I’ve been in a weird mood the last few weeks. I’ve got this want to actually do something, with the site(s) and with writing, only I find myself bored and not bothering. I think about the sort of stories I want to write, but when I sit down at the computer, or even with a pen and a notebook, I can’t seem to be bothered. I’m not sure what it would take, but I know that it’s eating away at me.
I keep perusing my bookshelf for books. Most of them have been read. Some have been read over and over again. Then there are those few that I’m glad I have but often just glance at the cover and remember what was within the pages. I’ll always reach for something else.
In 2003, a friend I had met via the internet invited me to join him at the San Diego Comic-Con. This was a huge event for me. I wanted to go, the geek in me unable to convince myself that this was the worst possibly social faux pau ever. Back in those days, I was a blogging fool! I didn’t always have something brilliant to say, but I wrote often. I also read more. Including Wil Wheaton‘s blog. It was through his blog that I found out about Dancing Barefoot. I ordered one, only to recieve the email letting me know that there was such an influx of orders, it might be a little while before my copy would arrive. Damn.
I knew that Wil would be at Comic-Con. I also knew that my funds were limited, seeing as I had recently moved back in with my parents and didn’t have a job. I scrounged up what little I did have for funding purposes and was glad for the chance to get to go anyway. Brad, the friend who invited me, treated me to half his hotel room as well as buying my ticket into the event.
For those who’ve never had the joy of going to Comic-con, you can only imagine that it’s full of things you know you don’t need, but for whatever reason, you simply cannot live without. I picked up a few things (including the Darkness comic to match the original pages I had at home), some various other Darkness comics. Various posters and lots of free stuff from all the tables. The senses are absolutely overloaded with bright colors and all things shiny.
There was a particular day. I made it a point to have enough money to visit Wil’s table. I wanted to have my copy of the book with me, but I would simply have to buy another. So I did. Having both the illustrator and author sign somewhere on the inside. I looked at the book and refused to read it. I couldn’t justify leaving smudge marks anywhere. I kept the book inside a comic sleeve with a board. Let me stress how much I wanted to read the book. I waited. I waited until I was home again, and the first copy arrived. The envelope became the safe haven for the signed copy and there it still sits, on the bookshelf by the bed in my apartment at this very second. The unsigned is on the floor by the bed, with a booklight pressed between the pages as my bookmark.
This was the perfect book to pick up and reread. The first story left me in tears. Not because I had a similar experience, but because I could imagine what it must have been like to feel that way. Because Wil is an amazing writer who brings you into the experience with him. I didn’t cry last night, after reading one of the shorts. But I teared up. And I realized that it was this kind of book I wanted. Not necessarily a book of stories, but a book that someone would lie in bed reading. A book that someone would put off half and hour or fourty-five minutes of sleep in order to get “just a few more pages” read. The kind of story that makes you laugh out loud, or wipe a tear away. I want to write something like that.
I had the book with me when I drove a car full of boxes to the boy’s place (for him and his roommates). The boy and his roommate laughed at me when they saw what I was reading, and who was the author. I shrugged them off. I knew that contained in those pages were something meaningful to not just me, but to the child actor they were quick to make jokes about. Let them laugh, thinking Wil wrote a book on how to literally dance barefoot. It’s okay.
I know what’s really on those pages…