SYFY

Ticking down the last weeks until I join the ranks of those legally able to drink, and it's really depressing. In about a month and a half, I'm going to have nothing to look forward to! What is the future? The light at the end of the academic tunnel? If it is, it's the light of an oncoming train, and I'm about to become a human pancake.

This summer I'm spending in a new city, in a new culture, with new people, three thousand miles away from home and family and friends. There's going to be sun and surf, but I honestly don't know if I'll enjoy it. I'm dreading it even more than I'm excited for it, and I know it's because this summer represents my future in a very real way. I don't understand people who want to spend summers away from home. I'm not one of you lucky bastards. The world, for me, is a little bit brighter when I'm in the house I've grown up in, surrounded by the family that makes me happy.

So that's the problem. And I know what the solution is. I've used it many, many times before, and it's never failed me.

When things get a little bit dark--when emotions get a little bit real--when environments change and become strange...that's when we break out the sci-fi.

It's geeky. I know. I'm a geek. But that doesn't change the fact that a fantasy series got me through my dog's death when I was 13. Sci-fi movies when my grandfathers died. "The X-Files" helped me with a bruised heart. Harry Potter when a friend was hospitalized.

And now, with that oncoming train barreling towards me...well, sometimes "Doctor Who" just happens.

Can we talk for a second about how great sci-fi and fantasy are? I mean, really. For kind of big reasons, too. Yeah, they can transport you to somewhere entirely new, which is fantastic. The imagination behind coming up with something convincing, something that you, the audience, the reader, does not question--that takes serious skills. Hats off to Russell T. Davies, to George Lucas (circa late-'70s), to J.K. Rowling, to Tamora Pierce. Building a world around your audience, once that they've never even dreamed of--fucking great.

The best thing about sci-fi and fantasy, though, is how important one person can be. We're raised in a reality where we're all basically a tiny part of a huge whole, where nothing we, as an individual, can do really matters. We trundle around in our little lives with our little problems bouncing around our heads, and we die our little deaths with the remnants of our little lives collapsing around us. It's all tiny. It's tiny and a bit depressing.

But imagine. Imagine there was a world that literally would BLOW UP if you didn't save the day. And even if you die, you die in an AMAZING way--like, people would write biographies about you for years to come with titles like, "She had a B.A. in being B.A."

That's worth dying for, isn't it? A bit?

I don't get small, emotionally driven stories. I like some of them okay, but usually I'm just thinking, "get over it!" as I watch them or read them. But you can't "get over" an alien invasion, can you? If you're the protagonist in one of those stories, you grab your gun or your magic wand or your Macguffin, and you saunter on into the battle because FUCK IT. The world's gonna end if you don't. You're special, your specific actions matter, things are AWESOME, even if secondary characters are getting slaughtered all around you.

Things are better in a sci-fi story.

I think I'd make a pretty good wizard.

This is your life

Ever had a moment where you just pause and go..."yep. This is your life."?

I'm having one of those right now.

I'm in Norris (because I'm a Norris-person). I'm drinking a latte (because I am a radical, X-TREME caffeine addict). I'm listening to goofy 70's and 80's rock (because I have a reputation to maintain). I'm curled up with my laptop, trying to resist the urge to re-watch old episodes of "Never Mind the Buzzcocks" (because I have a problem). I'm instead reading primary source accounts about child prostitution in Victorian England (NOT for kicks...for homework).

This is your life.

I'm good with it.