superpowers

Got a good chuckle out of Wil Wheaton's most recent post, great moments in instant messaging. My spelling-fu has always been pretty strong. Except that instant messengers appear to be my kryptonite.

Which geeks among us haven't pondered what superpowers we'd most like to have? For me, it was telekinesis, and the power to converse with animals.

Though, honestly. Really. The most welcome super power for me as a kid would have been the ability to grok the kids around me, so I could walk in their social circles without sticking out. To be a social chameleon.

This would, of course, have had to be accompanied by a native ability to play school yard games. You can't blend in when the dodge ball teams at PE are arguing over who will be stuck with you; and the teacher - despite their pleading - won't let the team that you end up on take a handicap to compensate.

I didn't necessarily want to BE like them. I enjoyed reading for pleasure, and was glad I'd lived and traveled in more countries by the second grade than most of them would see in their whole lives. It was super cool having computers in the house before most of the neighbor kids had even seen a computer. Being a Star Trek fan, and an avid watcher of nature and historical documentaries on PBS were not things I'd've willingly abandoned.

It would just have been awful handy to have been able to avoid the inevitable shunning that kids are so good at when there's a misfit in their midst.