How to drive someone crazy from 1100 miles away

05 October 2006

The biggest dork I know

I have been trying to explain to the people I work with what it is I am leaving town to do in two weeks. Of course, I am talking about Rhinebeck. When I say, Dutchess County Sheep and Wool Festival, I am certain they all think I am actually talking about some oddly titled jam band rock concert festival type of thing, until I explain that I get really excited about things like yarn and pointy sticks. And they all give me the same looks.

You know the looks.

The look says "You are crossing the country northward to do what??" The look says, "how many grandchildren do you have?" (Side note: I am two weeks shy of being thirty years old [gasp!] and I look like I am not old enough to have sexual relations with an adult. Not that anyone considers Yoshi an adult, but in the laws' eyes, you know...) The look says, "You must be the biggest dork I know."

But I know this. And I am more than okay with being the biggest dork most people around me know, including myself. I celebrate my dorkiness, revel in it, embrace my dorkitude with both arms (no lame assed one-arm hugs for my personal geekdom, no sirree). As Yoshi puts it, better the biggest dork I know than the biggest drunk I know.

Dork isn't a disease. Dweebie never hurt anyone. Geeky didn't start any wars. Famine isn't a by-product of nerdiness. In fact, without the passionately dorky people of the world, we would have greater health problems, hygiene would be in the dark ages, and just think of the public sewer system; only a huge freaking honking dork whose mother dressed him funny would think about how to send our humanly wastes away (because that's where it goes, away) by using water as an efficient and purifying transit method. Dork really translates into a strong commitment and passion for anything not ridiculously cool. Which I think is ridiculously cool in itself, so truly, I am the utmost of dorky cool. (Another side note: Geek chic is not dorky cool, despite semantic ramifications. It is a crappy trend. True dork endures.)

So, I spend a lot of my weekend nights at home alone, enjoying the quiet and playing with string and sticks while watching Harry Potter movies because I can't get the
Terry Pratchett book on CD that Yoshi burned for me to play in the living room. I like to get up early on Saturday morning to go to the Farmers' Market and buy produce to make jams, jellies, and a kick-ass tomato sauce. I like Star Wars, comic books, sci-fi fantasy, and would really like to meet George R. R. Martin and smack his bearded face for not coming out with the next Song of Ice and Fire book a little sooner, because I need to know what happens with the damn dragons. I watch a lot of BBC America, Sci Fi Channel, Food Network, and DIY Network on television, my only willing pursuit into mainstream entertainment being House on Fox. So-the-fuck-what. You jealous or something?

People seem to have a real problem understanding why anyone would want to be a dork. Well, I will tell you; it's a lot more fun to be comfortable with yourself when you are just being who you are, than uncomfortable trying to fit into someone else's idea of who you should be. Don't get me wrong; I slip up with this all the time. I get a little embarrassed of myself; sometimes translated into a deeply unsettled shame that I can only bear by running crying from a crowded room. But part of being comfortable with myself has been learning to not get myself into that crowded room in the first place; it simply isn't where I belong. Self actualization is a bitch. I prefer my social situations small and intimate; I like my love life uncomplicated and monogamous; and I have very few friends, each and every one of whom might well take a bullet for me and knows without doubt I would do the same for them. A party in my honor might consist of less than ten people, but I know all their birthdays, middle names, and some of their secrets, and they mine.

Dork takes strength of character to live out. Dork means people look at you funny, and you just go on smiling and being very excited to be doing whatever dorky thing you are doing, and damn anyone who doesn't care to understand. Fuck 'em if the can't take a dork. And hey, if the fact that I am a knitter and obsessed with fiber is so freaking lame, why did you just ask me to make you a scarf?

I know where I belong. I know my place. It is as the Reigning Queen of Dorkdom in my immediate life.

Of course, I have to step aside and let Swan take up the mantle when I see her. Great Googly Moogly, is that girl ever dorky.

And she takes that from me as the highest compliment.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow, I was with you right up to the end.

8:32 AM

 

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