In the latest installment of our ongoing series, What The Hell's Wrong With Heffie's Tummy?, I spent this morning eating radioactive scrambled eggs, followed by lying still for 90 minutes while I watched the lump slowly digest via a monitor, as if I were watching my radioactive egg baby on ultrasound.



Actually, thanks to the about-fucking-time awesomeness of Netflix Instant on my iPhone, I mainly passed the time watching Kurosawa's Kagemusha, which made me want to reach into my computer and smack the crap out of anybody who thinks Kurosawa's color films are worthless.

I watched the rest of the film at home, loaded up with sushi and four different kinds of tea: black w/ yerba mate, green tea komboucha, Irish breakfast iced tea, and a double-dose of oh-fuck-yes-they-make-this-now kava. After the film, I felt moved but conflicted, not certain if that level of tragedy was warranted.

Afterward, then went to the gym for the first time in weeks, to try and look less cuddly. I know I'm doomed to "Shackroyd out," as Henchgirl puts it, but not bloody yet. Stupid tummy where all my delicious food and beer goes.



At the gym, I made the damn fool mistake of listening to a This American Life podcast about superpowers and superheroes in general. Ugh, one thing I've always loathed was hearing non-geek-people talk about geek things, because they're always mixed with a combination of befuddlement, condescension, and the recurring implication that people need to get a life and stop living in fantasy land.

These people are also, not coincidentally, cynics. Ira Glass, whom I usually enjoy, revealed a lot about how he sees the world when he talked about NPR's reoccurring series, "This I Believe," essentially saying that he found ideals to be uninteresting, and cared far more about the loss of belief. This kicked off that week's show, entitled, "This I Used to Believe."

Cynicism is at the core of people like this, and it's permeated into the novels, films, plays, and indie comics celebrated by the literary elite. I have little use for such stories, nor the minds that bring them to life.

I can and do love the comics of Chris Ware (who was introduced to talk about his childhood love of superheroes and power fantasies, and until he "realized" just how "silly" and "ridiculous" superheroes are, and focused instead on doing on more "mature, realistic" works), but I just wish I could sit these people down and tell them that Superman is more than muscles and a cape, that ideals are not some fantasy that people need to grow out of.

But I've fallen into that trap too many times, with too many people. When Ira Glass talks about superheroes, he sounds like my mother, brother, sister-in-law, and high school teachers who didn't get it, and didn't really care either way. Is it any wonder I have less and less interest to meet and interact with non-geek people? I just count my lucky stars that I've met a girl whose outlook is rooted in classic Star Trek and the Adam West Batman show.



I must now prepare to get an early night's sleep, as I have to wake up bright and early to get knocked out and have a tube shoved into my mouth, for my health. On next week's installment, we'll explore ways to try to make a comedy routine about HMOs sound fresh and new, followed by finding out whether or not I've been granted egg-based superpowers.