Just Another Skeleton in my Anxiety Closet…

I am, by nature, a pretty sensitive person.  I try not to let myself get upset over trivial things, and I understand that not everyone I meet will like me.  Nevertheless, I do, on some level, always try to make people like me, and am hurt when I feel that I have failed.

            Even worse than this, however, is when I feel that I am annoying or pushing away someone who is a friend.  Being someone who has a deep -one might say obsessive- love of comic books (particularly of the super-hero variety), I often find myself discussing intensely a storyline or character or some other feature of my favorite titles with my friends, who are not comic book readers.  Most of the time, they seem politely interested, and I trust them to let me know if I am beginning to ramble or if I start to bore them.  I understand that not everyone is into what I’m into, and I have no problem with someone cutting in and saying “This is really cool and all, but I’m really just not that into this stuff.  Mind if we talk about something else?” 

After all, what possible reason could they have to not be honest with me?

Sure, I’d be a little embarrassed, but I would totally understand and not hold it against that person at all.  And my friends tend to be actually interested in what I’m talking about (or else really good at faking it).  Most of the time, I can rest easy, knowing that my friends are not bored and annoyed with my comic-talk.  Recently, that all changed.

You should all remember Bernacki. 

This image burns itself into the backs of one's eyelids.

            Well, the other day Bernacki and I were in my room, talking.  She noticed my various pieces of comic book art that I had decorated the wall space directly above my desk and on my cork board with, and I, acting on what I assumed was interest on her part, began telling her the background stories of the various characters.  As usual, I trusted that my friend would let me know, kindly, if I was going too far.  What a fool I was.  After all, this was Bernacki.  She’s a scientist, damn it!  She doesn’t have time for my nonsense!  This is pretty much how our conversation went:

Me:…so then, hee hee, then Batman just belts him, and knocks him out.  Hahaha!  One punch!  Bwa-ha-ha!  Oh, man, Guy’s just my favorite character right now…

Bernacki: Yeah, have you ever noticed how rough the wall is over here?

Me: Heh, heh… Uh, um… really?  Umm, no I never noticed…

Bernacki: Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt…

Me: Oh, that’s fine… So, anyway, J’onn and Black Canary walk in…

Bernacki: Yup, pretty rough.  It’s a rough wall.  You’ve never noticed?

Me:…

Bernacki: Yeah, so I better get back to my paper…

And then she left.  She left me, suddenly alone with my awkwardness and insecurities.  I began to wonder, was Bernacki the only one of my friends who didn’t want to hear my stories, or was she simply the only one bold enough to make it so painfully clear?

Sure, the wall is rough.  Rough like finding out that your friendship is a lie.

I agonized over this question for the rest of the day.  That night, my sleep was not restful.  I dreamt I was going through a box of action figures, trying to explain the characters to someone who kept trying to walk away.  I’d keep pulling him back to me, insisting that the characters’ biographies were interesting, but we both knew that he just didn’t care.  I woke up, and was truly aware for the first time in my life that, no matter how much you love something and think it is wonderful and exciting, there will always be people who just don’t care and never will.  What is really important, I now realize, is that I have friends who love me and want to be around me even though our interests don’t match up perfectly, and that makes them all precious to me.  Except Bernacki.

Seriously, our friendship is over.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that I have any intention of stopping my practice of sharing comic book stories with my friends.  After all, I believe it was that loveable death-machine Doomsday’s motto that “Anything that doesn’t cause great pain and suffering is simply not worth doing!”  So, my dear friends can all rest assured that I intend to be expressing my fondness for them through the tellings and retellings and re-retellings of my favorite stories for some time to come now.  Because I love them all like Batman loves Robin; with detached but dutiful parental affection, and clear homoerotic undertones.

I'm Batman in this analogy, and my friends are Very Uncomfortable.

Life with Samuel L. “Thylacine” Jackson: a pilot for the hit new sitcom

Tip: If you don’t know what a thylacine is, look it up before reading this.  Or don’t, and just go with the flow of things.

RRrrawr!

Setting: Australian outback.  An orchestra sits atop a rather large and out-of-place hill, with the audience in folding chairs in front of the musicians, sloping down the hillside.  Everything else is flat and non-descript.

Wide shot of the scene; the orchestra plays, softly at first, and slowly becomes louder until about a minute in.  Music swells majestically as a pack of thylacines race by the hill.

Medium shot of girl in the audience (AMANDA), whose attention has been caught by the pack.  She leaps out of her seat, practically flies down the hill, and catches one of the smaller, weaker thylacines by the throat.  The music continues in the background, but it has become softer and more menacing.

MOTHER THYLACINE: grabbing AMANDA viciously by the throat with her powerful jaws Let Freddy go!  Let ‘im go!!!

AMANDA: throttling baby thylacine Unhinge your jaw, beast!  Show me your terrors!

MOTHER THYLACINE: Let ‘im go!!!

Close up of 2^nd girl in the audience (SARAH) whose attention is being split between the magnificent performance, and the absurdly violent act taking place at the base of the hill.  The shot expands to reveal that the occupant of the seat to her immediate left is an Australian funnel-web spider.  Her surprise is replaced by surprise and horror when the spider suddenly jumps from its seat and lands on her face, repeatedly biting her in the eye.

SARAH:  scratching at the spider over her eye Um, sir..?  Please stop.  Sir?  That’s my eye you’re biting.  Excuse me.  Stop that, please.

MOTHER THYLACINE: off screen Let Freddy go!!!

Focus turns to orchestra, where it now becomes apparent that there is only one human playing an instrument (ALEX).  The rest of the orchestra is composed entirely of thylacines and funnel-web spiders.

FUNNEL-WEB SPIDER: still biting SARAH’s eye That’s my grandfather playing bassoon up there.  Yeah, he’s pretty good for his age.

ALEX: For his age?  Not for his species, but for his age?  That’s what impresses you?

SARAH: Please stop biting my eye!

AMANDA:  Unhinge your jaw!  It doesn’t have to be this way!

MOTHER THYLACINE: Let Freddy go!  Let ‘im go!!!

The scene has descended into chaos.  The music is fast and threatening.  The characters are speaking their lines over one another; no one individual can be understood.  Suddenly, there is Samuel L. Jackson; all music and lines halt abruptly.  There is no explanation of where he came from or how he approached this desolate place unnoticed.  He is simply there.  He has a mission; a mission to end this chaos the only way he knows how.

He runs, and as he runs, the land behind him explodes in a fiery torrent of explosion.  Each step he takes in punctuated by a ‘cha-BOOM’, and his feet leave the earth, given a boost by the blast behind him.  A single thylacine keeps pace with him, determined to strike him down: Samuel L. Jackson and thylacines are eternal nemeses.  As they run, all other creatures, including the other thylacines, spiders, and three human characters, are lost to the blazing madness that follows SLJ.

They reach the edge of Australia.  The final blast that consumes the continent gives SLJ and the Last Living Thylacine a mighty push.  They seem to fly.  They fly for about twenty-four hours.  Then they land in the US.

Samuel L. Jackson’s mission is nearly complete: he has destroyed all of Australia, but he has not yet destroyed the last thylacine.  As their feet touch the ground, they quickly assume battle poses; each one knowing that only one may leave this clash alive.

To be continued…

Samuel L. Jackson appears courtesy of Samuel L. Jackson.

No thylacines were harmed in the making of this post, except for Freddy.

Special thanks to Samuel L. Jackson.

I Fail at Being an Adult

Sorry for the no-post last week.  I was sick in bed.  I had a sore throat and maybe an ear infection, so I just slept forever and had crazy halluci-dreams.

When I woke up on Tuesday, I was pretty close to all better, so I’ve just been puttering around, doing the stuff that I normally do, and it occurred to me today that I have already failed at adulthood.

Well, I guess technically, to fail I would have had to die, so I haven’t actually failed, but I’ve probably got a pretty low score in this section of my life.  Let me walk you through my day, so that you can see what I mean.

8 am

Woke up.  Blew nose, used bathroom.  Ate some leftover candy from Christmas.  Went back to bed.

11:30 am

Woke up again.  Thought about firing up the laptop and working on a short story.  Went bra shopping instead.

2:30 pm

Came home and immediately put on new bras.  Modeled them in the mirror for a while.

2:45 pm

Again, considered working on a story.  Decided to reorganize my bedroom instead.  Ended up playing with my new Green Lantern action figures, and pretended that they were singing along to the Andrew Lloyd Webber CD I was playing.

"I want to be rainBOW HIGH!!!"

4 pm

Remembered that I had a blog post due today.  Considered putting it off until next week, but then remembered that I didn’t do one last week.  Put it off anyway.  Got back to organizing things, then stopped and tried to put together a beach background for my GL’s, so I could make a vacation photo album of them to put on Facebook, because I’m a fun and silly person who does that sort of thing.  Realized that it would take more than a few minutes to do; lost interest and tried to get back to cleaning.

If I didn't do this sort of thing, I probably wouldn't have to clean so much.

4:30 pm

Remembered that I’m supposed to be a writer.  Considered writing, but didn’t feel like clearing stuff away from my laptop.  Moved some furniture around in my room.  Moved it back.  Moved it again.  Got my mail, skimmed it.  Then read it again while talking to my mom.  Then actually stopped and read it for real. 

I accidentally drew myself sideways; decided to just go with it and make it space.

6 pm

Had leftover soup for dinner, played around online.  Read funny articles and looked over the news.

I like this 'doing mundane things while in space' theme.

8 pm

Wrote this post.  Gave myself pep talk to make pictures to go with it.  Got sidetracked on YouTube.  Got back to work.  Got sidetracked on Facebook.  Got back to- had idea for story, had to write it down- work.  Finished.

So there you have it: I wasted an entire day doing not-terribly-important things.  I know, it’s not that the world will end if I use my winter break to, you know, take a break and all, but I felt kind of guilty today when I was in the middle of shopping for bras and I realized that I haven’t done almost any decent writing for the past couple of weeks.  I’m promising myself to do better from now on, and get some good stuff down.  So, I guess I tricked you, and this is actually one of those annoying things about New Year’s resolutions?  Sorry.  Hope you are all taking advantage of the New Year to make a fresh start and improve yourselves.  I know that I will.  After all, this year I’ve resolved to follow through on my resolutions.




 

But, seriously, everyone needs to take a break now and then.