Hey Nerds,
Since I drew back the curtains on the last post, I figured let’s start shining some light on this Head Nerd. A little to know about me:
- Born in the 1980’s, I am what Iliza Shlesinger calls an “elder millennial”. I’ve also heard the term Xennial. This is the generation that had an analog childhood, but a digital adulthood. I distinctly remember when my family got our first computer (I thiiink it was an Apple IIe, complete with actual floppy disks you had to periodically turn over to continue through whatever program you were using), the internet (hello dial-up), and a Nokia cellphone with a changeable face plate (oooh lala) for, as my parents put it, EMERGENCIES. And yes, texts cost money. Something like 10 cents a text racked up quickly.
- I have not one, but two degrees in Art History…yet, for the moment, I work at an airline. Does it make sense? Nope. Do I ever use my degrees? Mostly to regale Twitter friends with my knowledge that Picasso was a twat or reaffirm that their interpretation of a work of art is just as valid as anything I could ever say about it. I will say that my two theses, and the guidance of my amazing thesis advisor (who advised both my undergraduate honors thesis and my graduate thesis), prepared me for oral and written communication that has served me well in both the arts and corporate America.
- My favorite nerd is my Nerd Partner for Life (NP4L), with whom I have spent the last 16 years together. We are cohabitants and child-free (both of these things are probably worth their own post one day). We did have a grumpy old-man cat, but he passed away in June of 2019 at the age of 16. (Spoiler alert: my NP4L didn’t especially care for the cat, but I had Grumps longer than I’d had him and when you make a commitment to a pet you keep it.) Is it easy making a relationship last this long? Nah. We work hard to maintain healthy communication…but it helps we really, truly like each other. We compliment each other in many ways. He’s an incredible big picture thinker. I excel at working out the details. Through it all, we’re each other’s biggest cheerleader. Even if it’s just me pumping him up while he plays Mario Bros. Yes, he is doing that as I type this and I’m cheering him on from the dining room.
- I unapologetically love college sports, especially TCU. This is where I earned both of my degrees, met my NP4L, and made some friendships that will last a lifetime. We first bought football season tickets in 2012. At the time we were living in Arizona and flew back for every home game in the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 seasons. Since moving back to DFW we have slowly added to season tickets with Men’s basketball, Women’s basketball, and baseball. I would guess that since 2012 we have missed two home football games (both related to my father’s declining health and passing), probably a total of eight basketball games since 2015, and maybe ten or twelve baseball games since 2017. My deepest desire is to go watch a TCU rifle match, because those women can shoot.
Fun Fact: collegiate rifle is a co-ed sport, BUT TCU has an all-women team who are multi-National Champions and have something like 31 All-Americans in the history of the program. In the 2019/2020 season, which ended early, they only lost one match. I mean look at the bad ass bosses:
- Travel is a huge part of our life. My NP4L started working for an airline in 2007. Since then we have visited England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Israel, Japan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Argentina, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Canada. We were meant to travel to Panama this year, but COVID struck. There are plenty of things we have learned from our crazy adventures. For example, it’s important to have a good sense of humor and flexibility. Things WILL go wrong in your trip. Like a drunk Irish woman mistaking your hotel room in Dublin for hers at 2am, waking you up by pounding on the door, then passing out against your door and snoring so loudly you have to call security to come help her find her room. Laughing it off helps you save your vacation and can endear you to locals who can help.
- My hidden talent is I can guess what’s going to happen next in bad movies. I once was on the phone while my NP4L was watching a terrible movie. No joke, I hang up and turn my attention to the movie. 30 seconds later: “they’re going to shoot him in the head.” NOT TEN SECONDS LATER BOOM shot in the face. It’s both a gift and a curse.
- I’m afraid of whales. Never met a whale I’d want to befriend. You can’t change my mind.
- Data is my jam. I want as much data about all the things to help me learn, process, and grow. For example, I’ve worn a fitbit since August 2012. In that time I’ve taken 17M steps, walked up 16K floors, and walked 7K miles. How cool is that? Data my friends. Data. But I will readily admit that you’re only as good as the data. Junk in means junk out, so I strive to work with as clean of data as I can in any possible situation.
- I’m an ENFJ. That’s a person with the Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Judging personality traits. I’m altruistic to a fault, believe strongly in the potential of others, and am fiercely loyal. While ENFJs are by and large extroverted, there are some who are Introvert ENFJs. (That’s me!) I can work a room, but I will fret about it the entire time before walking into it. And I fiercely love alone time and staying at home. Large crowds have never appealed to me. Honestly, if my neighbors a street over would just stop playing bass loud enough we can hear it over all of our major appliances running at the same time, I could continue to live in quarantine indefinitely.
- Most random fact about me? I’ve been both my high school and college mascots. Oh, and when I was the knight for a football game in high school, I got run over by the football team. Like you’ve seen that video of the cheerleader who gets absolutely pummeled by the football team? Yeah, it was very much like that. Only I got hit from behind and they did it on purpose. The football team and the guy who usually was the mascot didn’t exactly get along…and no one got the memo that knight was actually a 105 pound sophomore girl. Thank god for the athletic trainers who checked me out and that this was before social media was a thing.
I realize this is hardly a comprehensive list of things about me, the Head Nerd. We have plenty of time to learn more about each other. Just know that my interests are varied, my love of data and logical thinking is off the charts, and I believe in doing things the way that works best for my NP4L and me. That’s often non-traditional, but we’ve made it this far. It seems to work just fine.
Cheers!
Head Nerd