Soundtrack to a Geek Life

I’ve been listening to Tripod—while labeling an enormous pile of assessment-criteria sheets—and it’s occurred to me that, really, when you live with a geek, and when you are a geek, there’s no other appropriate soundtrack to your life (except, perhaps, for the requisite enormous quantities of The Cure, The Smiths, New Order, VNV Nation, Rammstein, albums containing nothing but twenty different versions of the Doctor Who theme—but I’m really just diluting my point here, aren’t I?).

Specifically, I was listening to “Hot Girl in the Comic Shop” and “Gonna Make You Happy Tonight” when it occurred to me that these songs don’t make provision for the girl geek.

Now, I’m not claiming to be hot, but I’m as likely as Nick to be the one heading into the comic shop. (Though I’m not a true collector, since I largely buy trades, except for Fables. And speaking of Fables, when’s the next issue out? They’re at war, here! I need to know what’s happening. And please, please don’t kill Bigby Wolf. I’ll be terribly upset.)

And once in the comic shop, I’m as likely as Nick (who’s the true, uber-geek of the household) to drift over to the role-playing games. In fact, I have a better pedigree in table-top RPGs than Nick.

On that note, see how pretty my new Dungeons and Dragons dice are?

Nick and I have had a slight struggle over who gets to use these dice, but I maintain that the only reason we bought them was because our other two sets have exhausted their natural twenties (for me, at least) but have not yet exhausted their critical fails. Alas.

Plus, they’re pretty: even prettier than the ones I used to use for White Wolf games, which I always loved:

But, that aside, I’m also just as likely to be the one who tells Nick I just need to sit up until I’ve finished the level. It’s true: the save points are too far apart on most games. (And on Lego Indiana Jones, you can’t save until you’ve finished the level, which is likely to damage any relationship except on between two geeks.)

I don’t deny that Nick is and always will be a far greater geek than me: I may have seen every episode of Doctor Who more than once, but Nick can tell you who directed and produced each episode.

I’m just saying that, these days, girls aren’t such a rarity in comic shops.