geek

There are all kinds of geeks. If you're a geek when it comes to something cool, you're an enthusiast or a buff. A sports enthusiast. A fitness buff. An outdoors enthusiast. Because these passions... are cool sounding. In reality they both just make you smelly and sweaty (I know, I'm a buff and an enthusiast and I spend an inordinate amount of time being sweaty and smelly....luckily I am also a soap enthusiast). However, if you're into computers or fantasy/sci-fi, or comic book super heros....ohmigosh...you're such a geek.

I know this for a fact because when I graduated high school, I started dating a boy who'd graduated a year before me. He was a major sports enthusiast. He'd been a captain of our varsity football team and our state champion wrestling squad. He knew sports in and out, kept in shape. Rowr. 5 years later, I got totally played. I married a comic book geek with a plan for the zombie apocalypse. I married the same boy. I didn't ditch my high school jock hottie for a bespectacled nerd wearing mismatched plaids. He had an alter ego. It was very much like marrying Superman, to find out he was really Clark Kent, which is a whole different experience than marrying Clark Kent and finding out he can lift cars and fly.

I don't come from these kinds of people. I come from sports/car enthusiasts with a special interest in working enough to pay the damn bills. I had no idea that grown ass men (and yes I mean men, but we'll get to that later) got comics. Every week. Wha-wha-what???

Have you ever been in a neighborhood comic shop? Its like the bar on the old sitcom Cheers...but with less women, less having sex and less matching clothes. Everyone seems to know one another, the entire place seems to be engaged in the same conversation. And oh yeah. There are almost never any women. Back in the day, there were tables and tables of back stock comic in long white boxes. These are called long boxes. There is usually an organized mess: stacks of flyers, preview magazines, pop cans belonging to whatever geek is standing at the counter talking, etc. There are card board stand ups of comic book favorites like Wolverine, Batman, and Superman. I think its a law that there has to be a blow up Spiderman hanging from the ceiling somewhere. And then there is the gaming stuff.

My partner doesn't game, so I don't know a lot about that. But I'm pretty sure all the fairies and wizards and dragons you see there are for the gamers. Its interesting, right? You just imagine spiderman hitting it with the big breasted head piece wearing forest queen witch lady. Superman calls the wizards homophobic slurs and then the wizards blast him. If you've never been in a comic book store, this doesn't really happen. This is just my overactive imagination playing with the juxtaposition of the classic American icons of the hero world and the grimy underworld of fantasy that decorates these shops.

But this isn't where the cultural experience ends. The folks you see in a comic store are a gathering that you won't find anywhere else. You have pimply teenage boys who don't fit in with the jocks (see why my boy had to keep his geekdom a secret???). Then you have those boys twenty and thirty years later. Often they are wearing superhero shirts, or hawaiian shirts, jorts, tall socks, or sandals.Some are thin, some are heavy. Most are pale. I have only seen maybe a half dozen women all together at this comic store in all the years (a good ten to fifteen) that I have been going along for the ride. And these women (and I don't know how to say this without sounding like an asshole) were not obviously women right away.

It has taken me years to get anyone to acknowledge my presence in the comic shop when I go in with TB. But recently I've made friends with the guy who manages. And he gave me a book suggestion. I am reading The Dresden Files. Holy shit, people. This is good stuff. The main character is totally easy to relate to, the dialog is hilarious, and the stories have more twists and turns than your colon. Amazing stuff. And its a series, so you get to really enjoy the development of the characters. Not to mention that I really enjoy plowing my way through a well written series of stories. The Dresden Files are about a wizard who is also a detective. Yeah. Pretty much an urban version of Dungeons and Dragons in book form. I have to go to the Sci Fi/Fantasy section of the library or bookstore to get the books. Usually, the bookstore staff asks me if I 'need any help.' Like when I go to Home Depot...I don't look like I'm there on purpose, I suppose.

But I am a total geek about these books. I have to get 2 at a time, so that I always have one in reserve. I look forward to going with TB to the comic store so I can talk about the books with the manager who recommended them to me. Typically he and I talk, and then I wait while he checks out and converses with the other patrons while they very pointedly ignore my presence. Or, they wait until we are done talking while pointedly ignoring my presence.

Until the other day.

I was talking about my more recent reading with my Dresden Files friend when a Hawaiian shirt clad fan boy looked up tentatively. "I know just what series you're talking about, I've been trying to get him [pointing at his friend who was also ignoring me] to read it for years." And WHAMMO. I was in a conversation with the comic store guys. Like several of them. Not one of them that I know already.

I am a geek. Sweet.

about looking stupid....

I spend a great deal of my time looking stupid. I do stupid things. I mean I am a real doctor of philosophy, rather than a doctor like Dr. Dre or Dr. Pepper, but I am willing to bet that outside of work, there are more people in my life who do not know about that than those who do...but that's likely a whole 'nuther blog post. The point of that is, that most people are shocked when they find out that "yes I am dr. Err." Over the last couple of years I've postulated as to why jaws drop when I meet parents, mention a class I'm teaching to friends over wings, or someone refers to me as dr. or professor for the first time. My list is typically that they expect someone who is a dr./college professor to be a) a dude b) older c) lame d) all of the above.

I think that's a pretty good approximation of why I don't fit the stereotypical mold of a scholar, professional, etc. However, I have recently come to the conclusion that really the reason people don't think (believe) that I am anything beyond a dingbat is because I spend a lot of my time looking sort of stupid. I think that's a defining character trait of mine. I'm ok with the possibility of looking like a total tool.

Much of my tooliness revolves around my willingness/desire/obsession to try new things. Its not that I like to try new things for the sake of trying new things. Its more about that if I have a fear that if I don't try these new things I'll be one of those folks who says things like, "I've always wanted to do that."

This leads me to do a lot of things a lone. And let's face it. You look a bit dumber alone than with someone. And I've noticed that women, almost always go places in pairs. I am clearly horrible at being a woman.

My gym (and I hesitate to call it a gym...really its a box with minimal gear...no treadmills, no elliptical machines, just some weights, kettle bells, bars for pull ups and a trashcan for puking) is a prime example of this. In Krav Maga we regularly partner up. Duh, you can't very well practice getting out of a choke without someone choking you.... I regularly am left without a partner. At first I felt a little like the lame kid in gym class who always got picked last. And this was weird for me. Whatever problems I had with school (grades, dumb teachers, mouth that wouldn't quit...) getting picked for teams was never a problem. I was always first girl picked, right after varsity athletes (which means I was usually about third in the line up). But since I'm ok with looking stupid, I just hold up my hand and get a partner. But I started to watch the women in class before it begins. They regularly come in pairs. Partner in tow. So they won't be left alone and look stupid? Oh. I must have missed that girl memo.

I noticed a couple of years ago when I started working for Habitat for Humanity. All the women came with a buddy. I showed up with water, a lunch, and work boots. No partner to eat lunch with. It was ok. To be frank about it... the work is hard. Come lunch time, I just wanted to eat and take my stupid hard hat off. This seems to be a recurring theme with me. I went to school alone (I can't begin to tell you how many people I've known who've gone to grad school together). I ran my first races alone without thinking to bring even a cheering section. Its not that I don't have lovely people in my life who would do these things with me (though I don't know who would go to Krav and Crossfit with me....these are a bit crazy). Its just that I don't wait around for someone else to try them with me. Regularly, I try new things and then encourage my friends to try them. I am often their safety person.

Recently, I found a new adventure all by myself. I found a 'u-pick' farm. I wasn't sure what this was about. So I took off with a bottle of water and my directions. Or at least I thought I had my directions. They were on the kitchen counter doing me all kinds of good. It was ok, because the first time I got lost, I realized they were wrong anyway. I got myself back to civilization (people, farms are WAY in the country) and called TB to get the address so I could use the navigation in my phone. 20 minutes later, it seemed I was mere feet away. Except there was no farm and I was now so far out that I was on a dirt road. Alone. Holy crap, people. This city kid was starting question her sanity, listen for banjo music, and hope that her mouth wasn't too pretty. I was lost and WAY in the country. ALL BY MYSELF. Clearly, I didn't think this new adventure through before diving head first in.

About a quarter mile past where the farm should have been according to my navigation, I found it. A small (five or ten acres) farm with a hand painted sign. I got out wondering what I could expect. I knew they were open because I had the sense to call first and there were two cars in the gravel that constituted a small parking lot. What I'd found apprently was the farm version of the vanishing. I wandered all over looking for someone and no one was there. And no lie. I'm scared to death. I am WAY out there. If you're not from the city, maybe you don't get this. But if you are... you're nodding your head wondering what the hell I was thinking. Somewhere in the back of my head I'm thinking, 'how lame are you? you don't know how to work the farm market and now you're wandering around hoping to find someone to tell you what to do."

So I opened the passenger seat of my car leaned in and pulled out my cell phone. Lucky for me, a mini van pulled in at about that time and a lady got out asking me if I needed help. Um, apparently I had that look about me. This nice lady gave me a basket and a pair of scissors and told me to get at it. I asked where I could harvest produce from and she told me any place I wanted. I felt mad suspect at first. Like I was stealing Peter Rabbit style. But half hour or so later, I had a basket full of tomatoes, lettuce and squash. The lady encouraged me to come back and I'll likely bring a friend and my mom (who both will be more willing to go because I can show them the ropes).

I'm about to call an organic/grassfed/free range/no cage farm here in a bit. Its part of not only my paleo lifestyle, but also my hope to eat local and sustainable food. I have no idea how this works. It will be another time when I don't even know what questions to ask. Another conversation that starts out with, "Hi. I'm going to apologize ahead of time, because I have no idea what I'm doing or where to start. Can you help me out a bit?"

I also want to learn how to knit. I'm sure it will have several moments of feeling a little like clueless tool. I just hope that doesn't involve getting lost in the country....