Last week, I pulled a muscle in my back. This event, though rare, is not unknown; my back will hurt me every other year or so. I should know the steps by now – hideous, agonizing pain, worse than any other person ever born has ever endured (because it’s happening to me), rest and recuperations, which includes excruciating guilt about suspending my workouts while the muscle recovers. In a week or so, the pain will be gone and I’ll forget about it until the next time.
For now, though, I can’t sit down or stand up without an up-close-and-personal insight into how the muscles along the spine interact. And every twinge reminds me that I’m no longer eleven years old.
For many people, an adult child, monthly condo payments, and the occasional hot flash might be enough to convince them that they were mature adults. To me, these are just distractions from my real life.
In many ways, being an adult today is like the fantasyland I imagined as a child. There are comic book stores, full of current comics, amazing toys and books about my favorite old television shows. A few blocks from the comic book store, there’s a costume shop that’s open all year round, not just at Halloween. There are candy stores, bookstores, bagel shops and playgrounds all over the place. In a few weeks, it will be spring and I can roller-blade again.
Of course, I feel like I’m still a kid.
My job doesn’t always make me feel more grown-up. Dwayne McDuffie once told me that the Internet is like the biggest junior high school in the universe. Instead of bringing us all together in one big virtual Woodstock festival, the web lets us break off into an infinite number of cliques, where the jocks can hang out with the jocks, cheerleaders can hang with cheerleaders, student council presidents can hang with student government types, the AV nerds can hang out with the AV nerds, and us comic geeks can hang out with each other.
When I was in junior high school, I didn’t know any other people who read comics (except for Kenny Raffle, whose parents were friends with my parents but he went to a different school than I did). There was no one with whom I could discuss my theories about time travel, or parallel dimensions, or whether Supergirl would have to take her honeymoon in the Bottle City of Kandor. I thought about these things – rather incessantly, in fact – but there were no witnesses.
My friend, Elizabeth, shared some of my other geek tastes. We were both huge fans of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the Smothers Brothers. Liz wrote to Tom and Dick so often she was on their Christmas card list. I had an U.N.C.L.E. ID card. In the last five years, because of my professional responsibilities only (I wasn’t stalking them!), I’ve talked to both David McCallum and Robert Vaughn, and neither ran away screaming (although perhaps McCallum wanted to, but I couldn’t tell because we were talking on the telephone).
We also adored Leonard Cohen, the first of what would become an ever-escalating attempt on my part to look literary, sensitive, and cool. Luckily, Leonard Cohen is a genius, and his work continues to move me nearly four decades later.
Liz never got into comics, though. Maybe if she had, I would have developed more well-rounded tastes. Maybe, if I hadn’t gone to an all-girls boarding school, I would have had a few dates when I was a teenager, and felt like a grown-up. Maybe there would have been boys just as geeky as I was, whom I would see at the newsstands on the days new comics came in. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt that only someone else with a tormented soul like mine – someone like Bruce Wayne or Brainiac 5 – would ever understand me. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Perhaps it could happen sometime in the future. Or maybe I’ll have to wait until I have grandchildren to act my age.
ComicMix Media Goddess Martha Thomases is currently recovered well enough to skip.
Martha Thomases brought more comics to the attention of more people than anyone else in the industry. Her work promoting The Death of Superman made an entire nation share in the tragedy of one of our most iconic American heroes. As a freelance journalist, she has been published in the Village Voice, High Times, Spy, the National Lampoon, Metropolitan Home, and more. For Marvel comics she created the series Dakota North. Martha worked as a researcher and assistant for the author Norman Mailer on several of his books, including the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Executioner's Song, On Women and Their Elegance, Ancient Evenings, and Harlot's Ghost.
"Dwayne McDuffie once told me that the Internet is like the biggest junior high school in the universe." I thought that modern politics (and political media) was the biggest junior high school in the universe…Somewhere in my head, I stopped getting older at age 23. That's always how old I'll be inside. Outside, I hope I get to at least three times that age, and I'm well on my way…
I think it's time to face the 21st Century and bring casino gambling to Kandor. Then Supergirl can see the Smothers Brothers in the main room at Ce-Zar's Palace after a really campy El-Vis ceremony. What happens in Kandor, were it to somehow escape, would be so small as to escape notice.
About fifteen years ago (when i was merely forty-mumble years young), i was showing my nephews (the eldest about eleven or so at the time) how to Do Things on their parents' computer, and Eli, the younger, ran to tell his mom about something Really Cool i'd shown them.Kathy responded "You guys are really lucky to have an uncle your own age."I *think* it was a compliment.Incidentally, there are grey-market copies of the UNCLE theatrical releases floating around, if you know where to look…
I'm an Internet-triple-threat — it allows me to indulge my Inner Geek (work as webmistress for http://www.helixsf.com, read fanfic, look up information on cute actors), my Inner Child (ooh, TOYS!) and my Inner Married Person (met the Bodacious Brit in rec.arts.tv.uk 17 years ago this October).As for age, hey, I was TOLD I only look 28 or so, and Lord knows I feel around 17-18 on a good day.
I'm told I'll be 45 this year and, evidence in the mirror aside, it often comes as a complete surprise. In fact, when I'm asked my age I often pause a moment. While this is probably considered a symptom of my advanced decrepitude by the inquirer, it's actually so I can reconsider my instinctive answer: "I'm just a kid."
"Dwayne McDuffie once told me that the Internet is like the biggest junior high school in the universe. Instead of bringing us all together in one big virtual Woodstock festival, the web lets us break off into an infinite number of cliques…"Some of us weren't part of any of those cliques in our school days, though.
That's true, and that's not just at girls' boarding school. Freshman year my high school crowd started off as me and three other buddies sitting at a table in the student lounge during the one hour between the time when the bus dropped us off and the time classes started. By the end of senior year that crowd expanded to an average of about 20 people per day — not counting those who were off doing their homework.
Martha, I know the column is basically about not being a grown-up when you're a grown-up, but just for a moment, let's play Let's Pretend: the part of the piece that riveted me was the one right after you quoted Dwayne, about how the internet lets us all talk exclusively, if we so choose, to our little cliques of people who mirror our own interests. That's great fun, but it may also be the net's biggest drawback — its capacity for allowing us to live our lives without letting in any intellectual fresh air. Like, the digital version of the Closing Of The American Mind, only once again it's an American disease gone global, like the pathetic sight of the golden arches on the Champs d'Elysee. That the net can help make us lazy-minded is Cass Sunstein's thesis, at least, in his recent book republic.com 2.0, which I heartily recommend to anyone interested in post-digital communication theory.[Personal aside, if you'll all forgive me: I imagine this book will be right up Mike Gold's alley (Hi, Mike! Finally, I've found you in Cyberspace. Martha has my contact info, or you can find me on Facebook till my blog goes up in a few, if you're interested.) I say this because I remember Mike as someone fascinated by communication theory, and Sunstein's a prof at the law school of the U of Chicago, which, as he usedta tell anyone who'd listen, is Mike's hometown.]
"Dwayne McDuffie once told me that the Internet is like the biggest junior high school in the universe." I thought that modern politics (and political media) was the biggest junior high school in the universe…Somewhere in my head, I stopped getting older at age 23. That's always how old I'll be inside. Outside, I hope I get to at least three times that age, and I'm well on my way…
I think it's time to face the 21st Century and bring casino gambling to Kandor. Then Supergirl can see the Smothers Brothers in the main room at Ce-Zar's Palace after a really campy El-Vis ceremony. What happens in Kandor, were it to somehow escape, would be so small as to escape notice.
And that's how we stay married!
What happens in Kandor, stays in Kandor…
About fifteen years ago (when i was merely forty-mumble years young), i was showing my nephews (the eldest about eleven or so at the time) how to Do Things on their parents' computer, and Eli, the younger, ran to tell his mom about something Really Cool i'd shown them.Kathy responded "You guys are really lucky to have an uncle your own age."I *think* it was a compliment.Incidentally, there are grey-market copies of the UNCLE theatrical releases floating around, if you know where to look…
I'm an Internet-triple-threat — it allows me to indulge my Inner Geek (work as webmistress for http://www.helixsf.com, read fanfic, look up information on cute actors), my Inner Child (ooh, TOYS!) and my Inner Married Person (met the Bodacious Brit in rec.arts.tv.uk 17 years ago this October).As for age, hey, I was TOLD I only look 28 or so, and Lord knows I feel around 17-18 on a good day.
I was supposed to die a number of times before now, so I'm quite happy to be almost 53.
I'm told I'll be 45 this year and, evidence in the mirror aside, it often comes as a complete surprise. In fact, when I'm asked my age I often pause a moment. While this is probably considered a symptom of my advanced decrepitude by the inquirer, it's actually so I can reconsider my instinctive answer: "I'm just a kid."
"Dwayne McDuffie once told me that the Internet is like the biggest junior high school in the universe. Instead of bringing us all together in one big virtual Woodstock festival, the web lets us break off into an infinite number of cliques…"Some of us weren't part of any of those cliques in our school days, though.
Girls' boarding school. Even the anti-clique kids were a clique.
That's true, and that's not just at girls' boarding school. Freshman year my high school crowd started off as me and three other buddies sitting at a table in the student lounge during the one hour between the time when the bus dropped us off and the time classes started. By the end of senior year that crowd expanded to an average of about 20 people per day — not counting those who were off doing their homework.
Martha – I reiterate – You were cooler than you think! Some of us were a bit in awe of you…we just couldn't keep up.Swayze
Martha, I know the column is basically about not being a grown-up when you're a grown-up, but just for a moment, let's play Let's Pretend: the part of the piece that riveted me was the one right after you quoted Dwayne, about how the internet lets us all talk exclusively, if we so choose, to our little cliques of people who mirror our own interests. That's great fun, but it may also be the net's biggest drawback — its capacity for allowing us to live our lives without letting in any intellectual fresh air. Like, the digital version of the Closing Of The American Mind, only once again it's an American disease gone global, like the pathetic sight of the golden arches on the Champs d'Elysee. That the net can help make us lazy-minded is Cass Sunstein's thesis, at least, in his recent book republic.com 2.0, which I heartily recommend to anyone interested in post-digital communication theory.[Personal aside, if you'll all forgive me: I imagine this book will be right up Mike Gold's alley (Hi, Mike! Finally, I've found you in Cyberspace. Martha has my contact info, or you can find me on Facebook till my blog goes up in a few, if you're interested.) I say this because I remember Mike as someone fascinated by communication theory, and Sunstein's a prof at the law school of the U of Chicago, which, as he usedta tell anyone who'd listen, is Mike's hometown.]
Still do. Ostrander, too. Chicagoans are funny that way.And as I recall, my friend, you went to Northwestern.