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6:51 a.m. - 2006-12-31
One of many stabs at the story of Johnny
There is a certain power in symbology. I turned off all the lights in the CAGE. I cannot have complete darkness, what with typing this on a computer and all, but the monitor's screen is the only light upon me. I've wrapped myself in my over a decade old trench coat. I'm sitting here giving you my complete attention.

Dearest Reader,

Who are we if not the product of a neglectful society, the refuse of talk-show vulture parents, and the willing apprentices of darkly clad villains of animated tales? I know that I was drawn into a preference for all things spooky or malevolent by the pixilated babysitter who taught me more than my mother ever claimed to have. Every episode I would identify with the villains in the story until that last fateful moment when their plans were vanquished by the valiant heroes. I wanted to be on the winning side even if that meant abandoning my icons at the last second. That seems to be a common theme throughout my life. I will grasp onto an idea, a band, even the occasional sports team, until they prove themselves to be a let down, a disppointment.

There's a rift within me that I'm sure Freudian terms explain most cleanly. There is my Ego Ideal. That is the part of my superego that I aspire to be. It is made up of all of the villain and anti-hero role models that television, comic books, novels, etc. presented me. Then there is my conscience. It is made up of everything that I have been punished for. Whether the punishment came from my mother yelling or hitting me, from 'peers' singling me out for being different, or from the heroes vanquishing my role models, it all impacted me to some degree. It all leaves me second-guessing myself.

For the longest time I fully attempted to embrace my ego ideal. I dressed the part. I played the part. Most people even empowered me by believing that I was the part. All the while I was rarely allowed to go anywhere or do anything. I went to school. I had a small group of people in each class that I talked with. Most of those groups of people didn't talk to each other. I went home. I watched the Disney afternoon and other reruns all night until I went to bed. Rinse, wash, repeat. I broke out of that slightly by running games of Vampire the Dark Ages three times a week and by playing Magic the Gathering at least two main times a week. With Vampire I jumped right into the role of storyteller. I crafted a world around my players' characters. I responded to their actions. I anticipated their actions. I was able to be the god of my own little creation.

When my game went from half a dozen or more players three times a week down to a mere one player once or twice a week, I said that the game was dead. I was reasured that it wasn't and neither was I. Looking back on things, no the game never really died and typing this is proof enough for me that I'm still here. Cogito Ergo Sum. I think therefore I am. It was, however, as far as I can tell, a time of awe and wonder for me. You speak of being a trophy. Being the only girl in a group of all male gamers will do such a thing. However, when my game was at its zenith, women players outnumbered the men. Most of these women had never played a roleplaying game before. They were all the better players for it. How I miss the attention it gave me.

At the time, as much as the game was a major part of my life, it was not the whole of me. I didn't use the game to define me. I defined it. Today I make such observations as: "When a person only identifies themself by the smallest part of whom they are, they do a great disservice to themselves and to everyone else." Or in other words, when a person takes just one part of themself such as their religion, their sexual orientation, their dietary choices, their political party, their fashion style or supposed lack thereof, their choice in music, etc. and they make this one part the end all and be all of who they are, it shows just how shallow they really are. I make observations like these and begin to honestly realize how guilty I am of these transgressions. I used to be label free. Well, I used to live label free. Unfortunately at the time I thought that that meant avoiding such nonsense as brand names as well.

Some labels were of course applied to me with or without my knowledge. Some of them I embraced; some I tried to avoid which necessitated becoming the opposite of such a label...every label has an equal and opposite label. Both equally bad; both equally useless. I have not believed in the Christian idea of a god since I was four years old. It wasn't until I was 15 that I learned what the word atheist meant. I read the definition and latched onto it with the whole of my being. I was not ambivalent about whether there was a god or gods or any supreme power. I was sure that science had the answer to the universe. I was not a-gnostic. There was no room for doubt in me. I believed fully that people were wasting their lives praying to and supplicating themselves to and playing along with the rules of some fictional character(s). I believed that only the ignorant masses still needed the nurturing and guidance from such quaint ideologies.

Being a non-christian makes one a Satanist by default whether one wants to be or not. "You don't believe in God? Then you must believe in the Devil!" After a decade of people handing me tracts about the book of Revelations and telling me that if I'm not with God then I must be against him, I foolishly proved them right. Sad to say, but it appears to have been the truth all along. While I was, for the most part, minding my business, living a somewhat pious and sin free life, despite not believing in an afterlife for which I should be working toward, people pushed me and prayed for me and abused me into hating them as much as they claimed to love me. I barely love my family and yet you want to claim to love me?! Henry Rollins's song "I know you" sums up a lot of the hatred I felt at the time. Of course like so often happens with me, I was unaware of this song until much later.

Goth. Oh what a precious and precoscious label we have there. As I have said, I had a preference for dark colors from such an early age. Cobra, the Decepticons, Mum-Ra the Ever-Living, Gargamel, and all my other cartoon idols had such dark colors as their trademarks. It also happened that in English class I found a voice for my pent up hatred and my pent up frustration at such an imperfect world. It has such a pretty term to go with it, angst. Angst is the German word for fear. It does sum up the transition from youth to the "real world" so nicely. Poetry became my voice for this angst. So here I am wearing dark clothing, writing poetry, reading vampire novels, and listening to rock and alternative music and it turns out that there's already a word for such people. This is one of the labels I continue to cultivate. My blood red hearse parked out front will attest to that. So will my black one that is currently under a state of repair. As will the year I lived in a house in the middle of a two-acre cemetery. If it's spooky enough to belong on the Addams Family or the Munsters, I probably like it. As far as real guts and gore however, I'm more than just a bit squeemish.

As much as I identify with Johnny C. from Jhonen Vasquez's comic book series "Johnny The Homicidal Maniac", I am also the same guy who left the theater during "Saw III" not once, not twice, not even three times. It was more like six. That kind of visceral shocker horror produced in me an almost gut-wrenching sensation. Although someone did indeed vomit on the floor of the men's room, that someone was not me. I was near to that point, but I didn't teeter over that brink. I'm surprised considering the stomach full of crawfish etoufe (I know I mispelled that) I had from Joe's Crab Shack. So I might want to do to people what Nny does, but to carry the process out would cause in me a case of "projectile vomitting" that I do not look forward to. So rest easy all of you "wacky" people.

P.s. I have a pocket full of condoms from visiting Cocktails and the Innerbelt, among other places, to promote the CAGE for tonight's New Year's Eve Head Bangers Ball. I'll be sleeping up here at the CAGE so that I can guard the sound equipment and let in the band Abra Kadabra when they go to do a sound check.

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