Putting on the Nerd Hat

Yes, it's true.  I like many things that most adults scoff at.  Comics books, science fiction, fantasy, politics - just to name a few.  But most of the time with these interests I fail to reach true nerd status.  My level of obsession with them only reaches so far, and I most often fail to truly jump off the cliff.  I don't wear costumes of beloved characters, I don't often read or watch more than once or twice, I don't write fan fiction, I generally don't talk to fellow fans or go to conventions.

An example would be Star Trek.  I really like Star Trek, but I really couldn't be considered a Trekkie.  I've seen most episodes once, and some twice.  That's over a forty plus year span.  I could answer more trivia questions than the non-viewer, but not nearly as much as a truly obsessed fan.  I can't remember what the different color uniforms and insignias mean.  I don't remember all the characters that only lasted a few episodes. I can't remember what set design flaws or inconsistencies there might be.

I love Star Wars.  Seeing the first movie in 1977 made my jaw drop, and almost weep because it had been the movie I had waited all my life to see.  Since then, I have seen Star Wars more often than I have most movies, but that probably is still only three or four times. And this is from what I consider the number one movie of my life.

Buffy, Firefly, Lost, The Prisoner, Alien, The Terminator, I could go on and on.  All loved, all seen no more than twice.  I love Wizard of Oz, I helped direct at Flying Dragon a few months ago, I used to watch it every year as a kid; but now, I haven't watched it in years.

I love to read, but there are very few books I have read more than once.  Some Stephen King books I have read twice, and The Stand at least three times.

With all these, I've enjoyed them, thought about them, participated in my imagination in their worlds to a small degree.  But I have not reached an untoward lever of obsession with them.  At least until recently.

I am in danger of drifting onto the nerd train over a series I discovered in the mid to late nineties.  And now that that series has an extremely well crafted television show, I find myself becoming increasingly engaged in it's world.  I have read it's books multiple times, repeatedly viewed the TV show, find myself thinking about the characters constantly, imagining it's maps and the richness of it's fantasy world, trying to work out where the author is headed, reading the new comic book that has come out, wanting calendars and trading card and cups and cookbooks and whatever else I can find.  I love it so much that I try to get others started on the series,  This is, of course, The Song of Fire and Ice, more popularly known as A Game of Thrones, written by George R. R, Martin.  The books have come out slowly over the last decade and a half - he's a very gifted writer but does not have Stephen King's gift for output.

I am trying hard not to go over the edge.  But if you hear talking obsessively about it, or dressed up as Tyrion or Lord Mormont or Eddard Stark, please forgive.  I will do my best to momentarily leave Westeros and try to deal with the more mundane happening on Planet Earth.  I am afraid the nerd hat is finally coming on.  Winter is coming, indeed!