Yes, that's my name.  I am still me.  I am still Ben Grimm.  But to almost everyone else, I am also... a Thing.  Or even The Thing.  A misshapen mass of orangey rocks.  A mutant.  A monster.  One who doesn't even know his own strength.  I barely know whether to refer to myself as a 'him' any more -- to just about everyone else, I've become an 'it.'  When I first realized I'd gone through this... transformation... I'm lucky to be alive.  I don't deny that.  The quacks say I should be dead, and at first I thought I'd be better off that way too... But everything has a purpose, and maybe... just maybe... I could turn this negative into a positive.  If I'm going to be like this for good, I might as well use my newly-gained strength for GOOD.  If that's what people want, I'll be The Thing.  If I have to live with this, they can damn well live with this too.  Meet the new Ben: same as the old Ben -- at least, on the inside.  And if they don't like it?  If they get up in my face?  Well then, I got three words for 'em: it's clobberin' time!

Leave me alone.

 

I don't know when , or if, I'll be back.

First of all, what happened yesterday on the Tube and in that bus was horrific.  But in an effort to not allow others to make us cower in fear, we felt it important to continue with the launch.  I was the last one to agree to this 'blog' nonsense, and now here I am writing launch day's first entry -- is that irony, or just dumb?  I don't know, I never really got irony.  I thought I'd better get this particular chore out of the way because I'm gonna be kind of busy later, ya dig??  I mean, guess who's got to go outside the ship for a spacewalk before we rendezvous with Reed's precious cloud?  That's right -- muggins here!!  Sounds tough, huh?  Well, lemme tell you... the others don't know what they're missing.  The way this spacecraft is built. you might as well be in the conference room at Von Doom Industries -- or in a simulation.  But you put on that suit, those boots, that helmet... You open the airlock and step out into the cold black yonder... You glance over your shoulder and see the planet Earth, looking so vulnerable, so fragile, so... small... That's when you thank your lucky stars you have this job.  People always say the only man-made thing you can see from space is the Great Wall of China.  But you don't really understand what they mean until you turn and see it... Yes, you can really see it from space.  And in about half an hour, I'll remind myself that one urban myth, at least, is true. (I'll swear I see Debbie looking up at me and smiling, too, but that's just space delirium ;)  it'll be another week before I'm back on terra firma, telling you all about it.  But I can never describe how it feels.  If you want to know... join the space programme.  What can I say?  it's a rush.  The Earth.  So small, so fragile... Reed calls it "Goldilocks world,"  I don't know what he's talking about, but right now I feel like it's sometihing out of a fairy tale...  Time to go.  Time to get 'suited and booted.'  To paraphrase David Bowie, "tell my fiancee I love her very much... she knows.  For here.... am I floating on my tin can... far above the world... planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do..."

There's only a week to go before we launch.  Harder to find the words now.  I think we all just want it over with.  The MSN webheads have said they want the next 'blog' (all these new words I'm learning, for my sins) to come from Day One of the mission.  GREAT!  Debbie, my fiancee, says everyone's blogs are more entertaining than mine -- if that's true, I'm sorry.  I'm supposed to express my feelings here, and... that's never been my strong point, okay?  This has been a rocky enterprise since we started, and if you remember it wasn't my idea!  Never mind the cloud of geomagnetic particles we're going to pass through in our spacecraft seven days from now, there's a weird enough atmosphere around this building!  Reed's hiding something -- probably nerves; Sue's worried about Reed; Victor's pissed that Reed got to go on Larry King Live and he didn't; and Johnny's his usual devil-may-care self, like you might ask him what he's doing next Friday and he'd say, "Nothing much -- just this space mission in the morning."  I don't know how he does it.  But it's hard not to admire his attitude.  Maybe that's just his way of dealing with the danger -- act like it's nothing.  He may be a flaming nuisance, but there's no denying his confidence will light a fire under all of us come July 8.  It's going to be one hell of a launch...