How it all began

I thought it best to start at the beginning: where did I come from?

I am the youngest daughter of a fireman and bank clerk. Some consider me either an accident or the miracle baby as my older sister had 13 years on the planet without me. I grew up as any normal kid did: played with friends, rode my bike, got in trouble. However, I think the unusual part of my upbringing centered around school; mainly, my parents thoughts about academics were much different than any of my friends parents. You see, my parents never went to college.

My father was a submariner during Korea and Vietnam and when he got out, he began work as a high-voltage lineman for Con Ed. He then switched careers and was fireman for the city of Yonkers until his retirement in 2003. My mother was a stay at home mom until I was in high school, when she went to work as a bank clerk. Needless to say, my mother had many hours to instill in me the the age old adage "we want better for you than we had." So, school was my main job.

I bristled under the pressure during high school, wishing I could be out with friends rather than studying. But then, sometime during the tedious college application process, something clicked; I wasn't being forced to study, I was actually enjoying it!

It's around this time that I started enjoying reading for pleasure. I have to thank my sister for putting into my hands The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, and most importantly The Beekeeper's Apprentice. It was these books that opened my eyes; scandal, adventure, and discovery weren't just words on a page....there was meaning behind them, parallels to be drawn to modern day. In short,it was fascinating. I started to plow through any book I could get my hands on. I read histories, biographies, you name it.

This obsession has lasted well throughout college and then yet another utterly brilliant thing happened: they started making movies out of my favorite books! Lord of the Rings was first and it was beyond amazing to see the pictures in my head projected on screen. It was also right around this time that I met Paul. Enter geek that would eventually become my husband.

Thanks to Paul I had someone to talk LOTR with. But then our debates and discussions moved on to Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and our all time favorite debate topic, Harry Potter. I just thought it was awesome to talk to about how bad the Temple of Doom was or how annoying Jar Jar bunks was....and then one day Paul said, "god, we are such nerds!" and again, something clicked.

He was absolutely right! I was a nerd! It was a joyous revelation but at the same time it was damn near frightening..... Did other people think I was a geek? Did they think I was (gasp) weird ? Did it really matter?

Let's be honest here, at this point in life I was a history major with an almost religious-like obsession with Friends, the West Wing, and other odd ball movies. I bowled on Wednesday nights, participated in many board game nights, and could name the 50 states (usually with the exception of Wyoming) within 4 minutes. Somehow I had managed to make friends with fellow geeks (whether they saw themselves as such, was immaterial) and it was amazing. Little did I know I was at the tip of the iceberg of Geek-dom.