HAIRSHIRT
Helping You Get the Most Out of Your Misery
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HAIRSHIRT Helping You Get the Most Out of Your Misery |
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Friday, February 24, 2006A Cry for Help I'm scaring myself. Truly, I feel as if there's a big part of me that I don't even know at all. This part of me is emerging after thirty-five years of hibernation and now it's awakened and fighting for control of my mind. This part of me is pushing me to go down a dark, dark path that I have, all my life, forsworn. This hideous, freakish voice in my head is trying to talk me into going to the New York Comic-Con. I'm frightened. I've been reading comics since I was ten. I admit to it. I've written before about my problem, over the past couple of years, of spending far too much time and energy on internet message boards, discussing comics. It's not healthy. There are so many things a person could be doing that aren't shamefully geektastic that I feel bad about actually being interested in who's going to be writing Wonder Woman after the Infinite Crisis mini-series is over. (It's The O.C. creator Allan Heinberg, by the by.) But this time wasteage has been the worst thing about my addiction, and I've still managed to function. I haven't been stuck at my keyboard for days at a stretch, arguing over whether Spider-Man could beat Man-Bat in a fair fight. (He could.) Now, though, I actually have found myself thinking, "Hey, they make all kinds of announcements about upcoming comics at these conventions. And it's just a twenty minute trainride away. Maybe I could pick up a few back issues of Green Lantern." I actually thought that shit. Scary. It's scary because you can read comics and not be that much of a geek. There're always people who read way more than you do. You can read/post on the occasional message board and still have some self-respect. There're always people who get way more worked up than you over which of Wolverine's uniforms is actually cooler. So you can always use that sense of perspective to maintain your self-image. But when you willingly go to a comic convention, you're crossing a line. That's it. Game over. You might just as well take a community college course in Conversational Klingon. You might just as well pay a tailor to make you a custom-fitted Hawkman outfit. You might just as well take out a full-page ad in the New York Times, saying "I am a fucking geek." So, I'm taking some solace from the fact that I haven't listened to that voice. I'm not going to the convention. I'm able to recognize what a thin line I'm walking on and I feel that recognition will keep me safe. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go do something manly, like watch the last of the Gold Medal round in Men's Curling.
Comments:
I think I would go...I mean I've never been to a comic convention and I've heard they are unbelievably geeky...but I could suck it up just once...and then never speak of it again.
I don't even read comics outside of Archie (which I adore), and Calvin and Hobbes (which I am not sure are even classified as a comic book) but I would so go to a comic book convention! I would be excited just to see what is all out there. You should go- if not for yourself- for your blog. Take pictures.
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