Old habits die hard are reborn.

I'd go "straight" for her.
But wait... do I want her? or do I want to be her? hmmm?

For many years, I'd read comic books. Wonderful flights of fancy, high drama and knockdown drag out super battles, fueled my imagination. At my comic reading height, I was reading the Hulk, Amazing Spider-Man and his other iterations, The Uncanny X-Men (ditto), Daredevil, Wolverine, Punisher, Ghost Rider, Iron Man, Spawn, Wildcats (among other Image Comics) Avengers, West Coast Avengers (what was I thinking?) Fantastic Four et al. Mostly a Marvel fanboy, my tastes were all over the place and I didn't want to miss a thing. You could say I couldn't make up my mind. At my storage unit, a.k.a. my parent's house, I've got a few thousand books, boxed up neatly and put aside.

While collecting, I enjoyed reading comic books but there was the investment aspect. It wasn't uncommon for me to purchase more than one copy of a book if I thought it would increase in value. I did that. A lot. Dropping $20-40 a week on books was not uncommon. That was a lot of coin back then, 93-94 approximately.

With my coming to grips with my sexuality, discovering boys, going out and experiencing life, comics took the back burner. At the time, comics were becoming dismally awful (ie. the Spider-man Clone stories) and the comic business became more geared towards the investment collector (rare variant covers, foiled, shortened runs, etc.) My purchases started to pile up, without being read. The multiple copies I'd purchased weren't garnering any huge value either (multiple copies of Secret Wars II - What was I thinking!?!?!?!?). Add to that a twisted sense that I should "grow up."

I stopped cold turkey. No more comics. I was out.

In the following years, I'd had only a cursory contact with comics. Two years ago, I'd taken a share with a friend out in the Hamptons and every weekend, he'd have a stack of comics for me to read. Exiles? Emma Frost? The Ultimates? Ultimate X-Men? WTF?! What were these new titles? I'd read them with glee and thoroughly had a blast. It was a nice diversion, nothing more.

Well... that slippery slope found me far too easily with a little assistance from this guy. Reading his blog, his enthusiasm for comics has me going again. It was an arm that obviously didn't need much twisting. I'm running out to Cosmic Comics on a weekly basis. I'm not dropping bucket loads of money on comics... but I've got so much catching up to do. I find myself fiending to find out what is going to happen to my gal, Phoenix.(she's dead but no. It's complicated.) Colossus is back. (OMG, shiny metal muscles!!!) What fate lies for the X-Men? I have to know. (Oh gosh... I just thought to inquire if Cosmic will pull books. Eep! It's happening again.)

I blame you for this, Corey… and I thank you. :)

I've always believed that growing old, you can't help. Growing up is optional. Sometimes, I forget. Play on.