DORK LIFE? GO AHEAD AND LIVE IT UP

I met my eventual mother in law before I was in the ‘potential partner’ picture.

Her daughter was on my radar, just not the other way around. It was familiar territory.

Since I had time to play the long game of love, I kept the heat turned down. To an objective outsider I was just another guy.

My goal was proximity. Lightning strikes are fast and brilliant and over in a blink. I wasn’t lightning, I was the wind, the cool breeze carrying the scent of fresh flowers and scented soap.

I also played guitar, sang a song, and smiled a little at gatherings.

The first time my mother in law saw my act she asked her daughter, “Who’s the dork?”

And that’s how I knew I’d sunk the hook. Dork? Bring it on.

Being called a dork isn’t fighting words for the thick skinned. It’s different for the more delicate, the more sensitive, who can’t embrace their inner dork.

Getting called out by a sassy fifty-something lady in black leather who cruised with her crush in a classic fastback Mustang was a badge of honor for my twenty-something self. I could take that and more.

I found out how much more later. From that day on I had a feeling how things might turn out. Thirty five years later, thirty five years of marriage with more time on the horizon, dork life prevailed.

The top image is inside the Tigard library. It’s a family heritage place for us with commemorative bricks in the path.

Tigard Library Open To The Public

Notice the tree in the image here? I took the picture of a plan outlining the library future.

Now the future is here. So is the tree.

My wife and kids and mother in law love the library. They are all big readers. (And I’m the dork?)

We walked the paths yesterday before going in for the first time in a year.

It was a memory lane kind of walk.

There’s the bridge my youngest kid learned to walk on. The pool of murky water for nutria and ducks is over there.

(Over there is where the library used to be before the big move.)

We walked and talked and remembered those days. Will my oldest kid bring his own kids down to the same place to re-enact the pictures we’re looking for from his childhood? He will if he wants a dork badge.

Searching For TC Boyle

Over the pandemic year I’ve met an author online. Tom Boyle is a twitter guy.

Following him online feels like an insight into a writing world that doesn’t exist anywhere else.

Like the movie HER he’s an engaging presence to me and thousands of others. And like HER, it feels like a personal connection. Just me and ten thousand others.

I’ve been waiting to read his books, threatening a Boyle binge, and now I’m in dork heaven.

Any time I find books I’m looking for on the bottom shelf, I know I’m on the right track. The Boyle shelf was at the bottom.

In the top pic it’s the bottom left corner I call the sweet spot. I’m excited to start reading.

Once an older man accused younger me of something outrageous.

“All you know is what you’re read in books,” he sneered.

He didn’t know me very well, but brought out his dork brush to paint me up.

Also unknown to him, I’ve got my own brush.

Are we all happy to go to a library, or is it just the dork people?