There is one thing about getting older that I am excited about. I am getting more comfortable in my personality and thus, no longer hide my guilty pleasures or fondness for things considered weird or "geeky". There's a set of posters lining the hallways of my daughter Lyla (Bug)'s school. Various celebrities saying "I geek superheroes" or "I geek books" or "I geek science fiction" or some other predilection folowing the words "I geek". I like these posters a lot. When I was my daughters ages - 14, 7, 6, "geeking" or "nerding" anything was not cool and you tried to be as mainstream as possible to keep up with your cool friends or whatever the "Joneses" liked. All 3 of my kids have things they like and they do not hide their geekiness towards them. I am proud of them. In the past few years, I have recaptured my passion for writing. I also have realized my deep fondness for several things many people would consider "out there" or "weird" or "geeky". Here are a few:
words: I am a word nerd to the nth degree. One of my favorite twitter followers is @MerriamWebster because she/they reveal a word of the day every day. They also find words in the news that are not used often, provide definitions, and try to promote them in their tweets. When I was a kid I used to study the dictionary. This probably explains my sbobbery towards words that are overused like great, love, hate, like, awesome, and so many others. For the record, today's MerriamWebster word of the day is frisson which means; a brief moment of emotional excitement, a shudder or thrill. It was used ina story about Wikileaks here: http://bit.ly/h6dzV3
As you can tell my reading this blog, I am part of a interesting group of word nerds from http://www.velvetverbosity.com/ . Each week, there is a one word prompt, I write 100 words around that prompt. It has led me to expand my writing abilities and follow my passion. Maybe vel will prompt us with frisson.
NFL Matchup : My favorite television show, without question, is the ESPN film breakdown program profiling upcoming NFL games. Sal Palantonio and Ron Jaworski painstakingly use game film and analysis to explain why a team can or will be successful against another team for the following week's game. Sounds insanely boring. Not for a football geek like me. I played in highschool and a little club ball in college. I find the Xs & Os of the game of football enthralling. NFL Matchup is the only show on television that gives you that banal analysis. I could wtach it for hours. ESPN givesme only 30 minutes of show.
Ernest Hemingway writings: I read and reread it all. The Nick Adams short stories, the novels, the novellas, his newspapers articles, even his diary entries. Papa Hemingway's style is what I consider to be art. I traveled, by myself once, to Key West to drink in the bar he did, and visit a museum.
Punk rock: It doesn't represent my life in any way. I am not angry, disaffected, overly rejected (i live with women so I'm rejected a lot), or poverty stricken. Yet, give me a fast guitar chord, a spitting lead singer, and a two minute rant against the mainstream and I'm in like Minutemen (four people will get that reference). The Clash, The NY Dolls, and The Ramones are 3 of my favorite bands. I think everyone should own Never Mind The Bollocks by the Sex Pistols. I was fortunate to visit CBGBs in New York's Bowery twice before it closed. At least once day a year, I walk around speaking in a cockney accent and/or rip up a t-shirt while doing the Pogo. Punk rock forever.
geography/maps: I am kind of obsessed with where things and people are located. When I have a friend and they live in a different place than me, I look up that area and get immersed in the facts. When my family takes a trip, I am in charge if the map. I know way too much about the geo-politics of Mexico. Why? Because Bobina and I went to Cancun last year. I must have had a really good geography or social studies teacher when I was in school.
What do you "geek"? I need to get my hand on one of those posters in Bug's school. I'm anxious to see what the rest of you are into. I geek twitter, too, by the way. There's some interesting stuff in people's thoughts strewn over 140 characters. That may be the scariest thing I do.
Here's some punk music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP3x-VdOb44
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Word geeking ... one of my earliest memories of our friendship is about our joy at using the word "audacious" in as many ways as possible. I still work that word into conversations to this day. That .. is some geeky memories right there.
ReplyDeleteI geek typography. Had a typography class in design school studying in-depth the origins of the written word, type styles, book making. It is all really interesting, and I get aggravated when people use icky generic drug store fonts on printed pieces.
ReplyDeleteI geek words. I have taken classes in French and Spanish in addition to English and I realized at a young age that if you learn the root words and where they came from, you can decipher the meaning of 90% of the words you don't know. I would love to study latin. Also, I can spell like a MoFo.
I geek scooters and scooter punk gear. My newest desire is a skull with pigtails on a tshirt. I may have to design it myself.
I geek art. In most any form. I love to see the result of someone pouring their heart and soul into anything they love. When that is there, it is always amazing. That is why I don't just write to write.
I geek punk rock too, totally ID with you on that one.