The amount of actual energy I actually have to actually say anything right now reminds me of last Saturday morning when I finally put gas in our car. We pumped 16 gallons into the tank, which was odd because it’s a 15 gallon tank. That’s how empty it was. The car was running on hope. We were half a block from putting our feet through the floor and Flintstones pedaling to the grocery store. That’s me, right now.
It’s been a very long couple of weeks, a lot of major events. The second most important was this year’s ComicCon convention. I’ve been to quite a few of these, most of them for work for one reason or another. Once, I was able to bring my daughter, though she was only six at the time. Last year my wife worked the con and my daughter got another chance to take a lap around,
But this year we all got to walk around together, explore the floor as a unit, navigating the negative personal space between Thors and Batmans (Batmen?), speaking to our favorite artists, and braving the way-too-sparse restroom situation.
It’s great that our ComicCon is so close to Halloween, because the costumes are terrific. Folks really go all out. Many, many photos are taken.
I dressed as Doctor Who, a common costume for me as the character wears, for the most part, regular clothing: a red bow tie, a leather coat, suspenders, a Moroccan fez. I won’t go into it, but this year I wore my very long scarf (12 feet long: knit by Zoe after she saw my sad attempt to do so), a leather kilt, and a blue pinstripe suit coat with a sprig of celery in the pocket.
My daughter dressed conceptually, not as an established character but one she created from the world of her favorite television show. Every element of her costume held unique backstory and function. My wife was working, but she looks a bit like a superhero no matter what she has on.
ComicCon is an arts festival at its core. It’s different from a museum, where those who appreciate art roam around and look at it: this is an annual gathering of creativity from both exhibitors and audience.
The primary irony is that the images, stories, films, objects, and costumes on display required a great deal of isolation to create. Hours alone spent writing or gluing or editing are balanced by this weekend in a giant room filled with 200,000 people. Add to that the two story high displays, giant video screens and a vast maze of aisles between booths, and it pretty much looks exactly like the mayhem one would imagine.
We met my wife after her shift and began to navigate the chaos, stopping here and there to pick up a lemonade or an interesting book or a mystical golden staff powered by an infinity stone. We took photos of folks whose costumes must have taken a year to create, as detailed as we’ve seen in any movie, complete with lights and sounds.
Our favorite part of the event is in the basement, where over 250 visual artists set up tables to sell original work. This is where I had taken my daughter the first time I brought her, to make certain she saw all the women and folks of every kind united by art, that art was more than an “elective” in school, but to some of us, our primary identity.
This time we roamed the tables together, each pointing out images and styles that we thought one of us might like, stoping to chat with the illustrators as they signed a sketch or a postcard for us.
But the best part was when some folks stopped us to take a photo. A few people had taken a picture of me because I was wearing a vegetable, but this time they wanted a picture of the three of us.
Again, we didn’t have capes on or anything, but we got to do the whole thing where we put our bags behind us and everyone politely stepped around us as we served our most authentic “adventure” pose.
“You guys are beautiful. That’s amazing. Thank you.” the photographer said.
“Who did he think we were?” my wife asked. “We’re not dressed as anything.”
“Honestly,” I replied, “besides the garnish, I wear most of this stuff to work.”
“We’re us.” my daughter said,
“We just look like us. A family of happy weirdos.”
Yeah. Well said, Kid.
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