You know how I know you’re a nerd?
I know you’re a nerd because you get geeked out at the idea of getting a new Mac Pro quad processor….at the prospect of upgrading your Creative Suite…with the accomplishment of implementing a new javascript. Yes you my dear are a nerd.
Fear not, you are in good if not great company…mine. Now whether or not you fancy yourself a geek vs a nerd vs a dork, well that is up to you. I prefer “nerd” to “geek” even though some insist that the term nerd implies no social skills. Anyone that knows me will, I think, vouch that being social has never been a problem of mine.
Nerds obsess and take great joy in the details of their obsession. I like to think my level of nerd is not at the expense of my social skills. I am in my 30s and yet I still get completely tickled by the silliest things. My current nerd obsession is the tv show LOST. It hibernates between seasons, but we are now back in the final season and with that the perennial bloom of my obsession. That was the sound of my heart breaking. There are no words to accurately describe how in awe of the show I am. From the very first episode with the close up of Jack’s eye, I was hooked. And have been for all 5+ seasons. I take notes during Lost. I have season premier/finale parties with incredible, obsessive, scary detail that includes boarding passes and bags of peanuts. I revel in the complexity of the symbolism and woven, sometimes abstract (yet simple) human themes of good vs. evil, choice vs. destiny, redemption vs. revenge. These characters are all broken and damaged in some way and struggling and I have always gravitated to the wounded bird. I thrill in delight with the hidden clues to art, literature, religion, music, science. It plays to all of my hot buttons: love, love lost, mystery, drama, suspense..and borders on science fiction (time traveling anyone?). The crazy thing is that all of our theories are just conjecture. We the audience are just guessing at what it all means, so you can hotly debate the meaning of everything. You HAVE to be smart to watch it, to get it. And I love that. It’s like a really pretentious nerd club. This may be the only thing in my life I would tolerate such pretentiousness. I can talk about it for hours, although I am running out of people who share my enthusiasm. Season 3 lost a lot of people, no pun intended. I am jealous of the people who get to write Lost blog commentary for a living.
Believe me when I say I realize I am about 2 episodes away from full-blown Trekkie.
And further proof that I indeed posses a nerd card…I had planned to write about my love of design and our toys and had no intention of writing about Lost. Clearly I need a Lost friend.