Nerddom

In order to properly relate this story, I need to provide some background information.

I. Am. A. Nerd...

To the point that I get a little offended if someone calls me a geek, or a dork. Those are different. And I'm totally okay with it. After all, as I used to say frequently, nerds run the world. I've been a nerd since I can remember, and before: once upon a time, my dad bragged that I knew the alphabet when I was less than a year old. I used to get in trouble in class for reading novels. I have Wikipedia and dictionary.com bookmarked. I'm the chick who proofs everything, for everybody. I like words, and science, and math (to a point). I like learning.

Yeah.

Enter the Marine Corps, which for the last four years has been asking me to "dumb it down." I used to get told to speak English on at least a semi-weekly basis, for using words like "erudite" or "chastise." I'd go to a play or to see the symphony or to a museum, and people would ask why.

It's soul-crushing. (Not really. I sort of pity them.)

Anyway, I'm not used to Marines appreciating all--or any--of the above.

So when I turned in a draft of an essay for a contest to my Sergeant Major--the senior enlisted Marine in my squadron--and he began to call me "Kipling" (he started with Hemingway but upgraded), I was astounded. Apparently, this gent has a degree in comparative lit and I--I--am mere small fry in nerdland.

The other day, he was quizzing me on American folk artists, and when I failed miserably, he switched to British poets. Thankfully, I know who Dylan Thomas is.

It was the craziest interpersonal experience I have had in the last four years.

Then today, he loaned me a volume of poetry! I was astonished. Poetry! From the Sergeant Major! I can't even think about it without the exclamation points.

(For anyone who may be interested, the book is called "Here, Bullet" by Brian Turner, who was a Sergeant in the U.S. Army, and a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.)

Really, I was thrilled to discover fellow nerds in my squadron (turns out that the Maintenance Officer is an English major) as I have been to discover them over the last few years. They are few and far between, but they do exist.

And it's a wonderful thing.