Laugh, Dante, This Is Serious Comic-dy (Part 1)

I’ve most always been a very cool girl with a nerd inside. This, perhaps, is not unique. Maybe everyone has a secret nerd division of self, that loves Scrabble or reading Wikipedia or setting up sum charts on Excel. Maybe it’s when you look at junior high photos and see just how screwed up that perm was, just how ridiculous that gold chain with matching ID bracelet looked. Or it could be as simple as overabundant knowledge in any area – of Johnny Cash, say, or international soccer fantasy leagues, or, as I found about one of my friends today, of complex home brewing techniques casually mentioned as just something with which you experiment once in a while (never mind the colossal brewery that fills up most of your garage). We all get white and nerdy. Some people are just better at hiding it than others.

I didn’t learn how to hide it until high school, which accounts for being often lonely and slightly fearful of many of my classmates for the first seven years of school. The most apt example of this would be the fact that my friend Julian, who I went to school with for 13 years, once asked me in high school, with no trace of sarcasm, “You went to this school in junior high?” I was just quietly weird. I didn’t know how to take care of my wild curly hair, my pants were always splitting down the butt seam, I was into stencils and poetry, and I wrote dramatic one-acts. I won awards for civic service announcements. I never knew the top 40 radio hits that the other girls in my class knew because I was too busy listening to Amy Grant and old Johnny Mercer tapes. I was also devious – I went to camp in Wisconsin every summer, and when I was nine, I disliked my bunkmate so much that I told her every single horrible occurrence in the book of Revelations (which I had read for just such an occasion) and watched her have a small meltdown as I nonchalantly predicted that the end was near. “I hope you said bye to your parents,” I said. A few hours later, she was packing her bags, still crying, to leave camp. Of course, some of the other girls listening in were scared, too, but they were the kind of girls who came to camp with their names written in all their clothing, ziplocked in bags by day, color coordinated, always with a little note from Mom. I was insanely jealous of all that. I would often write myself notes from my mom, who never thought of packing my clothes any time except for five minutes before departure. So I never felt too sorry for those crying girls, only sorry for my own wrinkled tops and holey socks.

When I was in eighth grade, I made cheerleading and decided that I needed to study up on this whole fitting in thing. So I observed. I got myself partnered with one of the coolest girls in the class for science projects. I sat at her table. I listened to her and her friends flirt with boys (mostly with amazement, since I, myself, had not had any guy friends since fourth grade). I learned that the best lunch was some combination of one part soda and one part candy. I learned that Great America was probably the best date you could ever have, though when I went for the first time that year, I had a goliath zit above my upper lip and spent the day ducking into the girl’s bathroom for follow-up squeezings, thus squashing any chance at romance. I got invited to parties and tried not to talk about the yearbook, but about how many times I’d seen The Cutting Edge. I learned, too, that people perceived me totally differently than I thought, that they all thought I was cool, but too fiercely private and a little snotty. I had no idea. I thought that we didn’t talk because they were cool and I was not, more of a stasis than ripple effect.

I learned to do a pretty good cool girl act, culminating in the despicable act of telling one of my best friends, over the phone, that she was no longer cool enough to hang out with me. This was because I had been at a slumber party the night before, where the girls were asking me if I was still best friends with her, and remarking that she was way too smart and goody-two-shoes so, like Peter, I’d denied her until the sun came up in order to get ahead with these other girls. I was a good enough listener that I could always pick up on the vibes I was getting from the people around me and then, join in, a talent that made surviving high school a breeze, though not a very authentic breeze. I got older, though, and like those wrinkly shirts I always got in my suitcase at camp, it just didn’t quite fit anymore. I became ill at ease, a little squirmy. It was sort of fortuitous that high school was almost over, because as I planned my escape to distant lands (California or Kentucky), I slowly reembraced the side of me that wanted to read To Kill A Mockingbird for fun and hang out with my teachers on the weekend and join up with YMCA Youth and Government.

But I would’ve never dreamed of going anywhere near a comic book store.

Wild America

Right now, I'm typing with a blister on the tip of my index finger, one that makes it look as though I have started mutating, Gremlins style. What actually happened is that I was making ice cream and, while carmelizing, touched the silicone spatula. The sugar practically melted onto my finger and it took a few seconds to get it off. I've been reading various internet remedies about blister-care, and each one says something different -- pop it. Don't pop it. Bandaid it. Ice it. Pop it and squeeze! So I've taken the only possible course of action in situations like these and done nothing.

Between "blister" "remedy" "how to treat" "finger" searches, I have been hiking and beaching. Mostly hiking, although I know of no better way to celebrate independence than to be crowded onto a beach with thousands of other people (and their dogs). Our dog obsessively chased her cat-sized rubber balls up and down the beach until she physically could not stand, an activity which is nil at all other locations and times, and let children touch her. CHILDREN! (aka, those who must be growled at.) Even this daft kid who was trying to squash her with his fists -- no bitey, no growly, just a ducked tail and sheer panic in Tanya's eyes. I see this as Russ and my good influence on her, although when confronted with a feral batch of kittens in the backyard yesterday, she actually caught one (with her teeth) and didn't let go until I screamed and our neighbors came flying out of their house, probably wondering whether I was, in some way, finally losing it.

On Sunday afternoons, back in the day, my sister and I would complain that there was nothing on TV and my dad would roll his eyes and tell us to go outside. After we'd hem or haw that it was too hot, too cold, we were too tired, there was nothing to do - the basic arsenal of responses - he would usually click around and land on old reruns of Marty Stouffer's Wild America. Even as a nine-year old, I knew it was in the super cheesy category, but I still dug the close-ups, the freeze frames, and especially the slow-motion action shots of exotic and not so exotic animals. I took bike rides and walked my dog for miles around our neighborhood, hoping to see something more exotic than a cardinal or Cubs fan, but there was nothing even minimally interesting about wild life in Aurora.

Now I live in the foothills of the San Gabriels, the gateway into the Angeles National Forest. And that's where I hike, in Monrovia Canyon and Chantry Flats and every time I set off, I always come across unexpected forms of nature -- the other night, while exiting the canyon, a huge coyote ran across my path and I watched him run until he disappeared behind a hill. Yesterday, Russ and I watched dolphins showing off right beyond the wake, jumping and splashing in criss-crossed aerial dances. You can't go very far in the canyons without seeing baby rattlesnakes these days (or standing adjacent to them, as Christina did) or deer grazing lazily on the slopes. A few years ago, I saw a bobcat and watched her run across a meadow in short, graceful bounds. And then, there are the animals right in my backyard -- the parrots that hang out in the persimmon trees and squawk at dusk; the neighborhood skunk that hides behind our daylilies; all manner of feral kitten; and the bats, which are my favorite to watch, soaring in their erratic flight patterns and letting out high-pitched exclamations from time to time. I love throwing pebbles up into the air and watching them descend upon it within seconds.

So I'm trying not to fault Tanya for embracing her wild side, which necessitates chasing and biting kittens. I'll keep embracing my own, too, including such daring feats as going toe-to-toe with snakes, but keeping my fingers off hot carmelized sugar.