One battered old-faithful dictionary on my shelves, published circa 1975, defines a geek as “a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken. ” You may be deeply relieved to know that I’ve upgraded to a squeaky-new Canadian Oxford, although I can’t claim it’s a whole lot more flattering:

geek noun esp. N. Amer. informal 1. An uninteresting, ineffectual, socially inept person; a nerd. 2. A person thoroughly devoted to one usu. technical interest, study, etc., often at the expense of social interaction (computer geek).

Whatever.

Point is, the 1970s chicken-beheading freak is not at all what I have in mind here (try wikipedia, maybe) when I say that 80% of the most fabulous men I’ve ever known were geeks.

Other top contenders leaned towards the arts or construction trades, but that’s a shaggy-dog story for another place and time.

Geeks? You may well ask, O-mouthed with shock and doubt — geeks are sexy?

Absolutely.

Consider the facts.

To begin with, and on the most facile level, all those years of hunkering down with twelve-sided dice or closeted with computers, far from the damaging sun, means that adult geeks — those mercifully past the curse of teen acne — have the softest, most touchable skin any woman would envy. (If our own complexions are showing the effect of too much quality time at the beach, second-best is to be able to enjoy someone else’s baby-smooth skin, am I right? Tactile enjoyment. It goes a long way to explain why you can still find clothing made of velour.)

Secondly, as oodles of experts on women’s mating preferences will attest, intelligence is pretty darned sexy. And the defining characteristic of the geek is, of course, intelligence.

True, as my dictionary points out, the geeks among us are often behind-hand in developing the social savoire-faire of other types of men — but is that necessarily a bad thing? Many have evolved over time to compensate with a quick wit (sexy), attentive listening skills (very sexy), and a keen if transient interest in absolutely everything (also sexy) including what the woman he’s with is thinking (devastatingly sexy)!

To all their other fine attributes, add the fact that many high-functioning adult geeks have a significant potential for long-term rewarding employment. Let’s be practical: a steady income is not a bad attribute.

Fashion sense? — Ah, that’s nothing. That can be bought — or learned. Geeks love to learn new things and problem-solve, of course. It just all depends on what they consider the most urgent (or intriguing) topic to get their undivided attention at any given moment…

And if you’re lucky, sister, that undivided attention could be on you!

Fact is, geeks are fairly unlikely to have spent their teen years mingling with perky cheerleaders and sinful intent. As a result, the young geek reaches his maturity without an inflated BMOC ego — in fact, without too much at all in the way of annoying habits trained into him by Barbie and Tiffany girlfriends in his formative years.

Moving out into the working world, where his skills and qualities are more widely appreciated, the geek gains a quiet confidence. He begins to come into his own — yet retains a deep appreciation of his female companions that is seldom seen in other subgroups of the modern male.

Geeks don’t take women for granted: they pay attention.
And that, my friends, is the bottom line for any relationship.

I rest my case.

Rebuttal, anyone?
Comments?
David Krumholtz‘s private phone number?

Most of the family men I know are perfectly cool with changing diapers, cool with taking a baby around town and doing the Daddy routine, just as much as the mothers are into active parenting. Yay, dads!

Just one snag — the guys aren’t too keen on toting a cutesy diaper bag done up in kitties and duckies.

Here’s the solution for Dads Who Do Diaper Duty —

A cool, hip, funky diaper bags that comes complete with changing pad, cell phone holder and key ring for dads (or moms!) on the go. Diaper Dude bags feature plenty of compartments and space for diapers, changing pads, clothes, toys and extras. Most of all, Diaper Dude is form fitting to the body, comfortable, and affordable.

Manly fabrics and designs include camouflage pattern, black, grey, even a skull-and-crossbones version for the Johnny Depp Wannabe, and my personal favourite, the sleek black dragon diaper bag.

Designed for men… but it’s a diaper bag that’s good enough for women, too!

Technorati Tags: diaper bags, fathers, Diaper Dude

This photo was taken in my yard on Sunday afternoon.
That’s my hand.
And those are a few of my “girls” — did you know all worker honeybees are female?.

This is for someone signing himself “Gary” who emailed me this morning. Gary wanted to tell me that “Chicks are not good with bugs” and therefore he “can not believe” in the existence of my bees, he says…

Uhm.

Who on earth pretends to be a beekeeper?

I mean, it’s not like pretending to be a proctologist when you’re stuck beside a really boring gabber on a long plane flight. It’s not like pretending to be interested in football for the first three weeks of dating a Riders fan. And it’s not at all like pretending you enjoyed your mother’s deep-fried wombat casserole…

Really.

So the question remains. Does “Gary” think that I’m sadly self-deluded, or that I have some mysterious and sinister purpose in claiming membership in the fraternity of apiculture? We’re not sure, and — alas — I can’t ask him directly, because he used a fake email address.

So all I can do is say, “Yes, Gary-whoever-you-are, I do keep bees. See? There they are now.”

And guess what else? —

Chicks are good at whatever we want to be good at!

Oh, what the heck, I’ll throw in a portrait of one of my queen bees getting ready to lay an egg, and another photo of some field bees coming home with saddlebags of bright yellow pollen…

Just to share my joy in the miracles of Nature. And because my little honeymaking girls are pretty darned sweet.

(Click the thumbnails for bigger pics, if you’re interested.)

And if you’ve got the slightest doubt that these are the bees of a Domestik Goddess, check out the lovely retro 1950s ice-cream-parlour green that I’ve custom-mixed and used to paint the bottom boards on all my hives.

My honey-collection boxes (not shown here) are a lovely coordinating retro pink, by the way. True. And I’ve got the photos to prove it.