She Geeked All Over Me
She Geeked All Over Me
There I was, geeking it up at a poetry reading in Atlanta. My weapon of choice? A suite of superhero poems that smacked the crowd in the face like a twenty-pound halibut. None of them saw it coming—including the guy that had the job of going on after me. After I’d geeked all over the stage and blown the crowd’s mind like so much raw Spice, he stepped hesitantly up to the microphone and managed a few laughs during his 15 minutes of reading time. But when the applause ended and the house lights came up and he and I found ourselves alone in the far corner of the venue—giving one another the obligatory “Good job” pep talks—he couldn’t wipe the Geek off of his face.
I’d just Geek-bombed him and broken his sprit a little.
I made no apologies. I’d warned him beforehand. I’d offered to read last, if only to keep him from having to step up to a stage still smoking with my Geek. But some folks just have to learn the hard way. Such is the power of Geek.
After a little small talk he left and another of the readers sat down and we entered into the post-reading congrats. Reveries abounded. The crowd had enjoyed themselves. Everyone knocked back drinks and talk about the cold and last week’s snow and yadda, yadda, yadda…
Then She appeared.
She came over to my table with a friend and didn’t mind breaking up a conversation I was having. She and her friend introduced themselves and her smile was so wide I counted teeth until I lost count as she said how much she’d enjoyed the reading.
Her eyes twinkled as she spoke and her grin was iron clad, as if she’d just figured out a way to remove a facehugger from a victim without killing the host—something that the best minds over at Weyland-Yutani have yet to master.
“I really loved your stuff,” she said, stressing “really” and “loved.”
For some reason, I’d wanted her to stress “stuff.” I have no idea why.
“Thank you,” I said—because that’s what you say when someone tells you they enjoyed your Geek. And I also said it because I was, genuinely, thankful.
The light in her eyes ratcheted itself up two levels and she said “It’s so good to hear someone doing something like that with comic books.”
Stress on “that” and “comic books.”
“Oh, wow,” I said, smelling Geek. “Thanks! It’s so good to hear that it went over well!”
Stress on “so good.”
Then there came a long, heavy silence. Like the silence of open fields before lightening. I still sat in my chair, back to the wall—Mass Effect has taught me the rules of battling in enclosed spaces.
I wasn’t sure what to say next—that’s a lie. I knew exactly what to say next.
Her hands fidgeted with one another at the waistline of her dress. Her eyes glimmered like ships on fire off the shores of Orion. Her weight shifted from one leg to another. The words she desperately wanted to say were stacked up, one atop the other, like Tetris blocks, inside her mouth.
She was approaching critical mass. Her Geek was dying to get out, swelling up, coursing through her.
Her friend didn’t know just how much Geek she was holding back. If she’d known, she wouldn’t have dared stand so close. For certain, the reader sitting across the table from me, staring at me and my fellow geek quizzically, had no idea what was about to happen.
I felt a little sad for her. She was at Geek-gasm ground zero and had no fucking clue.
For a moment, I thought I might save her. I thought about standing up and walking off with my fellow geek. Taking her into a far corner and either diffusing her Geek or, more likely, controlling the Geek energy as it was released.
But where’s the fun in that? Why keep all this Geek for myself, I wondered.
When the silence had gone on almost too long and my fellow geek was getting shaky with anticipation, I gave her what she wanted: I pressed her Geek Button:
“Are you a fan of comic books?” I said. …And she geeked all over my face.
She geeked on the table.
She geeked on the person sitting across from me.
She geeked on her friend.
She geeked on the floor.
On the bar.
On the sign on the counter that read “No I.D., No alcohol.”
On the computer of some guy sitting in the far, far corner.
She geeked so hard I mistook it for worm sign.
When the shockwave had passed and my eyes finally recovered from the blinding light of her Geek-gasm, I had learned:
Her favorite comic book character is Storm. Her 2nd favorite character is Madelyn Pryor. She misses Marvel’s “What If?” series. That was her favorite. She hopes her hair turns silver when she gets old so she can shave it down and rock Storm’s infamous Claremont mohawk unto old age and senility. She graduated from American comics to manga sometime during the mid-80s. Her favorite anime is Berserk. Bleach is her guilty pleasure. And on and on…
Like I said: she geeked all over me.
But you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve given up hiding my Geek, and I’ll never stop another geek from blasting their Geek all over my face. We’ve all been there. We’ve all been talking to someone and, as soon as the conversation turns to whatever topic it is that grazes their Geek Button, their eyes light up and their breath quickens and, suddenly, they’re awake and actively involved in the conversation and not wishing, in their heads, that they were at home alone with their Geek.
Usually, we let these moments of Geek pass us by. Sometimes out of selfishness—we don’t want to spend the next twenty minutes wiping Geek off of our faces. Sometimes out of a misplaced sense of pity—we don’t want to embarrass the person by pushing their Geek Button in public because we fear they’ll be cast out of future conversations by the non-geek population.
But it’s high time we stop letting these moments of Geek pass us by. It’s time we push those Geek Buttons. It’s time we encourage the Geek Out. Because the Modern Geek knows that nothing transfers data and knowledge better than a tactical Geek-gasm detonated among the unsuspecting masses.
Nothing furthers Geek like allowing Geek.
End Transmission.
More Modern Geek:
The Modern Geek’s Manifesto
The 1100 Tenets of Geek
2 Responses to “She Geeked All Over Me”
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I loved the suspense. And the foreplay. And…well, I loved it.
Excellent!