Snippets from Strangers

That was something I was very conscious of as a kid, that moment where kids started being a little more self-conscious. You couldn’t be so open about your love for nerdy things like comic books and superheroes any more, or playing Elfquest at recess. [Laughter] There was a shift, where it was suddenly like, people aren’t doing that any more. They’re playing basketball now.

There was a part of me that witnessed that and mourned it. Even though I fell into it, too; I started being more secretive about the fact that I played Dungeons and Dragons. You had to be careful, and I went out for the basketball team, and did things like that. But I remember being very mindful of it and realized that this is a trapping of adulthood, sublimating all these childhood imaginative pursuits for more adult things.