Woke up very wobbly from the casino last night! Felt a curious lightness without my Coin of Destiny. But at least Week 9 really went out with a bang! Sometimes it seems like every Wednesday is New Years Eve.
But now I’m born again… again. Welcome to Day 1 of GEEK WEEK!
This week, I’m being lived by a brave understudy: Ben Trafford! Some of you might be familiar with him by now. He’s having me do all sorts of nerdy things– read his bizarrely formatted schedule & you should get the picture.
The Chancellor doesn't like geeks. He's sleeping on the couch!
After hobbling downstairs for some coffee I hobbled back up again. Today was actually bright & sunny! I wanted to work on my tan. Can you be a geek & have a tan? Well, the answer is irrelevant, as I was too busy. I had to 1. write Ben a 500 word essay with my thoughts on geekdom. I was generous & gave him over a thousand. I led him on a truly magical journey, liberally peppered with chummy personal anecdotes & candid self-examination.
"I'll take the balcony, loser!"
In it, I come to the conclusion that while I share a geek’s love of art, pop culture, & trivia,
[...] the world of make-believe stopped interesting me as a child. I like my reading & viewing material to be hyper-real, ultra-real, fiction that helps unlock the reality I inhabit. The mysteries I’m fascinated by are the real mysteries of the unknowable world that is actually around us, rather than constructed mysteries of a simpler fantasy world. I don’t know if I could say that I’m an escapist. I think I might be the opposite. But my experience of the world is so opposite to escapism that it actually ends up approaching it. I may embody escapism’s mirror image.
This may be a luxury afforded to me by my high IQ, admirable pedigree, & stunning good looks. If I were somebody else, I can imagine wanting to escape to a simpler & more just world. As it is, I don’t need simplicity or justice. Actually, the only thing I need is a maid.
I don’t consider it a day until I’ve mis-misrepresented myself on the internet.
My lovely little essay also includes several keywords I think that geeks might like. Words like:
hamster, Ancient Egypt, Trekkies, cheerleader, midriff, skinny-dipping, student council, schoolgirl uniform, suicide poetry, child bride, schizophrenia, instant message, livejournals, S&M, childfree, Star Wars, Harry Potter, comic books, fantasy, computers, Marvel, Klingon, internetspeak, Star Trek, escapism
I sent it along to Ben, along with my choice of 2. Klingon word #2. I must work “maj’” into everyday speech when I feel like it. Funnily enough, I haven’t really felt like it. Which isn’t to say everything isn’t maj’. I’m also supposed to say 3. QALPA’! anytime someone impresses me or bids me farewell. Well, lots of people have said bye to me, but no one has yet bade me farewell. & since I am always impressed by everything, for practical reasons I can’t say it whenever someone impresses me! Or else my speech would be replaced entirely with QALPA QALPA QALPA QALPA QALPA QALPA & we wouldn’t get anywhere. I only managed a few today, but I’m sure I’ll work it in more in the future.
Anyway, I went to the video store to 4. get The Prisoner but they didn’t have it. Harder to find than the Criterion Collection, even! & I still had to go 5. hang out at a comic book store. I’ve ordered the series from Amazon & it should arrive Monday-ish. Till then, 6. no other TV! That shouldn’t be hard. I don’t watch TV anymore.
I figured the comic book store might close at 5:00 so I rushed on over to make it there shortly before four. After all, I had to 7. spend at least a full hour there! Made it by about 3:40 & thus began my education at ELFSAR.
Not quite sure what I was supposed to be doing, I approached the guys at the front desk, Ethan (owner & proprieter) & Omar. Told them I’d need to hang out for an hour. First, did they have the 8. Sandman series? Second, did they need help with anything? Like unpacking boxes? I mean what else would I do in an hour? I could tell from their responses they thought that was pretty weird. They explained that people hang out in comic book stores all the time. Oh. I never realized that these places are hang outs. I thought they were just places where you buy things!
I was kind of at a loss as to what to do. I asked them about role playing games & Klingon. I don’t know what kind of geek Mr. Trafford is, but he said that role playing games last 4-8 hours normally. These guys said they can be as short as an hour! & that four hours is a long time. Relief! I’ve got to do one of those games tomorrow. Sounds like it won’t be the chunk of time I thought.
Then Omar politely showed me where the Sandman was.
He pretends to show me for the very first time.
WHAT? It was four enormous volumes that would’ve taken up almost my entire budget. Ridiculous! No way! But wait… I pulled up Trafford’s directives & consulted Omar very seriously about them. There must be a loophole. There must. There must.
Omar & I discovered we both love e.e. cummings.
Where is the loophole?
Omar & I discovered we both like Yeats.
Where is the loophole?
Omar & I debated the grammar in Ben’s phrasing: You must get either Neil Gaiman’s Sandman or Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan series of graphic novels.
I hold that I was not legally required to get the Sandman series & thus could get only one book. Omar thinks that for my case to stand up in court a comma would be needed somewhere. Hmmm.
Then he hit upon it! There are lots of Sandman series.
Them's just jokes, baby.
I picked up TWO, because I am a kind & generous overachiever. Omar & Ethan, fluent in all things geek, assured me my logic was airtight!
I just had another half an hour or so to kill. Not so bad! But what else was I to do.
Suddenly it struck me. Did they have cartoon pornography?
YES! Omar helped me find some erotic comics, exactly to my taste!! One of them is by a local artist called Cinema Sewer. Adults Only! I got the “Shocking Times Square Special!” — can’t wait to break that out of the plastic.
& then, THEN I found out that there are erotic comics based on fairytales! Be! Still! My! Heart! I picked up some sort of preview edition of Beyond Wonderland. Perfect for the project.
I'm sorry there's gum on it.
Omar also showed me a delightful book, wrapped in plastic, that was very thick & fancy looking. It’s called Lost Girls & it’s banned in the UK. It’s full of the pornographic exploits of various fairy-tale characters like Dorothy Gale & Jack (of Beanstalk fame) & Alice & so on. Wow! I kind of lusted after it, but it was over $50 & I hadn’t even seen inside. So I reluctantly set it aside.
Comics ARE fun. At this point, euphoria set in. I experience a lot of euphoria lately. Omar & Ethan were my very first mentors! They guided me through my conversion experience & once I was one of them we were ready to have fun.
We celebrated with lightsaber fights!
By George! I think she's got it!
Only the good (comic book store proprieters) die young!
It was so fun I could barely stand it! We started to talk about the exact nature of the project & this week’s participant (After explaining, I said: 9. “Hey, you sass that hoopy Ben Trafford? There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is!” — whatever that means).
Then we hit on a great great idea. They could comment on my blog from the store, right before my eyes! In my very presence.
Wonderful!
& they then composed a comment more masterful & hilarious than my wildest dreams. You’ll see it under this week’s schedule. But I want it preserved for posterity here:
Exploiting loopholes with this strange girl who has entered our shop. Our Geek is stronger than your geek, Ben. Maybe one day you will meet her too, and we have never even heard of her. She played with our lightsabers Ben and she liked it, in fact she is playing with them again as we speak. She has been seduced by the dark side of our force.
Ben,
we looked at your directives and found your lack of geek disturbing, come visit us and learn from the masters.
http://www.elfsar.com
These guys have blown all other gold star candidates out of the water. I paced around the store laughing hysterically for around half an hour. (“Like the laughter of children” said Omar). By now I’d spent much longer there than required. It was past 5:00! Ethan headed out & I decided I’d leave too, but first… oh I was very dizzy. I faint sometimes. & last night took a lot out of me! I just needed to… sit down for a moment & catch my breath.
I sat down with my head on my knees. But even the chair seemed awfully high. I crawled to the ground. “This is so embarrassing!” But Omar assured me that he sees much stranger behavior all the time. He fetched me a little cup of water & an Ugly Doll for a pillow. Oh, Omar. He’s so dreamy. I’m not sure if it’s a Geek Week version of Stockholm Syndrome or what, but I think Omar is seriously dreamy. He’s probably taken, but ladies, if not– RUN, don’t walk, over to Elfsar & try to pick him up!
I lay on the ground for awhile.
Today I am all funny faces
At first I would try to sit up when people came into the store but then I realized that a comic book store is the absolute best place to behave like a weirdo. Even though I was doubled over on the ground laughing quietly to myself & using a doll as a pillow, most people did not even give me a single glance! Have I found my people? Well, not exactly… but maybe I will stop by Elfsar every now & then for naptime. I also have another project related idea that incorporates the store. But we’ll see.
When I sat up, Omar treated me to a blue Powerade (yuck, but good for me? “Do geeks drink this?” I asked. & he said yes & told me about the history of Gatorade). Then, he even took the aforementioned Lost Girls out of the plastic! & I read it while I recovered. It was VERY obscene!
Storytime comes after naptime.
So fun. I can’t believe I got to spend so much of the day sitting on the floor of a store with a stuffed animal, reading pornography & being waited on by handsome men! I recovered around 6:45 & left just before closing at 7:00pm.
The only problem is that I don’t really like comic books. Why can’t other stores be as fun as this one?
Anyway, I hope the men at Elfsar know they can help me exploit my loopholes anytime.
I returned home, ordered The Prisoner, then spent some time 10. link-following or whatever Trafford calls it? Then I headed out to 7-11. I thought that in order to think like a geek I should probably eat like a geek. So I got some ramen noodles, dill pickle flavored potato chips, Kraft Dinner, & Dr. Pepper. (I was supposed to 11. drink something fizzy & caffeinated).
Chancellor's tender ministrations are probably inspired by Omar
Then, after a light appetizer of pickle chips, I dined on ramen & egg. Then I 12. watched the intro to The Prisoner, which was all I could find online.
I also watched The Prisoner.
You know the one.
I thought a bathroom mirror self-pic, especially with mirror-face, especially with a sign, especially if said sign contained allusion to Pinky & the Brain, would be appropriate for Geek Week. Also, before you ask, I wrote it backwards. But that doesn’t make me a geek. DaVinci entertained himself similarly, I believe.
Now all I have left to do is 13. read my Sandman before turning in. Tomorrow I have to do some role-playing, blahh. I still don’t exactly know what it is. I talked to a few guys in Elfsar about it & asked them if there’s anyway I could do a really boring kind. Like I’d really like to do a roleplaying game where I’m Janet from Sales & I’ve got to return some pillowcases but Madison gets out of daycare at 6:00 & I don’t know if I’ll have enough time anyway how will I stop the dog from chewing on the coffee-table & does my husband still find me attractive? But apparently nobody does that kind of role-playing. Maybe I can invent it.
So tired! Hope I don’t faint while walking the dog.
E-GAD! a pinky and the brain reference! i was just watching that before going to work!
First off…4 hours a long time for gaming? I find their lack of geek disturbing, to paraphrase Darth Vader.
Now, then, on to the phrase I required you to use to explain me:
“Sass” – know, be aware of, meet, have sex with
“Hoopy” – really together guy
“Frood” – really amazingly together guy
“Knows where his towel is” – the assumption made by “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is that if you can hitch rides on spaceships halfway across the galaxy and still know where you towel is? You must be a person of outstanding wit, cunning and resourcefulness.
We’ll get into the many uses of a good towel some other time.
As for the rest of it, two final comments:
1) I think you’ve made an -excellent- start to the week, and have truly discovered the joys of hanging out in comic shops.
2) If you find yourself lacking in materials, please note that I have offered to provide. Being a geek is expensive stuff, but a good geek is always willing to loan out of his stuff. Thus, I have a fine copy of “Champions of the North,” all about fictional Canadian superheroes, in my backpack.
Qapla’!
I once hung out with my boyfriend while he played in a Warhammer Fantasy competition (campaign?). I was there for 9 hours, and have no problems saying, “Never Again.”
About the four large Sandman volumes, what you saw was probably the Absolute Sandman, which is a compilation of the original 10 volumes of the Sandman series. Endless Nights is good too though.
I need to stop talking. But not before saying that there are plenty of geeks with fantastic tans. Looking forward to the rest of the week, because it’s been looking awesome so far!
Emily,
I’ve been following your project since the beginning. I love logging on each day to read more about your adventures. I laughed out loud when greeted with this weeks ‘Geekdom’ theme. I frequently embrace my inner geek and sometimes even allow it to seep to the surface for others to see.
One of my favorite parts of the persona you portray/live on this blog is your love of finding loopholes in the directives. Your creativity in circumventing the wishes and commands of your puppeteers is deliciously entertaining! It is particularly ingenious when in a territory unfamiliar to you (geekdom) you even enlist the help of others (Omar & Ethan) in finding a loophole!
Today’s topic is familiar to geeky me–gaming. So I offer you a potential loophole that may be more to your liking–online gaming. Not all geeks come face to face with other geeks for their gaming getaway. Some of us geeks maintain a rather ordinary normal existence in public and escape to experience our geeky side from the privacy of our own homes via the internet. Over 11 million geeks game online in games like the World of Warcraft (pst, Emily…: this game has roleplaying servers). In this world, you still can’t quite be “Janet from sales”; however, you could be Janex the Draenai from Exodar who needs to return some enchanted vials and pick up some reagents in Stormwind before meeting up with friends to seek out an evil Riverpaw gnoll named “Hogger” in Elwynn forest hoping not to get ganked by a high level Hordie on your way out of the city. Or maybe that’s just a crazy idea and you should let the coin decide if your roleplaying will be live or online?
Happy Geek Week!
Ben please don’t be upset. You are welcome to practice your “Geek-Fu” anytime at Elfsar. We simply suggested a more “gentle introduction” to Gamming would be to hop on into the Games Connection and play one of their intro rpg’s (i.e. D&D) The game can be as long as you like. But they have staff available to introduce the game and can provide you with an experience that lasts only about an hour.
And now for the uninitiated, here is a link to the hierarchy of geekdom:
http://www.brunching.com/geekhierarchy.html
p.s. Emily, the local book is called Cinema Sewer, not Cinema Square.
Geek Week
A Play in One Act
Scene: A comic store
Clerk One: Jesus, it sure is a boring day here at the comic store.
Clerk Two: Yeah, it really is.
One: I sure wish something unusual would happen.
Two: Like what?
One: Like, instead of the usual male clientele, some hot girl came in.
Two: You’ve been watching Ghost World too much. I suppose this girl would look just like Thora Birch?
One: Sort of, but a little older, a little thinner, and with a less studied wardrobe. And, like, maybe with a just slightly oversize nose.
Two: Dude, that’s never going to happen.
One: Yeah, but wouldn’t it be cool if it did?
Two: So, like, if you’ve really fine-tuned this little fantasy, why would she be coming in here?
One: I don’t know. Maybe she’s part of some, like internet art project, where she has to do whatever people tell her to do. Each week, she does different stuff. CRAZY, f_cked-up, totally ridiculous stuff. She likes doing it. She’s kind of messed up in the head, see? So, like, one week this geeked-out comic book dude gives her her orders, and she has to follow them. Naturally, he tells her to go to a comic shop.
Two: And she does?
One: She has to! It’s the rules. She has to do whatever her master for the week tells her to.
Two: That’s totally unbelievable. I can’t believe you even wasted your time thinking that sh_t up.
One: No, no, I can totally see it. She’d come in and just, like, ask us about different comics and tell us how great we are for working here. We could show her around and introduce her to all the classics, and she’d be really impressed with our knowledge. She’d be, like, oh my God, you guys know SO much!
Two: You’re making her sound like a total idiot. It would be more interesting if she were at least smart.
One: She WOULD be smart. She’d just be, like, playing dumb because she’s never been in a comic store before, and it’s all just so overwhelming and new. Anyhow, after we introduced her to the merchandise, we’d break out the light sabers and horse around with them.
Two: Light sabers.
One: Yeah! Can’t you just see it? And, you know, maybe at some point she’d ask, in this really innocent kind of way, whether we had any porn around.
Two: Oh yeah, of course. Naturally she’d ask that. You’re an idiot.
One: Listen, it’s just a scenario. Nothing wrong with using one’s imagination.
Two: So how does this memorable fancy of yours end?
One: I was thinking about that. I think it would be really cool if after a while, she just, like, LAY DOWN ON THE FLOOR.
Two: And then what?
One: Nothing! That’s what would be so cool. She’d just kind of lie there and not do anything. The customers wouldn’t even notice her when she came in, like she was our cat or something.
Two: Fine. Great. Whatever you say. But I still think you’ve been watching Ghost World too much.
there must be a word for this kind of psychic phenomenon.
I would like to mention that this is probably the most wonderfully geeky thing I’ve seen in some time. It’s like Kevin Smith writing Emily’s adventures.
Hats off to you, Ptolemy and the fine gents at Elfsar!
God, the internet really IS better than real life.
Bravi!!!!!! (was the positioning of the light saber at the end there intentional???!!!..TOO FUNNY!). You guys are great.
Emily I LOVE the diversity of this project you’re doing….
heh heh….
..yikes…the heh heh was supposed to go under your latest comment Ptolemy….
That was inspired.
My favorite Ptolemy post ever! This is inspired!
There is no such thing as an unintentionally positioned light saber.
That was hilarious, Emily. Love the shot of you impaling the comic shop owner on your light saber. Personally, I would have recommended you read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (you would have thus understood the reference). Very funny book. I’m thoroughly enjoying your Geek Week, so far.
(I’m also extremely glad we weren’t exposed to the proprietors’ “massive collections.” Thank you for sparing us.)
Hey, guess what? It’s Geek Week and finally, the male comments outweigh the female. Interesting, huh? Hurrah for Geek Week!
My week has Mom’s Stamp of Approval! Go, Team Me!
[...] on the floor of ELFSAR, the best & only comic store I’ve ever been to. You can read the whole episode on the post [...]
too, too funny…
…Ptolemy, sublime…
…Emily, you had me laughing out loud at your offer to exploit your loopholes and your writing in this entry is so bright, witty and wonderful…
…Ben – great work…
[...] to: http://livedby.com/2009/09/11/week-10-day-1/ and see her adventure and her first day as a fellow [...]
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