Mystery

Yesterday, I was shopping for picnic food for my date. I was wearing my "I love nerds" T-shirt that I've gotten so much attention for in the past. (#47) I had thought that the attention that I had gotten from men the day I wore the shirt to the Renaissance Faire was an exception because there is such a high density of nerds there. But, walking around the city, yesterday, I discovered that there are all sorts of nerds out there: nerds from India, Latino nerds, guys in cars who waved at me. And the guy who sold me my cheese.

It started like it usually does: "So, you like nerds, huh?" Sometimes they say, "I'm a nerd." Sometimes, it just hangs there unspoken. This time, it was unspoken. He asked me what I was looking for. "Brie," I answered.

"Do you see that one over there, without a label?"

"The half-circle?"

"Yes. That one is so good it is like it was hand-crafted by God. And I'm an athiest."

I flipped the supposedly divine cheese round over and saw that it was $18. Hand-crafted by God, indeed.

However, I just recently got the last of the money that my ex-husband owes me with a little extra because he really didn't want me to take him to court which would reveal to his new wife his utter boorishness. So, I've been spending the extra on things that make me happy. I've bought a great new ring and figured that he could pay for the food for my adorable date as well.

So, I told the cheese guy that I would take it and began to walk away. He said, "Tell me if you like it. And tell me when you have your next nerd party."

"I haven't had one of those since the special edition of the first Lord of The Rings came out." I was flirting a little and took credit for my friend Mark's nerd party.

"Oh, I'm not that kind of nerd."

I was walking away, so I didn't ask the question that is now burning inside of me.

What kind of a nerd is he!?!

If he was a computer/science nerd, he would have employable skills and he would not need to work at Whole Foods. What other nerds get to scoffs at fantasy nerds? Fantasy nerds are the dominant culture within the nerd community! I mean seriously, think Dungeons and Dragons, comic books and Star Trek. What kind of isolated sub-group do you have to be to scoff at Frodo? Video games? Paleontology? I can't fathom it.

However, the cheese is as good as he said it would be. The rest will have to remain a mystery.

Nerds vs. Islanders

I made an interesting connection while talking with people after Thanksgiving dinner. We were in an old goat shed that had been remodeled so that the floors were tiled with terra cotta and the ceilings still showed the original beams and roofing. The walls were plastered and it was brightly lit. I was talking about how elements of life out here would never have been dreamed of in the culture that I grew up in. So many people here have built their own houses with their own hands. So many people use outhouses or have no bathrooms at all. So many people use wood stoves to heat their homes. So many people have water catchment units to provide most of their running water. So many people garden and can and dehydrate and that is their main food source. Sp many people use the barter system whenever they can to get what they need. So many people spend so little of their lives working for money.

That is the essence of the difference of life out here compared to the life I knew in the suburbs. In the suburbs, people work and earn money that they spend on providing the essentials of life for themselves. Here, people try to spend as much time as possible providing those essentials of life for themselves, so they do not work as much. In both places, some people work to live and other people live to work. Essentials of life are food, clothing, housing, warmth. When I lived in Westchester, I paid people to clean my house and mow my lawn and shovel my driveway. I picked up dinner on the way home from work. I shopped a lot. I worked sometimes 60 hours a week and that gave me a salary that made me comfortable enough to hand that money over. I’ve been aware of that mentality because I work about 38 hours a week here and that seems like a lot to most people. I work that much right now, because I do not feel comfortable having less than that amount of money in reserve in my bank account and I have rent to pay. I do not have the time to cut my own wood to heat my house, so I will be hiring someone to do that for me this winter. That is also seen as odd to a lot of people here. I see it as a slow transition. I am attracted to the do-it-yourself lifestyle choice of the islanders because I think it may be more satisfying to me. There is less distance between me and the essentials of life. Mrs. Jakalski taught me that when Voltaire ends Candide by saying, “Come, let us cultivate our garden,” he means much the same thing.

This leads me to the connections I made between the known and the unknown. I do not know this island life. I am learning it. I do, however, know nerd sub-culture. I love them. Most of you know this about me. From Ben Merbitz and Eric Dahl to my ex-husband, I have attracted nerds and have been attracted to the weird little lives that they lead. I was telling the group at Thanksgiving dinner about a guy that I was friends with who makes his living off of Ebay by buying role-playing game paraphernalia in bulk and parceling it out for profit. He was so successful that he was able to move out of his parents’ basement and get his own apartment, which seemed to lead directly to getting a girlfriend. It’s the Nerd American Dream. Bill Gates would be proud. The added bonus to this story is that all of this success was possible from money earned – not by selling his soul and giving up all of his free time – but by immersing himself in something that he loves: games like Dungeons and Dragons. And, he really only has to work 15 or 20 hours a week. I think Alan said, “Wow, that sounds just like my American Dream.” There is the connection between the known and unknown.

Alan lives in a house that he helped his friends build while they are in Florida buying and repairing a boat that they will sail back here. The house has an outdoor shower and no bathroom. An outhouse is available for bowel movements and that waste is turned into fertilizer. Since urine added to the mix makes that process difficult, one must use the great outdoors for urinating. The water for the kitchen is supplied from catchment tanks and the heat is from a wood-burning stove. I’m not sure where the electricity comes from, but he’s looking into installing solar power. He also has a trailer with no power or water that he is going to haul up the hill to the top border of the property so that sometimes he can hike up there for the night so that he can sleep within sight of a beautiful view. He’s looking to buy or trade for this trailer that Jeff has so that he can build another little portable house, like a gypsy’s trailer. In the summer, Alan is a sea kayak guide, which he loves, and then in the winter, he works no more than 12 to 15 hours a week building his own business of taking care of people’s property when they are off-island. This lifestyle in uncannily like that of my former friend’s. The only difference is that nerds can’t really leave the power grid. Other than that, there are striking similarities:

- Both sub-cultures are outside of the mainstream. You could not plop the members directly into the suburbs without causing a situation somewhat like Edward Scissorhands.
- Both islanders and nerds will eschew both hygeine and fashion in pursuit of their respective goals.
- Both groups are dominated by men. A saying here is that when women first arrive, they look around and say, "The odds are pretty good here." After awhile, this reverses itself to,"The goods are pretty odd here."
- The men in both groups are often not interested in the few women that are involved since the women tend to be a little more masculine and can eschew both hygeine and fashion as well. This is a little less prevelant on the island.
- Both nerds and islanders tend to have trouble with authority figures. General examples include the hacker phenomenon for nerds and the blatant marijuana culture on the island.
- Members of both groups are usually pretty fanatical. Moderation is not a word generally associated with someone who eats only organic foods, composts everything and uses his own shit in his garden. LARP is a well-known acronym for live action role playing: enough said.
- Time alone is key in both worlds. Writing code takes hours and hours of trial and error to learn. Building all of the essentials of living in the wild is not a quick or easy process. Simply building the fences for the garden or digging the outhouse is lengthy.
- Both sub-cultures have gathering places for the anti-social to occasionally interact with others. Renaissance Faires, conventions, Barterfest, and Phish concerts are popular.
- As aforementioned, both islanders and nerds have an intense desire not to work but are usually fairly industrious.
- Sub-cultures generally have a jargon or shared inside knowledge. While any nerd can laugh at a story that involves a clumsy elf, he won't recognize the humor in a story about a raki master losing his focus.
- Generally, both nerds and islanders are called to their lifestyle from a very early age.

So, what have we learned from all this? Well, I am comforted that some of my old experiences are valid in this new adventure. I also reinforced to myself that I have a lot to learn yet about island life because it was easier to come up with examples for nerds than for islanders, even though I know that the general comparison was true. IT further refines the mission for my time on Orcas.

100 Things About Me

1. I live on Orcas Island, which is off the coast of Washington state.
2. I don’t really belong here because I’m not really a back-to-nature outdoorsy person.
3. I was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago.
4. I’m learning about different lifestyles than the ones I’ve always known.
5. I’m also learning about community and how it is developed and maintained.
6. I recently urinated outside successfully for the first time ever.
7. I work out as often as I can with a girl named Mindy.
8. When my lease is up on the trailer that I live in, I will go live at Mindy's house.
9. I will learn about living with pigs and chickens there.
10. My younger brother Daniel is one of my favorite people in the whole world.
11. I have two other brothers: Paul and David.
12. I have a pug named Retha who lives with my parents in Glen Ellyn.
13. I have been a high school teacher in the past and probably will be again.
14. I currently work whatever jobs come my way in order to pay the rent.
15. When I’m feeling good, I compare myself to Thoreau.
16. When I’m not, I think maybe I’m just a slacker who doesn’t write very well.
17. I discovered I was funny when I was in college but people generally need to get to know me to know when I am kidding.
18. My brothers and my father are uproariously funny, which is why I didn’t discover my own good humor until college.
19. I went to Illinois Wesleyan University and loved it.
20. I’m dating a man named Jeff.
21. We both realize that we won’t date each other forever and can now thoroughly enjoy each other in the time we do have together.
22. I live by myself in the aforementioned trailer.
23. There are rats here but no stigma is attached to that on the island.
24. I have been married.
25. I work very actively at not being bitter about the fact that I am not anymore.
26. It’s still hurts, though.
27. That’s another reason why I’m hanging out on this island, though: to heal.
28. I felt like I was in a soap opera the other night when I had a burst of emotion attached to washing a bowl that was part of the dishes we got as wedding presents. It was the classic scene of me holding myself up at the sink while unexpected tears dripped into the dishwater. I laughed at myself even though I had no control over the drama.
29. It’s been almost two years since my husband left.
30. We were married for 3 and a half years.
31. He turned out to be a pathological liar who fooled everyone. There were lies that he told me on the first date.
32. Yesterday, I brought cupcakes to a party that had marshmallow filling and chocolate icing with little chocolate flecks in it.
33. I’m a regular Martha Stewart if Martha Stewart allowed her house to get filthy dirty while she was making adorable things like decoupage picture frames and heirloom squash.
34. I consider myself a dilettante.
35. That means that I don’t go too deeply into any particular hobby or passion that I enjoy.
36. For instance, I really like the Star Wars movies, but I don’t go so far as to write my own fan fiction.
37. I also really like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, but I didn’t plan my week around watching them, then jump on the internet to comment about what I just saw.
38. Sometimes I wish that I could be that passionate about something.
39. I struggle that I don’t know what to do with my life.
40. I had a plan once but it got shot to hell.
41. Instead of focusing on that, though, I took it as a sign that I needed a new plan. I just haven’t found it yet.
42. That’s another reason I’m on this island.
43. I’m 27 years old.
44. I wish there was a label for my generation. I’m not an X-er and I’m not like the kids coming up behind me either.
45. I’m a big nerd but I have fashion sense.
46. I love nerds.
47. Once, I wore my “I love nerds” T-shirt to the Renaissance Faire on accident. I was looking pretty cute that day with hot jeans on and I had been working out so I was pretty tightly curvy. The shirt was cut pretty small.
48. I made a lot of nerds smile that day.
49. I have impressed men on dates when I talked about Dungeon and Dragons characters that I’ve had.
50. Those men did not impress me, however.
51. Someday, I will meet a man that will be impressed with my sci-fi/fantasy knowledge and will also have a full range of social skills.
52. I hope.
53. If I had to choose two foods that I didn’t want to live without, I would choose Coca-cola and cheese.
54. Baking is one of my top five skills.
55. The other four are shopping, interacting with teenagers, analyzing oral and written communication for effectiveness, and reading.
56. I like playing board games.
57. I’m happier with my life right now than I have been in a long time.
58. I’m trying to figure out what parts of this laid-back island life I can take with me when I leave.
59. I like having enough time to help others fulfill their dreams.
60. Recently, I’ve been helping a woman named Rhonda start an organic farm.
61. My knee is bruised from planting yesterday.
62. I helped serve communion today. I’ve done that because I was a deacon in my last church but today, there were only 10 of us there, so I was asked during the passing of the peace if I would do it.
63. I like being part of a small church.
64. I wish the hymns that we sang were hymns that I know.
65. I like traditional hymns like “Softly and Tenderly” and “The Old Rugged Cross.”
66. I like to be lazy and just lay naked in bed, wiggling so I can feel the soft flannel and just letting my mind wander contentedly.
67. Luckily, church isn’t until 12:30 so I get to do that most Sundays.
68. I’ve been having some trouble socializing lately. I just keep saying the wrong things at the wrong time.
69. I accidentally offended a girl I didn’t know because I said that wearing patchouli would make someone smell like a dirty f---ing hippy. I forgot that not everyone in earshot knew me and my sense of humor and the girl with dreadlocks looked pretty pissed.
70. My perfume has patchouli.
71. I thought the joke was funny because I was making fun of myself and the phrase DFH sounds funny and because it’s a ridiculous stereotype.
72. I don’t know how I’ll take that one back.
73. I write in a journal in addition to these blogs.
74. Sometimes I think I’ll start an anonymous blog so that I don’t have to self-edit.
75. However, I’m not sure I’m that much of an exhibitionist.
76. It all comes back to being a dilettante.
77. I feel like I have become good friends with both of my parents now that I’m an adult.
78. I still think of myself as "not old enough" sometimes.
79. I’m growing my hair out now, but prefer it when it’s short.
80. I was fired from my last teaching job totally unfairly.
81. That’s another reason why I’m on the island: to recover my self-esteem.
82. I have the tendency to collect interesting little things.
83. I gave away half of a house full of stuff when I moved here.
84. I only miss my couch.
85. I worry that I’m collecting it all again.
86. I work at a re-use facility and so have full access to all sorts of neat things that come out of people’s basements and attics.
87. I’m a pretty good singer.
88. I’ve had two formal recitals.
89. The old ladies at church like it when I sing out.
90. I’ve never had a group of friends that was successful. I’ve always done better with individual friendships.
91. My favorite book is Cryptonomicron by Neal Stephenson.
92. My favorite colors are light blue (of all shades) and spring green.
93. I would use the word “whimsical” to describe my personal aesthetic.
94. I believe that we can change the world by loving each other and making decisions based on that love for one another.
95. My favorite number is 22 because that was my dad’s baseball number in college.
96. Although my dad is a great big jock, none of his kids turned out to be.
97. My mom is the most fascinating person I know.
98. I want to live deliberately.
99. I think I was put on this earth to accomplish big things.
100. I still wish more people liked me, as much as I know that’s an unhealthy thing.

Here's one of the women, Tony Jones

A few weeks ago, a guy in my dungeons and dragons group (who also happens to be a tenured religion professor at a university you might actually have heard of) encouraged me to read a recent post from Tony Jones, who is a fairly visible thinker in the emergent Christianity movement that I am a part of.

It seems that Tony had recently realized that most of his commenters are men and the statistics from Facebook were telling him that a significant majority of the people who "liked" his page were men. So, he asked, "Where are all the women?"

There were over three hundred comments and I read them all. An interesting narrative developed, with several sub-plots. What stands out to me most interestingly is that Tony seemed honestly surprised that people think the cause for women's absence is Tony. There is a fair amount of defensiveness on his part that reads very much like he is caught off-guard. I would think that if he started with the assumption that it was something about him, his writing style or the community that he fostered in the comments, he would have been able to respond a little more objectively. You know, the difference between calling responses "attacks" and thanking people for their perspective, even if one respectfully disagrees. He also used the classic defense of hyperbolizing his opponent when paraphrasing her, claiming that the commenter was requiring him "to change everything" about himself, even though she was just answering his question as to why she was uninterested in commenting, which did not instruct him to change anything and even if instruction was implied, it certainly wouldn't be everything that needed changing.

This makes me wonder what his original hypothesis was for where all the women were. Unless someone else can think of something and mention in these comments, I can only imagine that Tony believed that the problem was the women.

And certainly, some of the reasons were endemic to common female experiences. Many women cited busy-ness, which is backed up by all sorts of research that shows that on average, men have more leisure time for things like Internet commenting than women do. Relatedly, someone pointed out that men are the majority of pastors and seminary students, who have the time built into their workday for engaging in theology. Other women said that they are exhausted from "speaking up" to make their voice heard in the Church that still preferences men as spiritual leaders in their daily non-Internet lives that they were simply uninterested in doing so in the comments section of a blog.

(As a side note, since I was raised mainline Protestant with lots of female pastors at my church, I have never personally resonated with the struggles of evangelical women who were always told that their calling to teach and lead was not real. However, a commenter brought up the perspective that the Emergent dynamic often treats women thinkers, leaders and speakers as spectacle as response to the evangelical dynamic of women as invisible, and that is almost as off-putting. I HAVE experienced that over beers at theology pubs and I'm glad someone brought it up.)

The only other cause that could be argued was the responsibility of women was that the type of things he posts are just uninteresting to women. And, I don't know, ugh. That's like saying that women just aren't interested in sports and beer and stuff. It's just not the whole story. However, one commenter noted that Tony's lack of feminist awareness makes his perspective uninteresting. That, I could see as being a valid point for why women aren't attracted to his writing. Female theology nerds (theology nerds in general being a huge part of Tony's audience) do have a wide range of white dudes, dead and alive, from whom to choose for study. Without a new branch from which to speak regarding social politics, why choose him over voices with insight from female, queer, non-Western or racial minority communities?

But aside from those reasons, which fit the generic answer to anyone asking why women don't participate in something male-dominated, there were quite a few specific suggestions for how Tony himself is the reason why women don't comment. Lots of women said that the types of things Tony posts are declarative (Tony concurred) and therefore did not seem need response. Many people spoke of his patronizing tone, which my friend explains away as a symptom of their shared Princeton educations but others chalked it up to male privilege. As one commenter wrote, "I have not gone to seminary and I am a woman. Do my uneducated thoughts on theology really matter to you? I assume not because of the culture I grew up in…the culture I’m still a part of. You have not put that culture in place, but it’s still there. It will take A LOT of effort on your part to fight this and make us feel welcome to speak. That makes sense, right?" That lack of effort is definitely something Tony could take responsibility for.

In addition to a patronizing tone, many described a tone that was combative, rather than inclusive. I never got the sense that Tony ever really understood this point. He didn't really address it in his comments, nor did it come up in his response post the next day. A long comment by a man named John that is worth re-printing is representative of several people who tried to give specific examples of how his syntax could be slightly altered to change this tone.

"If one is truly interested in dialogue then challenges and
interrogations are not the means by which to promote it.

I’ve heard the tone accusation leveled against me by every woman who
has ever had a significant relationship with me, beginning with my
mother and continuing all the way through to my wife. I’ve also heard
it from a number of men I’ve known. Fortunately, about 10 years ago I
decided to listen instead of ask questions and discovered that if I
simply stopped for a moment and thought back to what I had been saying
up to that point rather than automatically demanding an example as
evidence that what they were telling me was factual the answer was
pretty obvious (and had been all along). The truth is that in many ways
it is about how you put things both verbally and non-verbally, and if
you have a diverse group of people telling you the same thing about how
you communicate in virtually the same language it’s probably time to
stop wondering why others don’t get you or your intent or your style or
your personality and listen for a bit, beginning with what’s issuing
from your mouth or fingertips, as the case may be. Confining things to
online interactions, allow me to offer an example of the difference
between dialogue and challenge/interrogation.

Blogger: This is something I’ve noticed, and I don’t understand why
it’s happening. Thoughts?

Commenter: When I read your posts, I notice that you tend to respond in
X fashion to certain issues/topics. It gives me the impression that you
believe Y.

Dialogue Response from Blogger: Hmm. I honestly hadn’t thought of that
before you brought it up. Can you maybe give me a few more details so I
can build a context for what you’re telling me? What you said kind of
caught me flat-footed so I’m going to need your help processing it.

Challenge/Interrogatory Response from Blogger: That’s not really how I
see what I do here. What makes you think I’m like that?

See the difference in the two? Both responses say substantially the
same thing–i.e., “That’s a new perspective for me. I need more
information.”–but each presents a different tone (as much as such
things can exist online) to the commenter as well as other readers. The
former invites the commenter into further dialogue with some degree of
assurance that her perspective is welcome and the blogger is genuinely
interested in learning from her. The latter asks for an explanation,
and it’s very much on a defensive footing.

If you’re looking to debate someone the latter is a somewhat
appropriate (albeit not necessarily productive) response. If you’re
looking to have a conversation with someone the former is really your
only choice. My impression is that most people are happy to have an
interesting conversation on a substantive issue, but they’re not
particularly interested in getting into a public urination competition
to determine the “right” answer. Simply put, if your goal is to be
right you’re not conversing, you’re arguing, and how many
well-adjusted, gainfully employed adults do you know who are willing to
out of their way for yet another argument in their lives?"

Two commenters made good points in Tony's "defense," pointing out that some folks who have been wounded by the Church need people like Tony to speak boldly to make space for their own healing and that he is an Enneagram 8 so his tone is just the way he communicates.

To the former point, I say "Hell yeah!" And if that's what Tony sees as his calling, it may not be necessary to pay attention to his audience. He is making that impact for folks and he should go on doing so.

However, the latter defense is a little bit of a cop out. We were all born with certain strengths and limitations and as we grew, those strengths and limitations cemented themselves into personalities that can be plotted in charts like the Enneagram. However, this does not mean that we're stuck with those strengths and limitations forever. We can deliberately develop new skills in order to achieve goals that were previously out of reach.

So, if attracting a balanced audience is a goal of Tony's and not just a thought experiment to discuss, he will be fully capable of changing his syntax like the commenters have been suggesting. It will take some time listening and reflecting how what he hears can be applied to his actions. This would be a break from asking questions in the conversation with his audience and would require a certain amount of vulnerability, both privately and publicly. But it is totally possible without necessarily changing "everything."

One of the other major sub-plots was an extended exchange spurred because one woman said that Tony's style and tone reminded her of Christian men who had abused her in the past. Other men vociferously came to his defense against that comment and over the course of the thread, it was interesting to see both sides both educate and relent, just like IRL reconciliation. The original commenter realized that the word, "abuser" is often a trigger word, like telling a women she is like a whore, and Tony and some of the men acknowledged the commenter's original point about tone.

But the boys club that emerged in that exchange was a very clear demonstration of the community of commenters that so many women found objectionable, describing them as argumentative and hostile in their "spirited" debates.

Also, I think exchanges like the "abuser" one illustrate Tony's blindness to his own position of privilege. In that particular relational discomfort, the fancy-educated white guy with the platform wins unless he deliberately humbles himself. And i never interpreted Tony's responses as humble. At one point Tony referenced Hitler as a snarky response to this thread and then he erased his knee-jerk comment rather than owning it. That is not a humble posture of someone who wants to be pastoral toward a commenter who was clearly hurting. It is definitely not a humble posture of someone who is interested in doing whatever it takes to get equality in the community he hosts.

And it may be that Tony decides that courting women to participate is not all that important. I hope, though, that he realizes how much he will be able to accomplish of behalf of marginalized folks if he begins down this path with his blog. (I have no idea how far down along that path he is in his face-to-face life). His understanding of the multiple aspects of God will increase as his discourse community's diversity increases. Changing his syntax and tone to be more collaborative and inclusive will allow other folks to share in the privilege that has been his birthright but that was never God's intent for Her children.

Tony responded throughout the comments and posted a follow-up post. I did not read the comments on that one. I thought the follow-up post didn't say much but interestingly, he put the onus on the commenters for creating unsafe space rather than taking it on himself to moderate comments and deliberately build a community, even though several commenters suggested that he had that responsibility as the host who sets the table for the banquet.

I only track Tony in my peripheral vision but I'll be interested to check in on him periodically to see if this experience has changed him at all. Despite his protestations, we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. It is a baby boomer/gen x myth that I'm ok and you're ok and that it's the worst thing possible to suggest that someone needs to change in order to stop causing hurt, however unintentionally. We are not yet who God intends us to be and we should all be so lucky as to get the opportunity to have hundreds of people help us get there through their feedback.

Geek Christmas

Well, Christmas morning has come and gone and I've only been hit with one Nerf dart. However, I have held my arm over my eyes to guard them from harm on several occasions.

What I can't help but notice is the prominent trend in the gifts that my family have given me.

My family think I'm a nerd!

I mean, really! When have I ever given them the impression that I would like things like the first three Star Wars movies and Revenge of the Sith on DVD? I mean just because I told Daniel to tell David that I wanted it, why would they think that?! And my very own copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, a book that I had to explain to Daniel's girlfriend was the new fantasy book that was so good, nerds started conversations with other nerds by saying, "Hey, have you read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell yet?" Never a question of whether or not they will read it, just have-you-read-it-yet? What would make my mom think that of all the things I wrote on my list, I would actually want that? The Dark Vader/Obi Wan Kenobi M&M's, the special iBook carry-bag, the Ewok movies: Caravan of Courage and The Battle for Endor? Only total geeks get presents like that for Christmas!

Seriously!

ROH!

Another evening spent with sweating, muscular men, shouting and cheering as they executed particularly skilled maneuvers.

Oh no.

Oh yes.

Another night of indie, semi-professional wrestling with the Ring of Honor in Chicago Ridge.

I can't tell you how delightful it was. This time, it wasn't even that I was surrounded by the uber-nerds that are attracted to this kind of niche sporting entertainment. They just kind of existed around me like a warm sea of ambient interest.

This time, I was entranced by the actual wrestling. I'm starting to get to know the characters and by knowing the script, I can enjoy booing at the heels and cheering the faces. I made fun of Jimmy Jacobs when he cried. I I booed Adam Pearce just on general principal. I marveled at the beauty of Kota Ibushi. I marveled at how not huge El Generico is. I yelled gibberish back at Delirious but admired Chris Hero, since he's currently Daniel's favorite, although his was a disappointing finish. I even yelled a sarcastic "Good job Sinclair!" in a moment of quiet with my obviously female voice at the official that everyone loves to hate (but only in Chicago, interestingly). I chanted "R-O-H! R-O-H!" out of appreciation for the experience that the league provides when the overall wrestling itself was particularly fine, such as in the tag-team match-up between the Briscoes and the Motor City Machine Guns. This is a crowd that chants "Please come back! Please come back!" when visiting wrestlers work well with the regulars and provide a good show. Of course, they also chant "You fucked up! You fucked up!" when a wrestler sets up a move and then fumbles it. They're very aware that this is entertainment, not competition.

There were some particularly cringe-worthy moments last night. One of the wrestlers only has one leg! That's some crazy shit. He does back-flips and stuff. But he's evil so you feel all torn inside whether you should admire him for overcoming adversity or hate him for beating up Austin Aries.

I hate the moments in wrestling when the wrestler threatens his girlfriend after she cheats on him. It doesn't matter that she can fight back because she's a wrestler, too. It just makes me uncomfortable to see that dynamic played out when you know that it actually happens to millions of women every night and they can't fight back. When the men fight each other or the women fight each other it's just a caricature and doesn't cause me to have that response. Maybe it should.

The final gross was that Kevin Steen had some sort of growth under his armpit. It was bigger than a quarter. The band-aid came off early and so we were morbidly attracted to it every time he raised his arm. It was like we couldn't look away. Then, it popped. Let me say that again after the carriage return for emphasis.

Then, it popped.

I can't get the splatter out of my visual memory. It was all CSI and shit. I was so overcome with laughter that Daniel told me I had to calm down because he was afraid I would hurt the wrestler's feelings. But seriously, why didn't he wrap that thing with an ACE? He really thought that little bit of adhesive would hold it with all the sweat and hair?

Daniel says that sometimes he and I show up in the DVDs. Since we now spend the money on second row seats, this is going to become even more likely.

A terribly satisfying evening.

My mother is going to hate this post.

I think I’m beginning to love professional wrestling.

A month ago, on a Saturday night, my brother Daniel and I went to a Ring of Honor wrestling match. Other people went, too, like our friend JB (who calls me “daughter-of-Murphy-sister-of-dumb-boys”) and Daniel’s girlfriend, Meena.

It was held in a local gym. A section was cordoned off with those heavy floor-to-ceiling vinyl curtains with chains sewn into the hems and netting across the top so we wouldn’t suffocate. On the other side of the curtain, the usual league basketball games continued, complete with referees’ whistles and squeaky shoes. Cheers for a hockey game drifted over from the hockey game in another adjoining section. Daniel said that this caused the atmosphere to be a little less reverent in the opening bouts than it had been in previous events.

Where have I been for these previous events!?! I feel like someone who has just been fed chocolate for the first time in her late 20s. Imagine what I’ve missed!

So, the event started off with a stardard-looking wrestling guy (big muscles, smooth skin, largish spandex panties) and a taller guy with a Roman nose in a grey suit and greasy ponytail. This second wrestler worked the crowd on his way in, holding his hand up with the palm facing inward and the fingers pointing up, shouting "Hey!" in a New York Italian salute. Many in the crowd saluted him back, obviously enjoying the interplay.

Have I talked at all about the crowd yet? Many of my regular readers are aware of my affinity for nerds, geeks and dorks of all varieties. This is an unlooked-for consequence of my own nerdy tendencies that have caused me to seek out the chess club in junior high, Star Trek TNG online groups at the same age on the newly-minted Prodigy system, Thespians in high school, the Renaissance Faire in college and role-playing games in adulthood. How could one not learn to delight in the other participants of these activities that require imagination and intelligence, qualifications that seem to eliminate The Beautiful People from being interested, leaving the field wide open to misfits, loners and eccentrics galore? Who doesn't love an underdog?

Let me tell you, indie professional wrestling pulls them out of the woodworks.

Seated in front of my group were two 14 year old boys, one pudgy, the other skinny. At 14, they hadn't yet developed any personalized identity markers like black duster coats, distinctively bad hair styles, or sub-culture indentifying T-shirts. They were just boys, a little shy and a little funny-looking. Their moms were probably across the street at the Target waiting for them, nervously.

They were putty in my hands.

We needed them to throw caution to the wind, defy authority and fold up the empty folding chairs in front of them so that we could all have a little more room. They seemed hesitant, but since I'm not a teacher anymore AND I was the most attractive of the 8 women there, I gently laid a hand on one's arm and the back of the other's shoulder close to his neck and asked nicely. Done.

Also in front of us was a solidly built hispanic guy in his mid-twenties with a skater haircut from the mid-nineties. You know, sort of a bowl cut, a little longer than the ears, straight and parted in the center. He was pretty cool. He also had his 12-month-old baby with him. This little black-eyed munchkin was sitting on his dad's lap with a sippy cup of juice in his hands. His dad is in the front row, enjoying the match. He's got a baby carrier strapped to himself and he demonstrates later that he knows how to use it when he gets up to go change the kid's diaper. Before that, I watched one wrestler throw another wrestler head-first into the sheet metal barrier that creates the sacred space of the ring in the midst of the cheering crowds. The dent his head left was 5 feet from the baby and a good 5 inches in diameter because he hit so hard. At this point, the kid was actually asleep on his father's chest. He woke up later and was taken away to be changed and they both came back with a DVD of classic matches for him to chew on the case for the rest of the time. At another point, he was given a french fry that made him very content. He never cried and never needed anything except to be on his father's lap. It was fairly sweet in juxtaposition to all of the fantastic violence surrounding them. At the intermission around 9:30, I asked what his father what his name was. Joshua was holding himself up on the temporarily vacated chairs in front of me and charming the hell out of me. His father smiled widely as he answered and then went on to explain in halting English that the child's mother got home from work at 10:00 and so he had to go. The implication was definitely that she did not know he was a)at a wrestling match and b)had Joshua with him. He let me take Joshua's picture before they left.

That is a true fan, folks.

Other true fans included the guy on the far side of my brother, who had a white bandana tied on his forehead over his ponytail and a full beard. He was a tubby guy with some hipster identity tags that indicated he had chosen geek for a lifestyle rather than being stuck in it. He spoke with a lisp and made several jokes that honestly made Daniel laugh. He and Daniel shared this hispter excessive knowledge of pop culture history and so Daniel made him laugh when he identified one move as "the deadly double chest push," which is simply one guy putting both hands on the other guy's chest and . . . well . . . pushing. Not very tough. The serious word choice was funny because it reflected the history of wrestling when the announcers had to play up the danger of the holds for the home audience and because these giant men did not used to be all that athletic. Daniel's neighbor also called out for a "pile driver!" repeatedly over the evening, like a fan calling for "Freebird!" at a Lynard Skynard show. The pile driver is a move from the golden age of wrestling in the mid-80s that involves holding your opponent upside down while standing and then dropping one or both knees to a kneeling position, which brings his head down into the mat, giving the appearance that his neck has been snapped. This is a good finisher because it takes a long time to act out recovering from a pile-driver and the opponent can easily be pinned at this time. It takes a ton of strength to do it in a way that looks good but doesn't actually hurt the guy. I'm not sure why it has gone out of style, but it has. However, towards the end of the evening, Daniel's neighbor got his hipster wish for 80s nostalgia and was ecstatic.

Another move that I saw fairly frequently throughout the evening was a big open-handed slap to the opponent's chest. I don't see this move as much on TV wrestling but saw it again and again up close and live. My theory is that because the venue is so small, the sound of that slap can actually be heard and is therefore more impressive. I learned that every time someone is slapped back this, the proper response from the crowd is to shout, "Wooo!" in a pitch tossed high out of the throat. Daniel tells me this is an homage to Ric Flair. He told me this when we were watching Wrestling Society X on MTV and mocking the production values, especially the studio audience that they had created full of buxom women and stylish guys: The Beautiful People. We were surprised to hear some of them actually "Woo!" indicating a knowledge of what they were watching, which had previously seemed unlikely, given how demographically different they were to the usual crowds at wrestling matches. Yes, Mom, I watch it on TV in addition to going to see it live. Sorry.

However, seeing it live is muchmuch better. We got to watch the Briscoes become the new tag team champions. However, this was not before one of the brothers was mocked by Matt Sydal (who looks like every trouble-making Irish suburban kid I ever hated/had a crush on in childhood), who said, "Hey! This guy's got no teeth!" like he had just realized it and was a little puzzled, right before he punched him into the turnbuckle. Another benefit of the small venue is that jokes like that can be heard and appreciated by everyone in the room, a dynamic that is missing in arenas. Being up close also allowed me to see one of the Brisco brothers lose his gum upon hitting the mat with his chest. I saw him catch it mid-air and stick it back into his mouth, faster than a TV camera would have caught it.

Other higlights of the evening include Samoa Joe's penultimate match before having to go exclusive to the TNA league, which was technically the main event.

However, the real main event for me happened sooner. The match between Colt Cabana, a hometown Chicago boy and Jimmy Jacobs, a Byronic heel who wrote his theme song for his girlfriend and entered the ring by first indicating his status as a tortured artist by hanging from the ropes like Christ on the cross. This event converted me from an amused by-stander who observed detachedly the humor of the obviously stoned suburban-looking guy in a Ring of Honor sweatshirt AND hat. Daniel and I agreed that more than one piece of merchandising makes one a dork. Then I saw the wedding ring and it completed the picture of a guy having his night away from the old ball and chain, so toked out that he continued standing in a daze well after everyone else had sat down and were waiting for the next exciting move. So, the Windy City Death Match took me from journalist mode into true fan status. Colt Cabana came in carrying a Chicago flag to the cheers of the crowd. He was also carrying a pair of scissors in his elbow pad, which, when revealed, also provoked the cheers of the crowd. They don't call it a death match for nothing. I love that heroes in wrestling don't have to be Disney princes to be the good guys. A certain amount of deviousness on the part of the face, especially when we dislike the villain, is cause for celebration. The characterizations reflect real life a little better with its complexity. So, while normally using scissors on your opponent might be considered cheating, in the Windy City Death Match, scissors hidden in the elbow pad are considered virtuous.

Head wounds bleed a lot.

This is a time-honored fact in the wrestling world. In the old days, men would hide a razor blade and nick their forehead to make taking a hit look more dramatic. Blondes like Classy Freddie Blassie were particularly good "bleeders." The technique has changed a little. I noticed that both Colt Cabana and Jimmy Jacobs were careful to cut their partners above the hair line, where the accumulation of scars won't be as noticable, at least until they start losing their hair. Of course, there wasn't just scissors involved; a gutter nail and hammer were also produced over the course of the match. However, these cuts did not simply create small rivulets of blood, like movie action stars get to accent the soot marks on their chiseled cheek bones. No, these men had masks of blood on their faces. When they were held horizontally, rivers of blood poured off their faces and onto the mat and the floor surrounding it. The key moment came when Jimmy Jacobs took the Chicago flag and used its blue stripes and red stars to wipe the blood out of his eyes before landing another move on the prone Colt Cabana. What symbolism to get a crowd going. And I went with them.

On TV, the crowd always goes wild whenever folding tables are used in a move. I've never understood it. It seems like such a contrived move. Since he is too stunned from a previous move to get up and defend himself, you have the time to pull a table out from under the ring, set up the legs (which can be a tricky task when covered in sweat and blood) and place it exactly right next to the ring. You then lay your opponent out on a folding table. Still, he cannot even make the effort to roll himself off the table during all that time that it takes you to get back up into the ring and up standing on one of the turnbuckles. Still, with the crowd cheering, he waits for the inevitable and you can jump off of the turnbuckle (or maybe perform an athletic flip from the mat over the ropes) and land with bodies perpendicular, your opponent breaking your fall but the table breaking underneath both of you. It takes so much time!

But to be 10 feet away from it while it happened was another issue altogether. Because Jimmy Jacobs didn't just get up on the turnbuckle; he used a ladder that Colt Cabana had earlier pulled out from under the ring. (As an aside, when the dust-ruffle was flipped up so that the ladder could be removed, Daniel leaned into me as he peered in and said in wonder, "What magical things are under there? What is a ring made of?") So, towering 30-40 feet above me, Jimmy Jacobs stood on top of a ladder with his arms flung out, the dream of every little kid who's ever been told not go higher than the step below the this-is-not-a-step.

And he launched himself toward me! He fell just short of me and landed on Colt Cabana with a terribly satisfying crunch and I was on my feet without thinking about it, screaming my head off in excitement. I had become a fan. When Colt later set up a second table in the ring, leaning it against the turnbuckle because one set of legs had collapsed, I wanted him to pay Jimmy Jacobs back for that insult to my home town and cheered again on my feet when Jimmy was laid out into that second table.

We're going back on April 28th. Please feel free to join us. We might have a couple extra tickets or you can get your own and join us there. However, we'll be in the third row again and, at this point, you'll probably be back in rows 7 or 8. Still, you'll be among true fans, that applaud wrestlers politely to acknowledge their athleticism, whether they like them or not. You'll also be among true fans like me, who love wincing at how hard they hit each other. It'll blow your mind.

d20

Speaking of warriors, princesses and sorceresses. . . I played Dungeons and Dragons this week for the first time in 6 or 7 years.

It was fantastic.

I told the story before about meeting Joshua on the El and inviting myself over to his house to play. I've also told you before about learning to play D&D with my ex-husband and his friends.

So, Monday night, I drove out to Joshua's house, which was a little bungalow that has been entirely given over to gaming. Every wall was covered in D&D maps, white boards or shelves to display miniatures and action figures. Book shelves were everywhere and stuffed with rule books. The most amazing part of the decor was that the giant dining room table had a gingham table cloth that had perfect 1 inch squares so that once the clear plastic sheet was laid over it, it could be written on with overhead markers. So, Joshua could draw the landscape of certain settings if we were going to be fighting and we could put our miniatures in perfectly scaled relationships to each other and to the savage mutant monkeys that were attacking us.

Their roommate is a minor local celebrity. At least, when I tell people that he does the Weird Chicago Tours, my friends say, "Oh yeah!" in recognition. He's kind of cute. I wonder in the fact that he's a professional psychic and ghost hunter puts him out of the running.

The group was Joshua, his wife, Scott and Darrin. All four were, as my dad says, straight out of Central Casting. Darrin was a big bearish oaf of a guy who smiled the whole time. He dropped his giant gym bag full of rule books and jumped in immediately to help me put the finishing touches on my character, laughing at my jokes and enjoying my slightly abrasive retorts. Scott looked a little like Steve Buscemi and had a giant red velvet drawstring pouch to hold all of his paraphenalia.

I loved it. It was like coming home.

I mean, I made my own dice bag for the occasion. If you click on the picture, you'll notice that the bag is lined with flannel to give it the appropriate-looking heft and that it was designed to fit my mechanical pencil, my halfling miniature and the plethora of dice I bought that morning at Gamer's Paradise, having discovered that my ex-husband got ALL the dice in the divorce.

This group plays a little differently than what I am used to. They focus less on storytelling and character development and play it more like a computer game, calculating strategically what choices they should make about the character now so that later, it can increase in levels in the most efficient way. Almost like getting experience points and being the most powerful you could possibly be was like crack. That will make it less fun for me in the long run, but they responded well when I said that I wasn't going to do what they were encouraging me to do because it wasn't in my character's nature.

It feels good to be expanding the foundation of people that I am friendly with. Even if the number of people that feel close enough to be totally myself with remains small, I might soon have a wide enough base of a variety of personalities that I will always have someone availalbe to match the individual facets of myself that I want to be at any given moment. You know, like my nature is a 20-sided die and only one side of it can ever be facing up at one time.

And, as that network is being built, I'll be having fun killing savage mutant monkeys and hearing other nerds like me laugh at my jokes.

Best of Orcas

For those of you just joining our program, I've put together a little sampling of the best of the posts that I wrote while on Orcas Island. This does not mean that you shouldn't read the rest of the entries. There are definitely some good ones that I didn't include. There were only so many here's-a-description-of-some-kooky-people-or-beautiful-nature posts that I could include. However, if I left out one that you particularly enjoyed, let me know and I'll put it in for others to enjoy.

Mushrooms
A Pug's Life
What are you, dumb?
I repeat, I did not die.
Verisimilitude
Grandma wins again.
Is this what the founders intended for the Grange Hall?
Nerds vs. Islanders
Bubbling to the Top
Meltdown in a Snowstorm
Too-Tight Rhonda
Don't Tell Mom
The Big Payback - duh duh da da duh duh da
Putting the "L' Back in Lutheran
Dust to Dust
The Way the Light Falls
Blue Bells and Cockle Shells
I got my pencil . . . give me something to write on.
Owen Noone and the Marauder
Nail it to the courthouse door.
Balm in Gilead
Adventures in Anthropology
You say that so often.
Waste Not, Want Not
Granted
Watercolors by the Water
TMI
Farmer's Market
Fatima
Fashion Don't
Whales and Boats
Harvey
CSA
Josh
The Bohemian Lifestyle
ART Show
Cave Sweat
Pickle Power
Sarah and Elaine
Black Thumb

Identified Flying Objects

Today I substituted at the local high school for the first time. I only covered two classes and it was the first day of the quarter so the teacher just gave the kids a study hall. Very easy. There are only 150 kids in the entire high school. I was dubbed “Best Substitute Ever” when I sat down to play Magic (a fantasy card game) with the two nerds in the class. I also had the satisfaction of saying, “I believe that throwing things was discussed in our initial conversation.” Then, when the student said, “But they’re throwing things over there,” I did not turn my head so he could not throw the pen back to his friend while it was turned. I got to say, “Did you think I was lying when I told you I had taught high school for five years?” Smiles all around for that one.

Big Brother

Seriously. Someone found my blog because they were searching on Yahoo in Ohio for Ben Merbitz, one of the guys that always delighted me in junior high and high school. I think that's very cool. I wrote about him in my Nerds vs. Islanders realization. The downside of tracking this stuff is that AOL users can't be tracked for some technical reason that I pretty much understand but can't explain clearly. Therefore, it's hard to put a total figure on the amount of people that read my blog. However, that does mean that my dad can't stuff the ballot box. :-)