My Sister The Nerd Lover

She complained that my college wasn't nerdy enough. "But seriously the college got rid of the Linux lab my sophomore year. That was a huge factor in my decision. Tsk Tsk."

I didn't understand. Nor do I have sympathy for her. You, my dear friends, are nerds enough for me.

The problem is that we have different frames of reference. My high school didn't have so much of the nerds. Her's was an extreme.

Case in point. She's applying for cool jobs now, so I'm stalking the jobs page of every cool start-up. This apparently leads to me looking at photos of "generic looking nerds." My sister's reaction, "Hey, I think I know that person."

So today, she mentions that one of the people from her high school is working at a well-known start-up (whose page I happened to be examining yesterday). I go back to the page and scroll around as we talk about the lack of women in the field. (The recruitment team was skewed toward women though maybe not as much as engineer team was toward men.) I comment about how there are nerds and then there are people who really stand out as nerds. Extra pale skin. Extra nerdy props. Turns out of all the people working at the start-up, the guy I picked out as the nerdiest is the one she knows.

A nerd among nerds I tell you.

Now then, I'm off to read Girl Genius.

I don't really care that you can see the end of the story coming a mile away

I'm writing it to remember it for me, more than to amuse you

Rites of Passage

I've been spotted around his neighborhood. Ran into matchmaker's father two weekends ago. I worried that I was hungry and tired and coming down with a cold, but was assured, "The whole neighborhood is pleased with your visits to his parents house."

His parents pulled out the baby pictures last weekend. Diapered-butt on full display as he hung on to the crib and stared out the widow.

My parents got to see a picture of the two of us together. Dressed for church and cooking breakfast. (Thank you Aunt who stalks Facebook.)

I've heard some of his family stories often enough that I could probably tell them. Might get some details wrong, but could probably catch the spirit. (It's funny which stories get evoked most often. I hear more about his sister than I do about him.)


We're planning our first trips together. Reunion for me. Cabin weekend with the matchmakers. I'm curious about what stories we'll add to our repertoire.