Being Geek Chic is the yammerings of a Midwestern nerd named Elizabeth Giorgi. My vision impairment is real, which is frustrating because I really would like to see a 3D movie.
Send questions, requests and ideas to [email protected]. Please put your complaints on a napkin and toss it.
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21st August 2012
Lady Geek of the Week: Me?
In honor of her birthday, the Lady Geek of this week is the lovely Liz Giorgi!
You all know her through her cheeky, honest, and stylish writings on Being Geek Chic, but to me, she’s a career mentor, love oracle, personal stylist, and all-around life adviser. Jealous?
So happy birthday, Liz! And thank you for all of the wit and wisdom. Here’s to the fabulous years ahead!Read on to get to know the birthday girl a little more:
Q: What has led you to your passion?A: The transition into adulthood was really bumpy for me. I didn’t enjoy working 9 to 5. (I seem to be more productive late in the day…) I found that there were very few other “grown ups” who would admit to regularly thinking about the details of Dumbledore’s life or built LEGO sets on the weekends for the fun of it. And while writing was my profession, I wasn’t excited about writing anymore because it felt like a job I had to do. Big shock: because it was my job. Eventually, I realized that I was losing confidence in my ability as a writer. I had become formulaic. My copy had completely lost its way. Combine my depressed writing skills with my desire to geek the eff out and Being Geek Chic was born. The blog gave me the freedom to discuss how to bridge the gap between being a struggling grown-up and still loving the same things you did as a kid.
The best part is that I didn’t even know this blog would be my passion. I thought it would be a great hobby. Perhaps great hobbies are the best passions? Now, I think about it all day, every day.
Q: What inspires you in the world?
A: Science. Space. Things that we don’t know. Things that we know way the hell too much about.
For example, science writer Annie Murphy Paul wrote this piece called The Neuroscience of Your Brain on Fiction for the New York Times earlier this year and it’s still swirling around in my head. It’s the perfect example of the unlimited potential of our minds in both fiction and non-fiction realms. And perhaps what fascinates me most is that to our minds, there is an intersection there that informs our thoughts, feelings and perceptions. While Lev Grossman was imagining a new type of animangi in a fictional world, scientists in our physical world are mapping the shared genetics of humans and animals. If a brain could have an orgasm - this idea would give mine one.
Q: First time you realized you were “geeky?”
A: In the eighth grade I had an English teacher who had a real love of science fiction. She assigned both The Hobbit and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 that year and I loved both on a level that the other kids didn’t seem to appreciate. I went to the library and looked up other books that shared the same shelves and discovered George Orwell and Margaret Atwood. There really was no going back after that.
Q: What would you tell you 13-year-old self?
A: Don’t lose that master copy of your alien language. You will be thoroughly amused by it 13 years from now. Leaving high school early will be the best thing for your brain and your heart. It’s OK if you don’t understand economics - turns out we’ve bastardized it so much that most economists don’t understand it anymore either. Don’t throw away that glow in the dark Batman tee. You’ll never find one that cool again.
Q: “I admit it—I’ve never seen/read/experienced: ____”
A: The original Star Trek series. I’m just afraid to go down that road, because there is SOOO much to watch. However, the JJ Abrams movie was truly wonderful and beautiful, so maybe I’ll get around to it.
Post by Emma Bauer, who works as BGC’s official intern. Clearly, she’s got great taste. She is a PR enthusiast, history scholar, tea drinker, fashion devotee, and of course, aspires to Be Geek Chic. On twitter: @emmalynnbauer
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20th August 2012
I’m obsessed with Budapest
Well, it’s my birthday. That means cake (or in my case, pie) and presents and Facebook messages.
But for me, every year when I turn one year older, I can’t help but think of the new places I’ve seen in the 365 days since my last birth anniversary. This year has been mighty productive. Like a patriotic caravan in the Prairie Home Companion, TJ and my brother and I have seen a lot of new corners of the US of A. And we’ve revisited some familiar territory too.
Los Angeles. Laguna Niguel. Orange County. Salt Lake City. Madison. Cornucopia. Bayfield. Duluth. Spring Green. Ely. The Dells. Dallas. Fort Worth.
Ultimately, thinking about where I’ve been gets me noodling on where I’d like to go next. And this year, I’m dreaming really, really big. Some people make “life lists” or “bucket lists” - I make travel lists. As I’ve expressed before, my mind has a fixation on places and my heart has a longing for the unknown. And of course my camera lens always loves a new muse.
Let me share a secret: I’m OBSESSED with Budapest.
In the last year, I’ve had a friend who went and dubbed it “real life Disney Land,” my mom has twice given me magazines with Budapest imagery on the cover and three movies featured the lovely city. It seems like a message to my Passport: go to Budapest.
TJ has been totally vexed by my sudden fixation on the Hungarian city, but after nearly five years together, he’s starting to understand that my stubbornness is part of the issue here. I mean just look at the Széchenyi Baths and Castle Hill. I have a good feeling about Budapest.
Philosopher and Saint, the Blessed Augustine once said:
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel see only a page.”
If there is even one morsel of worthwhile knowledge in my head, it’s the fact that there is nothing more valuable to the spirit than seeing something new. It makes you appreciate the wonder of the unknown while making you value the certain knowns of your life; your home, family and friends.
There’s a reason that Tolkien made Lord of the Rings a travel log. And Game of Thrones thrives in moments of wandering. And Doctor Who visits different planets and galaxies and black holes. Creators put their characters into these situations so that the unknown within themselves can be revealed to us.
While wandering through England in 2007, I had up to that point in my life never truly been in love. There was a freedom to this, but there’s something strange about the human mind before love has made its mark. I NEVER worried. Or fretted. It’s part immaturity and part youth. And so I did things at random without a plan all. the. time.
I woke up one Saturday in May with a hunch that I might like Stonehenge and hopped a train. I had no idea how you got from the train station in Bath to the rocks on the hillside. I didn’t know how much it would cost. Or if I could even afford it. Truly, it didn’t matter. I was going to see this marvel of the past, although I didn’t entirely know why.
I’m older and wiser now, sure. But it’s this openness of mind and heart that I seek when I travel. Sure, it’s about the sites. And the food. And the beautiful photos. (Repeat after me: it’s NEVER about the t-shirt.) But ultimately, it’s the unveiling of my potential, my opinions, my feelings and my future that I treasure most. It’s like all my favorite stories. It’s a journey. And at this point in life with my love and better planning skills, it’s a romance and a comedy and admittedly, a drama too.
And yes, I did get to Stonehenge. And it was worth it.
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16th August 2012
A summer in photos
In college, I took a lot of photography classes and loved everything about it. Life and work gets in the way and over the last five years I’ve been so focused on video that I’d stopped taking photos just to take photos. Honestly, the best pictures come out of those types of moments. This summer, I promised myself that I would get back into photography. And that I would shoot on Manual. Partially because I want to take better photos for this blog, but also because a series of photos memorializes life at its best.
This is my summer so far -
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16th August 2012
My summer reading list took a strange left turn somewhere
Every summer, I pile a stack of books next to my spot on my beloved couch. This becomes my “summer reading list” of sorts. Most summers, I stick to that pile. This summer, I took a weird left turn.
I intended to read Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: (A Mostly True Memoir) By Jenny Lawson aka the Bloggess, The Magician King: A Novel By Lev Grossman and Imagine: How Creativity Works By Jonah Lehrer. And I dutifully started off well! I started reading Lawson’s memoir and enjoyed the taxidermy stories and tales of revenge - but due to ridiculously glowing reviews - my expectations were too high. And I got to page 100 and I just lost interest. Which leads me to share an important rule I have about reading:
When reading, if you get to page 100 and you aren’t excited about the next 100 pages - stop reading!
I know this is an unpopular method, but hear me out. There are HUNDREDS, no THOUSANDS, of brilliant books that will capture your heart and mind. There is no reason to keep reading a book that you don’t love. I know, I know. You’re in a book club. Well, SKIM.
I was a little bummed that I didn’t love taxidermy stories as much as I thought I would - but it ended up being OK, because I had other books to read. Just as I was about to move onto The Magician King, Nora Ephron died. I was suddenly ashamed of myself… My friend Jeff had given me one of Nora’s books months ago and I still hadn’t cracked the cover. So, The Magician King would have to wait.
I inhaled I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections. It was funny and honest and not my usual “type” of read, but it was brilliant. I started working backwards from there. Despite the fact that I don’t actually feel bad about my neck (yet!), I still loved I Feel Bad About My Neck. This passage, in particular, was like discovering a nugget of gold. I already knew it - I just hadn’t held it before. It was real to me. It was now my truth.
“Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.”
I had always loved Nora’s movies, which is why it’s so baffling that I didn’t dive into her books sooner. If for no other reason than because she so thoroughly understood what I loved about reading books (including hers) in the first place.
So now I’m back at The Magician’s King. (Admittedly, I took a minor detour this weekend and read Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, because I can’t ever seem to get enough Gaiman…)
I’ve decided to toss out Jonah Lehrer’s book, because if you’re going to make shit up, call it fiction. It’s really that simple for me.
How’s your summer reading going? Do you have rules for when you will stop reading a book? Has your reading list taken any detours?
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9th August 2012
My memories make me a weary time traveler
Occasionally I will catch my mind walking down the roads of my past. Both dark alleys of sadness and bridges of joy. It’s my personal form of time travel. An escape from the present and whatever is consuming me here. I often think of time that way. Not as a date or an event, but as a place.
We’re all formed by a personal history. Histories that are made up of actions and places taken by us and upon us and within us. The synapses in our brains connect and some elements of our personal histories become memories. In time, a choice few stand out while others fade.
When asked about my past, I recall not what was said or how the weather was or who was there. Rather, I recall the street.
London Avenue with site lines to the Great Lake.
A manilla colored apartment in Stadium Village. The Landlord must have been cheap, because the walls were made of painted cinder block.
In the woods of Cook, Minnesota, surrounded by wet pines.
In my parent’s forest green living room with our corduroy couch. This time, with the vague memory of Bob Ross painting trees in the background.
When I saw Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris last year, I connected with it deeply because of this very notion. While others marveled at the cinematic stylings or the sharp dialogue or the talents of Tom Hiddleston and Allison Pill as the Fitzgeralds - I fell for the bumbling Cal. He was captivated by memories that weren’t even his own. (How torturous!) He believed that the streets and the shops of a long-past Paris were more magical than the streets he walked then. Since I often can’t allow fictional characters go after their running time expires, I now imagine Cal in sunny Los Angeles writing a novel about trinkets from the early 2000s and thinking longingly of Paris in the form it impressed upon his mind only a few years ago.
At this point in history, we have a deeper understanding of the human mind and memory. While scientists are focused on curing lost memories due to disease and decay - me, the hackish writer, is focused on comprehending why certain memories never leave. And why do they exist in the form of a room? Or a street? Or a cinder blocked wall? I’m sure a therapist could tell me, but psychosis is a license to write.
Instead, I’d rather imagine time as an available booking for the traveling couple. Where would you visit?
A place since flattened by war?
A place that brought you happiness as a child?
A place since destroyed by commercial endeavors?
No longer would we have to rely on the strength of our memory to take us back to these places! And yet, whenever people talk about time travel - they want to go to the future. A time when we live on Mars. (Although I should point out, that too is a place.)
Last night, while walking along the Mississippi River with some girlfriends, I stopped them to remark on how the city really was quite beautiful from our particular vantage point. It was a good thing to do - to appreciate that moment. To appreciate that place. I wonder how long before my memory will take me there again.
Photo and video via TIME Style and Design.
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2nd August 2012
Guest Post: Internet ruining your attention span? Here’s a cure
Feel like the internet is ruining your brain? Do you refresh Facebook every 3 seconds? Are you endlessly scrolling through tumblr gif sets of Tom Hiddleston? (GUILTY, RIGHT HERE!) In fact, I think I’ve developed a weird eye thing from all the Tumblr scrolling.
Sarah Von of Yes and Yes agreed to contribute a guest post to Being Geek Chic on the topic of increasing your attention span in a world full of distractions.
If you’re as bad as me, you need this advice.
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You guys, the internet is breaking my brain.
Several weeks ago I decided to join the world of Serious Bloggers and put together a newsletter/email list. In order to put together said newsletter, I had to watch a ten minute instructional video on MailChimp.
And after about three minutes of watching this video? I had completely lost interest.
I could not handle watching a well-edited, informative, funny video that would teach something I needed to know. Because that video required me to really pay attention to something for more than three minutes.
Twitter/facebook/google, I blame you. Also, I blame myself. I don’t want to be the person who can’t sit still for more than ten minutes and won’t read things without bullet points! I don’t want my instant reaction to a tough bit of code, an unpleasant email or some uneditable writing to be “Ugh. Has anything popped up in Google reader? I’m going to see if anyone has responded to my latest hilarious facebook update!” Puke.
So! Let’s talk about ways to increase our attention spans! And let’s bold those ideas so we can skim them as quickly as possible and then get back to our Facebook refreshing.
Meditate
Most hippie-dippie things make me roll my eyes and groan. I’m deeply pragmatic and if you try to talk to me about your chakras I’ll get all uncomfortable and slowly back away. With that said, meditation has been scientifically proven to make you calmer, more focused and less likely to be depressed. And you don’t need to view it as a spiritual practice. Simply set the timer on your phone for five minutes, sit with you back against the wall, close your eyes and actively empty your mind. Ommmm-chanting and incense-burning not required!Do a bit of physical activity
We’ve all heard it a million times - physical activity makes you happier, calmer, more focused and generally more awesome. You don’t have to join a gym or do a Gillian Michael’s caliber workout to see the effects. Just a ten minute walk through the park, a bit of stretching a few rounds of sun salutations or even just a dance break can do wonders. Sometimes when I’m feeling listless, sleepy or unfocused, I’ll pull up the She Wolf video, put it on repeat and dance around the kitchen for ten minutes. I am not kidding at all.Set a timer
Have you heard of the Pomodoro technique? It will change your life. The crux is this: set a timer for 25 minutes and then do one thing for those 25 minutes. When the timer dings, you get a five minute break to do whatever you want, then you set the timer again and keep going. And no multitasking! Here’s another variation on this technique that uses boredom as a motivator.Do five more
Your attention span is like a muscle - the more you exercise it, the better it gets. So if you hit a wall (like losing interest in a useful instructional video) force yourself to do five more. Read for five more minutes, do five more problems, write five more sentences. You might catch a second wind and if you don’t? At least, you’ve been slightly more productive and you’ve stretched your attention span muscle.Limit your screen time
In my fantasy life - in which my self control is about triple what it is now - I stop watching TV or using my computer after 7 pm. I’d love to spend my evenings hanging with friends, making dinner, reading, going out or creating things with my hands rather than my computer. I bet we could all be better about this, eh?Have a snack
Kiddos aren’t the only ones who get cranky and shifty when their blood sugar is low. I rarely produce anything worth reading after 3 pm but if I eat some nuts or fruit, I can usually string sentences together till at least 6:00!Think of happy stuff
If you can’t concentrate because half of your brain is obsessing over your botched work presentation or that thing your frenemy said, take a break and think of good stuff. Look at the sky for two minutes. Check out CuteRoulette. Send a sweet email to a friend. Write down all the different ways you can deal with that thing that’s bugging you and then imagine you’re pushing that problem out the door and turning your key in the lock.Cheater methods
These won’t actually cure your jacked up attention span - but they will put a cute Hello Kitty bandaid on it.
Leechblock
This free Mozilla add-on is gonna change your life, friends. You can set it to block specific website between set hours, on certain days or to cut you off after a designated amount of time. So you can set it to block you from Facebook-stalking after 1:00 am on Saturdays or just cut you off after you’ve been on there for 3 hours straight. Handy!
Wifi-free coffee shops
I’m fairly sure these still exist, somewhere in rural America. Or, um, most places in Wellington, New Zealand. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish when you don’t have the option to access the internet!
Stick with good ol’ fashioned, non-wifi internet at home
I know a self-employed couple whose lives slowly devolved into working on their laptops from bed, 18 hours a day. So they reverted to a one-internet-cable household and now if they want to work together, they make an active choice to find a wifi coffee shop, set a time frame and get to work. And if they want to use the internet at home, they can use it one-at-a-time, sitting at a desk. How novel!
Coffee
Seriously. I know that coffee makes some people jittery and insane, but for me it’s Liquid Ambition.
How’s your attention span? Any tricks to share?Sarah Von is a world-traveler, mighty blogger at Yes and Yes and MSPer who I totally admire.
In her own words: she wants to see the world, save the dolphins and read The New Yorker while wearing cute outfits and eating bon bons.
You can follow her on Twitter @yesandyes
