While My Ressikan Flute Gently Weeps

I'm going to try really hard to write this without coming off in an obnoxious hipster-y "I was a nerd before it was cool." kind of way, but that's going to be difficult, seeing as how I was a nerd before it was cool.

I don't mean that in some pretentious, entitled way, as though I have more claim to the culture than those who joined late in the game when things I grew up loving have become mainstream and acceptable.  I don't begrudge those who are on the geek boat now that it's turned from a kayak into a cruise ship.  Because at least now they're on a boat, boldly going where they've never going before.

Just... you know... stay away from any boats called The Minnow

Television played a huge role in my youth.  Some of my fondest memories growing up involve my entire family sitting down to watch any number of shows we didn't miss every week.  That was the closest I ever got to church, I suppose, having never been a religious person.  These characters were my deities, my villains and role models, their adventures my morality plays.  None moreso than Star Trek: The Next Generation.  I'm not sure that a TV show (or movie or play, for that matter) has ever or will ever affect me as much as TNG did.  It introduced me to so much, serving as my first exposure to everything from the limitless potential of the universe to the inconvenience of love.

They were meant to be together and you know it

My parents introduced me to Star Wars at so young an age I can't even remember how old I was when I first saw it, but I do remember not understanding that there was a third movie, so the end to Empire was incredibly upsetting.  But I've loved it ever since and, in 2007, I went to my first convention.  Celebration IV was held in Los Angeles and I went with two friends.  We stayed at a sketchy motel on the wrong side of Hollywood.  And, when I say sketchy, I mean they charged by both the hour and the week, and one of the beds had a congealed pool of blood underneath it.  The three of us have stories from that convention, both good and bad, but what I remember most, what I choose to take from my experience over those four days is the overwhelming sense of camaraderie.  From the moment we arrived at our scary hotel to find cars with 501st stickers, to the time spent in panels and on the convention floor, to the last weary hours on Sunday when everyone slowly files out the door, arms full of swag, costumes half-removed, you know you are not alone.  It's a feeling I had only ever experienced in fleeting moments of my youth when I would make a Star Trek joke and someone, somewhere in the room, laughed at it and, for that second, we shared something special that no one else understood.  Even if you never spoke to that person again, you connected with them in a meaningful way and you reminded each other that YOU ARE NOT ALONE.  It may not seem like our people need reminding of that nowadays.  It seems like that once lonely world of nerds is now everywhere.  And, to an extent, it is.  Things that were once the minority hobbies have become the interests of the majority.  The deeply uncool has become cool.  Conventions have become more popular than ever.  And, unfortunately, there is a certain percentage who have jumped on the bandwagon just because there's a bandwagon to jump on and they don't want to be left out.  But, those people aside, we go to these things to be with other people and collectively experience something that brings joy to our lives.  And you can't argue with that.

What prompted me to write this today is my activity from last night.  Again, this stems from something my parents introduced me to when I was very young.  Sometime in my childhood, I watched Monty Python And The Holy Grail.  I was too young to understand most of the political, sexual, or highbrow humor, but the killer rabbit and the Frenchman were just the funniest things I'd ever seen.

I don't even have to caption this.

Growing up, every time I watched it, I understood more and more of the jokes.  To this day, I'll watch it and laugh at something I never got before.  It's a truly brilliant movie and, if you haven't seen it lately, or saw it once and thought it wasn't for you, I urge you to give it another try.  Anyway, last night, I went to Los Angeles to see Spamalot, the musical based on the movie.  We took our seats and the show began.  And then, something magical happened.  The monks came on stage, doing their chant and hitting themselves in the face, and the audience erupted into cheers and applause and laughter.  Nothing had yet happened in the show, but an entire theatre full of people from all manner of places and professions and lifestyles expressed their shared delight over some insignificant characters, because somewhere along the line in our vastly different lives, every person in the room had laughed at those silly animated monks on a screen.  And all of us, who may have nothing else in common, found each other and shared that moment and many others like it throughout the evening.

That's what Comic-Con is about, for me anyway.  It's about those moments.  And, with tickets going on sale any day now, I'm just hoping that as many people as possible have a chance to experience those moments, as I have for the last three years.  But I would also like to make a plea: if you want to go solely because of all the celebrities that will be there or just to see what all the fuss is about or just to say you've gone... DON'T.  If you are not legitimately interested in the culture being discussed and celebrated, leave the tickets for someone else who will appreciate the experience far more than you.

If you do end up going, though, keep an eye out for someone who looks remarkably like me in this year's version of this photo.

I hope.

I Believe In A Thing Called Love

I wrote this last year, but I'm rather proud of it, so here it is again.

As everyone is (some would say painfully) aware, today is Valentine's Day.  Today is, most likely depending on your relationship status, either a wonderful, love-filled day to go above and beyond for the person(s) you care about or a stupid holiday created by evil greeting card companies in an appalling attempt to make money and promote gross materialism.  I don't know the exact history of today.  Maybe it was invented by Hallmark and jewelry companies.  I don't care though.  The truth, my friends, is that today is a wonderful, love-filled day to go above and beyond for the person(s) you care about.

Spoiler: going "above & beyond" does not mean buying stuff that looks like this

I promise that Valentine's Day is not out to get you.  It does not exist solely to make single people feel like crap.  I'll bet, at this point, at least some of you are thinking the other tired argument against Valentine's Day: people should express their love for their significant others every day, so this holiday is pointless.  That probably bothers me the most because it's so ridiculous.  That's like saying "You should appreciate your parents every day, so let's lose Mother's Day and Father's Day" or "You should be thankful for what you have all the time, so we don't need Thanksgiving."   Valentine's Day is a celebration of love.  It's there to be an exaggeration of your everyday feelings.  I'm always proud to be Irish, but I wear more green and drink more Guinness on March 17th.  I have dreams and goals that I come up with and implement all year round, but I make a list and toast it with champagne and friends on December 31st.  Holidays are the time to make the grand declaration, to give something we live with every day a little pomp and circumstance.  You know what?  Love is such a remarkable thing that it's definitely worth a little pomp and circumstance.

This concept of "wuv" confuses and infuriates us!

 Even if you aren't attached to anyone, you can still have a good time today.  Find some other unattached people and go out to dinner.  Or stay in and watch a movie.  Or go to a bar and toast your friendship.  That's a relationship worth recognizing today.

If you still haven't been swayed by the importance and, indeed, loveliness of today, I urge you to please shut the hell up about it.  If you are bent on being miserable, if you refuse to see an upside to a holiday about the joy people can bring to each other's lives, then that's your failing, not society's.  Furthermore, just remember, if you try to rain on our parade...

...people in love will always sing in the rain.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Once More, Around The Sun

I turned 26 on Sunday and it isn't quite sitting well with me.  My biological clock has started ticking.  Not THAT biological clock... I definitely don't want any spawn running around.  It's more akin to the mid-life crisis bell that tolls for men.  The chime of "What have I done with my life and why didn't I do it better, and, dammit all, why don't I have more money and a better car?"

Like this one.

I feel like I can't possibly be this close to 30, like I've misplaced some years somewhere.  I occasionally get the feeling that I've been driving to a party, but I've gotten horribly lost and, now, by the time I get there, the party will be over and the only people left will be the cleaning crew.  Sorry.  That's remarkably depressing.

Here's a picture of a giraffe licking a squirrel.

I know 26 is still young, but I feel so old.  I know that comes mostly from where I work.  I'm a permanent fixture, standing next to a revolving door of teenagers and college students.  This is their after-school or Spring Break job.  They stay for a while, then go back to school or off to better employment.  At this point, I barely know anything about any of them.  I know it sounds callous, to be so uninterested in the people I see on a daily basis, but I can't really get attached to any of them.  They'll eventually leave, some sooner than later, to pursue their big life plans and achieve their big life goals.  Or, at the very least, they'll leave to get trampled on by their big life plans and big life goals.  But none of them have resigned themselves to the tedium of staying forever.  Not that I have, exactly, but I just don't have the desire to start over somewhere new.  I don't want to be in my current job forever, or even for that much longer, but I do want to stick with this company.  What I have resigned myself to, though, is the menial jobs of the uneducated masses.  I never went to college and never got any sort of useful degree.  I bounced around community college for a time until, by sheer luck, I managed to take the correct combination of classes to acquire an AA in Theatre, which is essentially an application for employment in the retail and/or food service industry.  And that's fine.  I mean, someone's got to do those jobs and it may as well be a person who didn't spend thousands of dollars and countless hours pretending that I was ever going to do something better with my life.

So... here I am.  Twenty-six years old, with a job that a trained chimp could do.  And I accept that as my fate.  But that doesn't mean I can't accomplish things.  See... I'll bet you thought this entry was going to be entirely morose.  But this is the part where I try to exude the optimism with which I am surrounded by my young co-workers.  I have a bucket list of sorts.  Except, instead of it being a list of things I'd like to do before I die, this is a list of things I've always wanted to do if I wasn't too fat to do them.  And, seeing as how I am steadily becoming less fat, it would appear that I need to get started on my list.  At the top of my list is the goal I put in my very first entry, the goal for which this blog is named: be able to wear a Slave Leia bikini to Comic-Con.

Also on the list are various sporting activities of the air and sea.  In the air category, I would love to go sky diving.  To a lesser extent, I'd like to go bungee jumping and hang gliding, but sky diving is an absolute must.  On the water side, as a life-long Californian, I feel I must learn how to surf.  Once I have mastered that, or, at least given it a sincere effort, I'll try water skiing.  And, at some point, I will play with a jet ski.  I only have one activity on solid ground planned for my future and it's one I have previously mentioned: running a marathon.  It will happen... I write, as I finish off a beer.

Beer: because it's better for you than soda

Alcohol intake notwithstanding, I do plan on accomplishing these things.  I may be older and more cynical than most of the people at work, but I haven't totally lost my optimism.  I still feel weird about being on the upper side of my twenties and I do find the course of my life somewhat disappointing, but I guess you just have to work with what you've got and do the best you can. I guess the point I'm trying to make here is one that has been made by a group of men far more eloquent than I.  Ladies and gentlemen, Monty Python: