Geeky? or Nerdy?

("A vampire enacts vengeance on the entire world, claiming her debt two tiny pinpricks at a time." Child of Night)

According to "The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test" at OkCupid.com I am a total nerd (78% nerd, and also somehow also 35% geek and 30% dork). I tend to agree with their assessment. But this post is actually about the 35% of me that's a Geek.

It was Bear's birthday earlier this week. To celebrate, we partook of the scrumtrulescence that is In-N-Out Burger. As we were getting ready to leave, we gave one of our booths (we had two) to a family; the father, upon sitting down, promptly pulled out Magic: The Gathering cards, laid some out on the table and started explaining to his no-older-than-seven-year-old son how the game worked. My initial thought: they are going to get grease all over their cards; I hope they don't have anything good in that deck. My second thought was to be pissed at the man and his wife for justifying the stereotype Mike so clearly described last week when Andy and I told him he was going to play with us.

My final--and prolonged--thought was how much I love playing Magic, and how I wished that I had people to play with. I think it's slightly odd how much I like the game, since I only started playing around Christmas when Andy brought me The Adventurers starter pack and half a dozen booster packs. But I was totally hooked as soon as I saw the artwork. The white and green decks were my favorite because of the angels and elves, respectively. Until I saw that there was a vampire deck. I know vampires are huge in pop culture recently, and it kind of makes me want to not like them myself-but it cannot be helped. I wanted that deck. So when Andy came to visit this time, I got it.

Unfortunately, there weren't enough vampires to make a deck exclusively of vampires, so I made a blue, black and white deck with the vampires included. Unfortunately, the deck turned to be way too big to be even remotely functional. But, then, we talked Mike into playing with us; which gave us a convenient excuse to go to the game store, since Mike had to have a deck of his own. And it made it easy to buy some cards for us, too. Because I'm fat, and also have a mini addiction to Magic cards, I bought a Fat Pack (containing 120 cards plus 40 full art land cards). Best. Decision. Ever. (Ok, not ever. But in recent history, for sure.) I got a case which I badly needed, traded for a Zendikar and M10 pack, and some epic cards. The most stellar of which was Vampire Nocturnus, which was exactly the kind of card I needed to make a full vampire deck. Stoked.

Thanks to Mike's continual complaints of tiredness and his general disinterest in playing, instead of getting to make a vampire deck with all my awesome new cards like I wanted to, Andy and I played with the decks we had already made. And that was the last time I played Magic. And the last time I'll get to play until I hang out with Andy again, because, even after playing a couple of games, Mike maintained his disinterest. How it's possible that the biggest geek (and dork) I know (Mike) is not interested in playing the funnest game ever with me? Maybe I was wrong, and the game is actually too nerdy since it requires brain power to play and is therefore out of Mike's realm? In which case maybe I really need to find nerds, and not geeks in order to be able to play.

It's A Shitty Ass Day in This Neighborhood

(Born to lose, I've lived my life in vain all my dreams have always caused me pain. (The Bouncing Souls, "Born to Lose")

After my last entry, I intended to write something positive in an effort to prove that I don’t spend my whole life fuming about one thing or another. Well, not exclusively, anyway; this wasn’t intended to be The Bitter Blog. What I wanted to write about was the awesomeness that was two weeks of Gears of War Fat Nights, snowboarding, the first season of True Blood and Magic the Gathering battles with Andy. . .but, alas, I cannot. I need catharsis first.

Thus, today I write with fury and a bitterness reduction (the cooking kind, not the chemistry kind). I will try to keep it short by using Bitter Bullet Points, listed in chronological order, and paired with a bitterness rating (measured by beer types, since there is an international scale for rating the bitterness of beer).

• Andy and I failed to attain our mini-goal of completing the Magic the Gathering co-op campaign on Xbox before he left. Not that we didn’t try—we just decided it was a goal a bit late in his stay. I’m fairly certain that Sunday alone we spent over 12 hours trying to best our Planeswalkers adversaries. A (large) number of our battles (there are 14 in the campaign) took FOR. EV. ER. As a result, we climbed into bed for a nap, having conceded defeat, at 5:30 am this morning. We had only one battle left to go, and my sleepiness ruined it. Bitterness Rating: Kölsch
  

• Three hours later, we crawled out of bed to take Andy to the airport. I am a wretched morning person to begin with, and lack of sleep with no coffee makes me a rabid zombie. Bitterness Rating: Porter
  

• Upon looking out the window, I see that it’s snowing. I hate the cold. If I’m cold for good reason (i.e., snowboarding) I can deal with it without (much) complaint. Otherwise, my reaction to the cold reflects the temperature (read: bitter). Bitterness Rating: Belgian Lambic
  

• Arriving at the airport, I think (as I always do) that after two-ish years of going through this routine, it should be getting easier. Right? But, no, it really only gets harder to have him go back home. On top of that, it also always reminds of the epic failure I am as a functional adult, and how it’s my own bloody fault I can’t afford to see him more often. So on top of feeling shitty that I don’t get to see him again for who-knows-how-long, I also feel like (slash am) a terrible girlfriend putting the burden of getting to see each other entirely on him. Ugh. Bitterness Rating: Kölsch
  

• Already feeling like the lamest pseudo-adult alive, I check my email and am greeted by a note from the University of Utah College of Nursing, informing me “Your decision is now available online.” (As a derail, their phrasing pisses me off. It’s not MY decision. MY decision was to apply to your assy program. It’s YOUR decision that’s available online. So please don’t word YOUR decision, in a manner that pretends it’s mine, asshats.) As you can probably guess from my derail, I did not get in. Again. Instead, I got the same letter I always get saying:

  “We regret to inform you that you were not admitted for Summer Semester 2010. While you are a qualified candidate, the admissions process is highly competitive and there are a limited number of available seats in the program. Unfortunately, we had to turn away many qualified applicants.”
  

You’re right about two things, U douches: I am qualified. And I am an appliCAN’T. For the fourth year in a row. And I hate you like poison. Bitterness Rating: India Pale Ale

• The fact that I wasn’t admitted was ridiculous. Bewildering. And in all other ways bullshit. However, the thing that pisses me off the MOST about the whole fucking situation is this: last semester, I retook: Anatomy, Biology, Physiology and Statistics. With labs, these classes totaled 22 hours of school. I had already taken and passed all of these classes. But since I didn't get into nursing school the three prior years I applied, they had gone "old" and no longer fulfilled the prerequisite requirements. I justified retaking them to myself with the logic that doing so would help me boost my grades, and help me be even more competitive (as well as making my prerequisites for the U current). I busted my ass studying 14 hours a day on top of actually going to class, and took a leave of absence from work in order to focus completely on school. All for fucking nothing. And I am beyond bitter about it. There are not even words for the fury I feel regarding this issue. Bitterness Rating: Guiness
  

• There was leftover food in the boardroom at work today. I know this seems like a deviation from my list, since free food is always a good thing; and I was excited that there was going to be something shiny in my day, however minor. I had already put some yummy-looking salad in my bowl before I realized that there was chicken in it. Also in the other salad. And there were no veggie sandwiches—only meat. The sandwiches: expected. But one of my biggest pet peeves in the industrialized portion of this fucked-up world is that salads no longer EVER come without meat. What. The. Fuck. Is there nothing that’s sacred to carnivores?!! Salads are supposed to be vegetables. They are and should be inherently vegetarian. They should be the one food type that any vegetarian, anywhere, can order without worrying that a dead animal is oozing its oily carcass juices onto the lettuce leaves. You should have to request to add meat, not to take it off (assuming that’s even possible). This event, insignificant as it may seem, has shoved me into the abyss of fury that I've been teetering on today, and I am ready to slit throats. Not in a “I’ve temporarily lost my mind, and am not wholly responsible for my actions” kind of way, but in a scary, methodical “I don’t even care, none of your lives are worth anything, and I want you to die” kind of way. Bitterness Rating: Imperial Stout
  

• As I’ve mentioned, I’m in a non-military Boot Camp to try to get my ass into a less saggy, fatty shape. As a precursor to today’s bitterness, upon taking my measurements after the first session (the end of week six), I had only lost (a very impressive) 0.5 inches more than I had since taking my measurements after week two. Adding a masochistic twist of insult to injury, I then took a week off to be fat and play video games. Today was going to be my first night back at class since March 12. And I was looking forward to it as much as I was dreading it. I thought that I might be able to exercise the demons at class, and return to a non-homicidal state. I was unable to do anything. After only ten days off. We had to run, do 100 squats, 100 burpee push ups, and 100 pseudo-pull-ups (half pull-ups, essentially), and then run again. I was completely worthless. The girls who’d been going the week I missed finished a full ten minutes before I did. I finished the same time as a girl who hadn’t exercised in a month. “I am Jack(ie)’s Complete Lack of Surprise” and exhausted and bitter about how rubbish I am. Bitterness Rating: Blonde Ale
  

And I could really use a mug right now.