of my voice as I spoke to ask a question) or turned my back at him and started walking away. not because I wanted to, but because I felt safer to. tongue-tied-ness sometimes extends to limbs and the need to disappear too.

and now after two yrs and some months I suddenly walked into a room to talk to someone and realised slowly that he was sitting and talking to her. his legs were up on a chair, but as soon as he realised my presence he took them down slowly one by one; this I realised out of the corner of my eye cos I couldn't bare to direct them at him after the realization of his presence. his 'hi' was met by me with a slight wave of the hand and my face in his direction while mouthing it weakly aloud. I still couldn't meet his eye. it must have seemed rude, given how senior he is to me, but my behavior is not in these moments in my control.

and then the other day I had just deposited my lunch sandwich at my desk and walked out again to wash my hands before I ate and I heard a door unlock behind me, in the direction of his office. I looked back wanting to undo my strange behavior and to start getting to know him - which I've been craving in fact - and to thus normalize his perceived persona. for a split second I was thunderbolted yet again because I saw him half inside his door with his neck swung back looking at me just as I was looking at him. I'm glad I recovered and waved and croaked out a 'hi', making the moment a lil less awkward, and that he waved back. in so many years I (we) have made some progress. maybe we can be friends someday