Re: Knitting is nerdier than RPGs

That's exactly why I got my DH a t shirt that says keep out of direct sun light.

-Margaret in MA

LOL - that's perfect. Of course, as a true tech-geek or whatever, I feel free to say these things. When I worked at the research lab (about 900-1000 engineers, physicists & some chemists) with only 7 being female (lots of women in the admin, contracts & other areas) my best friend & I often referred to it as working in "The Kingdom of Revenge of the Nerds." There were many who hadn't seen light beyond artificial glow from computer screens in labs, or so it seemed. And don't get me thinking about the pocket pen protectors and polyester pants pulled up to the armpits. And, yup, there was an RPG group.

The son of one of our best friends is an RPG kid. He was home schooled for high-school 'cause his parents were concerned he was having issues with their divorce, and he was quite small in 8th grade, so for 9th grade they kept him home. Problem being that both parents, and their new partners all have professional careers. Lovely boy - who actually grew in 10th grade to be about 5'10" and should've gone back to school. But, as these things are all he cared about was his RPG land, dressed in black - or costumey - and the caring adults of his extended family frequently discussed his conversion into a mushroom. Staying in his room, now relocated to the basement, never outside, and sleeping weird hours 'cause he had to be on line to do his gaming. Went away to school to learn game design, not successful, home in comm college, etc. But, point being - he really did start to resemble a plant grown in the dark - very pale, always in black clothes - and he has naturally black hair! The end result...he actually met his partner thru....a RPG group and finally F2F at a convention. The first time we all met the partner we weren't sure of identity as the partner (very nice) is also kind of mushroom like, and quite androgynous - with a permanent RPG type name which seems to have some sort of Lord of the Rings meets Fantasy land origin. Seriously. But, mushrooms can be quite lovely!

Ellice

Lots of people at my old job and current job resemble this. My DH has mostly outgrown the only wearing black. His Mom got him another great shirt that he adores that says I'm only wearing black until I find something darker. -Margaret in MA

On 3/24/11 11:36 AM, in article snipped-for-privacy@coredump.silverthorn.org, "Margaret St. John" wrote:

Got it, lovely T-shirt saying. I freely confess that having done drama in undergrad school (yes, I was actually the company producer for 2 years), with lots of SCA friends, I could easily have fallen into that. But the drama and sports kept me into actual real life socializing. The DH in a couple who're close friends is also a big RPG guy - we actually finally made fun of him when he told us that he had to get his 2 hours of exercise...which meant playing via computer. Yup, that was all.

At prior lab job, I had changed groups, my new boss, was a great albeit exceptionally nerdy guy (think plaid polyester sports coats) with likely no sense of current style (despite his having adopted 2 children, 1 then a teenage girl), and odd social skills - demonstrated by asking me if essentially I'd arranged hookers for some high-ranking military guys coming in for a couple of days of work with me. He laughed, but we (me & secretary) thought he was serious - obviously we went for less illegal entertainment - not to mention that I knew the wives of said officers. Anyhow, my gal pal (the EE named above) was in her Cyndi Lauper phase, and had an asymetric, buzzed in part on one side, hairstyle, and we got our nails done at the same place, plus neither of us dressed conservatively. Said boss went to a meeting with folks from her group, which I knew of in advance. After the meeting, he came over to my office to say "Hey, E, I met an engineer in sensors that I think you should be friends with....or probably are - something about her ...." To which I replied, "Oh, you mean P?" "Oh, you know her - I thought there was something about how she dressed...uh,uh." "Yup, Jim, we've been friends since she got hired, we shop together, same nail place, beautician, and....she's the other user tech help for the Mac Users Group." He thought about that, and said something about thinking she looked familiar..... We did seem a little different than the other handful of women engineers (who were mostly older)

- but there were plenty of guys that hung out with us.

At the next agency, a couple of guys from the front office did request, laughingly, reassurance that I wouldn't be wearing the weird stuff seen at the labs. HQ's tend to be more image conservative or something......

IME, I think spending much time in the computer world tends to that dress in black, etc. I had my stays in grad school that involved many hours on end in our little VAX/SGI room... Easily becoming a mushroom, with the someone slide a piece of pizza under the door 'cause I'm busy, and need to be reminded to go eat/wash-up/change clothes....Always scared me how easily I'd slip into that side....Stitching keeps us sane, etc....

Ellice

It is very easy to gover tot hat side, which is why I have up playing certain video games. During my CS degree I lived in the lab, and survived on dominos deliveries. I could return to it easily, since my DH plays till 2am most nights but I'd rather be out in the garden, doing needlework, or reading.

-Margaret in MA

how geeky am I - and how much time did I spend in the defense industry............

to me an RPG is a rocket propelled grenade!

LOL

LOL- that's my equal first thought, but then taking the context. Plus, your kids play active actual physical sports......

My first day at first "real" job, the "old guy" in the office gave me a little memo pad, of many pages titled "TLAs" - Three Letter Acronyms. Critical to know when working in DoD (and most of the gov). In fact, when proposing new research programs, etc a key thing was to be sure and have a good acronym that would lend to a good logo. Really. I had one named "CANS" - it was an innovative research project - and the logo -well - it couldn't be beer on the "CAN" - that's all I can say. The first project I came onto with hiring was "HATS" - logo a hard hat....yupper.

OTOH, ask me in a week. I've been working thru reading reference material in the keeping fingers crossed hope job happens thing. Let's just say thousands of pages of reading, DH printed some up as I decided to do some notations, etc. Very large binders - thankfully with tabs. Interesting, particularly comparing positions, etc in the past 5 years. Right now I alternate between being interested, depressed, annoyed, a little nauseated, wanting to smack someone up da' side of da' head, excited and back again. Making me remember all the prior work feelings.......or something like that.

We're just geeky in a different way.