Following up on my last post, here’s a few more potentially embarrassing confessions/things you probably don’t know about me…
I used to be a ginger kid. Up until I was around 5 or 6 I had curly, bright red hair and a face full of freckles. The freckles mostly faded, as did the hair color, but there’s still a few. And you can definitely still find some darker red hairs if you look hard enough, especially in my facial hair.
I still read comic books. It perhaps wouldn’t be embarrassing if I just stuck to the more artistic or cerebral indie/small press stuff, but I don’t. Most of what I read is of the non-superhero/men in tights genres, but I have been known to pick up X-Men, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, etc. on occasion. Shameful, really. Don’t believe any comic geeks that try and tell you differently, 90% of the mainstream Marvel/DC stuff is pure crap.
I do take some solace in the fact that I’m not the typical obsessive/retentive fanboy. I buy the books, read them, and throw them into a pile. No bags, no boards, no meticulous organizing and filing. None of it. I stay away from most of the other traps as well. I have (some) social skills. I take care of myself and care about my appearance. I’ve moved out of my mom’s basement. I spend only a tiny portion of my income on comic books. I’ve had sex. More than once. With someone else. Okay, enough on that.
I dig trains, and model railroading. It started because my grandfather was a locomotive engineer, so I got to experience trains much more closely than most kids. I even got to go for a ride with him on a couple of occasions. For a small child, what could be cooler than riding around in the cabin of a train? Right around that same age my dad had built a fairly large model railroad layout in his basement, and I loved it. I had tons and tons of trains and stuff of my own, though nothing of his scale!
Some day, when I have my own house, I fully plan to build a layout of my own in the basement. Every couple years I make a trip to the local hobby shop and pick up some kind of model kit, and build it to satisfy the interest in the meantime. There’s a really relaxing, zen state to it, almost meditative. It requires a lot of focus and patience, much like meditation, so it’s great exercise for the brain.
I’m a big old Buffy The Vampire Slayer nerd. I have the DVD box sets for all the seasons, and have seen every episode more times than I’m willing to calculate. C’mon, it ties together my aforementioned affection for bad high school movies with zombie/vampire flicks (another embarrassing favorite of mine.) Plus, y’know… Sarah Michelle Gellar. Even better, Eliza Dushku for a while. Mmmm… Faith…
I’ll be in my bunk…
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, embarrassing myself. I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead here, before I shred that last final sliver of dignity I’ve left myself with here.