What It Means To Be Republican

I have no idea, because I'm not one. Next topic.

Which is, thanks to Kurt Busch winning this past weekend's Subway Fresh 500 at Phoenix International Raceway, the topic of geeks. Entire books have been written on the subject, but not a single person has read them: because if you're not a geek, you don't read all that much, and even if you do read, you sure as hell don't read about geeks. So what is the story behind this mysterious enigma? Should they be feared, revered, or just made fun of? And who in God's name is voting for Scott Savol?

For their first five or six years of life, geeks are pretty much just like everybody else. They laugh. They cry. They eat cake at birthday parties. But then, for the 96% or so that must face their true destiny, they are introduced into the public school system. It is there that the life-altering process begins. Now, I've heard that many people look to the great artists and entertainers of the world for the most original works of creativity known to man. I'm sure that on the surface you would agree with this. But I'm here to tell you that's not where ultimate creativity lies--it lies in the hands of the grade school kids that make fun of geeks.

Think about the problem: you have little Edward, sitting in the back of the class, never really saying much but constantly writing English papers for fun. He writes twice as many as he has to turn in. Now, Edward isn't going to speak often, or change a whole lot in his twelve years of public schooling. But the kids that tease him...well, they have to come up with original jokes and pranks for twelve whole years! They pretty much get a free ride in Year One, the Year of the Wedgie. But it gets much harder from there. Day in, day out, new lines and new jokes must be in the making. There must be more tears than Young and the Restless, which their moms rave about every day and always provides good competition. And they succeed. The same kids that can't draw a square in art class turn out to be the most creative kids on earth.

Somehow the geeks struggle through the first few years, though, desperately clinging onto games that allow them to defeat large monsters with simply a roll of the dice. That sure doesn't happen with Big Johnny during lunchtime--after trying that once (and only once) the dice were never seen again by anyone but a doctor. But such geeks continue to excel in school, thankful that if nothing else the teacher still likes them. On the inside, however, a divide is growing...one that slowly takes hold without their conscious knowledge. And that path can only end in one of two destinations: they either make a ton of money or write clever software viruses that repeatedly crash your home PC. You see, you can always tie spyware back to a Big Johnny.

In the end, though, with no way out, the school system becomes what really amounts to Little People Incarceration. I mean, think about it. You're required by law to go, you can be put in solitary confinement, you always have someone telling you exactly where you are allowed to be, you get a small window of envigorating but very short "outside time", you can easily be denied permission just to use the restroom, and of course the people serving food kinda look and sound like individually tailored versions of the Grim Reaper. Do you remember that large, absolutely evil beast that terrorized the city-dwellers in Return of the King? Do you remember the screams? Tell me you didn't have a lunch lady that looked like that. But I digress.

Anyway, geeks endure all of this, but not without effects. They become soft and squishy on the outside, but on the inside a few are hardening into what the corporate world now knows as Super Geeks. For the 8% of such kids that make it through school without serious emotional scarring, they go on to rule the world.

Have you been back to a high school reunion lately? Don't you see who's driving the Benz with two ladies on each arm? It's Edward, still writing papers but this time for multi-million dollar mergers. And oh, he's grinning. Life has been good. And the next day, after Edward has returned home triumphantly, he will sit down at his company's supercomputer to try to weed out yet another hacker. He knows who it is--it's the other kid in his English class that everyone picked on. And thus an epic battle ensues, and the rest of the world just becomes a sideshow.

Where's My Compass?

So it's Saturday night, and I'm in Asheville, North Carolina, with a laptop in hand and a guinea pig running across the floor and in between my feet. What better time to post?

Life is an interesting, chaotic, disorganized mess for me at the moment. Oh, don't get me wrong--I'm quite happy with it--but I have really no idea what I'm doing from one day to the next. I can't decide what either my work or out-of-work priorities should be. I can't even decide which tiles to play in Scrabble. But I do have two things decided for sure: 1) I know who I'm living with for the rest of my life, and 2) I'm a heterosexual.

So where does one go from here? How do you choose five hobbies to focus on out of the 68 potential candidates that I'm interested in? How do you decide how much vacuuming is too little vacuuming? Where I can find Dobby the House Elf to help me with these things? How many questions I can ask in one post?

Well, I don't really know the answers. But for a general life update, which I haven't done in a while, here goes. :)

Kel and I are doing very well after the marriage! People love to ask this question, as in, "How's married life so far?" How do you answer this, really? Everything I think of is just sarcastic ("Well, you know how women steal the covers every night--so thus far I'd have to say my marriage is ass-to-the-wind cold"), but usually I just issue the standard "Everything is great!". Of course, it is great, but it's not any better or worse than it was before we got married! To dip into my great sea of romance-novel clichés, love crosses all boundaries of title. We are doing well.

For those that don't know, however, we're about to move again in four weeks (May 14), to a new apartment. I cannot wait to do this, because it greatly shortens my commute to work and lets us be much closer to our friends there! The bad side is that Kelly's classmates are all taking off for various parts of North Carolina, and we'll miss getting to see them as often. But our new place is extremely nice, and we'll consider it our first true marriage home--even though it will be another apartment. We likely have at least 18 months before any kind of homeowning discussion gets in the works, because we have to wait until: 1) Kel graduates and knows where she'll work, and 2) we have more than $8.95 for a down payment. Then I'll have to become the husband-type and mow the lawn, fix the front porch, flirt with the neighbors' wives, etc, etc, but I think I can do it. Just kidding on that last bit. :)

At work, things are rolling along as usual. We in the midst of our annual Performance Appraisal process, a time during which our managers boil down about 1,950 hours of work into a single 1-5 rating (I'm not kidding--I actually calculated the number of hours). Worse than that, the two grades we always get are either "2 - Exceeded Expectations" and "3 - Met Expectations". To me, I'm not even sure I'd want a "2" rating...something that could easily mean, "Wow, we really didn't see that coming from you! We thought you'd fall on your face, but somehow you made it through." But welcome to corporate life, where a little thing called "common sense" is always collecting dust.

At any rate, life is still rolling along, and I'm still running along on top of it--something like Frogger on a good day. I'm trying very hard to catch on tasks in the post-wedding era, so if I am behind in writing or e-mailing or anything of that sort, I apologize and offer you one beautifully wrapped package of PEZ candy in return. Please send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Kelly or I and we will mail your gift as soon as possible.

Lastly, for those interested, we'd love to have you come visit us at any time! I'd love for us to come visit you except Kelly is worked harder than an Indonesian kid making Nike shoes, and I used up a lot of my vacation with that whole marriage deal. We're busy filling up the 2006 calendar, though, putting together our very own reunion tour.

Thanks for listening! Coming next week: "How Wasteful Is Too Wasteful? Breaking Down the Life of an Average Georgia Tech Fan."

Epiphany

Everything is almost ready. At last. The largest church in the world sits dormant, but only for a a few hours--for this evening the world will experience the very reason for its existence.

Nothing will compare to this.

Entire counties of people will swoon, caught in the exhilaration of what can only be described as the most intense experience of their lives. And as the power consumes them, nothing will stand in their way: marriages will fall, money will be useless, and the logic of reasoning will never be more meaningless. For tonight, oh blessed night, North Carolina will play for a national title.

For a relatively non-involved observer, as this story can only be told, the resulting hysteria is one that the human mind can barely comprehend. Let us go back five months to the beginning of the season...a time so rich with expectations that you feel like you might explode trying to contain all of it. Because even though your team collapsed at the end of last season, you know that these same guys will never let that happen again...but why, you ask? Well, because in between now and then these players have taken an average of five classes each, and there is no way these guys are letting that academic experience go for naught. They have a transcript to protect. But even more than that, you know that these five, enormous black men are your five, enormous black men...it's doubtful that even their own mamas love 'em more than you do. 'Cause they're your Tar Heels, baby, and you've got more emotion invested in them than anything else in else in your life. You even stopped donating to the American Red Cross each February because you felt the whole experience left you just a little too drained come tournament time. Good thing that is a worry of the past.

But tonight, as the lights click on and the court floods with the buzz of anticipation, you feel like this just might be the year it's all worth it. That maybe you were right to name your kid Dean. That maybe no one will remember that you graduated from community college, not from the University of North Carolina...because at some point you can earn a degree just on love, right? Of course you can! And most of all, you finally think the world is actually a good place to live, and that God (the bitter Tar Heel fan that he is) has finally broken down and will let the guys win another one. I mean, come on...everyone knows that God is the master of creation, and would never reward a team with the most uncreative name in college basketball: the Illinois Illini.

So you get the trash talk lines ready (all of which are variations of something you originally heard in high school), electric with excitement and ready to paint the town blue. This is your night, baby! You change into your weakest pair of jeans, knowing that when the final horn sounds and Sean May bearhugs Jawad Williams, and it seems like they're almost there, in your living room with you, you will leap off the couch and tear those jeans all the way down the back. And then you can laugh maniacally, hang them in the living room, and tell everyone who comes over that, "Yeah, see those pants right there? That was when we won it all, and I tore a crack in my ass I was so happy." That story just never gets old. Never.

As for me, well, I wish I were part of this inner circle of 4.5 million Tar Heel fans (Georgia, by comparison, has 11 thousand nationwide). If only I could feel the joy of knowing a love greater than the world itself! Because even my love for Jack Bauer, felt as I watch him terminate people on "24", just doesn't feel enough on this night. I feel like an athiest at the most emotionally draining Pat Robertson speech ever.

But wait...an idea slowly creeps into the back of my mind. Yes...of course! Didn't I just say that you can earn a degree based solely on love? Don't I have a pair of blue jeans somewhere around here, just barely held together at the seams? And as the initial jump ball rises into the air--beautiful Jawad soaring toward it--I desperately beg God to help me decide what to do with this life he's given me.

And as I wait and wait, I suddenly realize...of course he's not listening. He's already watching his boys play ball.