I’ve heard people describe me many ways, but I think this article is the first to describe me as a “proud girl geek.”

Clearly I’m both a girl and a geek, and I suppose I’m kind of proud of both, but I wouldn’t have thought to string all those concepts into a single phrase. Still, it’s interesting to know how other people see me. (Or at least, how one journalist does.)

I find it fun to talk to journalists. Only later do I worry about how my words are going to read in an article. In this case, Bill Loeffler quoted me terribly nicely and I think I don’t sound completely lame, which I often seem to when anyone writes down my actual spoken words.

This article is extra special for me, what with me appearing in a photo. The print version of the article includes many photos of geeky types, including Steve Carrell and that Napoleon Dynamite dude in their respective movie roles, plus I think Bill Gates and some others. I am the only female pictured. But after all, what female “celebrity” geek could they have used? It shouldn’t be at all surprising that they sent a photographer all the way to Butler to take a picture: I’m practically a rare species.

When he interviewd me for the article, Mr. Loeffler asked when I first noticed that geeks had become acceptable, and I said I didn’t particularly remember ever feeling not acceptable. I thought about my answer later and realized that’s not strictly true. On one hand I’ve never felt odd about being geeky, maybe because it’s sort of amusing. I mean, I didn’t just attend computer camp: I taught there for two summers. That’s just funny.

But for a very long time I did feel perhaps too smart for regular society. I brought it on myself partly, by correcting people’s grammar for example. I finally got over that, but the damage had been done. Even my family nicknamed me the Walking Encyclopedia.

Later, while I was in college I used to avoid telling people where I went to school because I found it was a conversation killer. Someone would say, “Wow. You must be smart.” And what could I say back? “I’m just good at taking tests.” It was very awkward for me. Plus I hated small talk, the simple things people say when they’re trying to meet each other and find common ground. Why did people waste time saying meaningless stuff? I came to believe that I didn’t like “ordinary” people.

Meanwhile, at MIT I was nowhere near the smartest person. I failed a course, gained a healthy measure of humility, and got some perspective. Once I finished school and started working at high tech companies, the problem of feeling out of place disappeared, because of course everyone was smart, everyone had gone to name brand schools, everyone deserved to be there. Eventually I grew to be a better conversationalist so that I could smooth over awkward pauses, and I forgot about feeling so out of place.

As the article suggests, it’s also possible that geeky people are more accepted these days. Everyone feels out of place at least some of the time, maybe most of the time. In a society that prizes beauty and coolness, geeks are natural underdogs — and who doesn’t like to root for the underdog?

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I have overcome my fears and hung the concrete-and-stained-glass rooster on the kitchen wall. It looks fab: Click the picture for a bigger view.

It’s not done though. I am not entirely crazy about how the gray concrete looks with the chartreuse color of the wall, plus the yellow table fails to coordinate with chartreuse as well, so I’ve planned to put an accent block of paint around and about the rooster. In keeping with the 50s tone of the whole thing, I’m thinking turquoise.

How will it look? It will be a sight to behold.

I still need to measure out and tape off exactly the right block of space. Unfortunately our long run of sunny weather seems to have come to an end, and now I also need to wait for a dry day. But soon, soon, it’ll be done.

UPDATE: Anthony, who is more proficient with Photoshop than I am, suggested that I add a drop shadow to the mockup to make it look less fake. So here’s how that looks. He also said he thought
the color block would be smaller, more like a frame than such a wide expanse. Or maybe
a nearly arbitrary stripe that would just join the rooster and the light switch. I’m leaning toward the stripe now.

So I have this big concrete rooster sitting on my kitchen floor. It has been there for nearly a year.

It was made especially for me by James Simon, an amazing and creative local sculptor. It’s quite cool and big — three feet tall and two feet wide. Technically it is not all concrete — the rooster himself is made of stained glass and some other stuff. Click the little picture to see a larger version — even the big picture doesn’t come close to showing how cool he is, with his irridescent and multi-colored feathers and sassy look. The rooster is looking or poking at what seems to be an egg, which also is somehow funky/sassy. The egg I mean. And the background material is this special concrete that is quite strong even when it’s thin, so it can be used for wall hangings and other things you wouldn’t ordinarily see in concrete.

The thing is, it’s still concrete, and even thin concrete is quite heavy — 80 lbs heavy, to be exact. Which comes back to the issue of the rooster’s still being on the floor after these many months, despite its sheer coolness and my deep desire to display it. I’m very worried about hanging it properly so as to avoid destroying either the rooster or my house.

Finally this week I recruited my brother Anthony to help. Anthony went to architecture school. He is therefore my go-to guy for all subjects related to houses, interior design, landscaping, whatever. Together we located the studs in the wall, pounded in some heavyweight picture hooks, and hung the thing up. And it looked very, very good.

But here’s the thing: I was still worried about it crashing down, breaking the rooster and ripping a gaping hole in my wall, most likely in the middle of the night and also right on top of one of my cats. Or both of them. The more I thought about it, the more clearly I could envision the horribly fractured rooster, the gaping black hole, the dead cats.

So, we took the rooster back down and set him on the floor again.

At this point I started looking around my house for places to display the rooster on a stand, something solid and unmoving. But my house is already chock full of things that I like exactly where they are, and I wanted the rooster in the kitchen to catch the morning sun. The wall I’d chosen was the very best place by far, and there was no room for stands there. The rooster would have to be hung.

Anthony proposed various other fastening schemes, like running a piece of wood across several of the studs, or running one down the studs with bolts attaching at several points, or a piece of metal spanning the wall behind the rooster…. It was all wild and heady, and too much for my simple 50s-retro kitchen. (Which, as Anthony pointed out, is already straining its envelope trying to contain a concrete-and-glass rooster.)

Finally he suggested simply testing the picture hooks. “What if we loaded them? Put all your weight on the hooks and test them.”

This seemed like not the kind of test I wanted — I didn’t want to actually destroy my wall — but loading the hooks with something the same weight as the rooster yet less irreplaceably breakable seemed like a good idea. If the hooks could bear real weight for a couple of days, then I’d be confident enough to hang the rooster for real.

And now we come to this picture, which is the testing rig. Click the photo for a larger view.

Yes, that’s a dog leash. No, I don’t have a dog. I did have a dog, for eight days about five years ago. It’s a long story, but the point is I’ve had this dog leash in the garage for ages and now it’s being put to valuable use.

And yes, those are two 20-lb dumbbells tied to the leash. With a broken-down box from drugstore.com to keep them from scraping the wall. The plan is to leave the 40-lb load on the first hook for a couple of days, or however long it takes for me to overcome my fears, and then we’ll test the other hook.

(Actually: I added a five pound weight after the picture was taken. Don’t want to cut things too close, you know.)

If I were a real geek, maybe I would have worked out some equations and figured out the maximum load for the studs behind a plaster wall built in 1957, how long the nails needed to be and whether screws or some other attachment mechanism would be better suited to the task. Back in college I might even have known how to solve such a beast of an equation. More likely, I’d have known which more-capable classmate to ask for the answer.

But in the end, do I care to know the actual tensile strength (or whatever) of my wall? Within just a few days that super funky rooster will be strutting his stuff in my kitchen, some way or other. That’s what I care about.