LJ Idol, Topic 7: My Best Friend - My Ghostly Men

[rm]

The biggest problem with the vampire Lestat is that he can't bring me orange juice, and trust me, after spending a week sick in bed contemplating the content of this entry, the ability and willingness to fetch when I'm ill has moved pretty high up my list of requirements for best friend status.

That said, I'm here, like most lonely and odd children (although we're never neither so much as we think), to tell you my best friends were books. Well, not books, not exactly. Characters.

Now sure, I had actual physical best friends who I gabbed on the phone with for hours worrying about things like boys and breast size, but I can never remember how I met those girls, only that our friendships always either came to be through stories or came undone by them.

But the characters, I always remember how we met.

And I don't mean the first time I picked up a given book, either, although I remember all of that too. What I mean is the first time I heard their commentary when I was at a loss or felt their fingers curl around mine when I was frightened.

On the Internet, these things are hard to talk about, lest one be confused with any of the various unpleasant madnesses that have occurred in fandom like Victoria Bitter who once channeled dead hobbits and the Snape's Wives folks who have written and posted actual wedding vows. But it's not just fandom that makes it difficult to talk about the real presence of the fictional in one's life -- it's also many of the creators themselves. This entry certainly wouldn't be complete without my venting a little bit of rage at Anne Rice for refusing to allow an editor to get near the increasingly incoherent pronouncements a certain vampire apparently dictates to her.

The fact remains that for me as an only and fanciful child, most of my conversations growing up were, necessarily, with myself. And I wanted a world thrumming with magic to alleviate the tedium of my neurotic parents and their endless stream of vitamin cures for things that weren't even really wrong with me (teenagers have acne, I'll have you know) and constant concerns about whether it was safe for young ladies in the neighborhoods the few friends I was able to make lived.

"Rape?" I would ask my father. "Are you afraid I'll get raped? Why won't you even say it?"

I felt like a girl in a fairytale that refused to get started, and I was so angry about it.

Angry and sensitive. And when I cried about school and all such other banal miseries one cries over in their most awkward years my parents just told me I was being dramatic. That my feelings weren't real. That I was play acting.

Which is why when I read The Vampire Lestat when I was twelve it was like fire in my fingertips to touch that page. I smiled slow and scary the next time my father yelled at me for being dramatic, because suddenly I knew something he didn't -- that I was fine and meant for something finer, and the vampire squeezed my hand.

I have a hundred stories like this, and I speak of Lestat only because he was the first, and one that is somehow easier for all of us to laugh at -- after all, haven't all girls of a certain age gone through this particular fancy?

But the truth is, there is a part of me that desperately wants to tell all these stories -- some funny, like me standing in the supermarket muttering Richard would not be felled by light bulbs to keep myself from crying when all the lights went out in my apartment and I hadn't figured out the fuse was blown and kept buying light bulbs I thought were bum; and some truthfully eerie, like when I stayed in bed for days over a casting I didn't get and a friend did until one of my most beloved characters grabbed my face and chastised me with what became my phrase of intolerance and discipline for years thereafter: you are _not_ the exception to the rule.

When I talk about these things, I suspect I tell you nothing you don't already know, even if most are less inclined to such admissions than I. Maybe it is only the only children who understand -- children who had neither friends, nor teachers, nor parents who were particularly interested in them in any useful way. Children who had nothing but themselves and needed soothing or discipline or hope from some external source.

A finger rasps as it moves over paper, and that is not so different from a whisper on the wind. And I may be half mad, but someone will always hold my hand when the plane takes off, even if Lestat hasn't been heard from in these quarters for a long, long time. Which is probably a pretty good thing; my ghostly men these days would most likely think he's an utterly intolerable drama queen. But he saved me once, by accident, and not only will I never forget it, I'll never be ashamed of it either, even as I've heard tell I'm supposed to be.

Comments

[wyrdwriter.livejournal.com]

This was worth the wait!

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

It's not only the only children, though they may come to it quicker. It's also the chilcren who don't quite fit in, the ones with speech problems, and terminal shyness, and dreams that don't quite match those of the rest of the family.

Excellent writing, again. It's the feeling of someone's hand in yours, or a fingertip on your shoulder, when you felt alone, that reminds you that this (whatever this is) is not the only way to live, or to be in the world....

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

Well done. And, it's not just the only children.

[kittenboo.livejournal.com]

beautiful, so honest and real.

[torenheksje.livejournal.com]

I'm still talking to them. ;c)

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I am glad you chose to write about these friends. I am also so glad to know I was never alone in this, or as crazy as people told me I ought to be for it.

[magnetgirl.livejournal.com]

Your best yet.

And as for all girls of a certain age loving lestat, I can confirm that on this end-however, I've met 20+ year olds who love them with the same fervor I had at 12. I don't know how you get past the clumsy writing at that age, but hey-different strokes I spose ;)

One of my major attractors to Ian was that he read that book series when he was 14/15 and loved Lestat too. It makes me chuckle how sexy I found that!

[savorie.livejournal.com]

I never got fandom before I read this.

[anchasta.livejournal.com]

Lestat taught me sensuality, and many other characters in my much-loved books came with their own lessons. I feel your story here very close to my own heart!

[lilmissmagic71.livejournal.com]

I still hear Galadriel among others... *smile* Great entry!

[elva-undine.livejournal.com]

"I felt like a girl in a fairytale that refused to get started, and I was so angry about it." Love that line.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

God! Just...
Yeah. You know. I am incoherent. But you know.

[threewalls]

Richard would not be felled by lightbulbs.

Yes. I have moments like that.

[weirdquark]

Yeah, it really sinks in how real these characters are when they show up in your conversation unexpectedly or start giving a running commentary about what's going on. Not that that's ever happened to me or everyone I know or anything.



Like when I saw this pair of lavender suede stiletto heeled boots? I thought, 'Darling, you must get those, they're fabulous' because I have a drag queen living in my head. There's no reason for a drag queen in the story in which she showed up. My subconscious is just like that. Apparently.

[suesniffsglue.livejournal.com]

I had the same sort of best friends. Holden Caufield was my first, and Ghost from Poppy Z Brite's Lost Souls was probably my favorite.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Oh hell yes. I remember when my father gave me my fist copy of Lestat. Oddly enough it wasn't until many many years later , riding in a cab with you , that it became real.

[lordrexfear.livejournal.com]

Very intriguing. I used to be friendw ith Encyclopedia Brown, but his know it all attitude got to me eventually.

Years later we tried to become friends again, but I couldn't relate.

I wouldn't mind being friends with Louis de Pointe du Loc though. I should re-read those one day.

[rosepurr.livejournal.com]

Wow. I can really relate to this. And to how hard it is to explain. I was, I suppose, the opposite of you. I was surrounded by other people, but I understand how characters become friends, because books were where I could go and be myself. My husband says he loves to watch me in bookstores and libraries because I act as if I'm visiting old friends. I walk up and touch the books that kept me from being lonely, weird, or misplaced and the characters are there again, surrounding me. It's an amazing thing.

Hey you did a great job!!

[ladyozma.livejournal.com]

I know you were sick and all, but I think you had nothing to worry about. I hope you are feeling better!!

I can so relate with this. I remember when one of my fave characters in a series was killed off. I was in US History class. As all good students, I was totally ignoring the teacher and reading a book in my lap. And there it was. He died. DIED. I almost had a nervous breakdown in class. I fled the room when the bell rang sobbing... My good friend came flying out of another class in tears as well. Guess who was reading the same book? Yeah.

[wherdafux-d-cat.livejournal.com]

'Utterly intolerable drama queen' - beyond perfect!

[ithinkitisayit.livejournal.com]

I, too, coped by having imaginary worlds and characters as friends.

I find it a less valuable coping skill, the more I get older, but unfortunately, I don't know any others :(

And, it's a normal thing to talk to yourself ;) You do it all the time when you make ToDo lists, reminder emails, notes, etc. You're writing to yourself at a future place in time.