June 21st, 2007.

I’ve been reading a lot on this trip. Peter F. Hamilton’s “Judas Unchained” just came out in paperback and I’m afraid I’m voracious regarding his particular brand of space opera. He’s a little racey for my tastes, but he creates amazing universes that simply stretch out forever. There’s a beauty to their complexity.

Sometimes I wonder about my time spent in the confines of imaginary universes, visiting and revisiting – I’m not sure how much they expand me, but I Love the escapism, and I’ve been fascinated with science fiction for as long as I can remember – Star Wars was my first movie, Battlestar Galactica one of my first television shows. I remember creeping into the Living room in my underwear when I was supposed to be in bed to catch the adventures of Apollo and Starbuck.

I think I went through an art school period where I wasn’t quite as proud of all this – I didn’t neccessarily hide it, but I didn’t wave the flag of geekdom that I do now.

For the past several days we’ve been staying with Will Schaff in Warren, RI. He’s on the top of my list of admired persons, and I think it’s taken me a long time to even approach being my normal self around him. Fascination and admiration have long stolen away any sort of glibness, and buried my own tastes and thoughts in conversations… I wouldn’t say I’ve blindly accepted his “wisdom”, but his opinions have certainly always held a good deal more weight than almost anyone else’s thoughts.

And so I feel a certain amount of pride being able to wave my geek flag as he shakes his head… HEY!!! I’M not the one watching reruns of the Flash tv series!

We got into a long conversation about the worth of art school – about whether or not it had been worth it, if it WOULD be worth it… I’d never change my decision, and if someone offered me my tuition refunded for my memories of the place – wiping out the education wouldn’t be a great loss, but the sense of self-formation and the sense of belonging, the community and the friends i made there would never be worth the $80,000+. Even if you had some University years to plug in there instead.

It’s true that it was the last time we weren’t expected to hold our own against the world – that we paid tens of thousands of dollars to avoid having to grow up right then and there – but as long as you’re not under any illusion that “real Life” is like the college years you’re working your way through, I don’t see any harm in it.

I know man people whowish they could Live those years forever. I definitely don’t count myself among them, but I appreciate having been able to immerse myself in an environment every bit as escapist and artificial as one of the sci-fi novels I’m reading now. Consider it a four year amusement park ride that teaches you about friendships and playing political games and venereal diseases. Our world’s growing too complex to just leap into, and growing up is overrated.

Even my distress over what MICA has become over these past ten years doesn’t make me question the worth of what it was. Maybe it’s more practical now, but I don’t know that I wouldn’t attended MICA-that-is. Certainly not vs MICA-that-was.

Enough musing. I best pay attention to the roads, their numbers and their names. Get us to the gig on time, it’s all we ask.