Being Geek Chic is a blog for stylish geeks, sophisticated nerds and people who enjoy the musings of a complete dork. Join us as we dream of driving the TARDIS, cuddle with our eBooks and test out an iPad sleeve. It's written by Elizabeth Giorgi and a team of brilliant lady nerds. Meet the team.
It’s the song you always turn up. Roll down the windows. Make it loud. Pull your hair out of your pony and shake it back and forth. I love a song that makes me act like a fool. Or just makes me feel like I could spontaneously burst into any of the aforementioned activities while singing along like a karaoke superstar belting out the last tune before bar close.
Last week’s post about movies that are happiness makers struck a chord with more than 3 of you. So here’s my top 10 songs that make me feel like a giddy teenager:
10. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts: I Love Rock and Roll
Joan Jett is the fracking coolest. And since so many songs on this list are going to be in the Rock and Roll category, this seems like a fitting way to start.
9. The Who: Baba O’Riley
Pretty much anything by The Who is a happiness maker for me, but this song in particular gets me all dancy. I think it’s that repetitive synth.
Usually I reserve Wednesdays for discussing the glorious intersection of full time employment and accessible (and acceptable) fashion for the nerdy careerist. But today, welp, I’m craving sweats. Why not embrace it?
Don’t get me started on these people who apparently wear high heels with their favorite lounge wear. Where are the slippers? Or Doctor Who socks? (My boyfriend got me those, they are amazing!)
I think the moral of the story here is that we all deserve to sit back. Get comfy. And relax.
Dear Doctor,
How much more does heartbreak hurt when you have two hearts? Is there double the ache of loneliness? Double the pain when you lose someone dear? Do both hearts beat twice as fast in the heat of rage? Or just one? Forgive me for being so forward, but I worry about those hearts. I do.
While I accepted long ago that you would not be picking me up in your magical blue box, I still see so much of myself in your life. And even though I live in a linear world where minutes move forward and never back, seconds can never be relived and days are crossed over with an X on the calendar only to be revisited in photographs and diary pages - I still know what it feels like to be transformed by time. To be caught up in the wrinkles it leaves on your heart. (Or hearts in your case.) To be overwhelmed with a sense of wonderment at what can be. To be consumed by the unknown because it’s so much more promising than the known.
We share something I so rarely find in others: an obsession with time.
My relationship is a bit of a miracle in the online dating world. It’s the majestic dodo bird. Or the fabled Jackalope. It doesn’t exist. Except that it totally happened one time. And it happened to me.
I signed up for Match.com one lovely August evening, filled out the profile and then waited to see who would message me. The next morning, I had received a note from TJ.
Seventeen hours. One lovely message. One lovelier date. Five years and six months later, we’re still together.
Today, I look through those tortoise frames at his old, wise eyes and feel so lucky that we’re still a couple of Jackalopes in love.
Of course, the finding each other part was simple. Getting to that browser window nearly 6 years ago was a hell of a lot harder.
When I signed up for Match, I had just gotten out of a particularly confusing pseudo dating situation that involved nights at professional wrestling matches, long phone conversations about Michael Bay’s filmmaking abilities (you can imagine…) and incompatible religious ideologies. It wasn’t going anywhere, but I was determined to try. Then a friend did what all great friends do: she snapped me out of it.
We met at a little place in St. Paul called Cupcake and I confided in her that I always felt like I needed to “prove myself” to men who were not that great to begin with. It was no way to date and it was certainly not the foundation of a healthy relationship. So I went in search of something new the best way I know how: I got on the internet.
My Match profile was so temporary that I honestly don’t remember what I said. If I had to guess, I wrote that I loved to watch movies and blog. I know with absolute certainty that my love of England was evident because my profile picture was me hanging out at Stonehenge.
The mystery of Stonehenge may just be that it brought us together. TJ says I played it cool for way too long. I’m inclined to believe him. But when he picked me up for our first date, I felt pretty confident that this bespectacled guy who was really into architectural history, Bob Dylan and Native American antiquities probably wasn’t studying to be a mass murderer on the side. To be honest, he seemed like too much of a nerd. And I was right. He was a total nerd. At the time, he was also a Republican. May I state for the record that I never pressured him into his current political stances, which teeter more towards socialism than anything, and we never really fought about it. I just knew that I had never met someone who was so thoughtful (In the early days, he’d always make two dinner reservations and let me pick between the two…), beyond generous (he drove my brother through a snowstorm once so he could make it to his class) and smart.
I know it seems like I must really know my shit about online dating. Nah. I have no idea which dating site is for you and don’t ask me for advice about writing your dating profile, because my advice is going to be rather simple: be honest. Not attracted to that dude? Then don’t carry on the conversation. Don’t want to date a Catholic? Then don’t bother messaging the person. Don’t want to deal with someone who works nights? Then don’t even go on that date. If your gut has some pre-defined set of expectations, then be picky. But not too picky. It’s a balancing act. Here’s what I mean: don’t look for someone who is exactly 6’2, a Sagittarius with curly brown hair, green eyes, limited chest hair and an interest in Scottish kilt-making. If you are that fucking specific - then good fucking luck.
Teej and I are not a total anomaly when it comes to the success of online dating though, especially in my circle. My best friend met her fiance. My stepsister met her boyfriend. And my dad was always eager to try it.
Three months after our whirlwind digital matching, I took TJ home to meet my parents.
This is TJ, he works in a print shop.
Yes, he also wears glasses.
I’m sure he likes sports.
OH. And funny thing. We met on Match.com. In fact, I was signed up for less than 24 hours when he found me.
My dad’s reaction was priceless: “I’ve been on eHarmony for 7 goddamn months and I haven’t met anyone."
The next week he met his future wife on eHarmony.
My love of science fiction and fantasy is deeply rooted in its ability to teach me about life while distracting me from my own. I will never be an alien hunter, wizard or hobbit companion - but I still want to be happy. I still want to succeed. These are the things we share.
Here’s four lessons I love most:
What’s your favorite life lesson from a science fiction, fantasy or generally nerdy text?
I broke up with my first boyfriend on the Fourth of July.
It had been one of those nights that was so idyllic, so strangely perfect, that I now realize it was what teenagers did before smart phones.
On this patriotic eve, we had met a bunch of couples at the local movie theater and convinced an employee-friend to hand over the remaining popcorn for the night. He loaded it into an industrial sized garbage bag and opened a trap door to the roof of the theater. The group of us sat there wrapped in fleece blankets, watching the fireworks and chowing on popped corn. When they were done, we gawked at the stars and chatted about punk rock.
While the other couples were cuddly and sweet that night, my boyfriend was keeping his distance. He kept wandering off to the edge of the roof to talk on his Nokia and kept complaining about being too hot. Clearly, a ploy to stay as far away from me and my T-Rex blanket as possible. And while the scene might have seemed perfect, I knew in my gut he was going to break up with me that night.
As we drove back to my dad’s house, I started weighing the last 6 months of our relationship in my head. There were some sincerely sweet moments. We had taken to listening to a Roswell Radio station at 2 AM and constantly tried to one up the other with obscure conspiracy theory non-fiction. Whether or not I wanted it to be over, he wasn’t in it any more. Deep down, I didn’t want to be with someone who didn’t want to be with me.
By the time we finally sat down on the flannel couch in my dad’s living room, I blurted it out:
“You want to break up. Don’t worry. It’s fine.”
He stared at me completely dumbfounded. After all, I was 17 years old and he was 21. He had been forced only two months earlier to attend my high school prom. I was reversing the roles and breaking it up before he could break my heart. In my memory, he cried, but I honestly don’t remember.
It was easy for my friends to see that I had fallen hard for this guy who looked a lot like Kurt Cobain and had a band named after an antiquated optical device. It’s why I was so deeply embarrassed when he wanted to break up with me. Instead of facing that shame, I took it into my own hands and decided it needed to end another way.
Not even ten minutes later, our friends arrived at the house to play foosball and I couldn’t even pretend like nothing happened to save us all the weirdness. Instead, I announced the break up and told everyone that we were fine and we could still play table soccer. For some reason, he stayed. I can only now imagine how awkward it must have been for all of them, but no one said anything. They just took my lead.
My pride was important to me. My pride is still important to me.
I am still that girl. The girl who seeks the off-beat people at the party, finds joy in the obscure and who feels at home in any movie theater on earth. And I’m still embarrassed when things don’t go my way. The routine repeats itself regularly. Instead of admitting the party or the job or the relationship didn’t work out - I obsessively concoct a narrative that shows I’m not a quitter. I’ve got it under control.
I am honestly starting to wonder why I don’t just allow myself to feel bad when disappointing things happen.
This week, I found out that the documentary short I threw so much of my heart into last year didn’t get into SXSW. A few months ago, that same short didn’t get accepted into Sundance. I will probably find out in the coming weeks and months that it didn’t get into several other festivals too. Maybe I’m not well known enough. Maybe it wasn’t the right fit for their programmers. But the real issue is much simpler: Maybe it’s not good enough. Maybe I’m not good enough.
It really doesn’t matter either way, because whether or not those statements are true, it doesn’t change the fact that I feel utterly gutted.
When it comes to dating, rejection means I go on being me. Sure, I’m no longer so and so’s significant other, but everyone I know still sees me. I am still Liz. But when it comes to creative pursuits, rejection feels like someone wiped down a carnival mirror and showed me the true reflection.
Suddenly, the eyes in my reflection are saying: You aren’t a filmmaker. You are a hack and a clown masquerading as a storyteller. Put the shoes away. You are embarrassing yourself.
I have told exactly three people that our film didn’t get into the festival, so if you are part of the team and this is the first time you are reading this, I am sorry. This is the digital equivalent of us meeting in my dad’s kitchen and acting like it’s no big deal. Except there’s no foosball after this.
In a way, the only thing left for me to do now is the do the thing I did on July 5th a decade ago. Write about it. Listen to Rocky Votolato. Cry a little when no one is watching.
Most importantly, I must remember now what a dear friend told me then: Sometimes the things that feel like the end are actually the start.
