Welcome to another installment of what Whitney and I call ‘collective blogging.’  This means that we have each written a blog post on the same topic – but we wrote our posts separately.  Her take may not be the same as mine, and that’s the fun of it!  If you’re interested in reading past collective blogs, please click here.

Today’s Topic:  A Day in the Life of a Geeky Kid (and her mom)

To read Whitney’s post about her experience as a geeky kid, please visit her blog, My New Chimerical Kit.

This won’t surprise those of you who know me personally, but for those of you who don’t, when I was a kid I was a bit of a geek.  A nerd.  A goody-two-shoes, if you will.  I NEVER did anything to make a teacher call home, or get sent to the principal’s office, or get detention.  Technically I did have a teacher tell my mom that I wasn’t prepared for class once during parent-teacher conferences, but that was my AP English class and that teacher hated me because she once asked me what I thought about the book TESS OF THE D’UBERVILLES (PL 25) and I told her I didn’t care very much about the book.  That might be a separate blog post at some point, because that class was horrible and I hated it and someone could probably write a sitcom about it if they wanted to (right, Jen?!).

Anyhoo, there is only one time that I am aware of where a teacher actually sought my mom out to let her know I had done something rather… geeky.  The teacher’s name was Mrs. Gorman, and she was my preschool teacher (age 3 and 4).  Ah… preschool.  It’s such a wonderful time.  You get to play, make messes, and take naps.  There’s snack time.  Your biggest concern is whether or not you’re going to get a good seat in the “music time” circle, and the day you got to make a new letter picture (and by letter I mean A, B,C) was more exciting than anything else you’d ever known.

There was this one time when the whole preschool class was finger-painting for the afternoon.  This was, in retrospect, probably not a great call on the part of Mrs. Gorman.  Twenty-five 3-year-olds with paint on their fingers and no sense of the consequences of putting those fingers places other than the paper?  Probably not the best idea.  She must have realized this halfway through the activity, because she called out to all us little kids,

“Don’t get the paint on your clothes, your moms won’t be happy!”

I’m going to overlook the fact that she suggested only moms can do laundry.  That didn’t bother me too much at age 3.  Besides, I knew MY mom would be just fine if I got finger paint all over my cute little outfit (did I mention that I ALWAYS had to wear a cute little outfit when I was in preschool?  And that it absolutely HAD to match, or else I would pout and be upset all day over my mismatched garments?).  To little, geeky, 3-year-old me, it seemed that my mom could get dirt and paint and food out of all clothing.  So, being the darling child that I was, I stood up and told Mrs. Gorman,

“Don’t worry!  My mom will do everyone’s laundry if they get paint on it!”

I’m not sure what exactly happened after that – Mrs. Gorman may have had to leave the room so-as to not laugh in my face.  Years later I found out from my mom that when she came to pick me up from preschool that day, Mrs. Gorman had pulled her aside and told her that her daughter had volunteered her to do the entire class’s laundry for the day.  I think my mom said they had a good laugh over the whole thing.

Something tells me a child less geeky then myself would have kept the bragging about her mother’s laundry-doing abilities to herself.  Bragging about having the coolest new Barbie, yes, bragging about laundry, no.  But to me, this was information everyone needed to have – it was COOL.

And yes, to this day I am still convinced my mother has a laundry secret she has not yet shared with me.  I’m thinking perhaps she’s saving it for my wedding night.

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© 2010, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

Welcome to another installment of what Whitney and I are calling ‘collective blogging.’ To refresh everyone’s memory, we will both be writing blog entries on the same topic as an exercise to see how different our thought processes and memories are.

Today’s Topic:  The Selling of The Trellis Restaurant

My dad loves family pictures.  He has them all over his house.  In fact, he has LIFE-SIZE family pictures scattered around his house.  One of them hangs over his mantle in the family room:

(See what I mean about life-size?)  This picture was taken at The Trellis, an upscale restaurant in Williamsburg, Virginia, on one of my birthday weekends while I was an undergrad at the College of William and Mary, also in Williamsburg.

All through my years at William and Mary, The Trellis was sort of the Holy Grail of dining out.  It was fancy, located in the middle of Colonial Williamsburg, it was expensive, and they served foods you only heard about on the Food Network.  For a poor college student like me, these were not things you often got to experience.  So every time my dad came to Williamsburg, we made a reservation and we went to The Trellis.

I will now pause for a moment to draw your attention back to the picture above.  You will notice that we are all eating dessert – which is the thing The Trellis is really most known for, because the owner, Marcel Desaulniers, made a name for himself with his chocolate desserts.  My brother, Eric, is actually sitting in front of a piece of The Trellis’ signature dessert, Death By Chocolate, in the front right of the picture.  Mmmm… I would go back to school at W&M just to have access to chocolatey yumminess again….

I digress.

As I’ve mentioned previously on this blog, Whitney and I were roommates for a year and then a little more at William and Mary.  One of our roommate traditions was betting each other about things.  Usually the bets involved stuff one of us should not have been doing, and the other one betting against the ability to not do it.  I won’t be more specific, because some things that happened at W&M, stayed at W&M.  Whoever won the bet, the other had to take to dinner at The Trellis.  Those dinners were always savored well!

So for me, The Trellis Restaurant is a staple of both Williamsburg and of my college memories.  Imagine how disconcerting it was to read this article yesterday and discover the restaurant has been SOLD!  How could they?!  I’m sure the new owners are fantastic and blah blah blah, but I’ve got to say I’m a little sad to know The Trellis won’t be quite the same anymore.  And what’s next?!  Williamsburg, and the College itself have changed quite a bit in the six years since I graduated – it’s a little terrifying to think about what else is going to change!  Will the Cheese Shop close (another W&M experience staple)?  What about the Delis?

I understand the need for change and progress and all, but some things are burned on my brain as eternal, and this news could not pass by without comment.  If you’d like to read Whitney’s take on the selling of The Trellis, you can read it here.

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© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

As part of an ongoing project my good friend Whitney and I are working on, I will now present you with collective blogging entry #3: The First Time I Realized I Am a Geek.

First I think we need to establish what is meant by “geek.” The general definition of a geek according to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary is: “a peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, gaming, etc.” And here’s something you may not know (I didn’t): the term geek used to refer to a carnival performer billed as a wild man whose act usually included biting the head off a live chicken, bat, snake or bugs.

I don’t think being a geek is bad. Being a geek myself, I suppose I am probably biased, but that’s OK. However, when I was younger – grade school age – being called a geek was horrible. The only thing worse was probably being called a nerd. There is a fine distinction between the two, I think it has a lot to do with whether or not you are capable of socializing with others. Nerdiness is definitely worse than geekiness though. It didn’t take much to get called a geek or a nerd in grade school. Kids are mean. So if you got a better grade on a test than they did, or you answered a question right in class, or if the teacher always called on you to read aloud because you wouldn’t stutter and make the four-sentence paragraph take twenty minutes to get through, there was a good chance someone was going to point at you and call you a geek at recess. And that would mean it was the end of the world.

Unfortunately for me, I always did get the highest grade in the class, and I always answered questions right when called on, and the teachers picked me a lot to read aloud. But I also played sports and was moderately funny and had the dubious distinction of being called the “prettiest girl in class” by Seamus in fifth grade. So I was not cast off as a geek for most of grade school. I think it’s because it took the other kids so long to realize my geeky nature that it took me so long to realize it myself. So it’s difficult for me to point to one particular moment in time and say that was the moment I knew I was a geek. It was more of a gradual awakening to the geekiness that is now an integral part of who I am, that I would never, ever seek to eliminate from my personality. And so now I will now attempt to chronicle the realization of the inevitable: I am a geek.

• Second grade, June: It’s the end of the year. The entire student body of St. Peter’s School and their families are gathered in the parish hall of the church to watch the principal (Sister Marita Daniel – a terrifying, old-school nun) hand out end-of-the-year academic achievement awards. The highest honor is General Excellence, which is a fancy way of saying “smartest kid in the class.” It was the last award to be given out for each grade, and when they got to the second grade awards whose name should get called out for General Excellence but mine! I went up and took my plaque from Sister and sat back down. I didn’t even really understand what the award meant. I did understand that the nasty looks I was getting from some of my classmates meant it probably wasn’t a very cool award to have won. My parents assured me it was very cool, and then my friends came over to play and I was fine.
• Fourth grade: one of my best friends is now Tommy (also my first boyfriend and second crush). Our favorite pasttime? Talking about outer space, and planning how we would both one day join NASA and be astronauts together. When we had to make model solar systems, mine was extra-accurate and detailed, as was his. We got teased a lot for our love of astronomy. I believe this was probably the first time anyone referred to me as a geek.
• Eighth grade: by this time most of the kids in my class had worked out that I was a geek. I didn’t have very many friends. Everyone hated that I was so good at school. I was starting to hate that I was so good at school, too, to be honest. But I couldn’t stop being geeky. In eighth grade my school science fair project was good enough to make it to the finals of Science Horizons, a major science competition in the area, where you got some huge prizes (I think one was a trip to space camp) if you won. When I stood on the stage at the finals, looking out at the crowd and around at the people also on stage, I realized that a) I had no friends there, and b) everyone on the stage was a certifiable geek. My project (a math-based probability project) did not win, by the way.
• Junior year of high school: I get put into the Advanced Biology class and it becomes my favorite class immediately. Not art, or study hall, or even Spanish with the most popular teacher in school. Nope, my favorite class was Advanced Biology. This confirmed my mounting suspicions that I may be a geek.
• 2004: My friend Jessica (college roommate and fellow science geek) comes to visit me from Virginia. We go to Borders and spend a good two hours wandering around, picking up books we think look interesting. Then we sit in the cafe with lattes and look through the books, choosing the ones we like enough to buy. I ultimately choose to buy The Coming Plague, by Laurie Garrett. It about four inches thick and about emerging pathogens the author believes are likely to cause major epidemics worldwide in the next decade or so. I go up to the register and hand my purchase to the teenage boy working the counter. He looks at the book. He looks at me. Then he says, “Are you buying this for school?” I tell him no. He says, “Then why are you buying it?” I tell him that I want to read it, then I pay him and hurry away. I had just confirmed that I am a huge, huge geek. But instead of being upset and feeling like my world was coming apart, I relayed the story to Jessica and had a good laugh. I had no qualms with my geekiness. I didn’t even care if the cashier-boy called me a geek, or even a dork, when I left.

I am a geek. And I like it.

If you want to read Whitney’s blog about the first time she realized she was a geek, go here!

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© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

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© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.