On Embrace Your Geekness Day and 20 year reunions...

Today, July 13th, is "Embrace Your Geekness Day."  Apparently, it is the day in which we can all be proud of our geeky natures since it is "great to be so brilliant and gifted."  While I may have been brilliant at one time (pre-kids), and my gifts these days are overshadowed by my tendency to erode into Mommy-Monster moments....I know that my inner-geek is still alive and well.  And what better time to celebrate that geek than the weekend before my 20 year high-school reunion....since high-school was the pinnacle of my geekdom.

So, in honor of Embrace Your Geekness Day and my impending reunion, here is my top ten list (in no particular order) of Aimee's geeky pleasures...

1.  Singing and dancing (somewhat spastically) in front of the mirror when I am really amped up about something.  I think this joy manifests itself subversively in my LOVE for the TV show Glee.  Where else can you get your happy Journey high mixed with a little "Bust a Move."

2.  My continued love for, as The Accountant (i.e. my husband, L) refers to them, "Teenage Vampire Sex Novels."  I keep trying to tell him that there is no real sex in the Twilight novels, but he still calls them that.  I call them my "remembering the thrill of first love" escape....but don't tell him that.

3.  Being able to fix just about anything when I set my mind to it.  This is made even more enjoyable when it is something that The Accountant has tried to fix and cannot.  A perfect example of this would be when I repaired a broken sprinkler head in our backyard, after The Accountant had tried twice to fix it, causing repeated damage to the PVC pipe it was attached to.  I love my husband, but I love "winning" maybe just a little more (a la Monica in friends....yep, that would be me).  Again, don't tell him that.

4. Reading instructions.  They exist for a reason, to make your life easier.  Sit down, read them, know them, love them, get things done right.  Enough said.

5.  Finding bargains online...I never buy anything anymore unless I have researched its cost online for HOURS prior to purchase.  Does that make me a productive mother and maintainer of our household?  No.  Does it make me feel like I just got something for nothing?  Yes, and that is a darn good feeling.

6.  Facebook.  No explanation needed.

7.  Blogging.  This is a new geeky pleasure, and one which I hope will lead to a better understanding of how to write as I still hold onto a dream of being an author someday.  That dream was planted in my head by my high school creative writing teacher, Larry Vosovic, quite possibly one of my favorite geeks of all time and quite possibly one of the attendees at my reunion on Saturday (not that he'll remember who I am).

8.  Crafting, particularly scrapbooking, quilting and sewing.  It is entirely possible that I was the only girl at my Silicon Valley area high school to wear a dress to my Senior year Winter Formal that I had made myself.  That was actually about 1/4 part geekiness and 3/4 part poverty...but necessity is the mother of invention.

9.  Using obscure quotes, words or phrases (as you can see from number 8).  I love words, some words, however unused they may be in day to day conversation, are so perfectly suited to the concept you want to express that it would be a shame not to use them.  Of course, this only works if the person you are talking to knows what that word (or phrase) means.  The Accountant claims that I make most of my phrases up, but apparently he just wasn't paying attention when someone was trying to get his goat.  He keeps telling me that he doesn't own a goat.

10.  My girls...watching them play, hearing them talk (most of the time), seeing them smile...the ultimate geeky pleasure, particularly when The Accountant is around to share it all with me.

Hope y'all get to celebrate Embrace your Geekess Day in whatever way makes you feel proud to be a geek.  As much as I hated being that strange girl growing up, I am pretty darn happy with who I am now.  I don't think I'd have it any other way.  And who knows, after spending the weekend around a bunch of folks I haven't seen since I was 17 and working at McDonalds, I may find that they all felt the same way about themselves one time or another.

The Accountant swears that he wasn't a geek in high school...but then why did his parents give him Napoleon Dynamite on DVD for his birthday writing on the card "this movie reminded us of you."  Hmmmm.......guess we'll have to go to his 20th HS reunion so I can see for myself (and to get his goat).