Racheline Maltese

wizards, witchery, and my desperate need for a haircut

Home again, home again, and back in the office, to do a little bit of work before it’s home to finish a first draft of one of the two major bits of writing I need to finish in the next eight days. Yes, I’m terrified. But I’ll get it done, because this (writing on really tight deadlines) it what I was trained to do.

Those tight deadlines mean that I’m not rushing out to do the thing (other than going to see The Eagle) that I’m dying to do this week, which is cut my hair. If you were at Gally, you might have noticed I was looking quite a bit shaggier than usual. There was a reason for that, and I’m been trying to find a way to explain it without looking like much more of a mad(wo)man than I already am. But, I’ve decided I don’t care, as it’s on point to some of the things I was saying about Doctor Who the other day.

When I first started acting, I had this moment, sitting in a theater watching the credits roll on something or other than there were three directions I would work with, somehow, sometime. This wasn’t just an expression of desire in my mind, but a fact that had simply not yet come into being (remember what I was saying about all times are now?)

Those directors were, and are, Sam Mendes, Todd Haynes, and Baz Luhrmann. Folks that know me know that I got my first screen credit in Revolutionary Road, putting me a 1/3 of the way to this thing I decided on in a moment of sentimentality at a picture I can’t recall (although I am alternately sure it was either Haynes’ Far from Heaven or one of the Lord of the Rings films). That this first screen credit also came to me for dancing, for doing the first thing I was ever good at and the first thing I was ever trained to do, also meant so much to me. The residuals checks aren’t bad either (and conveniently timed! One was in the mailbox when I got home from L.A. last night).

But beyond that, I haven’t really worried about it. Some auditions that come up I want more than others; such is the way of the world. But I’m always busy with something in my many ambitions, even if it’s not acting, and I am largely content. Living in New York gives me a certain sort of out. If it’s not filming here, it’s largely not my problem. If it’s not filming in the U.S., then it’s really not my problem — I don’t have to worry about success or failure; the option, in these circumstances, isn’t even on the table.

And then Baz Luhrmann started making noises about The Great Gatsby and moved to New York, and my brain exploded. Because who mostly gets work in non-contemporary films? That’d be me. And who dances? Surely Gatsby would need historical dance. And hey, I live in New York and always, always get cast high status. I was thrilled; I was terrified; I was, oddly, trapped in Switzerland at the time, moaning at my friends in email about the gossip sheets and everything that I was missing. All I could do was not cut my too-short-for-the-period hair, which has since been going through an awkward stage both in terms of shape and gender.

Gatsby was on, Gatsby was off. Christian was telling me to cut my hair anyway. Everyone else I knew was sort of rolling their eyes but also totally understanding of my need to look right should the opportunity arise; not cutting my hair was nothing compared to that business of running away to Australia to study at NIDA in 2005. Patty, when I called her at her dig site in India, sweetly and dutifully said, “Poor baby,” when I complained about the state of my shagginess.

Then, while I was at Gally, the story broke (again): Gatsby‘s on. And shooting (apparently in 3D, but that’s a subject for another post) in Australia. My first response was to punch the air, because my hair has really, really been driving me ’round the bend. And my second response was to weep. And when I told Marci about it, who said all the right things in that sorry-like-you-say-when-someone-dies way, I said, I guess some relationships are always better with longing and thought both of the celebration of longing that is the Whoniverse (hey, I was at Gally) and of my very weird and difficult and solitary previously mentioned month down in Sydney. I even found myself missing Bondi Beach, which was the one place in my beautiful borrowed city I sort of hated at the time — too West Coast for this New York creature.

Righto. So no more Gatsby fears for me. No more terror of not getting the chance or getting the chance and not being good enough. Now, I just get to cut my hair, look forward to the next picture from one of my favorite directors, and not have to listen to “When I Meet the Wizard” from Wicked on repeat to remind myself how easily the people we admire can let us down just by virtue of being human.

I’m oddly content with that. For now. But I still remember sitting in that theater all those years ago as the credits rolled on some film I’ve misplaced in my head. And it’s with great and wacky relief that I can tell you my certitude hasn’t changed. But, oh man, I am so glad to be able to do something about this crap curling on the back of my neck. Now the only lingering question is what the hell to do about my grey.

But whatever the answer is, it can wait until March 2, after I’ve made my editors happy.

Buffy bullying incident follow-up: gender and character bashing

I’m on my flight back to New York (pro tip: American Airlines may have in-flight Internet, but it doesn’t have power outlets in coach), and thought I’d take time that’s unlikely to be productive in any other way to respond and follow up on the Buffy singalong situation of the other day.

First, I don’t care if you like Dawn or not. No, really. I’m pretty ambivalent about her myself. And, I recognize that being late to the fandom (that’s one of the things my essay in Whedonistas is about) means that I experienced the show differently — I wasn’t waiting a week between episodes, and I wasn’t in that discussion hothouse that happens when shows are aired for the first time.

I’m actually totally okay with the fact that many, possibly even most, of the commenters on my first post about this got (and gosh, there sure were a lot of you — this blog had previously gotten about 1,000 hits on its busiest day; thanks to Whedonesque it was over 5,500) side-tracked on how they feel about Dawn. I actually often like digressive conversations, and it was interesting.

However, my post really, really wasn’t about Dawn, and it felt like a lot of people missed that. It was about someone who may well have fit the legal definition of a child being bullied by a room full of adults because she stuck up for a character based both around her own affection for that character and the wishes of the show’s creator. This wasn’t, despite the fact that I am someone who often feels the need to defend the honor and memory of characters, about bullying Dawn. This was about bullying a fan, in the room, who was at a power disadvantage to those doing that bullying.

Character hate and character bashing can be weird. We get it a lot in Doctor Who and Torchwood fandom too, where, I suspect, the most common targets are Rose (DW) and Gwen (TW).

What’s character bashing? Lots of things qualify, but I can think of two easy, obvious and common examples: when fans, for no narrative reason, hold characters to a higher standard than other characters with comparable storytelling purposes; and when characters are portrayed in transformative work (e.g., fanfiction) in a way that exaggerates their perceived negative qualities in a way that’s aggressive, punishing, shaming and non-satirical (i.e., a character who has an extramarital affair appears in fanfiction as sleeping with a different person every night, being abusive to their spouse, and being relentlessly mocked for their sexual behavior by their colleagues in a story with A- and B- plots related to none of these things. It’s just the bullying of a fictional character as filler).

Character bashing is one of those things I really don’t get, and I don’t really study it, and so hesitate to make any sweeping conclusions about it. Certainly, there’s got to be a certain level of catharsis in getting out one’s irritation about a character that drives you mad (I, certainly, am not above shouting at the TV when I find Connor particularly irritating on Angel — I loathe that character, and often resented having to watch him, even as his presence was necessary to facilitate what’s one of my favorite arcs in all of television).

But one thing I have noticed is the way in which gender tends to be central to character bashing and the way in which character bashing often seems to provide a framework for bullying (i.e., of other fans who disagree), or, somewhat more subtly, a surrogate target for bullying.

Now, you’d think I could get behind at least the surrogate target thing. That at least prevents real people from getting bullied, right? Wrong. When people are shouting out things like “I hope you get raped” at group screening events (something I’ve now heard happens at some OMWF screenings, but at least did not happen at the one I reported on), that has an impact on real people. As does when female characters are vilified for being sexual, flawed, attractive, popular and/or successful. Or, when male characters are aggressively and relentlessly ridiculed for their performance (or rather non-performance) of masculinity.

So did gender come into play with what happened at the OMWF singalong at Gallifrey One? You bet. And it was as vivid and fascinating as it was awful.

The people yelling “Shut up, Dawn!” which is what started the whole thing, seemed to be mostly women. Women showing disdain for a young female character for speaking. And what was Dawn saying? Oh, just the truth that revealed the awful crap that Willow was doing to Tara at that point in the narrative. So what was that about? Willow/Tara love? Hatred of a snitch? Contempt for Dawn indirectly calling Willow out on her bad and arguably bullying behavior? Or just resentment for another pretty girl the audience is supposed to have some modicum of sympathy for?

Meanwhile, the people who then started yelling, by insisting both the upset fan and Michelle Trachtenberg “toughen up,” at the girl who spoke up about the anti-Dawn outbursts, seemed to be mostly men.

At this point, a few people yelled out trying to get everyone to knock it off. Which is when the hostility at the young fan escalated (and again, let me remind you — very possibly underage and expressing the wishes of the show creator), and I shouted, “Stop bullying other fans.” That worked (to my relief and surprise), and to me seems to indicate that people knew they were behaving badly.

Which is why when I went up to the fan after the screening and saw her surrounded by several people (somewhere in the 6 – 10 range), I assumed they were there to offer her support or apologies. Nope, they (and again, here, mostly men) were explaining to her why they were correct both in silencing Dawn and in telling this fan that Dawn deserved this and that she is required to “toughen up.”

What was perhaps most remarkable here is that the fan continued at this point, not to defend herself, but to defend Dawn. This is stories mattering in action. There have been so many times in my life where I protected fictional people when I didn’t yet feel ready to openly protect myself. I don’t know this fan, or her internal framework, but I was moved by what seemed like an honorable defense of joy from the moment this mess started.

So let’s recap:

– Women bashed a female character for telling the truth;
– Men then enforced the ability of those women to do that and while mocking a young fan who may have been legally a child;
– Afterward, instead of going to see if the kid was all right (because this is our con, our fandom, our community — Gally is a small con (this is the first year it broke 2,000 people) with a legendarily family atmosphere), people went up to her to reinforce their perception that she and her feelings were wrong and used their status (age and gender) to do so.

After this experience, I think we perhaps need fewer OMWF singalongs and more group showings of “The Pack.”

And if you’re the fan whose defense of Dawn ultimately necessitated this post and the previous one on this subject? I’m so sorry. I’ve been the subject of big discussions on the Internet because I’ve had the audacity to stick up for people or express my opinion. It sucks, and it’s stressful, and the last thing I EVER wanted to do here is contribute to your bad day. Because I didn’t get to watch Buffy until I was 38, it didn’t really get a chance to change my life or make me brave. But among other things, I’m a woman who fights, and I am so glad this show and the community that should exist around it means so much to you. I hope this hasn’t put you off either Buffy fandom or the Whoniverse. Despite what happened on Saturday night, I promise you, most of us do believe that intellect and romance should trump brute force and cynicism.

Thank you for helping fight that fight.

ETA 2/23/2010: A few final thoughts about the discussion this has engendered.

tell me that you’ll wait for me

Every year, without fail, my favorite thing about Gallifrey One is the closing ceremonies. I know that’s a little strange, but I have an innately melancholy nature, and I’m also very cognisant of the degree to which it is often the case that it is only in loss that it is acceptable to speak of love.

Doctor Who is about a lot of things. It’s about the wonder of the universe. It’s about ordinary people getting to be heroes, sometimes at extraordinary cost. And it’s about love, often in ways that are remarkable; Doctor Who often decouples romanticism from sexuality and tends not to privilege any particular type of relationship (familial, friend, business, romantic, sexual) over any other.

All those things make the Whoniverse deeply appealing, not just for the narrative of the the Other reasons much SF/F is often popular, but specifically because it’s often a direct acknowledgment of the complexities of family, longing, and ambition that many other properties simply don’t address (Buffy and Harry Potter, for example, may both be choose your family properties but they are less successful at focusing on interpersonal narratives more often ignored).

But Doctor Who is also about melancholy. It’s about loss. It’s about the wonder of the universe being wonderous because you won’t have it forever. One day, you’ll die. Or the Doctor will leave you behind. One day, all that you’ll have left is longing. And memory. But, just as Doctor Who doesn’t inherently privilege one type of interpersonal relationship over another, it also doesn’t inherently privilege one experiential relationship over another. The moment in which you remember the time you saved the universe is just as important on Doctor Who as the moment in which you saved the universe. That moment in which you long? In which you regret? In which you cry in fondness for a love or adventure or friendship or person that once was, is as valuable as the moment you first discovered all those things.

All Times Are Now, my writing partner and I say. Part of that is about our world-building philosophy and the ways in which we like to tell stories — events echo not just forwards, but also backwards, in time. But part of that is also a sort of emotional worldview that tells us a moment of absence can be just as keenly beautiful as a moment of possession. In fact, they are, quite often, nearly the same thing.

I do a lot of creative and scholarly work about mourning. Often, that feels like the most beautiful thing in the world to me. Sometimes, though, it’s just miserable, or a burden of responsibility for holding other people’s stories I am inadequate in the face of.

Doctor Who often provokes me in me the most wonder when Sarah Jane Smith speaks of the life she once had, when Jack Harkness looks for guidance from the man who once abandoned him, and when Amy Pond tells the Doctor just how long she waited for him.

Some stories aren’t exactly real, no matter what the philosophy of my creative work is, and no matter how hard I try to will them into being. I may still check the backs of wardrobes for portals to Narnia, but it is likely I will never quite believe hard enough to find my way into the snowy forests of the White Witch. The Doctor will, I know I am supposed to know, never come for me.

And yet, the Whoniverse tells me that that’s okay. That my life is no smaller for its terrestrialness, for all the things I’ll never get to do, for all the moments that have passed, and for all the things I’ve lost. Which is why I love the closing ceremonies at Gally. Love. Because more than any other moment at the event, they embody exactly what Doctor Who is about.

stop bullying people for caring about stories just as much as you do

So hey, I just went to my first Buffy singalong, which seemed like it was going to be a great way to cap off the Whedonistas launch. But then this thing happened, and I want to talk about it.

Every time Dawn opened her mouth, people in the audience started yelling, “Shut up!” You can defend this by saying it’s the same thing as what we do at Rocky Horror, except that it wasn’t. It wasn’t clever, and it wasn’t directed at all the characters or the property as a whole. It was directed at Dawn.

When a young fan (certainly not older than college-age, probably still a teen, quite possibly under-age) yelled out asking people to stop, people yelled at her. When she tried to explain that this type of action has made the actress who plays Dawn cry and that Joss Whedon had asked people not to do it, people yelled out that both she and the actress needed to toughen up.

In a moment the Buffy singalong had gone from some fans engaging in questionable courtesy to a bunch of fans bullying a young fan because she cares. A lot.

What. The. Fuck?

Being a fan is about love. Sure we argue and debate and rant about People Who Are Wrong on the Internet. But coming to a Doctor Who convention (as Craig Ferguson says, “Intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism”) and bullying a young fan to toughen up because she had a problem with the way the event was going because a Buffy singalong generally does not involve cheering and encouraging the silencing of a young female character whose arc in the episode is such that she is kidnapped, silenced, sexualized and forced into a marriage in Hell?

That was the most uncool thing I’ve seen in fandom in a long time.

Fans need to stop bullying other fans on- and off-line. It’s vile and disgusting and weak. And it makes us so terribly below the heroes we adore.

The Whoniverse is about the people who were never supposed to be heroes choosing to be heroes: shop girls and queer boys from council estates; women who’ve been left behind and men who’ve been forgotten. Secretaries and PAs and temps. People who, that when you hear their stories, you can’t help but hope that at the end of the world the universe might pause for a second and give you just one perfect beautiful moment in which to fix everything.

So in light of that, who the fuck do you think you are to bully some girl for caring about stories just as much as you do?

ETA 2/21/2010: I’ve posted a follow-up to this, addressing some of the comments both here and at Whedonesque and offering a more detailed description of what happened.

ETA 2/23/2010: A few final thoughts about the discussion this has engendered.

war reporting and rape

I’ve wanted, since the story broke, to say something about the assault of Lara Logan from CBS, in Egypt. But I haven’t had time to formulate all the complex things I’ve felt the need to say: how what happened to her isn’t about Islam or what she looks like. And how being concerned about violence against reporters isn’t about valuing privileged people over non-privileged people in war zones, but about using violence against journalists as one specific metric of repression: Killing one journalist can kill hundreds of stories; killing one journalist can drive other journalists away; and killing journalists, medics and religious figures present in a conflict to offer support services or witnessing represents a disregard for certain conventions of war.

Facts relevant to the matter of Lara Logan include that war reporting is dangerous; that rape has been used as a tool of war against men and women always and everywhere; and, also, that there’s always going to be some man, some where, that thinks the appropriate way to celebrate some event is by committing rape.

But here’s what I’m sick of, other than the obvious: People who decry violence against women not out of any concern for women, but because they don’t like the idea of someone touching what they consider to be theirs; imagined property rights are not the reason rape is bad. I’m also sick of people using words like pragmatism to tell us that women shouldn’t fight, report, or even leave their houses alone.

I have lived a life of being told I need an escort: to go to that party, to wear that dress, to see that doctor. It’s terrible and infantilizing. It is lip service to my safety and “value” that actively devalues me. It is a defense of women that offers them rights as occasionally valuable property as opposed to as constant humans.

Maybe it’s because I’m an only child. Maybe it’s because my partner and I spend more time apart than many people who share a household do because of our work, but I value my time alone. I would not know who I am without the walks I took to the Lincoln Memorial alone in the dark as a university student. I would not know who I am without both the silent and the celebratory New York of 2am. When I went to Australia alone it was gutting; it was also everything I needed — this discovery that I was constant, that I was real, even on Bondi Beach at night, listening to the chatter over drinks people who knew how to have friends in a land I loved probably more than it loved me.

So I resent this world that says a woman must always be escorted. I resent this world that says common sense dictates that a woman must never be warrior or witness. I resent this world that insists its our fault if we are both a certain type of beautiful and ambitious and unworthy if we are not. I resent this world that tells me I am stupid if I am not constantly afraid of rape. And I resent this world that constantly seems to suggest that the only reason anyone wants to shield me from violence is that they don’t want someone they’ve deemed other touching their stuff, as if I am not even in the equation.

Lara Logan is a war reporter. As a war reporter, she experienced violence, which is important because violence against reporters is a critical metric of oppression and the standards of engagement under which a conflict is being conducted.

This piece in the New York Times speaks to the reality and the necessity of there being women covering war zones. It is good, useful and insightful. But it also made me need to sit down and write this and say yet again that we are not children and chattel. And that I have to keep saying that is indicative of the particular absurdity of all these “protect the women” arguments.

If it remains necessary to say women are not chattel and children, it remains true that on some level, in some way, in every place, women are not only at war, but are in fact the very field of war themselves. Ourselves. Which means you can’t protect us through these modes of discourse about our rightful place in war, because these modes of discourse represent, relentlessly, forms of that war itself.

Lara Logan is a reporter. She is also a woman. Neither of those things make her, nor any other woman, public property for anyone to decide what she should and should not do. Not those who would assault her and not those who would, often for their own reasons largely irrelevant to her actual well-being, seek protect her.

cons are awesome

The thing about cons is no matter how much you wake up feeling as if you are in a world of hurt, someone else is way more in a world of hurt than you. That said: jet lag, strange bed, odd hotel temperatures, travel food woes and a bit of alcohol (and, okay, to be fair, gluten-free oreos for breakfast) and I am not really at my best right about now.

Con is excellent. I went went to some programming, which is not something I always get motivated to do. Guest banquet was also fun. Have heard some small trivia regarding the new season of Torchwood that is probably profoundly not important to most people, but that I’m utterly satisfied with. But, clearly it is too early for me to be blogging; I seem low on adjectives and high on adverbs. But I am listening to that Prodigy/Enya mash up. Again.

Today is the exciting Whedonistas launch. I’ve already got my contributor copies in hand. If you’re here at Gally, please drop by at 3pm in the Atlanta room. You can pick up your copy of the book in the dealers room and an autograph session will follow the panel in the autograph area.

Thanks to Christian, many of us are wearing buttons that say If you meet Ianto Jones on the road, kill him. I think we all have different sentiments about them (from philosophical to the mere need to preserve the time line), but they’ve been sort of universally been about love, not flame bait, and that’s been lovely, and, in its own way, deeply sentimental. I suppose it’s a little like agreeing to shoot someone you love in the head if they get bitten by zombies and turned.

Less philosophically, my favorite ribbon of the con, provided by Tony Lee, says, Show me on K9 where the Time Lord touched you.

Meanwhile, I spoke to Patty last night. She may be on her way to another location by the time I speak to her next. All is well at the dig, and she has informed me that it has been decided that the dig that she is a pirate queen and her little assistant that the other girls insist on calling a demon (and Patty calls the assistants in the other trenches demons as well — it’s some competition all the girls started over who can be called a demon the most or something) is her General. No, I don’t know. But it’s very awesome. She sounds very happy, but I really, really miss her. I remain somewhat surprised by how grueling I’ve found this whole travel/away thing we’ve had going on since the fall.

Right now, though, I really, really need some scrambled eggs.

All things are possible. After breakfast.

Greetings from sunny L.A. trash day

I’ve had less than six hours of sleep. My voice had already dropped half an octave from overuse and exhaustion. I’m having menstrual pain so bad everything from my ribcage to my ankles hurts. And I really, really miss Patty. On the other hand, I’m at Gallifrey One and I have a pin that says If you meet Ianto Jones on the road, kill him. It’s philosophical and preserving the time-line all at once!

I’m more disconnected from news media than I’ve been in ages. That feels needed and welcome, but also weird. There’s important stuff going on in Bahrain (where doctors are being beaten by authorities for trying to treat injured protesters), Yemen (which is often considered too poor, too tribal, too unmotivated, and too risky to have democracy to garner the coverage it deserves), Iran (where gathering and transmitting news about the scale of the current protests is extremely challenging), the rest of the MENA countries, and Wisconsin. Do me a favor and check out the big news stuff before you play with my links below. Even if you’re no where near any of tose places, this is your world and there is stuff happening in it.

Meanwhile, you may agree or disagree with whether Detroit Needs Robocop, but Detroit is getting Robocop. Lots of people have gotten on board, and the money has been raised.

Also in the realm of crowd funding, a buddy that I know via Gallifrey, Salina, is raising funds on IndieGogo for her film about DADT, Resistance.

Come to think of it, I know a lot of people because of this con. That includes some of the folks who make Yipe!, a pro-quality fanzine about costuming. Get some.

Next, in the department of things I thought EVERYONE on the Internet knew, but chitchat at LobbyCon last night revealed those who had not yet heard the news: Dogs in Elk. Before there was Hyperbole and a Half, there were two dogs stuck in an Elk ribcage and a human about to host a dinner party. Hilarity and less than helpful advice on the Internet ensues.

Finally, in today’s wealth of random, last night I was introduced to multiple mixes? mash-ups? — this is a corner of the media world where I don’t know the right terminology — of Enya and Prodigy. More specifically, “Orinoco Flow” will now be stuck in my head FOREVER. If you Google on this you will find many, many variations on a theme, but I haven’t found the AMAZING one I heard last night to link you to yet (because I can’t remember the URL I was told). But it’s out there, and I’ll get you an update at some point. You should, however, be able to manage some satisfaction on your own.

If you’re a nerd, L.A.’s kind of a weird place for contemplating mortality

Greetings from the late-afternoon LobbyCon at Gallifrey One. Since I arrived I have taken three terrible cab rides, gotten called in for a casting in New York, and reveled in the glory that is In-and-Out Burger. Mostly, though, I am jet-lagged and keenly reminded how much I do not get L.A.

I feel bad about that. A lot of people I know are from L.A. Or love L.A. Or at least get L.A. But me? I’m horrified. I don’t know if it’s an actors phobia, or the disconnect of growing up somewhere where cars are just not on the menu, or an acute reaction to the aesthetic difference between a 19th-century city (New York) and a 20th-century one. But L.A. and I are seriously, seriously not on.

And it’s not just that I’m out here in airport land. I’ve been to other parts of L.A. I spent a few weeks in Beverly Hills about twelve years ago working on a commercial, and I’ve visited friends in Bel Air, but no matter what part of L.A. I’m in, I find it depressing, like some world I am locked out of — whether by appearance or desire or just a general affection for actual seasons.

L.A. is, however, a good place, I find, for my particular brand of melancholy, although we all could have, perhaps, done without the moment when I declared during our one not terrible (despite its bad 90s rock soundtrack) cab ride, that there was a certain unpleasant irony in being at a Doctor Who conference in the land of Wolfram & Hart and feeling forced by the urban landscape at hand to contemplate my own mortality. Although maybe that wasn’t L.A., maybe that was just me missing the feeling of being dressed as Captain Jack Harkness.

Of course, as I told someone on Facebook after the Gogo Inflight finally started working again after I complained copiously about it online, just because I’m not wearing the coat, doesn’t mean I don’t still bring the magic. Although, I’ve gotta say, the jet lag feels like it’s taking years off my TARDIS-induced immortality.

HPA guest blog up

While I’m at JFK enjoying airport time (and if any can tell my why my Mac randomly jumped to LA time while I’m sitting in the Soho Bistro in terminal 8 in NYC, let me know), my guest blog has gone live over at The Harry Potter Alliance. While you read, I’m going to sit here enjoying my celiac-friendly burger without a bun while having massive nostalgia as this place blasts Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn.” Now that was a different life.

YANA

I tend to talk in absolutes and give advice a lot. Sometimes, that’s good and useful for some people, and sometimes it isn’t. I try to be a good counsel to my friends, and listen and sympathize when it is that, over me and my random “I’m a boy and here are some solutions that may or may not actually be useful” brain that is preferred.

But nothing, nothing makes me wish I had answers as certain as my speech than some of the search strings that lead people to this blog.

To the two people who wondered why am I always worried I’m not cool enough? I don’t know. But we all do it. Me, you, and as I’ve noted before, Steve Case, which I’ll admit is kind of a weird example. I wish I had an answer for you. I hope that after you found me, Google took you somewhere that offered more insight into that one than I can, despite my best efforts. If it did, if you’re reading this, let me know what that link was, okay?

And then there’s the person who wants to know how do I fit in in 4th grade? I wish I knew. I didn’t know then. And I don’t know now. I feel grateful to have made it through okay. But I do know that whoever you are, you are resourceful. And whether you fit in or not and whether the Internet has anything useful to say to you on this point or not, I know that you are amazing.

I first got on the Internet in 1990, using BITNET to read newsletters from student dissidents in China and discuss Twin Peaks with the head of the university honors program I was eventually kicked out of. It was like two tin cans on a string. It was like the Wild West. It was like space; vast and empty and yet filled with the most miraculous things.

When I see the search strings that lead people to this journal (and keep on coming everyone looking for info on A Billion Wicked Thoughts, there sure are a lot of you), I am reminded of those early years of my life on the Internet, of the keen sense of searching (before we knew that the answer was always yes) for someone out there who might be just a little bit like us at our most different or most lonely or most scared or most obsessive or most brilliant.

I don’t know what you can do to fit in in fourth grade. I don’t know why most of us feel like we’re not cool enough sometimes. But I know you — and I and none of us — are not alone.