Geekdom.

So I'm a geek. Anyone who knows me would heartily agree. And I don't pretend not to be a geek just because I'm a halfway decent looking woman (according to the fold) who could theoretically be out socializing. I've never been one for parties or making plans with friends or anything that would interfere with my social anxiety.

Surprisingly, I was rather popular in high school. Not with the "in-crowd" mind you, but with the crowd that didn't care who was "in". And I had a blast because I had really outgoing, really close girlfriends, who managed our social schedule without any assistance from myself. This did however, interfere with my geekier tendencies. Most of my friends weren't as smart as I was, most weren't interested in discussion history or science or watching the Discovery Channel for hours on end...I didn't.
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Anyway, back to the geekdom. Now that I'm an adult and not really bound to any of those high social pressures I am letting that repressed geek blossom, and I love it. I play the video games I want, I play the board games I want (Power Grid and Settler's of Catan are amazing for anyone looking to get into board gaming), I watch educational television and most importantly, I surround myself with intelligent people that don't think I'm talking down to them if I know more about something than they do.

I've also taken up reading again. Before I hit puberty I was an avid reader. I was tearing through Stephen King novels when I was nine and loving them. My relatives always found ways to up the ante and throw their own favorite authors into my mix of reading materials, even if they were five or six years ahead of what I should be reading. I am forever indebted to them for that and I am forever indebted to my parents for nurturing and fostering my love of reading from before I can remember.

So back to now. Geez, I don't know why this is so embarassing, but I'm in love with a teenage vampire. Yes indeed. While I was in the hospital, a good friend of the family dropped off Twilight by Stephanie Meyer to ease the long hours that I had to spend in that room. I didn't get to the book while I was actually in the hospital, as I was lost in catching up on the three seasons of Lost I'd missed, but when I got out I decided to give it a shot. I was almost immediately enraptured. The heroine reminded me so much of how I felt in high school - alone, but not lonely. No one really gets her except for the vampires, who while looking young have decades of experience on her. So I tore through Book 1, Book 2 and Book 3, not realizing that Book 4 has not actually been released yet. Here I was thinking that I'd jumped on the end of the train and wouldn't have to wait for that complete literary satisfaction - the end of the story. I'm dying to know how it turns out, but just like the rest of the "Twilighters" as the fans have been called, I will just have to wait around a Barnes & Noble until 12:01 AM on August 2nd, grab my book, and clear my schedule for the next few days because just like Book 3, I don't anticipate being able to put this one down.

So yeah, I'm a geek. I'm a 24 year old woman with a life and a family and I'm totally enamored with a teenage vampire love story. And you know what? I don't care.