The 12 Days of HOLY SH*TMAS: Post #4

I am a geek in many, many ways. I'm multi-leveled in my geekdom. I'm all onion-layered. I like both Star Trek and Star Wars. Bad SyFy channel and good SyFy channel (shut it, it exists!). I love games like Elf Bowling and the original Dragon Warrior, the soundtrack of which I hear sometimes in my dreams. Don't ask about Alien Disco Safari. The first rule of Alien Disco Safari is... Oh wait, I might have that confused with something else.

My husband is also a geek, but he is of a different vintage than I am. He is one of those very intelligent guys, interested in sci-fi but only high quality sci-fi (he doesn't sit through DinoCroc with me, for example). He is very immersed in technology in general and one video game in particular. You know the one, with guns and the soldiers and the factory and flags or something.

In other words, I'm not a "cool" geek. I didn't see all the Star Trek movies until after the most recent one came out and I do not speak any Tolkien-type languages. I have never played the Halo or Farmville. I'm not good at math. Or history. The one time I was in a comic book store, which was not by choice, I was definitely out of place and wasn't familiar with 99% of what was in there.

I hated the movie Avatar.

I love playing the old school Battleship! board game and the Family Feud and Whammy on the wii.

Above all things, though, I am book-y. As is my husband. Our libraries did not have much overlap despite their volumes. In other words, when we got married, we both brought a sh*tload of books into the house, with few repeated titles. His were all historical and biographical, or about computers and computer coding, science, and astronomy.

Mine were a weird mix. My favorite book is Frankenstein, which I have at least 3 copies of, but I like just about anything. I even like to read poetry. Rumi can calm me down even on my worst day.

Did you know the bald guy from Smashing Pumpkins wrote a book of poetry? In other words, I even like bad poetry.

And plays. I love Tom Stoppard. I like reading plays and I think I am the only person who does, as evidenced by the shrinking or non-existent section in all bookstores. They used to have entire bookshelves with plays on them! For purchase! In the public!

I like the classics (say "literature" in a stuck up, snobby, high pitched lady voice, it's fun!) but I almost always revert back to things that are more recent. General fiction, Harry Potter, Jen Lancaster, Laurie Notaro, Andy Riley, Tracey Chevalier. I could go on and on and on.

The thing I love most is a book that makes me laugh. Jen Yates' Cake Wrecks was the book that brought me joy in a terrible time in my life, and it led me to read my first blog (of the same name). That book made me cry tears of laughter, and her blog makes me laugh on a daily basis.

When it came time for Christmas, books were the easiest thing for us to think of, since they are the things we often want but seldom buy for ourselves.

My family definitely filled up a good portion of a shelf for us this Christmas. See how I made the books into a little chair shape? Nice.

Books, books, books! Mmmmmm-hhhhmmmm, doin' my dance now, feeling the rhythm of literacy, gettin' jiggy, mmmmmm-hmmmmm, it's God's birthday, work it out, uh-huh, that's right now...

*Collapses due to sudden narcolepsy*

Husband fans me with Mike Birbiglia's book, and I come to, regaining my composure almost immediately. I whisper, "Yes, Mike Birbiglia! I will sleepwalk with you" and my husband leans in and asks, "What, Honey, I can't quite hear you" while I pretend I didn't say anything...

And, I'm back, doin' my dance, shakin' my groove thang, uh-huh, doin' the shopping cart, doin' the twist, doin' the robot, doin' the macarena, doin', um, what is current? Solider boy?

I had to google that. I guess what I meant was Soulja Boy. Really? I just, uh, ah, er, wha?

*Throws peace sign rapidly and with head bopping not quite in sync with any type of music anywhere*

Did I mention that this geek has zero dancing ability? And obviously no concept of time. What was cool in the 80s is cool now, right? Air keytar! The Running Man! Not spelled Rahn Neeing Mahn, as I guess it would be today.

It all just makes my dancing that much more awesome! Like the books featured in this 4th post of the 12 Days of HOLY SH*TMAS! The ones not about history! Oh crap. I just looked again at the cover of War of the Ros-

*zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz snore snore sniffle sniffle cough snore zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*