I sometimes wonder...

It has officially been One of Those Weeks, except it's really been more like two weeks, but whatever. The world is going haywire, and I was having a hard enough time keeping myself together without that, thanks very much, but things happen whether you want them to or not, and here we are.

I'm doing the best I can with what I have. That's all anyone can do, really. I had to get some of the Feelings-With-A-Capital-F out of my system, this is how they manifested, and now you get to read it.

Or not. It's completely up to you.

There is a lot of shit happening right now. I hope that all of you are well and content and looking after yourselves, each other, and, if you have the bandwidth, looking after anyone else who needs it right now.

This is me giving you your preferred type of well wishes. <3 <3 <3



Wonder

I sometimes wonder
what it would be like to know that feeling where you can fall,
 
and trust you’ll be caught.


I sometimes wonder,
because isn’t that supposed to be something we all have
at some point
or another
from someone
or another?
Or is it maybe something made up?
Some Hollywood construct that if you don’t have, you pretend you do,
because you’re supposed to, and if you don’t,

you’re wrong?


I sometimes wonder
what belonging to someone feels like.
Is it that pins-and-needles feeling washing through your soul in a wave
and soothing all your broken places?
Is it calm?
Or is it chaotic, like a dust devil or a maelstrom or a basket full of puppies?

Does it hurt?


I sometimes wonder
if it’s true that everyone ceases to exist when I can’t see them anymore.

It would explain the emptiness.


I sometimes wonder
if maybe
I might be part inflatable clown.
The kind you punch and it pops back up
again
and again
and again

because it has no choice in the matter.


I sometimes wonder
how long it’s going to be until my ribbon breaks.
The one that hangs off my ankle,
keeping me tied down but not grounded;
because touching down means opening up
and the blacktop sits at a permanent 200 degrees.

It’s hard to land when you’re afraid of getting burned.


I sometimes wonder
when I’ll stop flying.
Falling is an option, but it’s also a death sentence.
If my ribbon breaks, falling and floating away become the same thing.
I’m tired of flying because I have to.

What is that ribbon even attached to, anyway?


I sometimes wonder
what would happen if someone reeled me in by my ribbon.
If I was too afraid to come all the way would they let me sit on their shoulders
until I was ready
to stand on their feet
until I was ready
to feel the ground?
 
Or is that asking too much?


I sometimes wonder
lots of things,

but I rarely get any answers.

Here's where you get to point and call "NERD!"

Last Saturday, I went to San Francisco Comic Con.

::waits::

Are you done? Did you get it all out of your system? Good. Moving on.

Sadly, I missed the con last year because they used to hold it Labor Day weekend and I was out of town, but I get the feeling that enough people complained and this year they changed the weekend — hooray! On a scale of one-day-comic-shop-indie-con to San Diego Comic Con, San Francisco probably sits just south of medium. It’s big enough, though, for someone like me to only be able to manage one day. (Crowds and noise are not my friends.)

For those of you who have never been, a comic book convention is basically an enormous gathering of individuals sharing an interest in comics and related media and enjoying a day or weekend of activities surrounding said interest. Cons hold different appeal for different people. Some people love cosplay and enter the competitions and fashion shows. Some people are strictly there to dig through the stacks brought by comic book vendors in an attempt to find the elusive ‘Hedgehog Boy #67, Hedgehog Boy vs. Porcupine Girl, the Wedding Issue!’ Some people go for the gaming, be it video or tabletop or some other format. Some people go because their favorite celebrities are slated for appearances.

Some people go because their partners or kids love this kind of thing and because they love their partners and kids they are willing to brave the masses. You can always spot these people — they’re the ones standing off to the side, smiling indulgently and carrying numerous bags of their partner’s or kids’ purchases.

Personally, I love panel discussions — they’re a lot like college lectures, except, you know, interesting*. Cons will publish their event schedules ahead of the event itself which offers retentively organized types like me the opportunity to pre-plan their entire day. I had a spreadsheet.

Shut up.

I could give you a blow-by-blow of ‘How I Spent My Comic Con’, but I think we’ll just cover some highlights, hmm? I had two stand-out favorite panels this year, the first of which was entitled ‘Kaiju Law’, and the blurb read:

Who is financially responsible for Acts of Godzilla? Is King Kong protected by the Endangered
Species Act? Does Gamera have a duty to rescue children? Join us for When Monsters Attack
as our panel of attorneys and Kaiju do battle over Carl Denham's liability for Kong's rampage
across New York, whether the United States has a treaty obligation to defend Japan from
Godzilla, and whether any companies could be responsible for Hedorah clean-up costs.

It was presented by actual, real-life attorneys, and the recording can be found HERE. I won’t spoil it for you in case you decide to listen, but the gist of it is that if you import a gigantic ape from some island far away it is considered an invasive species and therefore not covered by the Endangered Species Act, the importer becomes responsible for any blondes it may or may not toss out of windows, and in the event of an enormous-radioactive-lizard-created tsunami your flood insurance will cover you, but you’re probably not covered for house-destruction-by-large-scaly-feet.

Keeping in the theme of ‘applying real-life constructs to comics’, my other favorite panel was Criminal Psychology: Arkham Case Studies, where we discussed Dr. Harleen Quinzel’s transformation into Harley Quinn as a result of vicarious traumatization from her time treating the Joker, and how intent negates an insanity plea because it indicates that at some point, the perpetrator knew that their actions were illegal. So basically, if you slaughter a bunch of people, don’t hide the evidence and then try to claim that you didn’t know what you were doing.

Those were the high points. I went to a couple of other panels and a couple of comedy shows and bought a ton of Blackhawk comics (because somehow I accidentally ended up collecting them a couple of years ago and now I feel compelled to get hold of all of them.)

You know, if you had told me ten years ago that I’d not only go to a comic book convention, but also manage to find something to enjoy about it, I’d have told you that you were cut off and taken away your car keys. And yet, here we are. If you’re skeptical, I encourage you to do a little research — there’s so much more to the comic book scene than superheroes. I guarantee you can find something that feeds an interest for you.

Who knows? Maybe you’ll find a series or writer or artist you like enough to make you consider a convention when you find out they’ll be at one near you.

Never say never.



*I’m talking about the giant gen-ed lectures where you’re herded into a lecture hall with 378 of your closest friends, not the classes you actually wanted to take. I could happily have listened to my Shakespeare professor witter on for ages about scansion. In fact, I did. And this is a man who, in that same class, hit me.**

**That doesn’t read well out of context. I assure you it was appropriate at the time. Maybe I’ll write about it at some point.

I don't always write topical posts, but when I do, it's because there's a guy in a tinfoil hat running for governor...

Okay, slight exaggeration about the tinfoil hat, but unless you got to read the same candidate statements as I did in this election, you may be blissfully unaware of the sheer number of total crackpots running for public office.

For those of you non-Californians, lemme ‘splain. June 5th was the California Statewide Direct Primary Election. In a nutshell, the purpose of a primary election is to narrow the field of candidates so that parties can put forth their most-voted-for candidate in the ‘for real’ election later on. Basically, it’s like having a meeting about a meeting. I know that makes it sound like I think primaries are a waste of time — I don’t. Trust me. The basket cases desperately need to be weeded out.

I vote absentee, which means that my ballot is sent to me ahead of time and I mail it back or return it to the appropriate location by election day. I choose to vote absentee because a) it made life a lot simpler in college, b) I don’t have to take time off of work to go vote (even though I am allowed to), and c) I like to be able to sit down and devote some actual time to studying the information sent to me so that I can base my vote on my understanding of the material et-civic-duty-cetera.

So anyway, I was sitting on the sofa one evening last week attending to my ballot, and, as is always the case, laughing hysterically at the candidate statements in the Voter Information Guide. Well, some of them. Others just made me cringe. In any case, there were some absolute gems this time around, and they were too good not to share — paraphrased, of course.

There is a candidate for state senator who used his entire allotted statement word count to warn everyone about the dangers of 5G wireless radiation — citing Google search results as evidence for his platform. Which is simply the desire to rid the world of the Big Bad Wireless Companies and their Deadly Radiation. Which is the sum total of said platform, because that’s what being a state senator is all about, apparently.

Several candidates had statements in a For/Against format: “Yes to God, baseball, and Mom’s apple pie! No to Big Business, taxes, and Federal involvement in State government!” or, “I am for Universal Everything and against Capitalist Greed!” Good for you. None of that tells me anything about your qualifications for much of anything. Pass.

There were the usual far-right and far-left candidates on offer — different enough from each other in their far-ness, but definitely all scoring high on the Whackadoodle Scale. There was a Green Party candidate whose statement was a line of poetry:

“Teach your children calculus
And keep the planet safe
Or feathered stones and empty bowls
Will also be their fate”

I can’t for the life of me figure out if this is his own, or something embedded in the Green Party Pledge, but either way, it’s cryptic as fuck. On the other side of things were the usual WASP-y old white guys, one of whom seems to think that transgenderism is a mental illness and that exposing children to this idea as something normal and not to be judged is “a very sick attack upon children and a form of child molestation.” Okay, we get it, you’re not a big fan of the LGBTQA++ community, but don’t you think that’s taking it a liiiiiiiiiiiiiittle far? Like, maybe all-the-way-to-Saturn too far? I’d be willing to bet that this sad old codger has driven his entire family away with this nonsense. You got automatic entry into the Angry Old White Guy Club by virtue of your birth, dude. Relax.

(Or maybe he’s just so far in denial about the fact that in college he and his buddies got wasted one night and found out that he looks fantastic in Carmen Miranda getup that he feels the need to spout hatred and bile at the world out of shame. That’s… sad, actually. Come on, guy. Everyone loves a person in a fruit hat.)

To say that I base my voting decisions on the apparent sanity (or in some cases, insanity) of the candidate would be accurate. Honestly, it makes voting easier because once you vet the crazies there are only about six candidates left to choose from. Although the vetting process is made entertaining by these delightful people who I suppose are well-intentioned but mostly just make themselves and their parties look like complete dumb bunnies.

And one final note — this one on the photos accompanying these statements — apparently the morticians union is benefiting greatly from all political parties, because I’ve been to a whole slew of open casket funerals in my life, and the aesthetic is unmistakable.