My Kobo Bookstore
Okay, so I want to start by saying that I’m shocked I was able to make the trip, primarily because of everything that happened between the time I was picked up from my house to the time I made it back, though I won’t go into detail here. This isn’t supposed to be that kind of place (unless you are Intel or Nvidia, then you may gladly take it up with me wherever), but I’ll say that everything that happened just made it even more worthwhile. For anyone reading, I was «Aleksey Ivanovich Buryakov», and I had an amazing time with the people I did get to talk to and meet up with… picture the feeling of being at home for the absolute first time in your life.
That’s a very muted version of what it was like.
Anyway, now that my preface is over and done with, this week’s post is going to be for the outcasts, the ones who don’t think they have any worth, anyone who just wants a place to be in the world… this week is all about you, my friends.
For nearly twenty-five years, I’ve lived with some rather atypical interests (the furry fandom being a big one) and kept them hidden. That went all, well, and good (my fellow outsiders will understand the sarcasm there) until I went into Grade 5, and I met my first real friend. I won’t name him here but if he wants to be named, I’ll update it with his name. Anyway, he moved into my school district from another part of Alabama, and, in a very autistic way (on my part), I just started talking to him over lunch one day. I liked carrots and ranch and I didn’t care that eating the crusts from his sandwich looked like I was eating scraps. The carrots were good (he didn’t like them at the time), and I had an attitude where I didn’t like to see food go to waste. Eventually, our little friend group expanded from two to four, and we began to talk more about animé (and another friend eventually got me to become a brony for a time). In Grade 8, we had a creative writing project where we had to write a short story and present. By that point, I had already gone into the mindset of «There’s no kill like overkill!», so I remember bringing a camera to school (on another occasion, I managed to get a school iPad to actually work with an old Gateway laptop of mine from the late 90s). Anyway, so I ended up taking a few pictures to use as visuals for when I was presenting. Our teacher had okayed it, the friend shook his head and muttered «Oh, Lord.», and everyone else was completely lost at why I was so high-energy. The first day we presented, I went first… and people from the Board of Education were observing. I remember looking on at everyone as they heard the crazed inner workings of what could possibly happen when the synapses in my brain fired. The teacher (and student teacher) were a mix of smiling and shaking their head with what looked like some concern for what I called sanity mixed in… yes, it was unhinged. The board members were looking at me like I was crazy, but weren’t willing to have me sent to a psychologist again (the first time was in Grade 4, where an IQ test revealed me as clinical genius and I just stopped going), the most of the class never fully took their attention off of me until the final bell (something that I find both amusing and unnerving, years later), and the friend, just straight-up, ready to ask either «How?» or «Why?». Or «What?». Continuing on, high school is when I became a brony, although the reason I got into it was to help cope with a lot of crap going on at the time, not so much being a fan of My Little Pony. Somehow, I just stuck with it until everyone showed their true colors that I’d met from the fandom, so I just let them fall like flies. It was also at this time that I got into a years (and I do mean years) long fight with my friend (we’ve since made up), so he and I didn’t see much of each other. I had even dropped out of the band and taken up tutoring someone in algebra, just to avoid seeing him. Granted, a lot of people in the room were assholes to me by this point, but he was the main reason I tolerated it. Well, that and my love for music. When I graduated high school, I went through a semester of college and kind of drifted around for a while, focusing even more on my writing and chatting with people who (at the time) were still my friends. Honestly, I don’t have any contact with very many of them anymore for one reason or another (the bronys, I mean, and I’m highly glad for that). I dated a few girls over the years from my junior year in high school to about the time Covid reared its ugly head in full-swing, but all of those relationships ended rather shortly in, and only one of them I still consider to be my friend (a stark-contrast to my most-recent ex who thought she was the shit when she dropped a lot of weight). Eventually, I job-hopped into my current position, went back to college for a single writing class, and met the friend that took me to Megaplex this year and even the person I’m dating (two separate people, who I’m dating lives in Pennsylvania, I was only at a local community college). We all get to talking, and he invites me to the Megaplex last year, but that doesn’t pan out for me at the absolute-last minute. Thankfully, this year was a different story, though barely. While I was in college, I had a near-death experience with some idiot on the road when I was coming back home one evening after a class, and I found out what it felt like to have someone care for you in that special way (I found out after I replaced my phone and laptop that they were crying nonstop for a few days over the incident, actually). They and I had really similar interests (though I’m not much of a gamer, to be completely honest), and I even managed to go up to visit them while my unpaid medical leave was massively screwed up. Yeah, I live in the US. Paid medical leave is something you get if you’re in a position of power. Otherwise, the rulebook essentially just says “Screw you”. Anyway, meeting them was a dream come true, even if we didn’t do all of the things that we wanted to do… always best to leave some plans unfinished so you’ll have the list started for next time, am I right? Anyway, making it back to this year… on the way down to Florida, on the turnpike, my friend was involved in a minor accident (basically a fender bender with a Jeep Wrangler), I almost had to be carted to the ER twice, and my own tenancy to overthink and worry almost ended in my current relationship ending (it would’ve been me being stupid and pulling the plug). Thankfully, everyone that I talked to (both from home and the convention) pretty much seemed to enjoy the fact that I’d made it as far as I had. By the end of the weekend, my biggest regret wasn’t that I hadn’t enjoyed anything for so long, it was that time travel doesn’t exist, otherwise, I would’ve went back in time, solely, to tell my younger self that it does get better. You just have to give it time.