“Really? I do love that quest line!”
We talked about the finer points of the game inventory management system until my family returned. Whew, significant sexual life experience, over!
My mom gave me a pointed look in the rearview as she got in the car. I responded by putting my sticky, sweaty hand on Tyler’s sticky, sweaty hand and smiled. She nodded and we drove off.
And that is why, to this day, I hate New Jersey.
Even though it wasn’t great, that trip didn’t cause me to break off my relationship with the Ultima Dragons group. The breakup happened a few months afterward when Prodigy stopped unlimited monthly usage and started charging by the hour. Dumb jerks. The group dispersed, but a few friendships persevered. I kept up my platonic three-way with Tyler and Henry, and Henry actually ended up going to college at University of Texas with me the following year and became one of my best friends. Tyler drifted away because his mom wouldn’t let him join us; she thought we were freaks. She was probably right.
I know the story of my Dragon-hood may sound a little sad and weird and super geeky, but (kiss story aside) for a girl who was lonely and desperate for friends, that group of people was the most important social thing to happen to me growing up. I can’t imagine being as confident about my passion for geeky things today without that opportunity to connect with OTHER people who were saying, “Wow, I love those geeky things, too!”
That early community taught me how wonderful it is to connect with like-minded people. No matter how lonely and isolated and starved for connection you are, there’s always the possibility in the online world that you can find a place to be accepted, or discover a friendship that’s started with the smallest of interests but could last a lifetime. Your qualification for finding a place to belong is enthusiasm and passion, and I think that’s a beautiful thing.
No one should feel lonely or embarrassed about liking something. Except for illegal sex picture stuff. And murder and dogfighting . . . I’ll make a list. It’ll be pretty long, now that I think about it. But you get the gist.
Signed,
Codex Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-
-?3?-
Jail Bait
The deprived college years: Surprisingly, people didn’t invite the sixteen-year-old violin prodigy to keggers.
My mother got me into playing the violin at age two and a half because she was watching a morning talk show and saw a bunch of small children playing the instrument together in a perfectly straight line, like creepy toddler robots. They were showing off a technique called Suzuki that teaches kids to play really young, even before they learn how to walk without stumbling around, looking all drunk and stuff. In a startling not-so-coincidence, I was born with a congenitally shortened ligament in my left thumb (I like to think it’s a romantic birth defect, like Anne Boleyn’s sixth finger), and in my mom’s mind, “crooked thumb + violin neck” added up to destiny.
My music studies were a big excuse for my being homeschooled, so I would theoretically have more time to practice and become a world-renowned soloist, traveling around the world in a red velvet coach. Unfortunately, I didn’t take it seriously enough to earn the coach, and my parents didn’t force me to try. Which I’m thankful for. I’ve met a lot of those kids whose parents crammed something down their throats trying to make baby geniuses. Even by my maladjusted standards, those kids were maladjusted.
No, the most my mom ever did to pressure me about my violin was scream, “YUCK!” really loudly from the other room if I hit a bad note while practicing.
Laziest stage mom EVER.
I did practice when I was bored, and I was bored a lot, so around the age of eight I started to be able to play without sounding like I was throttling a cat. After that, my mom decided to upgrade me to the best teacher we could get in the haute-cultured Southern Mississippi vicinity. I’m not sure what the endgame was other than “My beautiful child is a violin savant, I will get her the best training possible so the world can be blessed with her greatness!” but it was a real gift, because we didn’t have a lot of money and lessons were expensive, and my violin abilities ended up getting me a full scholarship to college. I just wish the teacher she found me at the time hadn’t been a Russian madman.
For years, we’d drive an hour and a half to New Orleans so I could train with a huge, had-to-be-related-to-a-bear man named Viktor. He was from the “A touch of abuse very good!” school of Soviet training. He would hit me on the arm when I played off-key. With an actual stick. My theory? It was the whittled-down arm bone of a former student.