The X-Men really gained popularity as a comic when Chris Claremont was writing the “All New! All Different!” Uncanny X-Men. One of the hallmarks of Claremont’s writing, and one of the reasons I believe the series became so popular, was a really good handling of soap opera-esque plotting. It wasn’t just the characters that people liked or Claremont’s melodramatic but engaging dialogue, it was the way he (and John Byrne, when they co-plotted the series) wove storylines involving the Sentinels, Magneto, the Savage Land, the Shi’ar Empire, the Hellfire Club, Alpha Flight, Doctor Doom, the Morlocks and especially the “Dark Phoenix Saga.” And if you go back to the original X-Men team, the best stories are just as drawn out and soap opera-esque.

Soap opera storylines are pretty much impossible to do in movies; the dramatic structures of serialized comics and feature films are just too dissimilar. I love the way the Iron Man, Thor and Captain America movies have all led up to the forthcoming Avengers movie. And Marvel Comics has been doing extended, twisty, soap opera plotting in all of their superhero comics since the ’60s. But it’s such a part of what makes the X-Men in particular a comic I keep going back to–I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve re-read the original and “new” X-Men comics–I have a hard time imagining an X-Men movie that will ever be as enjoyable to me as the animated X-Men series of the ’90s.

Day 1 — I get a flash of an idea for a story (or series of stories). The idea is very vague, but I’m fairly excited about it and write it down.

Day 2 — I get more ideas that build on the original idea, writing them down. I’m even more excited about the story.

Day 3-4 — I can’t stop thinking about these story ideas. I want to spend every waking hour on them, but I can’t, so I spend what time I can adding more ideas, fleshing some things out and generally getting more and more excited.

Day 5 — I don’t have any more ideas, but as I look over my notes, I’m still very excited about the story. I can’t wait to get some time to actually start writing, because this is clearly going to be an amazing story!

Day 6 — I look over my notes again and start getting more ideas, but these ideas are starting to calcify the energy and enthusiasm I’ve been feeling. I start to question everything about the ideas. Are the characters likable and believable? Does the setting even make sense? Do I even have the ability to pull this story off? Doubt begins to overshadow everything about the story.

Day 7 — I put the notes aside and shelve the story away as “something I might write someday.”

(Have I mentioned I have a short attention span?)

So I should clearly not wait more than four days before I start the actual writing. Definitely don’t wait a week or more. I should ride that wave of enthusiasm, rather than letting it die down. Run wild over the self-doubt, trampling it underfoot. Because I’m tired of letting my fires dim.

I hadn’t thought about Cornelius in ages, but Soul Train was huge for us kids of the ’70s and ’80s. I’m about as Caucasian as they come, and my parents’ tastes in music have never been…funky. Soul Train was my primary introduction to Afro-American music and, more importantly, culture. Soul Train was a direct result of  the Civil Rights Movement and “Black is Beautiful.” It didn’t just showcase Black music and Black dancing, it showed African-Americans proudly being themselves. They had big afros. They wore stylish clothes (that would probably be called “urban” today) and African-influenced fashions. They were proudly and joyously not trying to fit in to “mainstream” White culture. (As I remember it, Soul Train was also free of a lot of the clownish caricatures of African-Americans that sadly dominated much of American TV and movies of the time.) Soul Train was unapologetically in your face without being confrontational and angry. Soul Train was Black Pride while also being inclusive and multi-cultural. Soul Train was the embodiment of Emma Goldman’s “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” Damn, it was cool and funky and beautiful!

I’m sad and sorry you felt you had to leave us, Don Cornelius. But your legacy lives on. I wish all of you love, peace…and soul.

We woke up from a long, wonderful dream I want to write.

Morrow was here, late 19th century after the Civil War. Was to obtain a more west. But just the rich, who had power over many and cruel is the woman doing uses according to his own profit. My brother and sister-in-law decided to group as a part of me, who with all the power of the County of theft and the woman taking it up in other places. A brother of his friend in some way to be able to switch engine and engine drivers for his train, while he was in the army on the march. (Causes of the color of which is never very clearly was here. Read more purple, that symbolic of something.) As he was a late train, understood what they thought about that woman was hijacked (by a purple steam engine, which is his final insult) and of all wealth and power was gone. Welcome yielded said?

The train was brought to New Mexico in a small city, which is turned into a colony for artists, writers, inventors of free thinkers. The town had no more the government or the like. The results of our news came that the publisher/editor, who also when your orator, Mexico and pure American (making him into the country for the most part). An old man had been the effect of the cathedral in the city is converted labyrinthine display space and a place for painters, sculptors, actors, and musicians here. Multi-ethnic and multi-cultural people of the town, which the Caucasian, African-American, American, Asia, the Hispanic and Native American. We seemed to be with all.

My brother and sister-in-law into the town but I’d definitely moves with some friends for a lion to him, looking at the West more. Wishes in the bow, George Takeo, even he had said, and set me to move the de facto replacement, making me head of the town. I am honored, I could not help but to think, “Wouldn’ta popular to be better governance of this art, free thinking town? Hence, in this way better than the rich empire of things?” Rich n the way the woman controlled things? “

It was the mid-to-late 19th century, after the Civil War. I was a passenger on a train heading west. On the train was a rich, cruel woman who had power over many people and used it to make them suffer for her own profit. I was part of a group that included my brother and sister-in-law who decided to take power from the woman by stealing the entire train and taking it somewhere else. My brother and some friends were somehow able to switch their own engine for the engine driving the train–while the train was on its journey. (For reasons that were never made clear, the color of the engine was very important. Our engine was purple, which was symbolic of something.) When it was too late to do anything about it, the woman realized the train had been hijacked (by a purple steam engine, which was the final insult to her) and all of her wealth and power was gone. She’d been foiled!

The train was taken to a small city in New Mexico, which had been turned into a colony for artists, writers, inventors and free thinkers. The town had no mayor or government as such. The police reported to the newspaper publisher/editor, who was also the trade negotiator with Mexicans and Mexican-Americans (making him the most powerful man in town). An old cathedral in town had been converted into a labyrinthine display space and performance space for painters, sculptors, actors, musicians and dancers. The people of the town were multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, being Caucasian, African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic and Native American. Everyone seemed to get along with everyone else.

My brother and sister-in-law were in town, but they’d decided to move out to California with some friends, looking for further opportunities on the West Coast. The newspaper editor, George Takei, had also decided to move on and had named me as his replacement, making me the de facto head of the town. I was honored, but I couldn’t help thinking, “Wouldn’t a democratic government be better for this artistic, free-thinking town? How is this better than the way the rich woman controlled things?”

If watching this doesn’t send happy chills up and down your spine…well, you’re clearly not me.

Of course, correlation does not equal causation, so to the best of my knowledge, we can’t definitively say the blackout was successful. But all in all, I still think it was worth doing.

If we do at least accept the possibility that the blackout helped turn the tide against SOPA and PIPA, do I think my blog had a hand in that? Nope. I’ve seen my blog’s stats and there’s no way I could bring about any kind of serious change here. So why did I do it?

I was raised to never cross a picket line and to always honk your car horn when driving past a worker’s strike, to show solidarity for the strikers. I blacked out my site for the same reason: to help show my solidarity for the main strikers (Wikipedia, Google, Reddit, etc). I also did it as a personal reminder to myself to take further action, like contacting my representatives and telling them why I think it’s important for them to vote against SOPA and PIPA.

It’s also important to keep contacting your reps and campaigning against SOPA and PIPA. Who knows how much good that will do? The MPAA and RIAA have far more money and power than the rest of us. But some representatives have already reversed their support, so I’m optimistic enough to think more change is possible.

This wasn’t a one-day thing. The fight continues. Let’s keep going and do what we can.

If you have a WordPress site, you too can go dark using this Go Dark plugin.

For some excellent coverage on the heinous SOPA and PIPA bills, check out Boing Boing.

Gee, I wish I’d understood that back then.

Does the body rule the mind
Or does the mind rule the body ?
I dunno…

– The Smiths

One summer during my middle school years, I had to mow the lawn at my dad’s house. My father was a big believer in kids starting on regular household chores as young as possible, and he had all of us kids rotate through mowing the lawn, washing dishes, doing the family laundry and so on. It was my turn to mow the lawn, and the lawn mower was out of gas, so I had to refill the tank. Which naturally left my hands smelling of gasoline. By the time I finished mowing the lawn, the smell of gasoline on my hands was really freaking me out. I was afraid to touch anything I might put in my mouth, for fear of ingesting gasoline, poisoning myself, and dying. So I washed my hands thoroughly, scrubbing them with soap. And then repeated this, as my hands still smelled of gas. And again. And again. I washed my hands over and over again, coming close to literally rubbing them raw. I was in a state of panic, and my dad finally saw this and, worried that I would scrape the skin off of my hands, rubbed them down with baby oil so that they were moisturized. The baby oil also covered up the gasoline smell, calming me down.

I was remembering this today as my hypochondria seized me once again.

I think it’s important to note: I am not a mysophobe. I don’t freak out when I’m around people with colds. I don’t worry about using public toilets. Hospitals don’t really make me nervous. I don’t use anti-bacterial products all that much. However, I’m terrified of swallowing something that will poison me slowly and I worry on an almost constant basis that my body will betray me with some insidious, internal, debilitating and possibly (or probably) fatal disease.

Cancer is the big one. Sweet kittens, do I worry about cancer! Is this headache the first sign of a brain tumor? Am I short of breath because I have lung cancer? Keep in mind, cancer doesn’t run in my family. My dad smoked almost his entire life, and while he suffers now with COPD and other health issues that are certainly related to his smoking, he doesn’t have lung cancer (or any other kind of cancer). But that doesn’t stop me from worrying I have it. (HIV is another one. For many years, I was convinced I hadn’t made it through college without contracting HIV. I was sure it was lying dormant in my body, waiting to leap out and share the everloving shit out of me, infecting everyone around me like a cartoon cloud of death.)

The reason hypochondria is so frustrating and difficult to fight is this: my hypochondria generally manifests from my generalized anxiety and it, in turn, feeds my anxiety. I can rationally reason out that I don’t really have anything serious and terminal, but my anxious subconscious refuses to believe it and persists in hammering my brain with terror and worry. One thing people may not know about anxiety and depression is that it’s not just a mental state. It’s not just, “Damn, I’m feeling sad and hopeless!” or, “Crap, I’m really worried about things!” There are a whole bunch of physical symptoms that come with anxiety and depression. You may not even be feeling particularly anxious or depressed, but your body still somatizes everything.

So, let’s say I get a slight pain in my lower back, and the thought flashes through my head, “OMG! IT’S KIDNEY STONES!” I can reason with myself, telling myself that I haven’t shown any other signs of kidney stones, and even if it is kidney stones, the best thing I can do right now is wait to see if things progress the way I know it should. “You’re a hypochondriac, Josh! You can’t run to the ER every time you think you have something serious!” But my subconscious says, “Oh no, you don’t! You can’t get rid of this that easily!” I start to sweat A LOT. I get a headache. I get a stomachache. I feel as if I’m running a low-grade fever. I start noticing every tiny ache in my body. I get restless and have a hard time concentrating on any one thing. My chest gets tight. My back hurts. And this panicky voice in my head keeps yelling, “DAMMIT, JOSH! YOU’RE GOING TO DROP DEAD AT ANY MINUTE!” The tectonic plates of my anxiety are rubbing together, and any minute, there’s going to be a huge quake.

Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body?

Xanax calms me down, quiets the yelling voice, helps make the aches and pains go away, keeps the quake at bay. If Xanax isn’t available, I just hold on to the bucking bronco for dear life and wait for it to tire itself out.

I make a lot of jokes about being a hypochondriac. Mostly, it’s an attempt to belittle it in my own head, to deflate it, in the hopes that I can laugh it out of existence. Hypochondria is pretty funny. But it’s not fun. It’s embarrassing and demoralizing to walk around with this intense, irrational fear in my head, weighing me down like iron manacles. I’m working on trying to keep myself calm–or at least to not stoke the fires of anxiety that are already lit. It’s not easy. But…well, it’s something I have to do.

And now, hopefully, you have a little more insight into how my mind works.