Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins
Dick Van Dyke he Disney movie version of Mary Poppins. Yes, I know you have to put scare quotes around "Cockney" to describe his accent in that movie, but something about his capering awakened the first approximations of lust in me as a little girl. It wasn't exactly a crush, though, as I didn't obsess about him for long.

Then there was the college student co-worker at the bookstore I worked at one summer. Inappropriate content: I was 16 and he 21 or 22. Also, some accident (possibly genetic) earned him the nickname "Dicknose." Not a pretty man. That was a real crush, though nothing ever happened.

Then there was the professor in a grad school seminar. To make it worse, it was, so far as I know, fully reciprocated, and I believe you could see our mutual googly-eyes from Jupiter. He was fashion-unaware, tall, gangly, and wonderful, and his wife was in school hundreds of miles away and heavily pregnant. Nothing ever happened, as both of us had consciences about the size of Alaska, though I guess his didn't extend to keeping his eyes from popping from his head every time I walked past. And that reminds me of a similarly fucked-up pedagogical relationship with a high-school teacher of mine ...

For those of you would-be teachers/professors: the rule goes way beyond look-don't-touch--you should not be obviously in lust with a student. It's creepy and wrong, even if the student thinks he or she is in love with you at the time. Thank you.

And yeah, I teach now, and follow my own advice, and am even married and sort of normal.
(Tullia, Sun 1 Oct 2006, 18:54, Reply)