Know Thyself, Nerd

I used to think I was cool. Through high school and especially during and just after college. However, a couple of years ago, my mom very politely told me that I was, in fact, a nerd.

"I am?" I asked in disbelief, cocking my head, scrunching up my nose. I mean, my mom isn't Joan Rivers or anything, so it's not like she's got the edge on hip. She told me to take a look at my friends. Good idea. I mean, you can tell a lot about a person by the company she keeps. She started naming each of my friends. "He's a nerd?" "They're nerds?" "He's a nerd, too?"

Well, I couldn't tell, but then nerds usually don't know they're nerds, so they probably can't identify other nerds. I can imagine that from my facial expression it appeared as though I were watching two cockroaches mating on the floor. I was realizing that I wasn't smooth. I wasn't sassy. I wasn't fooling anybody, either, except maybe my friends.

I've learned to accept the fact - heck, I even embrace it, because nerds are just people who don't wear masks, if you ask me.

Now, I have heard that Star Trek might be nerdy. But I thought, hey, why not give it a try. It could be fun like "Fraggle Rock" or "Labyrinth." But it wasn't. It was just straight up nerdy. And as I lay on the couch while Sara and Jose glued themselves to the very last episode of the Deep Space 9 series, I giggled a few times. Not only because Star Trek is possibly the nerdiest production ever created, but because it's endearing to have friends who aren't afraid to admit to the world, in their blogs, even, that they love something so uncool, and because,well, it's just swell being a nerd.

Knothead

I whacked myself in the forehead with a 40-lb. barbell this weekend. How does that happen? Let me recap... I'm doing this "boot camp" thing at the gym, where I'm sprinting hard for a mile on the treadmill and going straight over to the weights to do some lunges and other painful stuff. Friday, all the pre-date, testosterony guys were crowded in the weight room. I was pretty much the only female in eyeshot, so I felt like I was being looked at. I suppose I was looking down, you know, to try and avoid eye contact, so I grabbed the heavy barbell off the weight rack, and, using momentum to hoist it over my head and onto my shoulders, bonked myself a good one on the forehead. I tried to pretend nothing happened, so I'm not sure if anyone saw. But the physical effects of my self-consciousness and pride have lasted three days now. That's what I get for making fun of foreigners.

Enema of the State

I would be remiss if I did not say that I absolutely love hanging out with foreigners. It's better even than hanging out with small children.

Last night, for example, my French neighbor Nadege thought she knew what an enema was. "Like the movie," she said. "'Enema of the State.'" No, her boyfriend said. That was most certainly not the name of that movie. ...But we have decided to always, always replace the word "enemy" with "enema." "Enema at the Gates." "Behind Enema Lines." Ohh.

What's almost as funny is her interpretation of "crap shoot," which was "crap sh*t." She just thought it meant something was so bad it was beyond just being regular crappy. We discovered this misinterpretation while watching a Sprint commercial, where the guy is walking around in the boonies, talking about how his service is always a crap shoot out there. Guess she thought he just had super bad service.

So to my two favorite foreigners, Nadege and Jose, thank you. You're both priceless.

Nadege: By far, not my worst enema.
(Pictured right, Nadege's boyfriend Jason, not a foreigner.)

The Reading Club Sans Reading

Sara, the girl with the best blog in the world, graced me with her presence last night. We went to Flightpath for a reading party! Yay! We are some wild chicks. We sat on a couch next to a battered old sandwich and a leaky pen. Rob came and sat down near us.

Hi Rob!

Rob just moved here from Boston. He works at UT and rides his bike everywhere he goes. Anyway, I started off with a few card tricks...okay, one card trick that I did wrong. Sara did a trick right. Next, Rob joined us in a game called "Idiot." It was fun, but Sara won, as usual. She's such a cheater. Then we started talking about books and God. We read for about 1.5 minutes.

I tend to look really smart when I go to coffeeshops.

Adventures in Shoe Polish

I had a job interview at 9 a.m. I scored some shoe polish from a friend yesterday, who instructed me to apply it that day and let it dry overnight.

Well, I got caught up "Everybody Loves Raymond" and forgot. That silly Raymond and his hijinks. So this morning as I was applying far more makeup than usual, it donned on me that I needed to polish them. Argh! Now I was running behind!

I couldn't get the dang polish to come out of the squeegie thing and Blitzcat was trying his level best to get inbetween the polish and the shoe. So I stood up, and in confusion/frustration, I mashed down hard on the shoe and squeezed the bottle, sending a good pint of shiny black shoe polish streaming down my bare leg. I jumped in the bath and tried washing it off. Nevermind, no one's going to see my leg. I also got it on the carpet. During the interview, I noticed I got some under my nails as well.

But I put lipstick on, so I'm pretty sure I dazzled her anyway. I've got another interview at 12:30. If things go well, I'll either be a marketing director or a PR rep by the end of the week. Wish me luck, and if you know how to get shoe polish off of skin and carpet, do tell. I'll add some pictures later, maybe, so it can be noted how fly I look today.

Father Bear Signs Books

Like the wise Sara says (in cliche, of course), all's well that ends well. Last night ended with a game of Skip-Bo where I reigned victorious. So I guess that's well. I wish I had a digital camera so I wouldn't have to ask the reader to use so much imagination. Skip-Bo really isn't that hard to imagine, though, I suppose.

I went to Book People yesterday and met the author/illustrator of the Berenstain Bears books, Mike Berenstain. He signed a book for me. His parents, Stan and Jan, were the original creators, but they died, so my new friend Mike took over.

I also talked to Rigel. It's not like that. We weren't tryin' to hook back up. We just went for a lil' walk and talked about what we'd been doing. He told me about some volunteer stuff, some cool happenings in his life, that he was relieved after we broke up (just go ahead - throw a little salt and lime on my broken heart - ahh, that's better). I told him about some epiphanices that I've had that are going to be played out over the next year or so, like community living (what? I know.), mission stuff, original thought, stuff like that. It's gonna be cool. In the end, Rigel and me decided to try to remain friends. Yeah. I know.

Blue Like Jazz

It is 8:39 on a Saturday night. I am sitting in a coffee shop drinking lukewarm coffee. Why would a coffee shop sell lukewarm coffee? And what brought me here? I never came here before I dated Rigel. This is where he comes to work, when he comes to a coffee shop. Sometimes he goes to the one closer to my apartment, but mostly he comes here. I told myself I chose this coffee shop because of the couches. Quacks doesn't have couches - only hard chairs and a few stools, and it's usually crowded and loud. So I came here. I'm reading a book. I'm trying desperately to keep my mind off the only thing it wants to be on. The book helps. It's a good book. I recommend it - "Blue Like Jazz."

That sums up my emotional state right now, I suppose. I'm blue like jazz. Every day I'm doing a better job of sucking it up, coming to terms with singlehood. This is the fourth day of it, I think. Or at least, the fourth night. This is the first day I haven't cried. Maybe I'll fall asleep without crying. Probably. The problem is that I don't know what to do with myself - I feel like a recovering alcoholic at a bar with nothing to do with my hands. Kind of folding up the corner of a napkin, making awkward eye contact with people I'd rather not be around. Hmm. Dunno.

I'm so super glad Sara and Jose are here for me right now. And they don't even know me that well. What rockstars, man. I suppose a lot of my friends would be willing recipients of my depressive panderings, but for some reason I'm subjecting only a select few to my life right now. I've been clinging to Sara and Jose since Thursday. They finally scared me off with Star Trek.

So here I am thinking about my connections to my community. Today I went to this nursing home and volunteered to sing a little, play some guitar every Saturday, Phoebe style. Heck, I may even do a rendition of "Smelly Cat." Honestly, I'm not excited about it. The prospect of going alone with my meager renderings of hymns and praise songs, alone to a dismal place where people go to die, is not appealing. How can I shine light into these old geezers' lives when mine is snuffed out right now? Man, this is the most depressing blog entry EVER. Please forget you ever read it, if there's anyone out there reading it.

Anyway, Rigel's sister Chloe called and left me a message earlier. I wanted to talk to her, but she didn't answer when I called back. I wanted to tell her how sad I am, how Rigel and I both have some learning to do, how I'm happy that my relationship with God is going to grow and I'm optimistic that as it does He will pour blessings into my life. But mostly I wanted to tell her how sad I am so she'd tell Rigel and he'd know I was thinking about him. And she, being his sister, is an extension of him, a grand substitution, the closest I can get to him without talking to him. But she wasn't there. I guess it's for the best, because looking at myself from a wide lens, I can see how pathetic and ineffective it would all be. Maybe she'll call back, though.

I'm going back to my book because it's about somebody else's life. If anyone knows of any other books I can escape into, bring it. I'm all about escape right now.

The Happy Couple

Can I just say during this (hopefully large) window of time I'm giving God the chance to do His thing, that I LOVE Him? I hope so. I mean, that's not illegal or anything, is it? Because I do.

Yes so I have been all broken up about being broken up, but God swooped down and made good use of me. Man, I didn't even say my "Please live through me today," prayer today. It was more like, "Please let me live through today."

Anyway, the good part: so I'm telling someone, we'll call her "Sally," about my problem, and she ends up telling me that she's not speaking to her husband of 10 years. So we start praying, and wow, does God work with those who come in humility and sincerity. Yada, yada, yada, she walked over to his office and made up with him. They just had lunch together and are happy as little larks. They just seemed so renewed.

Also, she told me she knows the reason I'm working here is because of her - because she needed me. Finally I know why I'm here! I've needed her, too, truth be told.

But yeah, I'm all smiles seeing them happy together. Gotta give it up for God! He can turn anything around!

Gipped by a hippie

Ironically, my hippie ex-boyfriend broke up with me last night so he could live in a commune someday. Shoulda seen that one coming! Bye, Rigel! I love you.

My Color is Rainbow

My new job-hunter's bible, "What Color is Your Parachute," tells me that what my parachute needs is a dye job. Apparently, my job-hunting tactics have caused all this disheartening hype, rejection shock and (gasp) low self-esteem. And I thought it was just a slight personality disorder. Phew! But really, I still don't know what color my dang parachute is after all this time. So I'm picking rainbow for now because rainbows are pretty and indecisive.

Basically, my workdays are open wide until January (unless I find the aforementioned other job), meaning I'm at work, but not actually doing any work - also meaning the topic of my blogs will be either the unusual ramblings of my mind or recaps of the preceding evening/weekend. Or nasty bits of gossip. Or maybe stories about spaceships. I don't know yet.