Geek Girl Navigating the World – The Rebel Meditations

Believe it or not, I have been called a rebel.  It’s happened more than once, and it’s come from multiple sources.  The first time that I heard that, I was actually very surprised.  When I hear the word “rebel,” it brings a certain set of images to mind, mainly revolving around leather jackets, motorcycles, tattoos, and loud Rock & Roll.  Mostly, though, my first thought was “Me? Really?”

I associate a certain amount of hedonism with rebels, and, while I do know how to have fun, my moments that may equate to wanton acts of self-destruction largely involve riding my moped at full speed (because it’s essentially got two speeds, stop and wide-open, or at least it does when I drive it), or the time that I read the entire run of Dave Sim’s Cerebus in one sitting.  “The Last Day” had just been released, and as soon as I got it from my favorite comic store, I took it home and sat down to read the fifteen-volume set.  I woke up on my bed buried under a pile of large graphic novels (they aren’t called phone books for nothing) with a head full of weird dreams and the utter certainty that Dave Sim is a genius and deserved every bit of money I spent on his work since I found out about it.  I still maintain, to this day, that anyone who creates a sarcastic, three-foot tall, gray sword toting
aardvark as his main character and manages to include Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Oscar Wilde as characters, along with some wicked satire of politics and religion, deserves my disposable income.

So it never really occurred to me that “rebel” could be applied to me in any sort of meaningful sense.  Sure, the United States of America was founded on rebellion, and we have carried on with that proud tradition ever since.  We are a nation that prides itself on encouraging individuality and personal freedom, even though it seems like those ideals have become uncoupled from the personal responsibility that ought to go with them.

I’ve often been described as weird or odd, and, let’s face it, a girl who goes along with the idea of “normal” never earns nicknames like Roswell or Trishie-Fett, and earn those nicknames I did.  Come to think of it, anyone who tries to be “normal” is probably going to be spending a live devoid of any kind of nicknames.  I’ve never been a “girlie girl”–my pink phase lasted all of about five and a half seconds in second grade, and once I abandoned it, I never looked back.  Science and the natural world always did intrigue me; from very early on I liked dinosaurs and rocks and insects.

When I was a kid, I participated in the 4-H program.  It was pretty much like a candy store to me, because it gave me an excuse to try new things.  I learned about genealogy, entomology, and sewing because of 4-H.  When most little kids were busy running around parks or playing video games, I was learning about veterinary science.

If 4-H was the candy store, then college was the smorgasboard.  There were a lot of people in my life that thought I should have gone for an English degree.  I did consider it, but I decided not to, because I wanted to be challenged to learn and grow not just as a writer, but as a person.  I wanted to be able to do a little more exploring of the world and a little less reading about exploring it.  Never in a million years would I say that my writing couldn’t stand some improvement, but I felt like academia wasn’t going to be the best path to improvement for me.  I chose to major in a hard science, instead.  The requirements for the degree gave me the leeway to be able to learn more about the social sciences and philosophy along with all of that math and science. I had the freedom to take classes in Cultural Anthropology, History, Literature, Biology, Philosophy, Astronomy, and Psychology.

I didn’t just get exposure to different ways of thinking and other attitudes, but I also got to see the variety of reactions that people can have when faced with learning.  In my own academic career, I was a bit short-circuited because the university I attended did away with Paleontology as a major the year that I graduated high school, then turned around and did away with it as a minor the year that I transferred there.  I ended up having to go for a more generalized degree than I initially wanted.  Still, there were Paleontology classes available, and I took them whenever possible.  During college, I found confirmation that there is an underlying order in the universe at large at the helm of a microscope.  For anyone who believes that seeing mysteries requires observing on a grand scale, I would tell them to take a Micropaleontology class.  Through both photographs and lab work, I
discovered that creatures that are invisible to the naked eye and largely considered inconsequential to the general public (even though they’re vitally important to the ecosystems in which they exist) bear more than slight or passing resemblance to some of the grandest architectural achievements humans have managed to build.  The arches and domes that nature built herself on a much smaller scale have gone on to be rendered by humans into something just as spectacular, while serving some of the same basic purposes.

Had it been possible to just make a career out of traveling the world and digging up mosasaurs, that is, in all likelihood where I would be right now.  I can’t explain the firing of imagination and excitement that I feel contemplating the idea that, millions of years ago, the sea was populated by enormous, swimming lizard-like creatures.  It brings to mind daydreams of oceans teeming with sea dragons, sparking that connection between the science that I enjoy studying and the fantasy that I enjoy writing. The world of Paleontology has shifted greatly from my starry-eyed little sprocket days, away from the vertebrates and towards the micro and nano disciplines.  The scientists who do want to get into marine vertebrates all seem to prefer the plesiosaurs and icthyosaurs.  I like them well enough, I suppose, but the mosasaurs are really the direction I would have preferred to take.  However, acedemia now dictates that if you’re going to hold down a job and get paid, you’re going to have to spend more than a significant amount of time writing and publishing scientific treatises.  I have been that route.  I wrote the papers, and discovered that if anything was going to destroy my love of writing, academic papers would be it.  Writing them wasn’t fun, at all.  There was no aspect of writing academically that I found exciting or inspiring.  The actual research part of it was cool, but I pretty much hated all of the rest, even drawing the charts.

Now that I’m out in the world and on my own, I find that I teach myself a lot.  When I encounter words or phrases that I don’t know, my first instinct is to go and look them up so that I do.  If something offers inspiration, you can bet that I am going to be doing research on my own to find out more.  This does have some unintended consequences, such as the fact that I now know
some words that I really wish I didn’t, but it also helps me avoid some really embarrassing social faux pas caused by misusing words. All of that has contributed to a different understanding of what rebel can mean.

Rebellion for rebellion’s sake is, to me, just stupid and pointless.  It shouldn’t mean rejecting an idea out of hand just because it exists or you didn’t like it.  A person needs to figure out if an idea is right for them by themselves. Some people have to do that through hard, solid experience, while some people can analyze the situation and make a determination.  However it works for you, that’s probably the way that you should go.

I don’t swear very much.  Sometimes I do, but mostly, I feel that there are much, much better ways to express myself. It’s never been a secret that I love language.  My love of words has extended to  an appreciation for typography and graphic design, because I’ve come to see how the design and packaging of a book can elevate the form beyond the simple delivery of a story.

On that quest to just learn more, sometimes for the sake of the knowledge itself and sometimes in the name of developing something for a project that I’m working on, I’ve found that I’ve had to get comfortable with the idea of delving into some topics that aren’t necessarily all that comfortable or comforting. The human animal is fascinating to study, and because there are so many varieties, it gets clearer and clearer to me that if I want to write about monsters then I have to be willing to learn about them in all their forms, from the tiniest parasites to the massive creatures populating myths, to the dinosaurs that stalked prey millions of years ago and the humans who stalk each other now. In that same respect, I also have to keep in mind that if you only look for monsters, that’s the only thing you’re ever going to see.  One also has to be willing to look for and to see beauty, too.  If you’re ever going to write about it, you have to be able to recognize the concept.

It’s become important, as I write, to just be okay with being myself.  I like what I like without shame and without fear, because all those emotions will do is hold me back from being able to translate the stories and characters in my brain to black and white print on a page.  I don’t see the contradiction that is supposed to be inherent in owning both horror movies and cartoons right along science fiction and tv-shows.  It’s taken people by surprise to learn that I listen to country music, or hard rock, or classical.

Admittedly, I came to hard rock much later in my life than most people do.  For a long time, I thought it was just so much useless noise.  Then, I started learning about chord progressions and musical structure, and I started to see these connections that I had really missed when I was younger.  From there Led Zeppelin became a revelation, and I don’t think I ever looked
back.

I was always drawn to 1960s music, for as long as I knew such a thing existed.  Then, even the pop music could be about a message.  People seemed to really believe in the idea that artists could change the world, no matter what their medium, and you didn’t have to dumb it down so the masses would get it.  What mattered was getting the message heard and revolutionizing the world without violence as a goal.  There is something very powerful in that which speaks right to my heart.

I’ve gotten to see Fugazi live in concert, and I have to say it was a singularly awesome experience.  The stage was small, and the room was hot, crowded, and packed so tightly with people that regardless of whether you wanted to you were going to pogo to the music.  It was dark and a little bit smelly because of the crush of bodies, but in the end it was an amazing set.  There was an electricity in that crowd that I’ve never seen before and haven’t seen since.

I’ve seen Henry Rollins doing spoken word performances one and a half times now.  (The half time was because a family emergency meant I needed to leave early.)  I have to say that I dearly love Henry Rollins as both a speaker and a writer.  I don’t take any issue with his music, but about the only song of his that I really like is “Liar,” and, really, who doesn’t love that song?  I guess I like it because I can identify with it, at least on some level.  I met that guy.  I knew him.  I wish that his own unmasking had actually been as eloquent as Henry’s.

I do find that I tend to appreciate music with lyrics that don’t end up lost in all of the score and sound effects.  Basically, I want music that I can sing along to, making up what I lack in talent with both volume and enthusiasm.  Sometimes I’m in the mood for something that I can jump around to and scream along with, and sometimes, I want something that’s calmer.  That’s one of the beautiful things about music:  I can make soundtracks to suit my mood, and, with a collection that runs the gamut from Powerman 5000 to the Chieftains to Todd Snider to Hank Williams to Frank Sinatra to the Rolling Stones, it’s not that hard to find something to listen to at any given moment.

I’ve found that people have felt a need to share an opinion on my musical tastes, too.  It seems that those are just as contradictory, which I don’t understand in the slightest.  It has never made much sense to me that someone isn’t supposed to like both The Beatles and The Stones at the same time.  They’re two completely different bands with different sounds and
trademarks and, while I’d certainly lead towards the Stones most of the time, there are times when “Ob-la-Di Ob-la-da” just gets stuck in your head, and the only way to excise it is to listen to it.

People are supposed to choose between Star Wars and Star Trek, too, and that’s another one of those things that I just don’t get and probably never will.  I definitely watch Star Wars episodes more, most especially IV-VI, because I don’t think it gets much better than Harrison Ford playing a space pirate, but I don’t really see much that’s inherently wrong with Star Trek.  Now, admittedly, the Star Trek tolerance is a bit lower now than it was when I was younger, largely due to a marathon viewing of those first five movies one Christmas Day, but I’m not going to say I’d never watch them again.  I also know enough about the Star Wars fandom to know that as a “true fan” I’m supposed to say that I liked The Empire Strikes Back the most.  Sorry, but no, I preferred A New Hope.  I think that Harrison Ford portrayed Han Solo’s characteristic swagger so brilliantly in that first movie that it’s absolutely the one to watch. As for episodes I-III,  I also still think that “mitochlorians” was one of the worst sci-fi moves ever.  Way to destroy the Jedi with an explanation and take a little bit more magic out of my world!

As someone who does take keen interest in history and studying people, I also find myself drawn to art in many forms, both traditional and non-traditional.  Writers, comic artists, and animators are really my rock stars.  I’ve gotten to meet Chris Ware, Neil Gaiman, Daniel Handler, and Jim Butcher, and all of them were good experiences.  While some had to limit the time they actually talked to people at the signings, they still took what little bit of time they could, and it was something that can end up being really meaningful and inspiring.  They will all admit to having been where I am creatively, and they are all willing to share the story of how they got where they are now.  Not all of the advice that they offer is going to work for everyone writing, but there’s still insight there that can offer more than a little guidance.

I do feel that reading comics and watching animation make it possible for me to keep some of that magic in my world.  If you don’t think that animators are truly making magic at 24 frames a second, try making your own flipbook sometime.  It’s not as easy as it looks and you’ll find that missing even the little details sets everything wrong.

When most women hear the word colorist, their thoughts automatically go to something to do with their hair.  My brain doesn’t work that way and honestly never has.  I hear colorist and immediately think of comic book colorists.  I’ve learned this whole lexicon of terms because of enjoying comics, because it’s not just a writer and an artist involved–there are pencillers and inkers and editors and a whole host of people making that book look good (unless it really is a solo project).  I know names like Jae Lee (who does some of the most amazing pencil work I’ve ever seen, even if it does sometimes turn my stomach) and Aspen Comics (who still employ some of the best colorists in the business…they create color effects on a page that no one else is duplicating anywhere, no one creates the illusion of shimmer like they do).

I’ve never really struggled with the things that I do that “most” women don’t.  I like playing pool. I know how to play 8-ball, 9-ball, and Cutthroat, and even if I don’t play them well I still have an awful lot of fun when I get the chance to have a game.  I know how to change the oil in my car and do some other basic maintenance to it that most people just leave to experts these days.  In fact, at this point, I’d like to date a guy who actually knows how to change his own tires, because none of the previous boyfriends ever did.  I’d be happy if I dated one who knew how to use either the lug wrench or the jack at this point. Of course, I’d also be really happy if I didn’t routinely get my butt kicked by the tape gun at work, too, which happens, on average, at least twice a week.  In my own defense, the tape that they have purchased for the tape gun is that really horribly flimsy cellophane tape that flops around like a jellyfish in a hurricane, and the air is very dry, which means that static electricity propagates like reality tv-shows in the summer.  Contributing factors aside, my bosses have garnered a great deal of amusement from my usually capable self struggling with the tape because they know that I have done things like sew argyle gargoyles, Viking wire knitting, and bookbinding.  Sometimes, I suspect them of actively dreaming up reasons to make me have to box something up and mail it just so they can watch the fun.

The only beer, or really alcoholic beverage, I ever really liked was 2 Dogs Lemon Beer.  When it went off the market, I tried a few imposters, which were definitely not the same.  They weren’t as good, and I just couldn’t make myself like them.  So, I took matters into my own hands and started looking for recipes for lemon beer.  It took me almost nine years between my last bottle of 2 Dogs and the recipe that I finally found, but now, I mix my own, and it’s every bit as good as the bottled stuff used to be.

I also prefer that my vampires be able to eat Edward Cullen like the pathetic little cupcake that he so obviously is.  I refer to him as a cupcake because he’s clearly covered in sprinkles, as this is the only possible reason why he could sparkle in the sunlight. He’s been dusted with sugar in some sort of effort to make him palatable.  Give me monster vampires any day.  Once you’ve read Ray Garton’s vampires, you’ll never want to go back.

Reading has always been more emotional for me than movies ever have been.  I don’t know if it’s because my imagination is that vivid or because it feels more powerful to read a description, but whatever it is, I don’t cry at movies.  There are only a couple of them that make me get weepy with any kind of consistency. Books, on the other hand, have left me a sobbing, inconsolable wreck in need of tissues and water.  I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance because it was meant to be research for a character that I was creating.  As I got further into it, though, it became more. I revisit it fairly often and it still makes me cry in places, even as I see the wisdom in it. That book was the first indication I’d ever seen that philosophy could have really practical applications in the real world and also strengthened my resolve that when I do eventually get a motorcycle,
I’m learning how to repair it myself.

It probably came as a surprise to no one that I started writing.  When I write, I get to be the czar of my own little universe. I realize that, technically, I should be saying that I’m the czarina of my own little universe, but it just doesn’t trip off the tongue as fetchingly, so, czar it’s going to stay.  It has nothing to do with control.  I think that Craig Ferguson said it best in his book American on Purpose:  “The novel is punk rock.”

I wholeheartedly agree.  When I’m writing, it is my universe, and anything that I want to happen can and does. I never know what’s going to inspire me, and all of that independent research that I do out of idle curiosity becomes relevant to what I am doing in ways I never thought possible.  You have to know a little bit about the way physics actually works if you have any intention of defying that in any way.  It does no good to make something up that you initially thought was purely hypothetical if it’s not only scientifically feasible but also happening somewhere in the world right now.  I think every writer has to make the determination whether a particular work is going to be a slight step to the side of reality or if it’s going to be a right angle, a couple of bus rides, and an international flight from the mundane.  In order to do that, you have to pay at least some attention to what is actually happening in the world.  As a writer, you’re making yourself responsible for not only that entire world you’re creating, but all of its inhabitants, from the animals to the people.  However you choose to populate your work, you’re going to have to figure out how they do the things that they do and why and what kind of impact that has, not only in that fictional life you’ve created but also in their fictional universe.  You have the responsibility to understand where the rules lie and whether or not they get broken. It pays to have found some examples that can at least be allegorical out in the real world.

Thinking in ink on paper is very commonplace for me, even though I really like my computer.  I derive a certain satisfaction from marking up a page with a pen and from the texture of paper.  I’ve bound my own books and made my own paper, both of which were immensely satisfying projects.  As it is, I always carry a notebook and a pen with me wherever I go.  I never know when inspiration will hit, and I don’t want to chance losing some piece of dialog or a plot point or some little bit of characterization that, when slotted in, makes the whole story I’m trying to tell just work. My hands are perpetually stained with ink.  It doesn’t matter how new the pen is or whether it was a free one that materialized in my possession somehow or one that I’ve bought from somewhere; eventually, some of the ink that is supposed to be inside the pen or on the page ends up outside on me.

I don’t just write stories.  I’ve also written and performed poetry.  I used to be a regular at an open mic poetry night.  While there were a lot of people there who were really trying to be deep and meaningful and write really literary pieces, there was also a sense that it was okay to have a sense of humor. This was a very good thing, because my poems tended to be about things like getting a maraschino cherry stuck at the bottom of my Roy Rogers or shopping for car parts on ebay or jackrabbits carrying
lunch buckets. It ended up just being a new venue for me to hear “weird” and “unusual,” though there it was never used as an epithet.

And, I suppose that this writing thing, that’s where the rebel really shows.  Because I do write, I am very much a big supporter of First Amendment Rights.  Believing in Freedom of Speech does mean that I have to protect some speech that I don’t believe in or agree with or condone in any way.  It was difficult, at first, for me to wrap my head around that idea, that if I want to keep my rights to say the things that I want to say, then I have to allow everyone else to say the things that they want to say as well.  Left unchecked, censorship has a way of restricting to the point of total strangulation because it’s difficult to determine where the lines should be.  How is it that these statements are okay to make while those are not? I had to really think about that dilemma until I had a personal epiphany one day, sparked by a statement that my dad had talking about, of all things,
telemarketers. I realized that you can give people the right to free speech all you want to, but that doesn’t give them the right to make you listen.  If you disagree, you can walk away or turn it off, or just not partake.

It frustrates me to no end when someone decides that they’re offended by some piece of entertainment that’s been offered to the public and then decides that no one else should see or hear or read it, either.  It also makes me angry.  I feel pretty confident in my own ability to make good decisions.  As an adult, I’m fully capable of determining when something is or is not good for me.  Taking away my choice just makes me angry.  How can I make a decision without the ability to formulate my own opinion?  How could anyone?  There are such things as reasonable restrictions, and it is possible for people to figure out whether or not certain media are worthy or not for themselves.  The problem is that I am only me.  I am not you.  I am not my neighbor. I am not my friends.  I don’t live in their heads.  Because I don’t experience their thoughts or their lives, I am massively unqualified to make any kind of decision about what they will or won’t like or what they will and won’t find acceptable.  For some of them, I can make a reasonably well-educated guess and be right a surprising amount of the time, but for others I’m completely and utterly clueless.

Self-expression is, I think, a very vital part of human experience.  Earlier this year, I had a pretty major health crisis that completely overrode my independence.  I hated it. I hated every minute of it passionately.  That surprised me, because I hadn’t really understood, up until that point, how important taking care of myself actually was to me.  I found it difficult not to be able to for that time, but I at least knew that I’d make a full recovery.  There were times that I was at a loss for what to do, and it was a feeling that I’m not only not used to, but was also one I really didn’t like.  I could feel how stymied my communication skills were by pain and by medication, and there was nothing that I could do about it at the time, except just do my best to recover.  It was very hard to deal with.

I found myself thinking about the body modification movement.  I can completely get behind the idea of owning your own body and living in your own skin, but I also found myself thinking that rebelling the exact same way a whole group is rebelling to thwart popular convention makes about as much sense as just rebelling because you can.  Proving yourself to be an individual by joining a group truly short-circuits the logic into spluttering, pointless oblivion. I really don’t believe that everyone who participates in body modification does it just because they can or because it will make someone else angry or prevent them from having to assimilate into a culture which they don’t support.  Personally, I just think that if you’re going to do something that is both drastic and permanent to your body that will require both significant pain and effort, it should be something that is meaningful to you as an individual.  If you’re just doing it for shock and awe or because someone else doesn’t want you to, then you’re basing some pretty important decisions on factors completely outside of yourself.  Doing everything just to be contrary ends up being even worse for you than doing everything that you’re told. Instead of being able to say who you are, you can only make a list of all of the things that you aren’t, which means that instead of liberating yourself through self-determination, you’ve just created a thoroughly self-defeating exercise out of your life.

So, after all this, would I agree with being called a rebel? Yes, I think that I would.  The rebels are, to me, the ones who have the courage to stand up and say “I am” without fear and without shame.  They are the ones who are going to change the world with whatever they do.  It may be just changing the perceptions of one person and challenging the assumptions that people make all the time.  I, for one, like having my assumptions challenged because it makes me think. Sometimes, my perspective does end up
changing and sometimes it doesn’t, but having thought about it helps me decide and makes me a better person.

One of my favorite quotes, from anywhere, is a line uttered by Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, and that is “We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.”  The dreamers and the music makers are the rebels to me, and I think that I would be proud to be in that category.  I’d hope that anyone else who finds themselves able to join it should be proud, too.