While at the Con, Beloved procured for me a poster signed by Joel Hodgson. I'm a fan of his work, but that is not what made this token so dear. He had signed it "Happy Thanksgiving!" Y'see, what my dear spouse knows and perhaps did not share with Joel, is that MST3K, while a fine show, is also a reminder of my personal rock bottom.
It was Thanksgiving. My law school break was so short and I was so deep in a hole that I was staying on in Iowa City. I was boarding in the house of my college friend's mom. It was usually just us in the house. We had settled into a quiet rhythm together. I cleared out as she prepared for the onslaught of kids and grands, and sought out the other Thanksgiving refugees. There were two candidates -- both men I had some history with. One was sort of dodging me. So that left James.
James looked and acted just like Kiefer Sutherland's vampire bad-*ss in "The Lost Boys". Our relationship centered around my need to carpet the legal world with my resume and his job at Kinko's. He was ostensibly taking classes, but more notable were his achievements in horticulture -- of those plants one cultivates with a growlight in one's closet.
James and his buddies were settling in for the MST3K marathon. I thought that sounded like a kitschy way to spend Thanksgiving until I realized that that was the sum total of what we were doing that day. Not eating. Not conversing. Just sitting in rapt silence punctuated by that swallowed laugh, that "h-h-huh" characteristic of stoners. I thought I might leave this pathetic scene until it occurred to me, Where would I go?
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2 comments:
Your Beloved did relay to Joel, Trace, and Frank that you were stuck in Iowa over a Thanksgiving break and watched a marathon of the show. Although, he portrayed it in a much happier light and left the "annoying stoners" part out - the guys thought it was great! :)
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