{"id":7953,"date":"2003-03-06T20:54:00","date_gmt":"2003-03-06T07:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/?p=7953"},"modified":"2024-03-13T20:57:50","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T07:57:50","slug":"morgueatlarge-why-im-not-a-superhero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/?p=7953","title":{"rendered":"[morgueatlarge] Why I’m not a superhero"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent March 2003]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blair departed Edinburgh today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blair Rhodes. Best known around Wellington as the name behind the regular late-90s feature \u2018Ministry of Certain Things\u2019 in student rag Salient. Not quite as cynical and pessimistic in real life as in his columns, but not far off; but just as funny in real life. We met in 1991, both young men in the prime of our lives, and vaguely suspicious of what that might mean. Nothing changed there. He\u2019s been here in the UK for some time now. He\u2019s been a good companion here in Edinburgh. He\u2019s hooked me up with a place to stay, given me countless pieces of useful advice (particularly in the ongoing writing quest), he\u2019s kept me entertained, he\u2019s bought me coffees and beers, he\u2019s given me a reason to eat sushi. Now his number\u2019s up, he\u2019s off about the country to farewell a collection of friends and then off to the Antipodes once again, back to New Zealand, back to Wellington. Blair, my friend, thanks a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—–<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blair and I were sitting sharing a coffee and making the kind of random conversation that gets made over coffee, even if one of the two parties is about to go to the other side of the world on a flying chunk of metal, and the girl at the counter called out \u2018hey!\u2019 This is at Chocolate Soup, one of the places around town that does reliably good coffees (at least, the lattes are always good there), and girl is actually a Kiwi too. Not particularly surprising here. Kiwis all work in cafes and restaurants in Edinburgh, rather than pubs like they do in London. I can\u2019t explain that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we look, and there\u2019s this guy sloping towards the exit with a fixed, distracted look on his face. And the girl at the counter calls out \u2018hey!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I get my wits about me enough to call out \u2018hey, mate!\u2019 but he\u2019s out the door. And like a whirlwind the girl goes after him, and a few moments comes back looking flustered and angry and sheepish. \u2018He wasn\u2019t getting off with my tips jar,\u2019 she says to the room, and I see she\u2019s clutching the tips jar, and of course that sound in her voice was the kind you get when someone\u2019s doing you wrong. But I didn\u2019t pick it up. I\u2019m not a superhero, I guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I read a lot of comics growing up, and I still read a lot of comics, and a lot of them have featured and continue to feature superheroes, I never really identified myself as like that. It know the appeal wasn\u2019t wish fulfillment for me. I think I was just suckered by the continuing storylines and the soap opera elements and the bug for collecting. (Yay for comics, by the way.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I do remember, however, thinking that even if I wasn\u2019t a superhero, and I wouldn\u2019t be at home being able to bash through walls or leap large buildings, at least I would be sharp. I\u2019d be one of those sharp guys. Those guys that notice everything and don\u2019t miss a trick. Those guys. Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three minutes to ten, at the video store, Emma and I are just about to close when these two guys come in. They want a Playstation 2 for a birthday gift, they\u2019ve left it to the last minute. I sell them a games machine, the guy pays by credit card. The other guy wants a game to go with it. Emma does this sale, but it doesn\u2019t go through. The guy offers another card and Emma notices the names don\u2019t match. He spins some story about \u2018whoops\u2019 and the first guy has a go, and when he signs for it she sees the signatures don\u2019t match. I didn\u2019t notice this but she did. The guys get angry and grab the card out of her hand. I duck around towards the door, going through the library area, and I hear them starting to take off. And then I stop and go back to Emma. There were two of them, and for Pete\u2019s sake, it\u2019s a video store I\u2019d be defending. I\u2019m not a superhero. No rational thought involved in any of this, of course. I just stopped. But, I can tell myself, at least I started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the police come, they take full statements, I don\u2019t get home \u2018til well past midnight. Unfortunately I have to go to work the next morning and I haven\u2019t had dinner yet. It\u2019s a tired wee day the next day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that\u2019s how I know that I\u2019m not a superhero, and I\u2019m not the sharp guy either. They were young, they were a bit nervous and a bit pushy, and I didn\u2019t even properly check the signature of the first guy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ah well. At least I started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

——–<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Work is cool. It\u2019s like my old job, only none of the stuff I didn’t like and lots of most of the stuff I did like. Yeah. The campus is nice too, and the people are grand, and I\u2019m happy, and more importantly, financially solvent. And now I’m going to go home from work and relax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

——–<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viva!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shoutouts to Leandro, just because.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morgue<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent March 2003] Blair departed Edinburgh today. Blair Rhodes. Best known around Wellington as the name behind the regular late-90s feature \u2018Ministry of Certain Things\u2019 in student rag Salient. Not quite as cynical and pessimistic in real life as in his columns, but not far off; but just … Continue reading [morgueatlarge] Why I’m not a superhero<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[199],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morgueatlarge"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8D9ZE-24h","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7954,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7953\/revisions\/7954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}