My Wife, My Nerd

Valentine’s Day this year was pretty dull and uneventful- just the way I like it.  We spent the afternoon at our house, cooking Pad Thai and Jessie asking me constantly if the unrelenting hangover I was suffering from was easing. Yep, it was a Sunday all right.

But Monday was a different story.

After a nice lunch (12 Bones Barbecue!) Jessie and I decided to hang around Asheville a bit more. It’s rare when we get to escape Sylva and enjoy Asheville on a weekday.  It’s one of the few times in the city where if you ignore all of the new shops and progress, it really feels like the city we both love.  Everything was pleasant until I saw something that I wasn’t prepared for: I saw my wife and a friend that I’d introduced her to have a pretty dramatic falling out.

A few weeks ago during the first severe cold snap of the year, I returned from my part-time job with a book for Jessie.  She seemed excited about the book and spent just about every moment afterwards getting to know her new friend, Percy Jackson.

For Jessie, Percy wasn’t just a fictional character. This kid was in bed with her at night, on the couch with her in the evening, and even in the bathroom with her a few times. She prayed for snow days and two hour delays so that she could read about Percy and his quest. For a solid week it was Percy this and Percy that- I actually hated Percy for a little while.

So when we saw the preview for the adaptation of the first Percy Jackson and the Olympians film, it was on Jessie’s “must see” list,and for what it was the movie looked fun. She gushed about all of the scenes she loved in the book and was excited to see how the characters moved, breathed and behaved compared to what happened in her imagination.

It turns out that the big screen version of Percy had nothing to do with the print version. The result of this was an epic episode of nerd rage from my wife that our relationship hasn’t seen since the drive home after the Watchmen abortion movie.

I suppose to some it was annoying, but I looked over at Jessie the entire time during our drive home and smiled. I was beaming.   I guess that I really liked watching her dissect the film and compare it to the book.  I liked that she was passionate and cared about something other than the mundane crap that most people deal with.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of mundane crap- I can go on for hours about how to hang toilet paper, brown shoes, how cats have a soul and it causes them to resent us, and why Steve Cropper from Booker T and the MGs is a better guitar player than Eric Clapton, but for some reason when Jessie rants and raves about how crappy it is that Percy Jackson uses an iPod in the movie and a gazing ball to fight Medusa in the book it is just nice.

It’s nice that my wife is geeky and gets emotionally involved in something besides bills or work. It’s nice my wife has the ability to escape and that inspires her to such nerd rage.  I don’t need to hear about how Percy fought a cool monster in the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, but I want to. I like to.

My wife is a gentle and sweet lady, but her nerd rage is vast and powerful.

Happy Valentine’s Day.