Jess Banks schools you.

The main job of parenting is to introduce your kids to the world outside your home in a way that best helps them make sense of it and learn to survive in it. You take them places, and show them things, then stand aside and anxiously watch them discover the joys and pitfalls for themselves. You clap and cheer, and dry tears and kiss scrapes. And it’s worth noting that this job isn’t only done by parents–any adult who deals with children experiences these things, and bears the honor and responsibility for those children’s formation.

The point of divergence among parents is when to expand the fence we build around our kids, to include new information and experiences. Obviously, this is a hot-button issue, laced with words like “censorship” and “age-appropriate” and “psychological trauma” that fuel an entire industry of researchers and trade paperback sales. Morals and memories of our own formative years have a powerful impact on our choices, as do our unique tastes. Sometimes, this veers in the absolute opposite direction from how we were raised. We resolve to raise our children with or without those influences: religion, politics, bad food, naughty words, even our extended family.

And sometimes, we lean into the curve of our own years, and urge our children into the shape of the things we’ve grown to love. The phrase “Where has this been all my life?!” is a strong predictor of parental behavior; the favorite shouted phrase of teenagers throughout time and space, “When I’m a parent, I’m never going to make my kid go there/eat that/do this!!” rarely factors in parenting decisions later in life. My husband and I are geeks who are making our living from an industry based on social experiences of play–it was a foregone conclusion that we would mold our little creations to share some of our offbeat enthusiasms. I showed Connor Star Wars when he was two, the same age at which I’d seen it (when it was first released in 1977), and Griffin was about the same age when I introduced him to Godzilla and all the other Japanese atomic monsters. And sure enough, they’re evolving nicely on the quick-witted, culturally referent, and wide-ranging track we set them.

But, inevitably, there are hitches in the unrolling of the tapestry of the world we lay at our children’s feet. Some, we never see coming. When Connor was born in the long, hot summer of 2002, we started watching “The Sopranos” on DVD to while away the humid evenings. He would actually stop nursing and look at the TV in recognition when the theme song came on. In large quantities, this show can have a deleterious effect on one’s language; I suddenly found myself saying, in the voice of Paulie Walnuts, “This f—ing guy!” whenever Connor would poop in a brand-new diaper. At the same time as we were awash in a stew of New Jerseyan profanity, I discovered that I no longer felt comfortable leaving live news on TV around my newborn son, a feeling that intensified as he grew to toddlerhood. I must admit, I am a news junkie; have been since high school. I mean, slap a vein and stick in a global 24-hour mainline–I want it all. So this discomfort came as a distinct shock to me as a new mother, a radical and instantaneous re-prioritization that told me I was no longer the same person I had always been, the first of many.

Other problems, we see coming and face with deep ambivalence. For instance: I swear. A lot. Not as badly as I did when I lived in France, but I’m somewhere between dockhand and a Naval officer on his ninth month at sea. I’ve tried to rein it in, but I just can’t force it entirely from my vocabulary, which will doubtless earn me the scorn of parents with more willpower. I’ve always believed in the concept that there are no bad words, only the wrong situations for them; calling them bad gives them more power, as most ably demonstrated by the Harry Potter novels. So I’m raising my kids to know that swear words are not appropriate for children, and are a reflection of strong emotions, and so far they get it. Connor, in particular, is still pained by my profanity, and regularly implores me to “be appropriate” around him, but I’m convinced he does this for the sheer joy of turning the tables on me. I’m also grappling with my awareness of the deeply bizarre American relationship with sex and violence. I’m determined not to be casual about violent themes and images, and to be less neurotic about anything to do with sex and gender, but the whole thing is fraught with conflict and difficulty. For now, I take it as a victory that my sons are some of the only young boys I know who don’t freak out at kissing or when I streak from bathroom to bedroom on the days I forget my robe.

We had a big turning point within the last week or so, with both boys. Griffin got himself suspended for a day by mooning his female classmates. When asked what on earth could’ve possessed him to do such a boneheaded thing, a thought occurred to me. Connor’s a huge fan of The Simpsons, and this was straight out of Bart’s playbook. I asked him, “Did you do it because you saw it on TV?” He nodded tearily, and mourned, “I did it so they would laugh.” So I’m having to re-evaluate the influences of tween tastes on the kindergarten set. Meanwhile, Cam has started playing Skyrim, and Connor is riveted by, of all things, the crafting. (I’m told WoW and FarmVille players will totally get the appeal.) He’s pleaded with us for permission to play on his own, so he can make leather and explore, but Cam firmly asserted that there was just too much violence and sexual content for a kid his age. I was more ambivalent, and argued that he wouldn’t necessarily even do some of the things we would be uncomfortable with, but I’m bowing to Cam’s vastly greater knowledge of video games.

It’s a comfort, though it seems wrong to put it like that, to say that some of the things that scared me the most as a child could never have been predicted, so sheltering my kids from everything isn’t going to inoculate them from every nightmare. The movie Gremlins scared the living crap out of me, and that was marketed directly at children, with tie-in toys and everything. And I was much more scared of nuclear war, as a Reaganbaby, than I was of anything I ever read–The Day After shook me so hard that it was incredibly hard to watch again as a grad student.

Similarly, one of Connor’s triggers couldn’t have been foreseen, or even insulated against. It took us a few years, until he could sufficiently articulate it, but extreme closeups of faces, especially not-completely-human faces, really freak him out. He went to see Spiderman 3–which is a horror in other ways, but I won’t get into that–at the movie theater, and none of the action or “adventure peril” bothered him at all. Instead, it was this one shot of Venom’s open mouth as he lunges at the camera that gave him fits. Likewise, there’s a scene in Fantastic 4 when Ben Grimm reveals his rocky deformation by turning his face out of shadow and lifting the brim of his hat. He leaves the room when that part of the movie is coming up, and that’s fine with me.

I console myself with the fact that we do so much with our children, and that guiding our kids through new experiences makes them less likely to be seeds of neurosis later in life. Sure, I’ve read Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark to them at Halloween–I even showed them the spooky-fantastic pictures by Stephen Gammell, which are apparently too scary to include in the latest republication. But I didn’t just give them the book and tell them to read it to themselves before bed. I was right there beside them, shivering at the gory parts and validating their fears by sharing my own. I think this prepares them for life much better than pure censorship can, and gives me the opportunity to shape their responses to their own feelings and impressions, by building a sense of empathy and honesty that I hope will serve us later when their lives get immeasurably more complex.

And if it doesn’t work, hey, I’m doing my part to support the psychoanalysts of the future.

My grandma, Nell Kresser, in 1941

My mom’s mom would’ve been 96 years old today. Alzheimer’s claimed her in 2007, but it had stolen her away from us years before that. The gifts she gave me, though, are woven through so many facets of my everyday life and my personality that it’s almost possible to account for them all. My stubbornness, my love of teaching, my competence in emergencies, my late-night cravings for mushroom swiss hamburgers–all were etched in my soul by the strong, steady hand of Nell Kresser.

Another of her lasting legacies is my love of movies, and seeing them in movie theaters. She was passionate about cinema, and she “went to the show” at least once a week for much of her life. She was a devoutly Christian woman, so she wouldn’t brook any unnecessary profanity or dirtiness, but her tastes were broad and her appreciation infectious. She loved sweeping romantic epics like Titanic, and cute nostalgic films like My Dog Skip. She loved Disney movies; her favorite (and therefore mine) was The Jungle Book. And she cried every time she watched How Green Was My Valley.

I was an unusually mature kid, so she didn’t hesitate to bring me along when she and my grandpa went to the theater, and settling into a velvety seat beside her at Milwaukee’s great landmark theaters always made me feel so grown-up. My impression of movies evolved very differently than other kids who grew up in the ’70s and ’80s. Sure, Star Wars changed my life too–I was two years old, sitting on phone books in the front seat of our truck at a drive-in screen so big that I couldn’t tell where the starry sky of the movie stopped and the night sky above started.

The legendary Oriental Theater

But I also saw Gone With The Wind for the first time, intermission and all, at the famed Oriental Theater with my grandma. I marveled as my feet seemed to sink up to the ankle into the plush red carpet, and I was in awe of the massive golden Buddhas that lined the walls. I thrilled to the sound of Wurlitzer organ that accompanied the silent movies they screened from time to time.

I used to crane my head back to gaze up at the twinkling constellations in the ceiling of the Avalon. She took me to weeknight classic movies at the Paradise Theater, where I fell in love with All About Eve, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Philadelphia Story, and To Catch a Thief.

The Paradise Theater, now sadly defunct

These were movie palaces, in the truest sense of the word, and my grandma and I loved their hallowed halls.

I knew they were special, and I wanted to share that magic. In my high school years, I dragged friends to the Paradise for their midnight movies: the Director’s Cut of Blade Runner, The Wall in six-track Dolby Surround sound. I saw Alien for the first time there, in 70mm–the film itself is about two inches wide, and the theater had to crank back the curtains all the way on the projection screen. Saturday night concerts meant an excuse to head over to the Oriental for their legendary midnight showings of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Those same plush carpets now softened my landings as I jumped to the left during the “Time Warp,” and I was surely the only teenager who carefully picked up every piece of toast or playing card I’d thrown from the floors of that beloved sanctuary.

And now I’m the grown-up, nurturing my own little movie buff. Connor’s been movie mad since his earliest days; he was only two when I first took him to the theater, and he sat still and quiet for maybe the first time in his life as Curious George unspooled in the projection room above us. Many autistic kids have difficulty with the overwhelming sensory experience that theater movies provide, but Connor just dives into it and lets himself be swept up in the darkness and loudness and the amazingness, like I used to and still do.

It’s not a cheap proposition to take a family of four to the movies these days, so we usually tie new releases to special occasions; movie release calendars are scrutinized for the best “birthday movie” months in advance. But we discovered the heir to the Paradise right over in Minneapolis. The Riverview Theater screens movies a month or two after their major theater release dates, which allows them to charge only $2 for matinees and kids; it’s only $3 for adults in primetime, so even date nights are suddenly affordable. Now movies aren’t just an extravagance; they’re a very affordable indulgence, and Connor and I pay homage as often as we can.

As we sat in the dark auditorium on Monday, so crowded with families taking advantage of the holiday to enjoy a weekday matinee of Happy Feet Two, I found myself watching Connor more than the movie. His eyes were huge as he followed every tiny movement on the screen; his mouth smiled, grinned, gaped at each revelation. About 20 minutes in, he started worming his way under my arm, so I flipped up the arm that separated our seats so we could snuggle more comfortably. And we stayed like that for the rest of the movie, mom and son sharing a story with each other, and the other viewers we could hear but not see around us.

It wasn’t a bad movie, but it wasn’t spectacular–Tintin, which we had splurged as a family to see at the local AMC on Saturday, had sated our need for amazing cinematic experiences quite well. But it didn’t have to be spectacular to be magical, the way every movie is to movie lovers. And as I watched the movie, and watched my son, I had one of those moments when I felt so close to my grandma again. I miss her, but I can feel her sitting beside us, just enjoying the show.

Websites all over the Internet are blacked out today, in protest against the proposed anti-piracy legislation making its way through the US Congress. I am not technically skilled, and while I would’ve gladly joined the protest, none of the passionate emails and postings urging folks to add their weight to the boycott actually gave instructions on how to black out your website.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t protest in my own little way. So I’m doing something that would get my site shut down, if the proponents of SOPA and PIPA have their way. It’s harmless, it’s fun, and it’s exactly the kind of free speech that these misguided bills would needlessly strangle.

THINGS YOU WON’T BE ALLOWED TO SAY ON THE INTERNET IF SOPA AND PIPA PASS

• “I really hate those stupid Mickey Mouse homework assignments.”
• “Say hello to my little friend…Pepe the chihuahua.”
• “Avengers, assemble by the third floor elevator for evacuation.”
• “I was birdwatching in the marsh, and I think I saw the first Captain Jack sparrow returning from Mexico.”
• “I see dead people…and they look good, thanks to the fine folks at Peterson Mortuary and Funeral Home!”
• “It’s a lovely bowl, but it was made by the most extraordinarily hairy potter you can imagine.”
• “Luke, I am your father, not some guy off the street who you can just ign…come back here!”
• “Th-th-th-that’s all folks! I mean it, you can’t stay here when the heat isn’t working.”
• “The cake is a lie. All those Weight Watchers desserts are actually made of tofu.”
• “Would you please just buzz Lightyear? I’ve been in this waiting room for 45 minutes!”
• “Honey, you can’t keep working and cleaning and running a Girl Scout troop and volunteering at church; you’re not Wonder Woman.”
• “The best way to get to the bridge is to go via Com…no, wait, that’s always backed up this time of day.”
• “Grab your stopwatch, we’re going to time Warner as he says his multiplication tables!”
• “I can’t believe how long you look in the mira, Max–you’a just some kid from Brooklyn.”
• “Dis knee is killing me, Doc. I vish my Enklish vas better zo I could tell you.”

There. That should do the trick.

Reverb Broads 2011, December 18: Who would you most like to meet and why? (courtesy of Dana at http://simply-walking.com)

I hope this doesn’t come off as completely obnoxious, but I’m going to bow to the fates/superstition on this one, and leave it wide open. I’ve had some of the most amazing luck in meeting people I admire, and I don’t want to jinx whatever the universe has in store for me. Sure, there are the obvious ones, like wishing for a kiss from Alexander Skarsgard, but really, I’ve already met several lifetime”s worth of awesome, amazing famous (and sometimes “niche-famous”) people.

Whom I’ve met says a lot about me, too. They tend to fall into a few distinct categories. The first is musicians. I’ve attended a LOT of concerts, many of which at small venues where the rules are different than at big arena shows. I hung out with Robby Gray and the rest of Modern English after a show, and I met Angelo from Fishbone as he came out of a phone booth. My dad shamelessly exploited his own credentials as a musician to get us backstage in Atlanta to meet Itzhak Perlman and Frederica von Stade.

The backs of Cam's and my younger, long-haired selves, as we met Itzhak Perlman in 1996

I also had the incredible good fortune to sing under Simon Carrington, one of the founding members of the King’s Singers, during his first directing gig, at the University of Kansas. I’d had him for a year when I went away to France to study, and he invited me to his family’s summer home in Cahors after our school years were over. He spoiled me for every other choir director.

Me with Simon and Hilary Carrington after a lovely dinner in France, 1996

I’ve also met a lot of famous chefs. Part of this is because I love food and cooking; part is because State College, PA, where I lived for a decade, has an awesome public radio/TV station that hosts a fundraiser called the Connoisseur’s Dinner every year. When my favorite TV chef, Nick Stellino (then, of PBS’ Cucina Amore), was announced as the host in 2002, I called the event organizer and asked if I could do anything at all to cook with him. She gave me the best answer in the world when asking for something outrageous:  “Well, now that you mention it…” I ended up doing prep for a special VIP in-studio demonstration the day of the dinner. He said I chopped my garlic personally; I glowed for months.

Me and Nick Stellino, at an in-studio event at WPSX, 2002

I had the same good fortune three years later, when the incomparable Jacques Pepin was the guest.

Me and Jacques Pepin, at an in-studio event at WPSX, 2005

And I met Graham Kerr (“the Galloping Gourmet”) at a signing at the Barnes & Noble where my husband worked.

Me and Graham Kerr at the State College B&N, 1999

I’ve also met a lot of people under geeky or completely random circumstances. I have a picture of Warwick Davis holding Connor when he was just six weeks old, and one of Jamie Bamber holding Griffin when he was three months old. Mary McDonnell signed my notebook for free because I talked with her about the cult of Saint Brigit. I’ve met all of the cast members of Mystery Science Theater 3000 except Kevin Murphy and Mike Nelson. I shook hands with John Hodgman. I met Lauren Graham outside a bathroom at LAX on a trip to New Zealand (that picture is in a box in storage, or I would totally have posted it). My husband works for Margaret Weis, and we know Tracy Hickman as well. And Jason Marsden walked me back to the hotel after the White Wolf party at Gen Con.

And I know a bunch of people who are very famous, as long as you’re in the right population. A lot of those are writers and game designers who are friends from the ancient days of AmberMUSH. Jim Butcher introduced me to my husband, and I’ve known his family since his son was 3 (he’s in college now). And now his beautiful wife Shannon is a famous writer too.

Our longtime gaming group: the Valentines, the Butchers, and the Bankses (2003)

I made C.E. Murphy cry with laughter at horrifically embarrassing stories . And I’ve danced at the weddings of the three founders of Evil Hat.

Fred Hicks, with Seth and two monster party favors, at his wedding reception in 2002.

So while I wouldn’t say no to this:

I think I’ll leave my options open.

UPDATE: Did I mention I forget things? ‘Cause I do. I forgot to mention that I saw Jerry Falwell in the Memphis airport once. I didn’t punch him; I consider that a personal triumph.

I got to meet Bob Costas when he spoke at Penn State. I asked him if I could do research for him at the Olympics, because I love the bizarre geographical and historical facts he shares on air. He said no, but he’d take a picture with me:

And this summer, I got to meet two romance authors I really admire, Connie Brockway and Eloisa James. They were awesome.

Romance superstars Eloisa James (left) and Connie Brockway (right) at a 2011 signing in MN.

I’d seen an elderly man as I took my seat, and noted that he seemed both out of place at a romance signing, and strangely familiar. Then Eloisa happened to mention that her dad was there that night. And that her dad had won a National Book Award. In one of those slo-mo moments in life, I turned and realized exactly who her dad was, and why he was familiar to me. Her dad is Robert Bly. I asked him to sign a book for my husband, and he offered to take a picture. So when I say the universe is good to me, if in completely random ways, I totally mean it.

Me and one of my heroes, poet Robert Bly, in 2011

Reverb Broads 2011, December 7: Who or what makes you laugh so hard that milk shoots out of your nose and why? Slapstick, dry witty comedy, your kids, Monty Python? (courtesy of Kassie of http://bravelyobey.blogspot.com)

Me laughing. It ain't pretty, but it's really common.

It might actually be easier to write a list of things that don’t make me laugh. But I’ll give it a stab, if only so I can share some of my favorite funny things. In general, I’ll just say that I’m a complex person, so don’t judge me. 🙂

I am surrounded by hilarious people every day, even on the days when I don’t fully appreciate the humor of the situations they instigate. I’m married to one of the funniest people in the world, and I know many people agree with me. Part of this is because he’s so smart and creative — that kind of people are always the funniest. I often say that he’s got a direct line into the Primal Well of Story, which is what makes him a phenomenal storyteller, game designer, and GM. But he also has access to the same Random Closet of Weird as Eddie Izzard, and frequently delivers bizarre misinformation with the same deadpan style as John Hodgman. We have so many inside jokes, running gags, and one-liners that no one else understands. I’m sure it’s completely obnoxious, and some of them would prefer blatant displays of affection to our stupid giggly shorthand.

My three hilarious boys

I wish I could say it's only the crazy hair. But that's just Griffin.

And I know every parent thinks their kids are hysterically funny, but anyone who’s met them would probably be inclined to agree that mine are like cartoon characters; I swear they’re drawn by Tex Avery. They’ve got it all: killer comic timing, the Seinfeldesque capacity to observe the weirdness of their surroundings, a natural affinity for performance, and super-quick wits to come up with mad, clever responses. I’d like to think that they inherited their skills from us both, and that our efforts to raise them with lots of humor and quality entertainment are taking root, but let’s just face it — they’ve got it in spades, and they’re a mystery to me.

I’m an intellectual, and a geek, so I can have a pretty high-falutin’ taste in humor. Of course, I adore the Brits, new and old: Monty Python, The Goons, Douglas Adams, Little Britain, French & Saunders, and so many others. I like web comics like xkcd and Penny Arcade — the nerdier, the better. I love sight gags and cultural references and grammar jokes. Even math humor makes me laugh, because I know more about math than actual math. Musical humor, like P.D.Q. Bach and Flight of the Conchords, absolutely slays me. I listen religiously to NPR stuff like This American Life, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me…, and A Prairie Home Companion (especially the joke show). I love parodies, the more cutting or absurd, the better — I’ve been reading The Onion since it was just a local Madison paper, I used to assign a reading to my World Religions students from the LOLCatz Bible, and Drop Dead Gorgeous is one of my favorite movies. And I’m completely wild about political comedy (probably because I’m wild about politics), so Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert are must-sees. My eldest even had a Jon Stewart 3rd birthday party (all his idea; he used to put on a clip-on tie and do his impression of Jon Stewart in the bathroom mirror. When he was two.)

All this being said, lots of completely low-brow stuff makes me giggle and snort uncontrollably. Ever see that SpikeTV show back in the ’00s called MXC? It was a Japanese game show called Takeshi’s Castle, overdubbed in America by two ESPN-like “announcers” and a cast of others who ascribed the most bizarre dialogue and commentary to an already-bizarre spectacle. I used to regularly laugh until I cried, and I still miss it. Luckily, America’s Funniest Home Videos still does the job for me on a regular basis. And you can’t live in a house of boys without being a connoisseur of scatological humor.

I could go on and on with this one, but I need to wrap up, so I’ll just share two other gifts that were apparently bestowed upon me by the Comedy Fairy at birth. The first is that I see hilarious things that no one else around me sees. This isn’t like a Sixth Sense thing. It’s just that, if I’m standing in a crowd of people, and someone across the street falls down, it’s pretty much guaranteed that I’m the only one who’ll see it. Which always means I’m the idiot who busts out laughing for no apparent reason. Yeah, I’m that person.

The second is that, for no good reason that I can intuit, people feel the need to tell me their acid trip stories. I’m not sure what it is in my aura that compels this. I don’t do and never have done illegal drugs of any kind. I didn’t even have my first drink of alcohol until my wedding night, ten months past my 21st birthday, which I celebrated in Europe for gods’ sakes. But I’m a non-judgmental listener, and I’ve got quite a collection of other people’s weird LSD-induced memories. One in particular has served as genesis for a stable of characters who regularly appear in our household brand of humor. A college friend told me how he once drove a tripping friend around town while the friend had an intense three-way conversation with Seth (his left hand) and The Magic Vacuum (his right hand). I’ve got a long-standing comedy love affair with puppets, so it was natural that they’d just become part of my lexicon. And once you know about them? You see them EVERYWHERE.

Seth (left), Cam (middle), and The Magic Vacuum (right)

Reverb Broads 2011, December 5:
What is the one thing you finally did this year that you always wanted or said you were going to do, but in your heart of hearts never thought you would actually do? (courtesy of Amy Krajek at http://2bperfectlyfrank.blogspot.com)

I’ve done lots of things this year that I’ve always wanted, and I’ve done lots of things that, in my heart of hearts, I never thought I would do, but in only one case that I can think of right now were they they same thing.

The Darling Husband and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary this year. To be more specific, we celebrated it three times. This wasn’t something we really planned, but since the day itself was a Wednesday full of work and family stuff, we did special things before and after October 5. I’ve already blogged about the Frank Turner concert we went to — it wasn’t really intended as an anniversary thing, but it was so wonderful to share that with my favorite person that it turned into something that shone a light on how much we have in common, and how awesome that is. And I gave us tickets to see John Hodgman at the Fitzgerald Theater, but that wasn’t until November.

But the closest outing to the actual date ended up being a Cinematic Titanic performance. My great and good friend Mary (who’s also doing Reverb Broads #11 at Ghost of a Rose) was raving about the show she’d gone to with her husband, and when I wished we could go, she pointed me at a link for tickets to shows in Minneapolis three days later.

But what is Cinematic Titanic, you ask?

One night, when I was in high school, I came home at curfew like the good little girl I was, but I wasn’t tired yet. So I flipped on the TV in the living room, and proceeded to watch something that changed my life.

In the ’90s, some Minnesota guys filmed themselves and some puppets as they made snarky comments about old B-movies. Because so many of the films were bad sci-fi, it was called Mystery Science Theater 3000. At first, it was only on public access, but the series got picked up by the Comedy Channel, where it ran for several years before making a brief, final shift to Sci Fi. There were personnel changes over the years, but the format and quality of the comedy remained high. It’s quirky, heavy on the cultural references and bizarre improv jokes, and based on some of the weirdest, worst films in human history — perfect geek humor.

I loved MST3K instantly, and not just because I fell in love with Gamera, the kaiju atomic flying turtle monster in that first episode I saw. And when Cam came to the States to marry me in 1996, there was a very short list of things I felt he really needed to see to understand what life in America was going to be like. One of them was Saturday Night Live; the other was Mystery Science Theater 3000. We watched episodes together and with friends, and so many inside jokes and taglines from those hilarious two-hour stretches still live on in our conversation today.

The geniuses behind MST3K are still making bad movies better for all of us, in a variety of ways. One of those projects is RiffTrax, headed up by longtime writer and second host Michael J. Nelson, along with Kevin Murphy (2nd Servo) and Bill Corbett (2nd Crow). And the other is Cinematic Titanic, featuring Trace Beaulieu (Dr. Forrester and 1st Crow), “TV’s Frank” Conniff, J. Elvis Weinstein (Dr. Laurence Erhardt and 1st Servo), and other assorted players.

On the night we went, they were joined by the original host, Joel Hodgson (Joel Robinson) and Mary Jo Pehl (Magic Voice and Pearl Forrester). The movie was a Japanese atrocity called (very fittingly) Genocide (called War of the Insects in the West, and on the upcoming CT DVD), which hands-down takes the prize for the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It both begins and ends with a mushroom cloud. That really says it all right there. But we laughed so hard our ribs and faces ached for hours, and afterwards we got to meet the whole cast and get autographs. They were bemused and (I hope) pleased when I told them how I’d used their show to establish the baseline for what’s been a very happy 15 years of marriage.

It’s an exceedingly odd thing, meeting celebrities; it’s even odder meeting celebrities you know only by voice. Sitting on the rug in our living room, with the doors of my mind blown clean off their hinges, I never dreamed I would shake hands with any of the folks on the Satellite of Love. But this year, I did. 

Reverb Broads 2011, December 4: In the movie version of your life, which actor/actress would play you and the significant players in your life? What kind of movie is it (e.g., made-for-TV, action, emo/indie, etc.)? What would be the major plot points, and how will it end? (courtesy of Emily at http://warmedtheworld.blogspot.com)

As the song from the fantastic new Muppet movie might ask, “Am I a woman or a Muppet?”

Well, if I’m a woman, I’m a very Muppety woman.

To be fair, there isn’t any one Muppet whom I feel embodies me, but the great thing about Muppets is that they come out of a workshop. So let’s imagine one with Abby Cadabby’s hair and spell casting, Gonzo’s enthusiasm for the weird, Sam the Eagle’s pedantry, Muppet News Guy’s doomed truthtelling, and Kermit’s good intentions and frayed control over the unpredictable proceedings around him. I’ve even got my own slightly Muppety theme song now, thanks to Zooey Deschanel’s intro to New Girl.

Naturally, I’m married to Lew Zealand (fortunately, with fewer thrown fish). And I think my sons are Scooter and Animal, though like any brothers, there are definite shades of Bert and Ernie too.

My life tends to veer wildly between the clever and the wacky, the heartwarming and the hair-raising, the magical and the absurd, so that works too. I mean, come on: receiving a marriage proposal in flannel pajamas, when there’s a perfectly wonderful New Year’s celebration happening at an honest-to-gods Scottish castle, less than five miles away, is a very Muppety combination of the silly, the star-crossed, and the sentimental.

It’s not all a perfect fit, of course: I don’t think anyone really wants to see Muppet montages of me vomiting for seven and a half months straight during my pregnancies. There isn’t a song in the world that would make that watchable. But I’ve certainly earned the right to use “Movin’ Right Along” for the endless road trips in my childhood, or “Why Wouldn’t We Ride?” for all the travelling I did during my year in France.

I know you just think I’m still in the dizzy grip of ecstasy at the new Muppet movie, or I’ve spent too long in the company of kids to come up with a grown-up answer to this prompt. But like Jason Segel and Walter, I never stopped being a Muppet fan; I loved them with a passion even when the rest of the world had passed them by. That Kermit watch on Walter’s wrist? I wore that watch all through college, until it fell out of my school bag and got run over by a car. I still have the scraped, broken face in my desk. I got the Time-Life collection of The Muppet Show episodes for Christmas about a decade ago, before I was even a mom, and I used sketches to illustrate lessons in my university courses (much to the bemusement of my late ’80s-baby students). There’s a shirt on The Onion website that I’m pretty sure was targeted directly for me.

And sure, I have the same profile as Carrie Fisher (no, really, I totally do), and I have mannerisms that show up regularly in Drew Barrymore and Sandra Bullock movies, much to my husband’s amusement. And sure, I wish my life inspired something sweeping like a majestic fantasy epic, or a witty drawing-room comedy, or a sweet Nora Ephron romance. Hell, I’d settle for being the quirky feature in a one-off episode of Doctor Who quite happily.

But who am I kidding? I’d end up being the Ood who goes all red-eye at something my kids do.

No, just cover me in felt and stick a hand up my butt — I’ll be a Muppet ’til the day that I die. I just hope I end up looking more like Hilda than Waldorf.

Realistic expectations

It’s Halloween, but there will be no horror movie viewing in the Banks house. At least, not for me. Because I can’t watch horror movies.

Please note: I said I CAN’T watch horror movies. Not “don’t want to,” but “can’t.” I love all the ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night. But if something goes BOO, it’s all over for me.

The best we can figure is that my startle reflex is seriously frotzed. If something jumps out at me — no matter how cheezy or predictable — it feels like I’ve been hit by lightning. Red cable, black cable, ZOT — 50,000 volts straight into my nervous system.

And, like you’d expect, this does not have a good effect on the rest of my body (or my mood). The initial impact is a distinctly electrical sensation, similar to the crawly, needley feeling of the electrical stimulation therapy that physical therapists sometimes use. I’m left with a horrid, plaguey feeling, with muscle pain that’s similar to the day after serious overexertion plus poor sleep, a vicious headache on par with a migraine, and nausea. This all sticks around for anywhere from an hour or two, up to I’ve had a chance to get a good, restorative sleep.

I haven’t always had this reaction. In fact, at my tween and teen sleepovers filled with pizza and nail polish, I was the one around whom all my shrieky friends huddled, as if they could absorb my bravery through osmosis. I began a lifelong love affair with Hitchcock movies in the darkened theater; my grandma took me to see classic movies on the big screen at Milwaukee’s great landmark theaters. I even saw Alien for the first time from a 70mm print — if you’ve ever been in one of those landmark theaters, imagine the screen AFTER the curtains have been cranked all the way back, then slap a frisky Giger monster on it.

And I’m not a nervous wreck about other things that leave folks reaching for the smelling salts. I’m the chief bug killer in our household, and in general, there isn’t anything in nature that does much more than just ook me slightly. And I’m crazier now for roller coasters and thrill rides than I ever was as a kid — you can’t tear me away from Tower of Terror at Disney Hollywood Studios, or the Hulk coaster at Universal Islands of Adventure.

But whatever enjoyment I might be able to get from horror movies for their stories or effects just isn’t worth my physical “boo response.” I know my limits: the tension and release of the final scenes of The Silence of the Lambs is about as much as I can take without triggering the backlash. I’ve got a few people who helpfully advise me on a Boo Rating for films I’m considering, and every once in a while, I give them a try, but that’s usually an abortive effort. I managed about 20 minutes of The Others before I vaulted off the couch like I was sitting a springplate. For the most part, it’s comparable to someone who’s allergic to strawberries giving them a whirl every couple of years. Like you’d expect, it usually ends with the phrase, “Yup, still makes me miserable. Next time I think this is a good idea, hit me, okay?”

I don’t know why I’m wired this way, or whether it’s from the fibromyalgia, or my sensory processing stuff, or a PTSD leftover, or my general psychiatric issues. I’ve never seen any research about this effect, though a woman at a fibro support group once said her fight-or-flight response had gone all wonky too. I’d be immensely grateful to hear from other folks who experience something similar, or who have read any research that might relate to this.

As a creative-type person, it’s incredibly frustrating to know there’s a whole genre of material that I’m excluded from. Sure, I may think that many of the current crop of horror movies are stupid and exploitative, but I’d like the choice to opt out on the material’s merits. Missing all the monsters because my body chemistry trumps my logical mind makes me nuts.

This is my first blog post, and it’s by way of explaining why I felt strongly enough about the Speak Out with your Geek Out movement — all next week, anywhere and everywhere you want to talk about whatever floats your geeky little boat — that I stepped up to be an admin. I’m doing it because I’m a big geek, of course, but more importantly, I’m doing it for my kids. They’re going to be a frequent subject on my blog, and yes, I’m going to use their names.

* * *

The first thing most people notice about Connor is how *big* everything is for him. His volume is permanently set to 11; every gesture and expression is oversized and repeated two or three times in case you missed it the first (you couldn’t possibly). Then the other extremes about him begin to emerge: the speed of his speech only hints at the speed of his thoughts, and words pop up in the rapid stream that you don’t expect in a fourth-grade vocabulary. All these things might give the impression of excitement by themselves, but there’s real enthusiasm for so many subjects, and genuine delight at the prospect of sharing the coolness with someone new.

This is my kid. He’s a geek. His default setting is love.

He was doomed to geekhood well before his conception, what with two parents of impressive geek credentials. And he showed his own talent for geekhood as well. He started calling his make-believe play “movies” between ages 2 and 3, around the same time he announced he wanted a Jon Stewart 3rd birthday party. His passion for superheroes exploded onto the scene, until we started telling people who asked about potential gifts for him, “Look, if it’s ‘super,’ it’s great.”

What we didn’t know until he turned six was that Connor has Asperger’s Syndrome. The school where he attended kindergarten failed him in every respect. Teachers missed the expanding intellect and hunger for social interaction, and labeled him a discipline problem, a threat to “normal” kids. His classmates saw a child who wanted friends a little too desperately, and probably left them behind when he tried to include them in his elaborate stories. And, at that critical age, when different is dangerous, those children made his life hell. They rejected his friendship. They rejected his enthusiasm. They hurt him on the playground, to the point of stitches one cold winter morning. They threatened his life on the bus after school. Kindergartners told my son they wanted to have a party at his house; he was overjoyed. They said they would have a party at his house, and he would be the pinata, and they would beat him until he broke open and died. He had nightmares. My six-year-old said he wanted to kill himself. He knew what he was saying.

Things got better. We switched schools for first grade, and within a month, they’d identified the Asperger’s. Instead of simply conceding to the previous reigning theory on his behavior issues (i.e., “we’re crap parents”), we built strategies for home and school to address the most serious problems and deal with them constructively and consistently. Connor’s teacher gave him challenging work that kept him from making trouble when he was bored. He made friends who valued his vast cache of knowledge about Star Wars and superheroes.

Connor’s experiences made him a better person too. His fixation on superheroes had taught him the philosophical concept of justice, but now he understood what prejudice and oppression felt like, and why it was important to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. His skill as a storyteller was growing apace, but now he was sensitive to allowing his friends agency in their own stories, and supplied them with information so they could “make cool movies” too.

It’s not for nothing that jaded adults are advised to view the world through the perspective of a child, if they can. Everything is new and amazing to children, and they’re predisposed to love it, to find it literally wonder-full. I heard a parent of an autistic child in a radio interview say that people with autism are “more human than human;” natural human tendencies are amplified to extremes. Geekhood is, I believe, a natural human tendency. We get enthusiastic about things we enjoy; we want to know more, and we want to share them with others. We start with it when we’re children, when we’re geeks about the whole wide world–our default setting is love. And for some lucky people, like Connor, that setting never changes.