So. The Tour de Nerdfighting. I said I’d talk about that today, right?

It was awesome.

There you go.

Oh, you want more. I see. Okay. Here’s the thing: by now, probably the entire show has made it’s way on to YouTube in a variety of five and ten minute increments. A simple search of Nerdfighting PDX will turn up anything you want to know. So I’m not going to give you a play by play. Instead I think I’ll just talk about the overall experience of what it’s like to spend the afternoon in Nerdfighteria.

It’s hard for me to put into words why I make it a priority to go to as many nerd-centric shows like this as my bank account will (and sometimes won’t but I go anyway) allow.  It’s more than just getting to hang out with my friends (most of whom make it a point to see these things as well). I can hang out with them pretty much whenever I want. It’s more than getting to see a great band or hear a great author read, though that’s pretty…well, great. It’s more than watching while hundreds of people sing (with gusto!) songs about particle physics, angler fish and Harry Potter. It’s even more than watching dozens of people who would, in most other situations feel too shy or scared do more than sit in a corner watching “normal” people have fun, dance with wild abandon (though, admittedly, that was one of my favorite parts of the show).

It’s about…a t-shirt.

There is a t-shirt–and a lot of people at this show were wearing them–that says “I went to Nerdfighteria and all I got was this AWESOME COMMUNITY.”

I took a friend with me to see the Tour de Nerdfighting. It was his first major geek show and he was equal parts apprehensive and “aw, look how excited she is for this thing, that’s pretty cute. I think I’ll humor her,” about it. He laughingly obliged when I told him that we should get to the Bagdad at least an hour before the show was scheduled to start and then had his mind kind of blown when we got there an hour early and the line already went around the building…and then kept queueing up after us. “Nerds show up.” I told him.  As we stood there he watched, kind of shocked as we broke out into cheers as carts of books were wheeled by, as people ran by with video cameras, and whenever we saw a staffer doing anything, really. “We’re also kind of enthusiastic.” I told him.  “Don’t worry, we’re friendly too.”

And sure enough, two minutes after we sat down inside the theater a younger guy came over and asked to sit next to us. Within twenty seconds the three of us were all chatting away as if we had been planning to meet there all along. Not long before the show was supposed to start our new buddy, Josh, decided to brave the merch table, leaving us on our own for a few minutes.

“That guy is really friendly.” said my friend.  I nodded.

“Look around,” I told him. “Do you see all of these people?” My friend nodded. “All of these people are your friends now. All of these people care about you and love you…just because you’re here. They don’t need to know your story. They don’t even need to know your name. You don’t need to prove yourself to them. Every single one of them will move mountains to make sure that your life has as much awesome in it as possible. Just because you’re you and we’re us.”

I think that is my favorite part of the Tour de Nerdfighting. Most of the time Nerdfighteria is an ethereal place. But for a couple of hours on a rainy Sunday afternoon, it was tangible and I got to show someone new how awesome it can be to spend time there.

What? I like to share.

I’m starting to realize that I am the most productive, the most on task and the most reliably these things when I have a challenge…which is kind of weird because I am pretty much the antithesis of competitive. Maybe it’s because I’m just competing against myself and not somebody specific?  Or because I like a good experiment? Maybe that’s what I should call these things: experiments.

The Annual NaBloPoMo experiment.

The Christmas Advent experiment.

The Vlog Every Day experiment.

I didn’t have a cha–er–experiment in January. I was mostly just focused on paying bills, keeping the lights on and recovering from a maddening end to 2011. This month, though, I’m back in the saddle. I’m calling it the Great Get Yer Ass Outta The House Challenge (experiment).

You guys know that I work from home, that I spend most of my time at home and that I spend most of that time primarily, well, with my cat. Sure I hang out on Twitter. I check Facebook all day long. I read blogs. I have conversations with people through all of these mediums.  But, at the same time and even though I have a roommate, it is really easy for me to go days without having a face-to-face conversation with or even seeing another human being. And while this was kind of a good thing while I was working through the immediate aftermath of my divorce and all the grossness there, now that I’m starting to really heal and feel better…it is not a good thing. It is really starting to hit me that I don’t have to live like a recluse anymore.

When I was married I lived pretty reclusively because the person I was married to simply does not like other people. He preferred to stay home, sit on his game and interact with people that way. I try not to judge much because hi, Twitteraholic right here.  Still–whenever I did want to go out it was like  trying to pull teeth with a gummy/slimy slap handy thing and more often than not lead to an argument or someone pouting and acting like a douche or just general overall unhappiness for us both so… I very rarely asked to go do things and made myself content to sit on the couch with the cat, watching shows on Netflix over and over again.

I’m not forced to live like that anymore and I’m starting to realize something. As more time passes, it is becoming more and more clear that…

I have no desire to be the next JD Salinger.

Sure, Dude was a brilliant writer but I want to be out! Amongst the people! Certainly not all the time but some of the time (it was really hard not to quote The Little Mermaid just now).

This is where it gets tricky. It’s hard to justify going out and potentially spending money when staying home is free (ish). It’s hard to put away the work and have fun when work and fun occupy the same space. It’s really difficult to switch from “Get It Done” brain to “Relax” brain. So I need to make a change.  I’m just not sure exactly which kind of change to make.

So! I’m challenging myself! Because that’s always fun.  (I can’t say I’m experimenting on myself. It just sounds wrong…and vaguely dirty.)

For the month of February I’m going to try to get out of the house in some fashion every. single. day. For Monday through Friday I’m going to try my hand at working outside of the house and on Saturday and Sunday I’m going to… I don’t know exactly what just yet. Try to do fun things. Go for walks. Hang with friends. Whatever. Just get out for at least a few minutes each day–even if it’s just a walk by myself.

Of course it’s one thing to say that I am going to do these things. It’s another to find a way to force myself to do them. So…um… I put a monthly transit pass on my credit card. Now I have unlimited TriMet access for the month of February so there’s no reason to sit at home. In fact, sitting at home would pretty much just be the same thing as throwing the money I spent on the transit pass away, right?

Monetary incentives are sometimes the best incentives–even when it’s “do not let that expense to go waste!” kind of incentives.

We’ll see how it goes…but I figured I’d better announce it somewhere or I’d never make myself do it, monetary incentives be damned.

PS. I know I had said I would talk more about Nerdfighteria and PDX’s Tour de Nerdfighting stop today but I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I want to talk about. I’ll post it on Friday for sure!

It was a good GOOD weekend, y’all.

I got some work done. There were movies watched, great conversations had, yummy food eaten, new friends made and, of course, the Tour de Nerdfighting.

I have many thoughts about the Tour de Nerdfighting and my experience there (which was awesome) and I’m still sorting them out. This happens every time I go to a nerd show, I know. You’d think by now I’d be able to figure out which words to put on top of these emotions. But every show and ever experience is unique and that means that the words need to be unique too.

So I’ll talk more about it on Wednesday, when I’ve had a little more time to mull and ponder and figure out just what I really want to talk about.

In the mean time I strongly, strongly STRONGLY urge you to check out The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension because Oh. Mai. GAWD.

It’s official. I’m ready for some weather that is… slightly less extreme.  Oh, don’t get me wrong. I am still digging the wild and wooly rain craziness and love being out in it but today when I was walking home from the train I had a moment of “okay I’m done” about my rain boots. And my “snow” boots (aka cold weather weigh many pounds boots). And I really missed just wearing my sneakers. I put my sketchers on when I got home just because I missed them and I’m not going to lie to you Internet. I may have hopped around for a little bit. Just because my feet felt so light.

What? These things can’t all be deep and insightful. That would just get boring.

Every year at about this time the weather goes a little bit haywire. It snows. We get torrential downpours. Everybody is afraid to go outside because there is just no telling what will happen–it’s entirely possible that on a two minute walk from the front door to the car you’ll be rained on, snowed on, hailed on and then dried off completely by a sudden burst of sunshine. This is the weather that makes the wetlands next to my apartment complex flood so much that the basketball court we have gets completely submerged and the trickle of a creek that runs behind my part of the property becomes something more akin to a moat–flinging ducks every which way until they give up and fly off.

This is also the weather that made me really miss Oregon when I was living away from it.

I had forgotten how much I love this weather and then last Thursday…well, I remembered.

For most of my life I’ve been the one to run outside when it rains instead of ducking for cover. I don’t care if I get soaked. I don’t care if I ruin my shoes. I love the feel of this weather–the wind and the rain and sometimes even the hail–all at once threatening to knock me over while also somehow keeping me upright. Somehow, though, over the last few years I had turned into one of those “pretty weather–glad I don’t have to be in it” people. Somehow (and I’m not blaming any one thing–a bunch of things probably contributed to this) I’d become someone who actively avoids this kind of weather.  I’d make my  (now ex) husband go to the store and run errands all in the name of my staying dry. I know! I’m annoyed by that version of me too! What a baby!

Last Thursday I woke up to the sound of rain pounding against my bedroom window. It was so loud that it had scared Poppy and sent her diving under the bed for cover. I sat there, all bundled up in my covers and thought “Pretty…good thing I don’t have…AW CRAP.”

Because I DID have to go out in it. My apartment was soda-less and blog readers, I simply cannot have a soda-less apartment. It is as unnatural as….something really really unnatural. But more.

So I took a deep breath, bundled up as best I could, told my iPhone to create one of those Genius Playlist things off of Wheatus’s Teenage Dirtbag and set off for Fred Meyer.

I was doused by the time I had taken one complete step out of the entry way to my apartment’s stairwell. But…it was weird. I wasn’t annoyed.

I trudged through the complex, stopped to check the mail and thought “hang on a minute…why am I not irritated? This weather is irritating! I should be really bothered right now!”  I paused and waited for the familiar “yuck, I want to go inside” feeling to come but… even after a little more waiting…it still didn’t.

A strange feeling started to take over as I walked down my street toward the store. I couldn’t quite place it. It was kind of familiar, but in that “I…..think? I know you? Maybe?” way. All I knew for sure was that I was not annoyed with the weather at all. Something was definitely happening though. The wind and the rain and the wet and the cold and the music were all kind of conglomerating together to form….something. Familiar. But not.

I was practically skipping by the time I got my soda home and for the first time in I don’t remember how long, coming in out of the rain felt….weird. All I wanted in the world at that moment was to go back outside.

So I did.

I shoved the soda in the fridge, wrung out my gloves and hat in the sink, put them back on and, while thinking “once more into the breach dear friends!” dashed back outside. I was so desperate to get back out there that I almost forgot to lock my front door behind me.

As I wandered around my neighborhood I kept my face tilted up to the rain. I listened to the music blasting its way through my earbuds and suddenly it hit me.

I was happy.

Like really really really happy.

That alien but almost familiar feeling I’d been trying to puzzle out while running to the store and back? That was joy. Pure joy. And that’s when I remembered. Like a flash I remembered and welcomed home yet another part of myself that had somehow gotten shoved aside over the last few years: I like the rain. I like being out in the rain. Wild and random and strong weather like this–it is part of my joy.

I was outside for, oh, an hour and a half or so and I realized “this is what furiously happy” feels like.

I’ve gone back outside for at least a few minutes every day and each time I do I remember: this. This is me.

It’s kind of nice.

You know how you have those days where you wake up, blink a couple of times and suddenly the day is over and you REALLY don’t know where it all went?

That.

Hey, I’m doing a question Thursday thing on my vlog next week–let’s make it a cross platform thing! Ask me your questions and I will answer them on my vlog and then post the link here! Yay!

Tonight I went down to the Backspace Cafe.  I spent the night literally surrounded by friends (yes, literally). There was fun conversation, good food and then I watched as my friends Angela and Aubrey blew the roof off the place as the headlining act of that night’s musical lineup (this was the first time they were the headlining act). I am SO PROUD of them.

So much good, you guys. Just…. so much good.

Every time it snows I have to go outside, even if it is just for a few minutes. I tilt my head up, close my eyes, let the fluffy slushy fall onto my face and as it melts I think about Abbott and smile.

I can get all growly and grouchy about snow getting in the way of plans that I have made. I can joke that snow is the best when I do not have to go out in it.  Mostly though–I look at snow and feel comforted. You might think it’s just weather being weather but for me it is Abbott. It’s Abbott pulling my hair and telling me that everything is going to be okay.

Today I went and stood in the parking lot. I looked up, closed my eyes took a deep breath and thought “you’re a little late there, buddy.”

And even though it’s been years, and I’m sure the skeptical out there will say it’s my imagination making it up because I need to, I could still feel him chuckle and then say “if I was predictable, I’d just be boring.”

Indeed.

Over the course of my content writing career (going on five years this May, how weird is that?!?) I have had to write dozens of pages about sleep–sleep cycles, lucid dreaming, sleep disorders, how to get a better night’s sleep, etc.  You would be amazed at how many people want pages upon pages of tips on how to have an easier time falling asleep, how to have better sleep once they do manage to fall asleep, and so on and on and on.

You would think that with all of the research and writing I’ve done about the subject that I’d be prepared for those times when my own sleeping turned erratic–that I’d know exactly what to do. And, okay so I did know exactly what to do but that doesn’t mean that I DID it. That? Would just be too easy.

About the middle of last week the weather got cold enough that the pipes got cold enough that trying to take a shower with water that stayed hot long enough to get everything done (at least, everything you need to get done when you’re a girl which is significantly more than when you’re a boy) started to become pretty difficult–especially as my roommate is also a fan of the lengthy shower. So, kind of arbitrarily, last Sunday night I decided to take an evening shower–and do all of those…let’s just call them “maintenance” tasks that need to get done, so that on Monday morning I wouldn’t have to worry about the water turning icy before I’d gotten around to washing my hair.

I had an easier time falling asleep on Sunday night than I’ve had in months. The hot water had relaxed my muscles which helped to relax my brain and with all of that relaxing going on, I barely made it to 11 PM before I was starting to drift off.

On Monday I night I decided to try the evening shower routine again… and again–super relaxed. No troubles falling asleep. Tuesday, same. Wednesday, same. Last night, same.

I have to say that I’m starting to enjoy this evening shower thing–not just because it helps me get better sleep at night but because it’s a nice way to put the other bookend on my day. The first night I did it it was about finding a way to get all the way clean and…uh, “maintenanced” (ladies, you know what I’m talking about). In just the almost week that I’ve been doing this, though, the evening shower has become not at all about getting clean (although that is nice) and entirely about telling  my body and my brain “Okay, no more work now. Just chill out.”

This? Is something that I have really needed to figure out how to do….oh, the whole time I’ve been working for myself.

Or, okay–my whole life.

I really should listen to my own knowledge more often.

*Big Bang Theory

I went to a tiny college. A really tiny college. It was great. I got all of the personal attention that I wanted or needed. I had personal connections with almost every professor I had. The campus was insulated and everybody knew everything about each other. It was tight knit. It was exactly where I needed to be when I was there (obviously while I was there I wanted to be anywhere else. I’m special like that).

It was not, however, a cake walk in an academic sense. A lot of people hear about the tiny-ness of my school and think that it must have been easy to get through the work. My programs, though–they were intense. I was a double major in Theater and English and it was not uncommon to be required to read entire plays (not usually a quick one-act or scene study but Lysistrata and Dr Faustus–stuff like that) and massive literary tomes in just a day or two.  We’d save time in a lot of our classes by having each person read a different work and then we’d talk about those works with each other (my typical class size was eight people. No joke). It is because of this structure and intensity that I can now walk into any literature section of any store or library and go “read it, read it, learned it, learned it, read it, read it, learned it, read it, read it…” you get the idea. There is so much knowledge from that stuff packed up into my brain that I usually don’t remember that I know it until I’m in the middle of a conversation and bust out some sort of “Oh that’s just like in Richard III where blah blah blahditty blah” without realizing what I’m saying until I’ve said it.

This probably makes me sound super snotty but stick with me.

Today I was talking with someone about reading habits and I made the joke that these days I chose my books based on the pastel color of the cover.  I could see him wince so I followed it up with “I have Theater and English major PTSD.”

This sounds like a lame excuse no matter how old you are when you say it, but when you’re in your 30s and college was over a decade ago… it makes you sound super lame. I know this, but I say it anyway because it usually gets a laugh.

I was thinking about this later when I was on my way home–the need I often feel to apologize for my current reading choices (mostly humor and chick lit) when I talk to people who don’t know me well. It’s like I have this need to say “no, really, I’m smart! I swear” without actually coming out and saying it (because just saying it like that is totally douchey).

I know that I can’t be the only one who does this. And I don’t know why my first instinct is to excuse away my choices as “I know it’s lame but it’s fun” instead of just owning it with more of a “hey, at least I still read!” approach.

The trend is the same for television–not so much in that I feel the need to defend my own viewing habits but for people who are fans of shows like the Real Housewives or any of the other reality stuff that’s out there. Personally, I prefer my television more blatantly scripted and with better production values, but people who do enjoy a daily dose of reality TV often say “I know it’s dumb but…” or “yeah I know I could do better but…”

Why do we do this? And why do people feel the need to qualify the stuff they like as “guilty” pleasures? Why can’t it just be a pleasure to read or watch or listen?

Further, why do we equate complicated with smart? Sometimes it isn’t smart, it’s just complicated…right?

Just questions.  Got thoughts?