It was pointed out to me today that I occasionally boggle the mind. And not in the super-impressive, I’m-just-that-bloody-brilliant way.
The observation made was that I can be shown or hear some sort of recognition or praise from someone I profoundly respect, who is a god among wo/men, and I’ll be really touched (I am quick to tear up, as a habit), feel good, but tend to a respond with a, “That’s really cool,” or “Wasn’t that nice?”
On the other hand, I am sent completely over the moon sometimes by things one might think are nothing at all to write home about, or something that should perhaps be a trifle and little more.
For example, around 2000 or so, I called everyone I knew in an ants-in-the-pants frenzy (actually, I think Audra might have been one of the people assaulted by this) to point out that in one of the first published pieces on my work in sex ed with me as any kind of front-page news, a photo of me was right next to — drumroll, please with a minor parade — a photo for a story on Paul Reubens (and no, not that story, that was ten years earlier). I was next to PeeWee Herman, dude. PeeWee, old tapes of which were my comfort back in the day when I was coming down from loads of LSD. PeeWee, who I have always thought is just divine, quite in spite of myself. If I was next to PeeWee Herman, surely I must have arrived.
Today, I noticed this influx of traffic to Scarleteen, hit the logs and saw that the inclusion of a Buffy reference in this piece was blogged on Whedonesque. In the comments, a reader of mine who apparently found this link before I knew about it myself, made a note of my thanks to Joss in the acknowledgments of my book.
Which means…
– since Joss sometimes reads and posts there –
…that it may very well happen that Joss sees that and knows, even if for just an instant, even if just in a fleeting glimpse, how very much I adore him. I don’t need him to love me back. My fangirlness for Señor Whedon is so lunatic-fringe and high school that were he simply to know how I loved him, again, all would be right with the world.
Upon the realization of this teensy shimmer of possibility, this golden glimmer of hope, there was much squealing which followed. (Then some minor irritation that I still have yet to finish the very-long “Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Love & Sex… You Learned from Buffy” piece I’ve been working on on and off for a year or so now, since it would have made a far more impressive display.) Kind of all day. We could have managed to achieve world peace – even though it might require the loss of free will – and I probably would have been like, “Well, that’s really neat, but… Joss Whedon might see my acknowledgments, man!”
I’ve now since started breathing again and am able to speak without squeaking. About other topics, even. Go, me.
However, I have decided that should I ever get any evidence to show that Joss, indeed, has seen any of this, I am making myself a t-shirt that reads “Joss Knows I Exist, Therefore I Am.”
