Back in touch with my inner nerd
Today, when looking in the paper, I noticed that the Brattle Theater in Harvard Square was hosting the "First Annual Boston Fantastic Film Festival". Well, I thought, let's get some of that action.

Of course, getting there was tricky. It's normally no big deal to walk the mile or so to get there, since the exercise couldn't hurt, but I'd forgotten that this weekend is also the Head Of The Charles regatta. All sorts of people rowing on the river, trying to do it fastest. It brings out a huge crowd, whether from local schools who have teams competing or folks from rather-not-local places - I was crossing a bridge, and heard the coxswain of one boat yelling something in German. I don't know what she was saying, just that I wanted to row faster.

Anyway, I got there and had some time to kill before paying $9.50 for a ticket to Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monster All Out Attack!, and I thought, you know what, it's been something like three months since I've been in a comic store. I suppose one way to look at it is that having more important things to think about has caused me to kick a $30/week habit cold turkey, but I was more into the "one more way this whole situation has screwed up my life" mode. Utterly ridiculous, of course - if none of this had happened and I'd just gone to Seattle, made new friends, met a nice girl, and gotten swamped at work just as quickly as I did here (substitute "trying to figure out what's going on" for "getting swamped at work"), the same thing might have happened.

I attracted a bit of attention, which annoyed me. Yeah, Michelle's body has a pretty face and a nice figure with attention-commanding breasts; if I were on the outside looking in, I'd certainly take note of her, but I don't think staring would be in order. I was pretty far from glammed-up - no makeup, my jeans weren't particularly tight, and I was using a plain rubber band to put my hair in a ponytail (which isn't ideal - I should remember to get a scrunchie or something).

I wasn't sure what bugged me more; that there were a bunch of guys around me who weren't making any real secret of how much they'd like to sleep with me, or that I might have been acting just like them when I was, say, Michelle's age. But at the root of both, really, is the whole idea that certain activities are generally reserved for some segment of society or other. Why shouldn't a pretty girl like comics (and not just the manga or Sandman reprints)? It goes the other way, too - my male friends used to look at me like I was weird when I would recommend a French movie, but now, not so much. Heck, I remember the crap one of my suitemates took freshman year for being a black guy who prefered hockey to basketball.

Ah, well. At least by the time I left, I had the guys at the counter hoping I'd come again soon because I bought a bunch of comics, not because I could fill out the costumes inside pretty well.

-Marti

(And Godzilla was subtitled! How cool is that?)
- posted 9:47 PM - - (archive use only)