Comic Book Wednesday: My Origin Story

Beware the power of CBW

I know that you have all been clamoring for the return of Comic Book Wednesday, imaginary readers. You've been reading this blog and wondering why I haven't discussed comics in lieu of my feelings in recent weeks. In truth, it's not because I haven't been reading them, there is a whole stack that I've read and am now waiting to get back from [Princess Leia Vampire], it's just that there is only so much I can talk about without doing reviews, and I don't think any of you are particularly interested in irregular reviews of the four titles I read. (So many commas in that last sentence; have fun parsing it).

So, I have decided to resurrect CBW, much like Jean Grey, this week as a welcome break from the depressing slog of my feelings/personal life which most of the recent posts have consisted of, but, because I do enjoy talking about myself (hence the feelings/personal life posts), this weeks CBW will be my origin story (read: how I got into comics). (Holy Parentheticals, Batman!).

I was alway a geeky child, with interests running towards fantasy and PBS from an early age. This should surprise no one. While other girls my age were having slumber parties and talking about boys (I presume) I was in my back yard duct taping lengths of PVC piping together to make swords or in my basement hot gluing pieces of felt together to make sheaths for said swords. They were awesome swords, and I probably made about half a dozen in total. I think that [BrotherBorg] still has some of them.

Around the age of ten I started spending inordinate amounts of time at my local library, and I would check out VHS tapes of old TV shows, most of which were British sit-coms, because, like I said, PBS. This lead to my discovery of episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on VHS, which I immediately fell in love with. I quickly became obsessed with Star Trek in all of it's various incarnations, and decided that instead of actually watching any of the series all the way through, I should just read the novels/ fansites/ any other piece of content I could find. I ended up reading every Star Trek graphic novel/collection my library had, which wasn't many, but did serve to introduce me to comics, although I didn't quite like the format yet.

After about a year of being obsessed with Star Trek, [Nightcrawler] introduced me to the X-Men via X-Men: Evolution and the movies. I was instantly in love with the X-Men, which mean that I needed to consume every bit of content that existed pertaining to them. Once again, my library came to the rescue, as they had, and still have, a fairly large collection of graphic novels and trade paperbacks (collections of individual issues of comics). I quickly consumed every X-Men book they had, by which point I was pretty well bitten by the comic book bug. This lead to me reading every comic I could get my hands on, which an emphasis on Marvel comics, but a good helping of DC and Vertigo title as well.

This book is real and the most awesome thing ever written

After I had exhausted by library's collection of interesting comics, I started going to my local comic book shop (The Source Comics & Games for anyone interested) which was conveniently located two blocks from my house, and which I was familiar with due to my Pokemon card habit from a couple of years earlier (unfortunately, they are not paying me to shamelessly plug them). I spent countless hours there digging through back issues and reading trades (trade paper backs). Soon, I was reading weeklies and pulling multiple titles each week. This lasted throughout middle school and well into high school, although the number of titles I read continued to drop until I was only reading one or two books a month. I cancelled my pull sometime in 11th grade, and didn't reestablish another one until this year. It just got too difficult to keep up with the ever changing universes and events, as well as becoming prohibitively expensive, but I will always have a special place in my heart for Marvel and DC.

And that is how I came to be a comic book nerd. This is only a partial account though, because it is all tied up with libraries and Star Trek and my friendship with [Nightcrawler] and so many other stories which I don't have time to tell right now and that all have parts to play in my childhood and adolescence. The moral of this story is that comics are awesome.

Walk It Off

I love to walk. It's something I picked up from the [Paternal Unit], mostly because he likes to go on walks, and I am the only member of my family whose willing to go with him because unlike [SisterBot] I don't have a social life when I'm at home, and unlike [BrotherBorg] I do enjoy leaving the house on a regular basis. [Paternal Unit] is the reason that I've walked around all the of the lakes in Minneapolis and a good portion of those in St. Paul, and also the reason why I enjoy aimlessly walking. This summer, while in the grips of the restless ennui that the month of August engenders in me, I took to walking around Como Lake and the surrounding neighborhood whenever I couldn't stand to be in my house any longer. Walking calms me down when I'm upset and helps to syphon off some of the anxiety when I get tense. I think best on my feet, and it gives me an chance to sort out my thoughts.

Unfortunately, Como Park does not actually look this cool at night (via)

I was home for the holiday weekend, the first I've spent any amount of time at home since school started nearly three months ago. I couldn't stay still at home. I was restless, emotionally claustrophobic, and really damn anxious. I'm no stranger to anxiety; it crops up in my life from time to time due to a variety of things and every time we have a stormy spring, but it's usually linked to something specific, like severe weather or having to use a Bunsen burner, whereas the anxiety I've felt over the past couple of days is more general. It hasn't been really bad at any one time, it just seems closer to the surface than normal. Maybe I'm just more aware of it because I'm trying out this whole "being in touch with my emotions" thing, which is exhausting, by the way.

Anyways, it came to a head Friday night, and I just couldn't sit still any longer, so I left. I just went, and I ended up walking around Como Lake until my foot hurt and my knees ached, but I felt better. The lake is pretty at night and quite different than it is during the day when swarms of people are there. I ended up coming back to campus Saturday night due to the desire to actually be productive on Sunday as well as family stuff that meant that I wouldn't get back until the late afternoon on Sunday if I stayed at home for the night. Once again the restlessness and boredom reared their heads, and I ended up making a giant loop around the nearly empty campus. I ended up by the Institute for Child Development, which lead to the discovery of the walking/biking bridge across the river. I had seen it before from the 10th Ave. Bridge, but I didn't know where to access it, so it was a pleasant discovery.

I like it enough, that last night, after far too many hours at Walter Library (I really need to find a new place to study, eight hours in one day is unfortunate) I decided to go out of my way to use the walking bridge to cross the river in lieu of the Washington Ave Bridge. When I got across to the West Bank side, I noticed that if I took a right instead of the left that would take me back to my dorm, I would be in the small Bluff Street Park. There was a bike/pedestrian path that lead down out of site to the river. I decided to see where this path went, because I was enjoying the walk and I didn't want to go back to my dorm room and [Random Roommate #2] just yet.

The new 35W Bridge, for reference (via)

I ended up standing under the 10th Ave Bridge by the river. The 35W Bridge was lit up blue above me, framing a view of the river with the Stone Arch Bridge and what I think is the St. Anthony Fall Laboratory internally lit with soft, warm incandescence. The Gold Medal Flour sign blinked red from downtown, in sharp contrast to the cool blue of the bridge. It was beautiful in that way that only the city can be, and it was still, with only the occasional car on West River Road to disturb it. I felt really peaceful for the first time in a while, standing there, watching the lights and the river and the bridges. I could have stayed there all night, but after about ten minutes I managed to tear myself away and go home, mostly because my ears were getting cold. Right now, at least, it's probably my favorite spot in the city, and I'm tempted to go back during the day to look around a little bit, but for now, it's one of those places that seems to only really exist at night, all lit up with nobody watching.

Sidenote: I know some of you, imaginary readers, are currently yelling at me through the space-time vortex that is the internet because I shouldn't be walking around campus alone after dark. You do have a point, but I'm not going to listen to you, because I love it too much, as previously discussed here. I'm pretty careful, and if it comes down to it, I'm not afraid to pop someone's eyeballs. Also, I have fairly odd standards of physical safety. I'll be up half the night because of hypochondria fuelled anxiety due to a menstrual cramp (this happened last night) but I will gladly walk out into the middle of the street expecting cars to stop for me (I have the right of way, dammit!). So no, I will not call an escort to walk me across campus at nine at night, that would just ruin the effect. Just be happy I've stopped walking home at one in the morning.

Disclaimer

It has recently come to my attention that persons mentioned by pseudonym on this blog have found it, and are not happy about certain comments concerning them that I have made. You know who you are. It is you're right to not be happy with me, but please keep in mind that everything I say in this space are my personal opinions, and that everything I say here is said under the unselfconscious assumption that no one actually reads it. I know that this is not justified, seeing as this is the internet and everything is public. This is why I don't use my real name, and I have changed everyone involved's name to easily recognizable pseudonyms. And I know that I can't expect you to never have found this blog, because I do link to in on my Facebook page, and it's linked to in several other spaces, etc, but the reason I don't advertise it by telling everyone about it and says "read my blog," is because I want to be able to be honest in this space, and not worry that something I say might offend someone. I understand that you are offended, which is your right, but understand that I have said nothing that I don't believe, and that I am not trying to be mean. Nothing was said with malicious intent. The things I share here can be quite personal, which is hard for me to do, and are often the things that I don't normally tell people. I will continue to be honest in this space, about what I feel and what I see, so please understand that anything I have said have nothing to do with you personally. If you continue to be angry with me, please confront me in person about it, because not talking about it never got anybody anywhere, and I would rather deal with any issues you have out in the open. This is not an attempt to be passive aggressive, or to avoid actual conflict.  This is just my attempt at a little damage control.

Emotions 1001

I suck at friendship. I'm not saying that to be self-deprecating, or to garner sympathy, it's just that when I look at myself, I realize that my inability throughout most of my life to make and maintain close friendships is more likely my own fault than the fault of the people who I have tried to be friends with.

I've been doing a lot of self-reflection lately, due to the fact that it is the only way I know how to deal with  pain, and the thing that keeps coming up for me is the fact that I don't know how to be emotionally close to someone. I don't tell people things about myself. I mean, I can talk about myself in conversation at length, but then I rarely say anything real; anything important. And it's not that I don't want to; it's not that there aren't people in my life who I think have earned the right to know things about who I am and what makes me up, who I want to tell those things I don't tell anyone, but I can't. As soon as those things come up, as soon as someone wants to know how I'm really feeling, I shut down. My mind goes blank, and the words disappear, and I just can't bring myself to do it. To say it out loud. This is one of the main reasons I stayed in the closet for nearly two years after I realized that I'm gay. It wasn't that I feared the rejection of my friends and family, it was that I didn't know how to tell them something so personal.

It hasn't been until the last year that I've felt like I actually have people in my life who qualify as close friends, people who I really trust and am completely comfortable with. And yet, now, when I really could use some emotional support, I don't know how to ask for it. I mean [Keeper of All Knowledge] explicitly offered to talk, but I haven't taken her up on it, because...I don't know. Because I don't know how to reach out to people; because I'm too proud to admit when I need help; because I'm too scared of how I feel to admit it anyone else; because I've spent the past three months watching the shit storm that is [Type A, Likes Baseball] and [Captain America] happen and I don't want to be anything like them; because, because, because...And I know I should talk to [Keeper of All Knowledge], really, because it would help to talk to someone impartial, and if anyone can give emotional support it's her, and because I haven't even told her what happened with [Львица], and after how great my friends have been I at least owe them that.

Cats to the rescue! They make everything better.

And then there's [Львица]. I'm closer to her than just about anyone, and she's the closest I've ever come to having a best friend. Even before we were dating, she knew more about me than anyone else, and even though she doesn't believe it, I tell her things I don't tell other people, or at least I try to, which is a lot for me, because with most people I don't even try. And yet, even with her, even with how much I want to tell her about who I am, as soon as she asks me to tell her something, my friendly neighborhood mental block is back, and the words are gone. It's not that I had nothing to say to you, it's that as soon as you asked, I literally couldn't think of anything to say that wasn't about boats, dinosaurs, or science.

But regardless, I'd like to think that we're pretty close at this point, after everything, and right now I'm terrified that I'm going to lose that. Not because of her, or anything that she's done, but because I am an emotional idiot. Because I don't know how to feel this way, nor do I really understand how I'm feeling, and I don't know how to recover, how to start feeling better. (I know that that's all stupid because emotions are inherently irrational, but I still want to have a somewhat better explanation for my feelings than "I'm sad because my girlfriend broke up with me.")

I want more than anything to be friends with her, to be her best friend, but where do I start? Part of me really want to just be okay right now so I can get on with it and spend time with her without it being weird. But I know that's dumb and unrealistic, because if I was okay right now, if it didn't still hurt, then that would mean that it meant so little to me that I could be over it in a week and a half.

But maybe this is, in a way, a good thing. I worried for a long time that I didn't really know how to feel. That something really bad would happen and I wouldn't be able to handle it, because I shut myself down emotionally for so long, but now I know that I can handle it, and even though it sucks, I can get through it. It means that I've finally started to open up and get emotionally close to people, or at least I am to her, because if I wasn't, she couldn't have gotten close enough to hurt me this badly.

Anyways, I'm probably just being dramatic, because she was my first girlfriend and I love her. And when you combine that with my inability to shut my brain off and just feel, you get copious over analysis of everything. Hence, this long and rambling post.

Just So You Know, It Snowed

I woke up today to the first snowfall of the season, which was super exciting. I love when it snows. It really is the only form of precipitation that I like. There is something about snowfall, particularly in November and December, that feels really special. When it's snowing, those big, wet flakes, and it's covering everything, making the world quiet, it feels magical. Like anything could happen. The part of me that has read far too much fantasy always feels, in those moments, like magic and adventure are closer to the real world than at any other time.

Today's snow was, in a weird way, particularly comforting. I've had a bad week. And yesterday was particularly shitty. I was already in a bad mood, and then I had to sit through two hours of the most boring high school rendition of Alice in Wonderland in recent history because [BrotherBot] had a bit part and I was required to do my sibling duty and go to it. And then, to top it all off, half way through dinner my aunt texts [Maternal Unit] to tell her that my 90 year old grandmother was being rushed into surgery with a bowel obstruction.

Anyways, yesterday sucked, and so to see it snowing this morning when I woke up, and to have it be the first real snow of the season, which is my favorite, reminded me it's going to be okay; that I'm going to be okay. Whatever happens, happens, because I much as I wish I were, I am not actually in control of the myriad random forces that make up the universe.

Seeing something as beautiful as falling snow reminded me that there is more in my life right now than the self-pity that I have been wallowing in for the last week. That even though right now it is sort of hard to connect the knowledge that it will get better with the feeling that I will be okay, it has gotten better, and it will only continue to improve. I promised you that I would be okay, and I intend to make good on that promise.

Post Script

I don't know if you'll read this, but regardless, this is for you. I should probably not be writing this now. I should probably wait until I have a little bit of perspective, until I can write this without crying, but it's what's been going on in my head, and I need to say it, and I want to say it before I over think it all more than I already have.

I can't get it out of my head: you walking out of my room that night. It was everything that I've feared for the last two months, for the last year. I didn't see it coming, not really, which makes it that much worse. I mean, in retrospect, I can say, that to some extent I knew that what we had meant something different to me than it did to you. That my feelings were different, were going somewhere that yours weren't, which is fine, but in the moment, everything seemed okay, to me. And now I feel stupid and naive. Like I should have seen it coming, or felt that you weren't happy, even though I know that I couldn't have.

Maybe this is for the best, and going through this now and being able to still have something with you is better than holding on for a little bit longer and losing you altogether, but it doesn't feel that way. I think that's because ever since we met, I've wanted something with you, and then I got it, and it was different than what I expected, but everything is, and different isn't bad. Regardless, it was wonderful, it felt so right, and every time I laid in bed with you I wondered how I could be so lucky as to be with you. I should have told you that more. I guess that I have to lose that so as not to lose you completely, but I don't want to.

These aren't regrets, per se, because I don't think it could have happened any other way on either of our parts, but these are things, that if I could change, I would, or maybe they're lessons for the future, things I learned or am learning, I guess. Anyways:

I wish I would have kissed you more. I wish I would have bought you flowers; I always intended to, but I didn't, and now it's too late. I wish I would have taken your hand, or touched your face, or held you more often, and with more confidence. I wish I had told you how amazing, and beautiful, and intelligent you are, and how much you mean to me, more often. I wish I could have made you happy in the way that you made me happy.

I don't think than any of these things would have made an appreciable difference, I do believe you when you say that I did nothing wrong and I don't blame myself, but they would have made me feel better about it, about myself, like I did everything I could have.

Just know this: I'm not mad,  I don't blame you for anything; I really do believe everything you told me, and I'm not just saying that. Right now I'm sad and I'm hurt, but, ultimately, I'm glad that we had something special for two months. I'm glad that you're in my life, and that you're my friend. I don't understand why it had to be this way, but I respect your reasons and your decision, even if I don't like it. I'll be okay, and I know that you will be too.

Anyways, I know that I've said most of this already, and I'm not trying to make you feel bad or anything like that, because I know that you did what you thought and felt was right and that it was hard for you to do. This isn't to try to get you to change your mind or anything. This is just what I'm feeling right now, in an effort to actually tell you something about myself, something important.

There is so much more I want to say to you, and so much more that I wish I had, but this post already took a really long time to write, and was one of the hardest things I have ever written, and I want to say something of meaning, without rehashing or falling into old cliches, which I hope this didn't do too much. This is all that I've got right now, all that I can do at the present, but I know that it will get better, and that you'll be there when it does.

Adventures in Public Television

I watched the new Nova special The Fabric of the Cosmos tonight. It's narrated by Columbia physicist Brian Greene and it's based on his book of the same name. Here's the preview for it, and you can watch the entire episode over at PBS' website if you are so inclined.

It goes into detail about what we know about space, going from a general overview of how our understanding of it has evolved from Newton to today to the basics of some cutting edge theories that are still be debated in the physics community. It gives a pretty good overview of the physical principles, while still putting them in terms that are understandable to someone without an advance degree in physics. It does bear a striking similarity to the first part of Brian Greene's previous book/Nova special The Elegant Universe, but it is still quite enjoyable.

I love Nova, and I have since I was in grade school and it made me fall in love with science. (Between Nova, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and The Magic School Bus  I never really stood a chance in the face of science, but I guess that's what happens when you spend you're formative years nearly exclusively watching PBS.)

Anyways, I love the show, but I have a hard time watching now that I've undergone some actual science education. Take this episode for example; it does a really good job of explaining the basics of how we understand space, but, because it's made for the general PBS watching public, it completely leave out the math. This makes sense, because including the math would make it extremely long and completely unwatchable, but as someone whose taken basic physics classes, I know that the metaphors and descriptions they use mean nothing without the math the support it. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely do not want to go through the derivations of space time and the Higg's field, but when they start describing some of the strange new theories, like how everything in the 3D universe might just be a projection of 2D information stored on the surface of the universe, I honestly want to see the math the supports it and causes some really smart people to believe it, even though I know I won't understand it.

All of this is to say that if you want to watch something interesting about how we understand the universe around us that doesn't require you to know anything about physics, this is your show. But, if you've undergone enough science education to have a hard time accepting things without seeing the derivations and/or have taken more than a semester of physics, watch this because it is enjoyable and entertaining, not because it will greatly contribute to your understanding of the universe.

It was enjoyable, and you should give it a watch, imaginary readers.