Jana Remy
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Jana Remy

  • Writing
    • Disability
    • Making History
    • Digital Humanities
      • dayofDH
    • Canoeing
    • Creative Nonfiction & Essays
    • Feminism
    • Bibliographies
      • Pacific Worlds Bibliography
    • Social Media
      • Mentions/Links
  • Scholarship
    • Awards/Fellowships
    • Conferences & Invited Talks
    • Collaboration
    • Workshops
    • Conference Planning
    • Technical Skills
  • Teaching
    • Blogposts About Teaching
Daily Archives

February 18, 2011

Traveler’s Tales: “I miss sex. There, I’ve said it.”
Traveler's Tales

Traveler’s Tales: “I miss sex. There, I’ve said it.”

This is the first installment in the Traveler’s Tales series

A Guest Post by Simone

I miss sex.  There, I’ve said it.  At a slightly old, and not at all cougarish 42, I really do miss having someone that knows my body.  That knows what to touch, where to touch, and (perhaps most importantly) when.  The person who knows that exact spot on my neck that makes my knees go weak.

As a single mother of a teenager, opportunities for meeting someone to actually have sex with are slim.  When I first got divorced, and met the man I dated for a year, it was great.  Friends got it.  There were sleepovers and all sorts of fun things for my kid to do, so I could – well, so I could get laid.  It was great.  And the man I dated was pretty great, too.  I knew he wasn’t Mr. Forever (and I certainly wasn’t looking for it), but dang.  He reminded me, after a very long time of being married to someone who wouldn’t do that to the mother of his child, that oh yes, that felt really, really good.  We had some fun, and then I broke it off.  I had gotten what I wanted out of the relationship, and he was actually pretty okay with it.  His new wife is a lovely woman.

But here I am, several years later, and my best friend is my vibrator.  I like it (heck, I recommend every woman get a pocket rocket), but it’s not particularly good for cuddling, and impossible to make out with.  For all the shuffling and scheduling and disruption, I’d like a real, live human being now, thanks.  There’s this spot on my neck that makes my knees weak, you see, and, well…

Oh, yes.  Right ….there.

February 18, 2011
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Traveler's Taleswomen

Support, stories, and a new blog feature

Within moments of John telling me that he was leaving our marriage, I texted a friend:

John is leaving me.  In despair.  Can I come over?

I remember almost nothing of that night except that I had a shoulder to cry on and a friend who listened and offered every imaginable support, while serving me cup after cup of hot herbal tea.  In the days that followed, as I explained my situation to other close friends, a tight net of support emerged around me.  The support often came from tangential relationships, such as the woman who came over to explain California divorce to me.  She’d never been to my home and we’d only met once before–but she was freshly divorced herself and knew she had information that I would need.  She stayed for hours and listened as much as she shared.

Then there was the group of friends who live far away, who daily sent me snail-mail letters and care packages.  These sweet notes arrived both in Pasadena and Irvine–they covered all the bases because they knew I was flitting between two homes during the month of December.  They were envelopes filed with color and poetry and care.  Reminders that I was loved and important and strong.  My Exponent sisters sent the softest-ever blanket with a giraffe-fabric pattern–as a reminder that giraffes are matriarchal creatures and they take care of their own.  That blanket went back-and-forth with me wherever I slept during December and is still folded into a rectangle at the foot of my bed.

Now, as I find myself trying to forge a path forward with this new life of mine, I continue to be influenced by the stories of friends who have followed similar trajectories.  Using the imagery of my blogtitle, I consider myself a fellow pilgrim with these women.  Some of them have traveled on ahead of me and can offer a map of where they’ve been.  Others are traveling alongside me, or are journeying on a similar, but separate, route.

Recently I wrote to several of these women and asked them to share their wisdom on my blog.  Because I feel as though we can all benefit from hearing their stories.  We have so much to learn from each other and we have so much support to offer those who are in the midst of their own difficult paths.  Thus, I’ll be posting the writings of many of these women as Guest Posts on Pilgrimsteps over the next few weeks, under the title of “Traveler’s Tales.” If you have a story or some thoughts that you would like to share for this feature, please send them to janaremyATgmail.

February 18, 2011
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things I like

Twitter Weekly Digest for @janaremy, 2011-02-18

  • RT @dancohen: In a hard-hitting post, @digitaldigs says the "big tent" of the Digital Humanities conf isn't so big: http://bit.ly/gHBn3s #
  • Just booked a weekend trip to PDX. Powells(!), Voodoo, Moonstruck, St. Honore, Cannon Beach. Woot! #
  • I've made plans for Wherecamp SF 2011 http://planca.st/Pji #
  • WordCampOC will be at #ChapmanU on May 14th. More details to come soon! #wordpress #wcoc http://bit.ly/a0PE2t #
  • RT @boone: @janaremy @amandafrench WordCamps 4eva! // I know, I can't wait! :) #
  • Super-excited that my office will be a sponsor of WordCampOC at #ChapmanU More details to come soon! :) #wordpress #
  • Spinning the wheel to the 'high-touch' (as opposed to the hi-tech) world: http://bit.ly/gjdaSn (from @mcsweeneys) #
  • RT @westcenter: Happy Valentine's Day @Zotero. I <3 U. Thanks to you, footnotes flying on to pages, getting clear about my antecedents. #
  • Was only going to do 40 or maybe 60 laps in the pool, but didn't stop until after 80. #sunnySaturday #feltsogood! #
  • Good morning, friends! #sunnySaturday #
  • Ooo, gauntlet thrown! Now I've gotta paddle across the Atlantic, too! (h/t Steve): http://bit.ly/fGLYMY #
February 18, 2011
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About Me

About Me

Hi there friend, and welcome to my blog. I started writing on the internet two decades ago. Since then I've started and finished a PhD program, left the Mormon church and became a Quaker, got divorced, remarried, found full-time work in academia, took up rock climbing and outrigger canoeing, and traveled across the globe (China! Belgium! Italy! Chicago! Montana! Portland! Gettysburg! and oh-so-many points in-between). This blog is eclectic and random--it has poetry and cooking and books. And cats. And flowers. And the ocean (my ocean). But in that sense it's a good reflection of me and my wide-ranging, far-reaching, magpie curiosity.

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