big dork
Yes, I am a big dork, as opposed to small or medium dork. Yes, it's related to nerd and geek, but don't even bother to look it up in the dictionary. I tried that.
A kid in middle school told me I was a nerd in my 8th grade English class. I told my mom about it and together we looked up the word. I went back and told this kid the definition of nerd, and he presented that very fact as conclusive evidence that I was, in fact, a nerd. I guess he was right.
Some people would argue that just by having a little website I'm a big dork, implicating most of my readers I think, as well. I beg to differ. Maybe that was true ten years ago about being online (and I was there), but I suspect there are some pretty cool people online right now. I'm not going to name names, because that would stir up a controversy I don't want to spearhead, but I think it's fair to say that I am not one of them.
Well for one thing, there's all of that Advanced Dungeons and Dragons background, and I was a Dungeon Master, no less, a sure hallmark of dorkism. If you know who Gary Gygax is, then you're in good company.
Mostly though, I'm just uncontrollably silly and I bite my fingernails and toenails and don't know any carpentry. I can magnetize people somewhat on a one-to-one basis, but I can never generate that kind of broad shouldered confident broad appeal that the "winners" do. I was picked last in gym class...even for dodge ball, even though I was the most wicked dodger of a red rubber kickball that ever was. I don't know about any truly cool bands (read: good bands that everyone doesn't know about yet) except for the bands my cool friend Beth tells me about.
Okay, speaking of Beth, she's really my only claim to coolness. When I'm out with Beth, then I feel cool, but it's temporary. As soon as I go home I'm a big dork again, yo.
Okay...there's some corner of cool. I'll admit it...I know my way around a somewhat cosmopolitan city, I've been in a m�nage � trois, and I don't live with my mom. But let me just say, that any cool that I have developed, has come as a result of accepting my own inner dork completely.