Project Seven Roughie

The word "rough draft" was made for my project seven copy. But even the Bible started somewhere. I'd love to hear your feedback!

So, I Married A Nerd 

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes your husband telling you he’s a closet J.R.R. Tolkien junkie. 

I married young. I can admit that now. I was 20 and my husband, Adam, was 22. I wouldn’t change anything, but I would ask more questions, like, “Are you freaky about germs?” and, “Are you so far left you’re almost socialist?” and the biggie, “Do you speak Elvish, can you draw a map of Middle Earth blindfolded, and do you have a filing cabinet full of Tolkien’s papers?” You see, Adam is a tall, dark, and handsome attorney by day and a tall, dark, and handsome Tolkien nerd by night.

My apologies. I misspoke. He’s a “Tolkien scholar.” There is a notable difference in Tolkien “nerds” and Tolkien “scholars.” Tolkien nerds are typically 14-year-old boys with acne and braces who have the hots for Liv Tyler. They'll grow out of their obsession as soon as their acne clears up.

But that’s not my husband. Adam is part of a group that didn’t grow out of it. Tolkien scholars aren’t swayed by Hollywood's semi-recent interest in The Lord of the Rings. This gang consists of intellectuals, typically between the ages of 25 and 45, who have taken on an academic study of their hero, J.R.R. Tolkien. They were baptized into the Church of Tolkien long before Peter Jackson entered the waters and they'll remain faithful members long after the December 14th release of The Hobbit. And for the record, Liv Tyler will always be Arwen to them.

I learned about Adam’s preoccupation with Middle Earth after we were married. Though I didn’t stumble upon him booking tickets to the Tolkien Convention, I was nonetheless surprised. Not long after we were married, I was in a college class with a classmate who named his daughter “Galadriel,” the name of the beautiful and powerful Elvish queen. I rushed home to share with my new husband my horror at this carelessly christened name. He shrugged and said he thought it was kind of pretty. I should have known then.

It took five weekends of The Lord of the Rings marathons, three birthday gifts of various Tolkien box sets, and a heated confession that he’d be proud to have a child named “Galadriel” before I understood who I really married. There are certainly worse obsessions that a person could disclose, like shrunken skull collections, for example. But when he produced a filing box brimming with copies of Tolkien’s academic essays, scholarly writings, and personal manuscripts I wondered how such a well-adapted member of society would have such a…nerdy passion.

Come to find out, Adam had taken classes on Tolkien in school, learned to speak the Elvish language, and even attempted the creation of his own mythological world. At first, I laughed. Then, I grimaced. Next, I tolerated. And finally, I began to understand.

Adam became interested in fantasy novels and stories at a very young age. He always loved wizards, magic, dragons, and quests. While I was reading The Baby-sitters Club as a fifth-grader, he found a copy of Norse and Greek mythology. In high school, he was introduced to the musical stylings of Led Zeppelin, the lead guitarist of which, Jimmy Page, was enormously influenced by Tolkien. All of a sudden two worlds collided for him and he started picking out allusions to Tolkien characters and myths in their music.

Sometime during adolescence, Adam found old copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings stashed away in a bookcase in his parent’s basement. Adam says that Tolkien’s writings felt like the mythology novels he had loved as a kid. But this time the stories felt more intricate, more detailed, written by someone who had a very thorough understanding of words and ideas.

The game changed again when, at the urging of a college English professor, Adam read The Silmarillion, Tolkien’s masterpiece of the history of Middle-Earth, Tolkien’s fantasy world. The Silmarillion is where fantasy meets mythology, but it is written in tight, cohesive, adult language. It was very intricately woven and nearly impossible to understand without a decoder ring.

As an English major and a neurotic, Adam started studying Tolkien, not just reading him. Instead of simply curling up with a good book, Adam got his hands on Tolkien’s notes and wrote papers on Tolkien’s characters in literary theory classes. The invented Elvish language Tolkien used to color his writings – for names of characters, places, and things – was an added bonus for my word-obsessed husband. And, for the last six years, the obsession hasn’t stopped.

Now, I am the very image of a girl about town. I read what Oprah recommends. I sometimes get pop-culture confused with current events. I once mocked The Fellowship of the Ring for being longer than Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman’s marriage (six days). I’m even a graphic designer; the coolest career a person can have. But here I am. Married to a Tolkien nerd, I mean, scholar.

I believe that my confusion stemmed from stereotypes: how could this suave, successful, and sophisticated man be consumed with a hobby traditionally reserved for teenage mouth-breathers? In my misguided perception, nerds wore greasy superhero T-shirts. They had snorting laughs and facial ticks. They didn’t date, they couldn’t converse, and they certainly weren’t MY husband.

Come to find out, my husband and I are not an anomaly.

My childhood friend, Diane is married to a Star Wars nerd. She wins “Wife of the Year” for allowing her husband Steve to fill an entire room in their basement to the brim with Star Wars memorabilia, including a talking Yoda, a Darth Vader helmet, a dancing Jar Jar Binks, and a two-foot-tall R2-D2 that responds to voice commands and moves around like a robotic vacuum. Steve, a talented tax accountant, has even perfected the wookiee roar. According to Diane, she knew about Steve’s hobby when they were dating, but she recalls realizing the magnitude of his preoccupation on a vacation to Las Vegas. “I remember one night when I went to a George Strait concert with my sister [during our trip.] When [my sister and I] got back, Steve was more excited about the Mace Windu and Count Dooku action figures he had bought on eBay than I was about the concert!”

My neighbor Brooke didn’t know that her husband Will was crazy about fantasy fiction. She knew he enjoyed reading when they dated, but after seven years of marriage she now says that if he’s not conversing, he’s reading. Will’s job as an attorney for the government is stressful, so for him, mythological novels are his escape. I asked Brooke if she had taken an interest in any of his reading material. She’s not a repeat offender, but she has given it a shot. She says, “He gets passionate about a certain series and it makes him happy when I read them too.”

“Nerdy” hobbies aren’t exclusively for men. My colleague Inger is as much of a Trekkie as anyone. For her, loving Star Trek was hereditary. She recalls her father’s extensive assembly of Star Trek paraphernalia. “He had the complete series: Deep Space, Enterprise, Voyager, all of it!” Holiday parties and family gatherings were peppered with episodes, games, stories, and analogies. Inger’s father passed away when she was a teenager and she inherited his collection. Her husband Gustavo says, “When we got married and moved into a 900-square-foot house, I was shocked at all the boxes and boxes of Star Trek stuff! But it just reminds her of her father and their relationship.”

Marvel comic books, Japanese anime, World of Warcraft. The list of hobby nerds and the spouses who married them goes on and on. It would seem that every one has a little geekiness in their back pocket. This led me to wonder if perhaps what was traditionally dorky is now in vogue.

Take, for instance, Modern Family’s Phily Dunphy, the coolest dad I know. He’s attractive, athletic, and wildly consumed by technology, specifically Apple products. When the iPad came out on his birthday, Phil exclaimed, “It’s like Steve Jobs and God got together to say, “We love you Phil.”

"Ben Wyatt from Parks and Recreation is both sexy and one of the biggest nerds on television. He is passionate about everything from the fantasy novel-turned-television-show Game of Thrones, to superheroes. In one episode, when given the opportunity to “treat himself” to a day of shopping, Ben buys a full-body Batman suit and spends the day wearing it.

Then there’s Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother and his pals Marshall Ericksen and Barney Stinson, who see the world through Star Wars colored glasses. Ted tells his friends, “I just met the perfect woman. She’s funny, she’s beautiful, she loves ‘Star Wars’…” Marshall cuts him off with, “Woah woah woah, what’s her take on Ewoks?”

And finally, the infamous pair from NBC’s Community, Troy Barnes and Abed Nadar who take their gaming craze too far when their roommate Annie is forced to sleep in the living room because the spare bedroom is used as a virtual play room called “The Dreamatorium.”

“Nerdism” is now becoming mainstream. Closet hobbies are now dinner topics. What once set nerds apart- Stephen King, Dungeons & Dragons, science fiction- are now loveable quirks. I have come to appreciate Adam’s dedication to Tolkien. I even enjoy a movie trilogy marathon once a year. As my husband said when I booked my ticket to the Photoshop World Convention last Spring, we’re all nerds about something.