illustration by artist calida (www.artistcalida.com)

My family is the real-life version of the Griswolds from National Lampoon’s. More space cadet than rocket scientist. The kind of people who are really good at getting in their own way.

You’ve seen us before. At the rest stop wondering how we drove 40 miles in the wrong direction. At the movies bragging about how we’re smarter than everyone else with our store-bought sodas and garbage bag full of homemade popcorn. Hours late to all the events we didn’t RSVP for.

So, several months ago, when I started suffering from chemo brain — short-term memory loss and a decline in cognitive abilities due to chemotherapy — I wasn’t sure whether the drugs were to blame or my Garcia genes. Let me provide a sketch of the patriarchs of our family for a little context.

My dad, Joe, has belt-attached holsters that sit on both hips. One is for his cell phone and the other is for his glasses. That in and of itself is pretty funny, because my dad wears his pants so high that his belt is typically above his belly button. But the real reason I bring this up is because he purchased the special holders to keep track of his phone and his specks, which he loses all the time. Invariably, though, one, if not both, of his hip-slung carrying cases winds up empty, and helping him retrace his steps goes something like this:

Joe: “Did you see where I put my glasses?”

Me: “Nope. Where did you have them last?”

Joe: “On my face.”

Those older ATMs, the ones where you insert your card in the machine, were a cruel joke for my dad. For some reason, he never caught on that the loud, methodical beeping at the end of the transaction was a reminder to grab your card. I can’t count how many times he’d go out to get money only to return with no card, cursing under his breath, because the machine sucked it up.

And it’s not just memory loss that gets the better of the Garcias. We have an uncanny knack for offending folks just by being ourselves, getting all the family gossip wrong, and landing in the most bizarre situations.

Take my uncle Tony, my dad’s younger brother. He’s gotten peed on by a Tiger, once choked a cab driver in Italy he thought was trying to cheat him, and is convinced that a rooster on the farm where he and my dad spent their summers as kids wanted to kill him.

This is the same uncle who wears a one-piece adult-size snowsuit indoors during winter because his historic home in Germantown, Pa., is too costly to heat. Get Joe and Tony together and forget about it.

When my cousin Calida and I moved to New York more than 10 years ago, our dads volunteered to drive the U-Haul. Why this was even allowed is beyond me.

this is exactly what my uncle's indoor snowsuit looks like

the X power ring

Like many superhero enthusiasts, I set out on a pilgrimage this week to see the new X-Men Origins movie. I’ve been a groupie of the ragtag crew of mutants since I was young — particularly Wolverine.

I’m a Hugh Jackman fan for sure, especially when he wears that leather jacket and those tight jeans, but I’m an even bigger fan of superhero movies done right. This one was just mediocre. Jackman is always impressive as Wolverine; it’s everything else that falls short. A cheesy storyline and too many characters I didn’t care about. Shelve this one alongside other comic book movies I’ll probably never watch again, which includes Constantine, Hulk (the one with Eric Bana), and Catwoman.

Origins, nevertheless, got me thinking about our fascination with superheroes. I can trace mine back to the hours I spent watching Saturday-morning classics like Super Friends, Wonder Twins, and a loin-cloth-clad He-Man. All I needed was a bowl of cereal and the remote.

I imagine it was the fantasy of it all that got me watching initially. But as I got older, the series got better, more complex, more relevant. Justice League, Spider-Man, and Batman, for instance, not only chronicled the adventures of my favorite comic book characters, but also portrayed them as once-ordinary people functioning under extraordinary circumstances.

More often than not, some personal misfortune occurred in their lives that led to the discovery of their amazing abilities. Or, in the case of the X-Men, a mutant X-gene was identified as the source of superhuman powers. From then on, the beneficent heroes and heroines were compelled to use their powers to help humankind and to raise awareness about their collective plight.

Is it me or does this sound remarkably similar to the auspicious, but humble, journey of yours truly?

Let’s see. As a survivor, I think I have the extraordinary circumstances covered, and a cancer diagnosis is definitely a personal misfortune — albeit one I’m using to raise awareness. Mutant gene? Check. Cell mutations occurring in the body are the cause of malignant tumors.

Furthermore, like the superheroes I grew up watching, the discovery of  my “abnormality” led me to uncover my own mental might. In fact, I’ve started to view cancer as my metaphorical X-gene, responsible for inspiring me to fight the good fight.

Could Chana Garcia aka Slayer be some sort of superhuman? That certainly sounds sexier than referring to myself as a mutant.

I even have a talisman — a ring a la Green Lantern that I picked up a few months back at a curio shop called Eclectica. Sounds like a place where the super among us might shop, right? When I slip on my power ring, I feel protected and, interestingly enough, it’s shaped like an X. I pretend that it represents my X-gene or reveals my secret identity as a warrior born of Generation X.

Call me corny, or more likely disillusioned, but creating a fantasy scenario in which I envision myself a champion crusader is a highly effective coping strategy, not to mention big fun. We all process our experiences differently, and when faced with such a heavy one like cancer, or any disease for that matter, I think it’s healthy to empower ourselves any way we see fit. Plus, who hasn’t imagined themselves as a superhero. I have dusty Polaroids  from the early ’80s of me and my sister on Christmas sporting the Underoos that Santa brought us. You can probably guess which one of us was Wonder Woman.

Whether it’s advocacy or effecting change, I figure that by attempting to define a purpose behind this disease,  I’ve tapped into something way larger than myself, something I imagine the comic book characters I love must have felt when they teamed up with others of their kind or when they found people who spoke up on their behalf. I’m hoping to find out at the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance’s annual conference in July, where there will be plenty more like me.

An entire legion of survivors descending upon the nation’s capital. Did somebody say superhero convention?