Ok, not so much a geek as a freak, apparently.

Um…hey…wow. You guys sure have something to say about being and or not being a geek. Let me just say that around here it’s just a term of affection, as is dork (Jodi) and jerkface. But that’s just around here. And you can be as geeky as you wanna be, I really just don’t care. BUT there is a difference between a nerd, a geek, a dweeb and a dork. I don’t remember what they are but I think nerds have something to do with being obsessive, dweebs are the ones no one wants around, even other dweebs and geek actually implies computer knowledge. Which…I don’t really have, so…whatever.

Labels have never really bothered me much. I always figured I had one in school but I never knew what it was. I was in the band and the drama club and I was an honors student, so I figured it was something along the line of “geek” or “dork” but no one really ever called me those things to my face…unless I’m just blacking all that out. For all I know I had pig blood poured on me at the prom.

I had friends in a lot of different cliques in school and I felt relatively comfortable moving among them. I had good friends who were football players, stoners, musicians, artists, good students, bad students and I was even friendly with that one dude that had the Mohawk who played in the heavy metal band…remember him? The one that no one else wanted to stand next to? Yeah, I liked him. He sold candy out of him gym bag for fifty cents.

It wasn’t until graduation that the truth about my status in the high school clique-ery came out. Somehow, during the graduation ceremony I got involved in a little taunt war with this dude I knew, and when I say dude, I mean duuuuuuude. When he walked past me I whispered “headbanger!” to him. He responded by calling me a “freak.” We continued to taunt each other during the whole ceremony because it was far more interesting than whatever else was going on. We were seated about 2 or three rows apart and knew that while we could hear each other (and the people around us could hear us), the parents in the stands could not.

Later we ended up at the same graduation party and I asked him why he called me a freak. I wasn’t bothered by the title; I just wanted to know how the dude with the long (feathered) hair and leather jacket in May defined “freak.” Turns out that was my “title” in high school. He told me that the headbangers were afraid of me because they couldn’t pinpoint me as one of their own but liked me because I could rock out when necessary. He went on to say that although the (very few) punks didn’t claim me as one of their own, they thought I was ok because I knew what punk music was. And then I managed to confuse them all by being a member of the marching band and drama club.

I guess I didn’t really fit in but I never really tried to. I did what I did and didn’t really bother with anyone else. It’s not really a philosophy or anything, I just do what I do and you are welcome to join me or not. If you don’t like to rock to Ratt then I guess we can listen to something else but the first thing I am going to suggest is probably the Hoodoo Gurus. And you know, if you want to borrow my comics, I’m cool with that. I don’t mind if you call me a geek, or a dork (Jodi) or a nerd. I’ll probably ignore you anyway. Hey, I said I was a geek, I never said I was a nice geek!