n fourth grade, I started a Michael Jackson Club. This was the height of Thriller’s popularity; Michael Jackson wasn't just a musician but THE musician, the one who dominated the airwaves and fashioned our fashion. Not content merely to have meetings, our club was also a band. We played the hits of Michael Jackson. There were five of us (can you believe? only five?), and so we each took on an identity of one of the Jackson brothers. This was all my idea, by the way. Do you want to guess who I was? I’ll give you a hint: It wasn’t Tito.

The Michael Jackson Club was a kind of fever for me. As the president and lead singer, I came up with slogans and currency. (“In Michael we trust.”) I came up with a pledge of allegiance and a constitution. It was like my own personal role-playing game empire, a Dungeons & Dragons for crushed-out fangirls. Sadly, none of the girls in the band seemed to share my enthusiasm. They preferred donuts and Kool-Aid to band practice. (But what about THE BAND???) It didn’t help that we had no instruments. Lip-synching into a hairbrush is one thing, but no one wants to play air bass. And so, the Michael Jackson Club dissolved after a few weeks. It was an early and valuable lesson for me: Not everyone can match my enthusiasm. Sometimes, I bring a lot of exclamation points to the table.

It was a lesson in other ways, too. Three years later, when Michael Jackson wasn’t THE musician so much as as THE punchline, the boys at school remembered the Michael Jackson Club. “Hey Michael,” some of them used to taunt me in the hall. And these were the popular boys, of course, the ones with Maui tans and cheerleader girlfriends. “Hey Michael, where’s your white glove? Is it Thriller night?”

No, it’s Tuesday. You know, the night your rich father fucks around on your mom and fails to love you?

Only I didn’t say that. What I said, mostly, was nothing.

It must have jolted me, too, because I never joined a club after that. (Oh, and also, because I’ve told that story like a bazillion times, and can’t shut up about it, like it was the goddamn Sophie’s Choice moment of my childhood. Get over it already, Hepola!) In high school, when we actually had to be part of a club, I chose the biggest and most anonymous. The ones that let me sit in the back and disappear. Groucho Marx said he’d never belong to any club who would have someone like him as a member. I just didn’t want to belong to a club, period.

As an adult, I’m totally fascinated by fan communities. Gamers and comic book junkies and sports nuts and fetishists and Civil War re-enactors and fanboys of all stripes. This is pretty common for journalists; we’re fascinated by people who fully embrace their enthusiasms. (Niche communities of all types, really. We’re fascinated by Scientologists and Mormons, too.) I used to cover boy bands for my paper in Austin, partly because I was the only person on staff who didn’t want to strangle myself with a shell necklace every time “Bye Bye Bye” came on the radio, but also because it took me back to a time when I fucking loved something, and I didn’t care who knew it. That love connected me to other people. That love meant something. That love took my allowance. But hey, no one said love came cheap.

Why am I talking about this? That’s not rhetorical; I’ve honestly forgotten. OH YES, I went to a Renaissance Festival last weekend in Fort Tryon Park with my friend Lisa. This is the second year in a row that we’ve gone, which I guess makes us regulars. Fort Tryon is only a few blocks from Lisa’s place in Washington Heights, and the festival is a better reason than nothing to make the subway trip up there and hang with her on a beautiful fall day. Lisa loves to take pictures of all the ridiculous signage: “Ye Olde Soft Serve,” “Ye Olde Pickles.” We bought this thing for her husband called a spoon-a-pult? It’s like a catapult, but it’s a spoon that launches food into your mouth. It’s awesome. I ate a turkey leg; it was maybe not awesome. We stroll around and look at the costumes and the vendors and make little jokes to each other. Actually, the jokes kind of make themselves. But the thing is, I guess I just appreciate fandom. That’s my club. The fandom appreciation club. No membership fees, no meetings. But you can join if you like.