Lisa

I just found this story about Lisa from last fall in the Daily Iowan.

More than 10 years after the deadly protest, Weaver was the sole correspondent reporting with a live
video-phone feed from China on the Hainan spy-plane incident during the standoff between China and the
United States over the mid-air crash between the nations’ planes. That’s when authorities arrested her on live
television.
But Weaver shrugs it off.
“That’s nothing. That just happens,” she said, noting that she’s been detained in China “lots of times.”

That kind of modesty makes people who wish they were as cool as you just want to give up.

Hell, I don't care if she thought Alese was hot shit or if she never emailed in response to my post card. Chatham is so not the same without fawning over her. And I still curse the fact that I signed up for her International Journalism so late that I missed most of her Tienanmen Square talk. I never got the full story of what she was doing in '89.

Also, why is this yet another story about Lisa that's really blandly written?

But, as the tall and thin
woman said, she didn’t intend to go into broadcast journalism.

What is this, a wanted poster? Tall and thin woman?
What I wouldn't have given for an excuse to pester Lisa outside of class. If she had been here for 20 years since Tienanmen, that plus Chinese Chatham students could have been a killer story. Certainly a little more so than one of our Deans we had for three years is leaving, here's a puff piece.

But somehow all the sub-par writers in the world always get to interview her first.

Lousy Iowa.

Lisa

Last night I had a dream that Lisa and I were going to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes besides an old well (the latter detail clearly being the result of watching "Lawrence of Arabia" last night.) I was very excited we are going to do this, in a drinking bourbon in Chuck Kinder's house kind of a way. Meaning, I wanted to do it for the the thrill of drinking and smoking with my former war correspondent academic adviser. In my dream, she understood this, and thought it was silly, but we were going to do it anyhow. Sadly, I think we never got there. My subconscious got sidetracked by alcohol selection and other dream things.

The point of this is, I was sad when I woke up and remembered that Lisa is leaving very soon. She is a true Not Friend. I have known here for two years and taken four classes from her. That's one class every semester I have been at school. I have what they call a friend crush on her. I am platonically smitten with her. She fascinates me in every way, including her perfect little outfits. The kind I strike to have, especially once I have a career. Usually fairly functional, not too girly, good boots, accented with scarves and earrings. Something you could go to a fine dinner or a war in.

I first appreciated Lisa as a character (the idea of her, tall, thin, scarves, Tienanmen Square) and a bad-ass, for all the things she's done. Later, I began to realize what a wonderful person she is, but the latter might not have happened without the former. and It began with her war stories in International Journalism -- Tienanmen Square (for THE events, yes), Jakarta, Beijing, Afghanistan, Iraq... I asked questions, she was annoyingly modest about her interesting life. Eventually she turned into someone whose sense of humor I really liked. And me, with all my school difficulties, all my near-dropping out, and my late, nervous registration, she never lost patience. She never even was 11 feet tall like my old adviser. She just helped me and consoled me and encouraged me. Her personality made me feel better, and the fact of her being on campus tended to make the place seem just a little more exciting -- especially on those days when it feels like routine might just kill me.

Lisa, a true Not Friend, though I wish it were different. She means more to me than any old person on the street. But our relationship does not justify keeping in touch, and her awkwardness makes it unlikely. She has no idea how important she has been to me, and how she has helped. And she'll never quite get it.

All I can do is say, half-joking, that when I am a famous correspondent for Atlantic Monthly in 7 or 15 years, Lisa you must have a drink with me.