Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Gunpowder, guillotine...dynamite with a laser beam...


My science fiction self has been crying out since I was a itty, bitty kitten.

"I saw 'Star Wars.'" That was the first complete sentence I ever spoke. (I'm told that that right there qualifies me as marriage material for some). I had some of the action figures when I got a little older. (One of my cats put teeth marks in Darth Vader's plastic cape and my little brother lost Yoda's snake. Grrr.) Back when HBO played the same five movies every day, we would sit and watch sci fi movies over and over. "The Last Starfighter." "The Empire Strikes Back." "Solar Babies." "The Dark Crystal." We watched "Star Trek," "Masters of the Universe," and "She-Ra" everyday after school.

But somehow, I never fully realized my inner geek. My friend was much more into than I was. She would watch "Star Trek: The Next Generation," and she would understand and remember it better than I did. I was too busy reading books and listening to music to pay attention.

I never got into comics, either, even though one of my friend's had the largest comic book collection in the tri-state area. None of this seemed to stick.

Years have gone by. I've spent most of it reading books and listening to music. (Big surprise, right?) And then one day, I was introduced to Joss Whedon's "Firefly"...and and the little sleeping sci fi kitten awoke. Here was a fantastic show! It got lousy treatment and was canceled way too early. But it was so original and funny. I needed more of this! So I was directed to Whedon's original baby, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

It was perfect. I had spent the end of my teens being obsessed with vampires. Watched all the movies, read all the books, couldn't get enough of them. And then, as with everything else, I grew out of it. And the original airing of the "Buffy" television series slipped by me unnoticed. Thank God for t.v. on DVD.

I watched all seven seasons of "Buffy" at the beginning of this year and I loved it. It made me laugh, cry, pull my hair, roll my eyes. And it also made me realize another thing: I am really a geek at heart.

It isn't that surprising. I've always been attracted to geeks, my friends were all geeks in school. I very well could already be a geek, I've just always thought I was too weird to be labeled anything concrete. But I don't just want to be a geek. I want to be a science fiction goddess.

So, stick my killer queen rack in a vinyl cat suit and toss me a phaser, I'm ready to take over the world. I have many hours of learning ahead of me, many universes to traverse. I'm not limiting it to strictly science fiction, I'm including fantasy, too. It's just that "Science Fiction and Fantasy Vixen" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

I'm planning on documenting my trip. You know, Captain's blog, star date...I'll post little entries about how I'm furthering my efforts to know and see all that is unworldly. I'm starting with the "Buffy" spin-off, "Angel." (I heart Joss Wheadon.)

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