EvilJohn.net

After the storms hit Wednesday night, the neighbor’s fence decided it didn’t want to be a fence anymore. It decided it wanted to be a kite, a career I might add, that didn’t get off the ground.  Fortunately, my car was there to catch it before the untethered fence piece crashed into something important, like the ground.  Tragically, I find myself without a car for the next few days. On the upside I got to meet our neighbor, Terri. She and her husband (Sir Not-Appearing-in-this-Blog) have a two year old girl whom, I have not bothered to meet.

Right neighborly, I know.

So after a 15 foot segment of ethnocentric (I’m assuming it hit my car because it was an American fence, another tragic case of American Fence on Japanese Car crime), landed on my car, I had to goto the dentist again. This is like trip number 5 this year. I’ve been neglecting my teeth (something I will never, EVER do again), and I’m nearly done with visits this year. After getting my front teeth drilled and filled, my dentist decided to try one his new toys, a FRICKIN’ LASER BEAM, on my gums. The tissue is very red, and not healing as well as it should.

His answer? BURN IT OFF BABY. So yeah, he fires up the laser and trims two millimeters of gum off my teeth. It was sort of uncomfortable, but my teeth look longer, which makes you look younger! Apparently 10.5 mm of exposed tooth is normal, and I only had 8 mm. My gums were to long in front. As he vaporized the flesh on some of my teeth that were not totally numb, I could actually feel the laser remove the tissue. Weird feeling. Have you ever had very dry skin on your hands, and put some lotion or water on them and your skins just seems to feel bigger? It felt like that. Also, it smelled like barbecue pork. I got hungry.

I’m hoping the two events are unrelated.

So lately I’ve been watching a lot of Television. DirecTV rolled out a new satellite and I’ve been a abusing my DVR. One of the shows I’ve been watching is The Big Bang Theory. It’s a show about a couple of smart geeks (and/or nerds) who wind up having a hot blond move in next door. They’re geeky guys, playing World of Warcraft, like comic books, and are savvy in the ways of the computer. They are they stereotypical geeks and I identify with them.

I watch it because it makes me laugh, and at the same time, squirm. The way ‘normal’ people interact and respond to these guys makes me laugh and cringe at the same time. Through out the years I’ve experienced it myself. People often tag us with labels, poor social skills or communication abilities. I like the show because it shows how well they communicate amongst themselves. Simply because you don’t understand someone doesn’t mean there isn’t someone else doesn’t understand. And, of course, we distrust we don’t understand.

Of course the lead character has a thing for the hot girl, and this is from where much of shows comedy spawns, and this is the part that makes me squirm (though less, now, then it would have a few short years ago). I see the show battle with itself, about this relationship. To be with her, will he have to be more ‘normal’? Will he have to renounce his geekdom to get the girl? Is self-betrayal necessary? I know this is only a silly little sitcom, but I hope the writers allow him to be himself, not conform to some arbitrary definition of normalcy.

To some extent, I know I’ve compromised my geekiness in moving to my new position in life. I’m not sure I can adequately convey what this means, but being a ‘geek’ now, from a technological perspective doesn’t mean it did in my formative years. Take the Internet, for example. Everyone has computer, access is common. It was different when I was growing up. If you’ve ever felt silly talking about your own computer compulsions, imagine how you would have felt in 1986. Computers in the bedroom were not always a common thing. Spending a Saturday afternoon soldering a IEEE interface into an RS-232C so you could disks faster isn’t exactly common place, but I think most everyone I know blows a great deal of free time farting around on their computer. That part of my life, high school, took a terrible toll on my psyche, and it really wasn’t until I discovered IRC. and started going to QuakeCons that I really felt comfortable in my own skin. Thank God for those early days on EFNET #quake, and yossman.net.

Luckily, I’ve found someone who lets me to be me, without tamping down to much of my geek core. My wife is a magnificent woman. In some ways I’ll always be to recapture to the geekiness life’s later responsibilities have laid upon me, but I hope I never loose sight of the incredible gift I’ve been given as continue my search for peace with my inner geek.

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