Oh, it's just a phase...

As an adult, my nerdiness is not confined to any particular topic, but rather ranges across the intellectual wilderness - much like the wily puma. My friends have come to accept this fact, and now use me as a reference source for questions they have regarding movies, Shakespeare, the battle of Midway, Greek mythology, etc, etc, etc. I get at least one call a week from friends in other time zones looking for confirmation that the pseudonym directors use for films they made that suck is “Alan Smithee”, or whether Walter Matthau was a stage name, or what is the proper name of the offspring between a lion and a tiger (depends on who the father is – Liger if the dad is a lion and Tigon if the father is a tiger).

But what people don’t know is that this nerdiness is not inherent in my brain, but rather was built up over the years through various obsessions. Starting around 3rd grade, I went through various phases where I would be obsessed with a single subject and would clear out the library of any book on it to read and re-read multiple times. It started with space exploration and went through Norse Mythology, Greek/Roman mythology, military hardware, the battle of Midway, geneology, wilderness survival, the biology of wild animals (remember Zoobooks?) and so on. Eventually, I started running out of topics to obsess over, so I obsessed about obsessing all through high school by reading the encyclopaedia from a-z, most of the dictionary, and the World Book Year Books from 1968 through the early 1980’s. This created the trivia-freak that I am today – built layer upon layer of obsessive phases, like a hand-dipped homemade candle (a phase from 5th grade).

Anyway, the reason I was thinking about this was that while reading through Wil Wheaton’s
WWdN in Exile, I noticed that he had the exact same ventriloquist dummy that I had when I was in my ventriloquism obsession in junior high. It was fun, to think about how at that time we were (more or less) at the same place in our lives. Of course, now he’s gone on to become a semi-famous actor and world-famous blogger and he’s married with kids while I’m still single (well, “not married” at least) and sit in a cubicle all day. Where did I go wrong, I wonder…

This weekend the GF's parents are in town for the start of a two-week vacation in the big midwest. So she's entertaining them while I get to replay the role of single machelor for most of the weekend. I'm sure I'll be meeting up with them for dinners and whatnot at some point, I'm just not sure when. I imagine this is what it must feel like for doctors to be "on call". The GF will call any moment and I'll be off to dinner somewhere or a show somewhere. I don't really mind though, her folks are fun people who I like spending time with. I know - total score for me. It would really suck if they were ex-CIA agents or ultra-conservative senators or Jane Fonda like so many of the other in-laws you see in the movies.

Comments

KC said…
I've always been obsessive about reading. I'll read anything. Even the back of a cereal box. I want to know everything! The difference between you and me, tho, is that I hardly ever remember what I read. When I get worried about this, the hubby consoles me by saying that as long as I know where to find info when I need it, I don't have to actually store it in my head. Only someone with a photographic memory would try to console me in this way.