Since I began this blog years ago, my girls have grown.  They are nine and ten now. Pre-tweens.

And I want to hit rewind and pause on a regular basis.

The problems they faced then were so much easier. I could kiss it better.  Now, it’s the big stuff. The stuff that scars if not handled right. The stuff that shapes them as young women.

I am super proud to be a member of the Geek Girls Book Club.  (Seriously- join us here– boys are allowed!) We’ve read some incredible books. This month, though, it’s perfect timing. April is Yes, Please by Amy Poehler. I’ve felt for a long time that she was my spirit animal. Now I know she is. It’s so smart and funny and EMPOWERING.

There are so very many quotes in it that resonate with me. Some are a balm for old wounds. One of those that struck a cord hard is:

“It takes years as a woman to unlearn what you have been taught to be sorry for.”

When I posted it on Facebook last night, it turns out that I am not alone.

From abusive relationships to upbringing,  we all bonded with the realization that we apologize for so many things that we need not. As a gender, we are forced to apologize for just being us. It is one of the hardest habits to break.

AND WE ARE DONE.

So, the “I’m Not Sorry Summit” will be coming.  Along with one of my soul sisters, we will be creating a week-long event that builds women and girls of all ages up. That fills them with love and the tools grow. To use their voices to implement change. To build each other up.

To not be sorry.

In the mean time, pick yourself up a copy of Yes, Please.  You’re welcome. 🙂

It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged. While I continue to write in my journal regularly, I’ve not been good about getting it online as of late. I’ve had A LOT going through my head over the last few weeks and I need to just purge it out there so I can move on. We all need a good purging and moving on it seems.

I am a geek. I am also a nerd. A dork. A mom. A cancer patient. I am silly. I am smart. I am creative. I have blue eyes. I love wearing lipstick and painting my nails but I have no clue what blush is for. I’m pale, like albino gone wrong pale. I love to read. I love to knit. I love to create. I love cosplay. I love my geek community. All of these things, among hundreds of others, are parts of who I am. What makes me, me.

And I am sad. I am tired. I am frustrated. I am sick to death of all of the hatred out there. It has gotten to the point that I’m starting to see people I respected and admired in a whole different light. A light that I don’t like.

I am also a hypocrite.

I am a hypocrite because I am sick of seeing flaming hate blogposts and giant soapbox blogposts and calls of lynching blogposts. And yet I write a blogpost about it. But mine won’t contain hatred. And I am not on a soapbox. No pointing fingers. No sense of righteousness. Just a plea.

A plea for it all to stop.

One of the best feelings is when you say “well, (insert book/movie/super hero/you name it here) is my favorite.” And another person squees “MINE TOO!” It’s that little spark that creates a bond. When geek finds geek. That’s the stuff that BFFs are made of. I see it with my girls all of the time. Lilest’s first day of Kindergarten she wanted a PB & Banana sandwich cut out like a Millennium Falcon for lunch. When I asked her if she was sure, she replied “that is how I will know who is going to be my friend. If they know what it is, we’re BFFs.”

Since that moment, they’ve both encountered guys and girls that have called them weird for loving Star Wars. There were some rough moments, but they didn’t let it change them. They’ve gotten flack for declaring Twilight silly and offering forth Buffy as “a much better interpretation of a human and vampire love story.” But, they still stand by it. They are only 7 and 8 though and it’s going to get rougher and rougher out there for them.

Especially if they see the adults in the geek community fighting and divided. We are better than this. I’ve seen it. I have seen the incredible things we can accomplish when we work together. When we cheer each other on and support each other. When we don’t shun each other and throw steaming balls of hatred over a disagreement.

We are all human and won’t see eye to eye all the time. That’s normal. But, it’s how we handle the fact that we disagree that matters. If someone doesn’t believe you are a “real geek,” oh well. Their opinion doesn’t change who you are. It doesn’t make you any less you. There is no litmus test. There is no one person that has the right to declare that. When you start screaming back and throwing out names and “cred,” you end up sounding just as douchey.

Yes, geek girls do exist. Arguing otherwise at this point is completely and utterly ridiculous. Yes, some of them are gorgeous. Yes, some of them love to wear make up and get dressed up all of the time. Guess what? Some of us aren’t. Some of us are merely average, normal gals that sometimes get all dressed up and sometimes love to rock our geek t’s and jeans. And we’re not any less geeky for that either. Nor are we less awesome. Nor do we love our gorgeous geek sisters any less.

There IS NO STANDARD. Just like there is no one way to geek, there is no one way to look like a geek. And gals, this goes for guys too. Our fellow geek guys are amazing and a ton of them support the Hell out of us. Are we sticking up for them? Not all of them are booty photo snapping, geek girl hating misogynists.

I’ve thought a lot about it, and the ramifications of saying this (and well everything this post contains) and I decided to just get it all out. Backlash be damned. I don’t even expect many to read this.

But, I think it really needs to be said- WE HAVE BECOME OUR OWN WORST BULLIES.

I have seen it over and over. Someone says/blogs/tweets/comments something that someone is hurt/upset by. Instead of handling it like an adult and saying “hey, that hurts” or “hey, that’s not right” and countering it, a whole new blog post is written, followed by “hey look at this person said this to me” is tweeted. Then swarm of people rush to defense and go after the culprit. I am ALL FOR supporting and backing up our friends and our community. The moment we hate mob up after someone though, we are doing it wrong. We are NO BETTER. Yes, disagree. Clearly make your case. But I am seeing one incident after one incident turn into giant snowball of hatred. I’ve seen post after post pop up to cash in on the momentum of the snowball. Who is really winning? NO ONE IS.

I would like to see us all go back to the way things were. To spend FAR LESS ENERGY ON THE NEGATIVE and START APPLYING ALL THAT ENERGY ON THE POSITIVE.

Instead of writing a retort about “poser cosplayers,” let’s write posts on all the positive things cosplayers have done. I know some AMAZING men and women that volunteer their time and cosplay talents to do so much good. Instead of writing a retort about “poser geek girls” let’s write posts about all the awesome geek girls and guys out there and they projects they are working on.

Forget trolls, don’t feed the negative. If you absolutely have to, give it a giant fucking bowl of positive.

Pretty please, let’s let go of all this negativity and get back to the love. I’ll totally share my Millennium Falcon PB & Banana Sandwich with you. Well, unless you have a peanut allergy. That would be bad. <3

We’ve all heard it- power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. It can turn Snow White into the Wicked Witch.

And last week I saw it in all its glory. People I once admired and respected twisted to the point of being unrecognizable. As humans, we are flawed by design. We want things we know we can’t or shouldn’t have. When we cross that line or it’s handed to us gift-wrapped, that euphoria is addictive.

We feel unstoppable.

We get ballsy.

We get stupid.

We leave neon trails begging people to question us.

Who would dare, right?

Yet, there is always someone.

Just like there is always someone above you. Your power exists merely as long as they allow it to. And you never know what that person has over others. Or others have over that person.

It’s all just a fragile house of cards on a plantation you sadly proclaim exists in the name of social change.

That’s the worst. When people who claim to be out there for the greater good, to help others. Yet, their only goal is truly to help their own small circle.

One day they will pat the wrong person on the head and send them on their merry way. Counting on them taking no for an answer and feeling rejected.

But not that one. They will come back ten fold, far surpass anything you’d ever imagined and do so with the grace you so clearly lack.

In the meantime, I wish you well. Yes, well. Because, our differences start every morning and end every night with the same thing- I am able to look myself in the mirror and still see me.

I can’t even imagine who you see anymore.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Okay, so it’s not really summer and it was far from a vacation. Maybe “Fun with Numbers” would have been a better title. Don’t worry, there will NOT be a quiz at the end of this. Whatever the title, the last 6-7 weeks have been a string of unpleasant adjectives like insane, draining, depressing, scary, confusing, painful. There have also been some very awesome moments too. Moments that have kept me from completely losing it. From losing me. I’ve been in this almost animated coma, like a lil zombie Natali. And whenever I had glimpses of me snapping out of it, I would get dragged back into it. One word I don’t use too often is hate. But I HATE not feeling like myself. Now that I’ve said that, I’m going to turn around and do something NonNatali. That’s right, instead of some long babbling post that gives you a big blow by blow of the last several weeks, I’m going to boil it down to basic facts. Facts that I realized this weekend as Zombie Natali started packing her bags.

In the last (we’ll just round it to 7) seven weeks I have:

Seen 4 different specialists and 2 different general practitioners

Had 3 trips to the hospital, 2 to urgent care, 2 to regularly scheduled doctor appointments.

Been on 7 different antibiotics- one that I found out the hard way I am VERY allergic to, one that was via shot in the booty which I understand they deemed necessary, but totally hurt like Hell and I am currently still on a 2 antibiotic combo cocktail now and for the next 4 days.

Gone through an entire bottle of calamine lotion and benadryl (see aforementioned allergy comment), 2 bottles of different narcotic based syrup thingies (I know that’s super technical and they weren’t nearly as fun as they sound), 3 different pain killers (sadly one was prescribed so that I could actually swallow the antibiotic without crying because my throat scared the doctor), 2 bottles of Ibuprofen, 1 bottle of Tylenol, 1 box of Sudafed, 1 1/2 boxes of Hojicha, 1/2 a box of this really nasty “cold repair” tea, 12 quarts of Cherry Pomegranate “Immunity” Crystal Light, a vast array of ramen and soup and I’m sure a bunch of other things I’m forgetting.

Faced the “c word”, “a really wicked case of the flu you poor thing”, strep throat, “at this point I’m suspecting a combination of things including walking pneumonia” and a couple of other lovely diagnoses. By the way, the people at my lovely urgent care here do NOT think it’s funny when you say “I’m fairly certain I may have the plague.” I thought the plague went out with like scurvy, but I guess it’s still around. And it triggers words like “Department of Public Health” and “HAZMAT.”

Had needles and scalpels accost me, fluids pulled out and pumped in. I like my fluids, I think I have them for a reason. I do NOT like scalpels. They are not very friendly.

Through all of this, I was under the delusion I was holding it all together somewhat. It seemed like every time I was finally starting to feel like myself again, something else would hit me. I managed to hold off the really nasty stuff until the weekends I did not have the monkeys. Until this past Monday. It would seem that the powers that be felt I needed to be knocked on my ass once and for all. So, enter 102.9 temp (which is more like 104 for someone whose “normal” temp is 97.3 ) , a nurse with a very, very large needle, another round of antibiotics and me literally just sleeping. For like a week. I barely remember packing eldest’s lunch for her everyday before my dad came to take her to school, but I guess I did. I missed my weekly UDC meeting and The Power Geeks Podcast. I pretty much just slept curled in a ball under 2 down comforters for days. I’ve slept more in the last week than I think I’ve slept in a year. Yet, I’m still tired. Go figure 🙂

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired and I miss me. I know I say I’m just Natali, but I’m the only Natali I have. When she disappears, it kinda sucks.

But, I feel her coming back. Friday night she came by for a very nice visit.

Then Saturday she stayed and played for awhile. My sister had called and basically told me it was time I got out of the house and she felt like a mini road trip. Of course it was already almost 7:30pm but she said the magic word- sushi. You see WISN, a local station does an “A list” every year of all the “best of…” I had peeked at it not long ago and was surprised that some little hole in the wall place in Kenosha took best of sushi. Now, you have to be from around here to kind of get the perplexity that out of all the great sushi restaurants in Milwaukee, some really upscale, and a lil place in Kenowhere takes it. So, we hauled on down to Soon’s Sushi Cafe and O M Freaking G. From the outside you think “no way this place has great anything,” Okay, even when you walk in, it’s not even remotely fancy. We were the only people there as they were closing at 9:30. I still don’t understand how the place wasn’t packed. The whole experience was bliss. It started with a green tea tini (so I maybe shouldn’t have had alcohol) and a giant plate of amazing sweet potato tempura. They specially made it all sweet potato for us and didn’t charge any extra. At $4.50 it was a total steal too. We then ordered a Spider Roll (an old fave of mine I hadn’t had in ages) and a Playboy Roll. I’m telling you this right now- it’s called the Playboy Roll because it makes love to your mouth. It was seriously the best roll of any kind I’ve ever had. Our waitress was awesome and her and I babbled away about… COMICS!! And the upcoming Green Lantern and SuperMan movies and the atrocity of the new Wonder Woman outfit and storyline. Then, the owner/head chef Soon came over. I wanted to put her in my pocket and take her home with me. Not only is she a phenomenal chef, but she is so sweet. Plus, even though she is actually from Korea, I got to actually converse in Japanese with her. It felt so good. Then, Brandy (You’re a fine girl) came on the radio. It was the chosen karaoke song of my really good friend Bob. It was the 5 year anniversary of his death recently. A death I’ve never really gotten over yet. But, that’s a whole other post. It just felt good to hear it. Our waitress then told us that little Soon is actually 72!! I’m telling you, she could make a fortune off those carnies that are supposed to guess your age cuz there is no way she looks even close to that. The food was great, the people there (Soon’s husband came by and chatted with us for quite a while too) rocked. I swear I’d drive down there again in a heartbeat than go to most of the trendy places around Milwaukee for sushi again. It is very much worth the trip. When we left, Soon kept bowing and said “Arigatou! Sayonara! Oyasuminasai!” and then giggle happily when I said “Matane!” 🙂

That night did me so much good. On the way home, we stopped by the hilariously odd place I spotted on the way there. It was called “Cafe de Lube” and no, it’s not a porn shop. It’s an oil change center and “coffee cafe” all in one. Complete with a drive thru and a sign boasting a huge discount for “recycling” electronic cigarettes there. It’s several blocks down from Tacos To Go that proudly serves “Mexican Egg Rolls” and “Italian Beef Burritos.” I now love you Kenosha. You make me smile.

It feels weird to interact with people now. I’ve lost touch with so many over the last several weeks. There have been some that have stuck with me through it all, repeatedly checking in on me. My inbox scares me more than ever now. I need to go through it. So, in the off chance you’re reading this and have sent me anything, I promise I’m getting to it! 🙂

I am now hopefully way on the way to being fully mended, trying to not freak out and become crippled with overwhelmedness (I think I just made that word up) about all the things on my plate at the moment and hoping Natali sticks around for awhile. 🙂

And that, my dears, is what I did on my summer vacation. Not even a new tan to brag about. 🙂

For this last week and a half or so I have been pretty sick. After finally getting antibiotics for it, I ended up breaking out in hives from head to toe from them. My hives had hives. Soooo not attractive. Soooo not comfortable. I had hit the brick wall of burnt out.

Until last night.

I’m still wiped and still dealing with health issues, but it’s time to pick up the #truthbat again. This time, surprisingly, for the cafe. For everyone that believes in it.

You see, I have a weekly conference call every Tuesday night for the UberDork Cafe. I look forward to them for many reasons. What I learned last night floored me. Saddened me. When the shock of it all wore off, it downright pissed me off.

I’ve always proudly embraced the titles geek, nerd, dork. One of the many amazing lessons that I have learned on this incredible journey of UberDork Cafe is that us gnorks still tend to hide who we are. Stay in our lil corners of the online world and don’t tend to venture beyond that. Part of the whole goal of the cafe has been to give us a place to go to. To branch out from those corners. To give our future gnorks a place to go to meet others and to actually be able to comfortably be themselves in a place within the community, the real life community. To teach them and us that we don’t need to hide who we are. There is no shame in being geeks, nerds, dorks.

Last night I realized I might be wrong.

It might not be a fluke that there is nothing really like the UberDork Cafe out there. The fact that we tend to hide may not really be our fault. It seems others are more comfortable when we are contained to online. We may come out if we must, but we shall not refer to ourselves as dorks, or geeks or nerds. It makes others uncomfortable it seems.

Last night I was informed that major corporate sponsors of the first auction completely backed out. Why? Well, during initial contact the full name UberDork Cafe was used. From that point on it was shortened to UDC or “the cafe.” Then they got the press kit yesterday. These major corporations then stated that I would need to change the name of the cafe for them to follow through with sponsoring. Yup. They don’t like “dork.” And yeah, don’t try to replace it with nerd or geek either. Those simply won’t do as well. One of these major corporations makes a great deal of money off of us gnorks as well.

My response? (Ok, well the edited version, I won’t lie, there was A LOT of cussing on my behalf initially.)

Dear Giant Corporate People,

Shame on you. Shame on you for so very many reasons. For thinking you could just buy a name. For thinking you have that sort of power over people still. For thinking that us dorks, us nerds, us geeks are that weak that we would hide who we are, change who we are to suit your comfort. For being more than willing to take our money as long as we remain safely tucked away from view and deny who we are. For thinking that you somehow own us. For thinking that in this day and age discrimination is ok, as long as it has a price tag on it. For thinking that I am the type of person that is going to just roll over, change my entire character and teach my children that it is acceptable to allow a company, or even a person, to force you to change your name, your character, or who you are for them.

Allow me to enlighten you. Dork, nerd, geek… in your feeble minds may be words that show weakness or less than desirable characteristics. I hate to break this to you, but the term “corporate” invokes far worse feelings amongst a vastly wider population of people. People that span all age levels, races, income brackets, you name it. Do you know why that is? Because of things like this. Because you still live under the antiquated notion that bigger is always better. That money will buy you anything, anyone. I hate to break it to you, but it really doesn’t. In fact, it won’t even buy you one lil ole dork.

I’m not for sale. My children’s dream is not for sale. My friends, my family, the people that support this dream, that support the UberDork Cafe are not for sale.

And we certainly aren’t going anywhere. If anything, you’ve just made us a bit louder. A bit more present.

Thanks so much for reinforcing the need for the UberDork Cafe. Your shameful behavior has made my mission that much stronger.

Have a wonderful day!

Sincerely,
Natali
Proudly known as UberDork Girlie

It’s been almost a year now since I have written my “Yup, I’ve Got Boobies” post. To date it is the scariest, most emotional post I’ve ever written. Yes, even more so than the one outlining me standing there with a knife in my hand staring a stalker through my patio door. Breast cancer is far scarier than any stalker.

As soon as that post went up, my awesome tribe of geek girls responded with an outpouring of love and support that went beyond just RT’s. That’s how we roll. One laughs, we all laugh. One cries, we cry too- then whip out whatever we can to make that turn to laughter. One makes a stand, we stand behind her.

We are strong. We are geek. We have boobies. We use our powers for good.

And I am so proud to announce that we have banded together to create a project for the cause. Coming your way soon…

The #BoobieWed Geek Girls Edition Calendar

There are more than 250,000 women living in this country that were diagnosed with breast cancer under that age of 40. That does not account for the thousands that did not detect it early enough and lost their battles with breast cancer as a result.

The strongest weapon in beating breast cancer is early detection. That is the fuel behind this project- driving home the importance of it and reminding women (and yes men) to check their breasts regularly and remind those in their life to do so as well.

For more information please visit the amazing organization Young Survival Coalition.

And stay tuned for more to come on the Epic Gift That Keeps On Giving.

Now go give ’em a squeeze and make sure they’re happy!!!

Remember #BoobiesAreStrongerThanTheForce But they still need to be checked.

If physical structures could be built on love alone, there would be a string of UberDork Cafes open all across this world by now. Open, bustling and radiating more #GeekLove. I don’t know that I will ever be able to find the exact words to describe all the emotions this journey has conjured up.

What has started as my crazy lil idea to create a place for my daughters and my community has turned into so much more. Part of me would like to print out the Kickstarter Project pages, the comments, the statistics, every tweet, every amazing blog post, every kind word of support and encouragement and show it to the world. I would say “Look! Look at what this community is capable of! Look at the love! Look at the support! Look at all of these amazing people! Look at what you’ve overlooked! What you have underestimated!!” It is not just the group of people that has been overlooked and underestimated, it’s the power of love, the power of community.

The very thing that UberDork Cafe will exist to nurture, to support and to encourage.

From Apple’s “Think Different” to Einstein’s “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning. “ to Yoda’s “Do or do not, there is not try” – these things have shaped who I am in life. Who a lot of us are. They are concepts sadly often drowned out by media, by peers encouraging conformity while growing up, by adults that don’t get it staring down noses and speaking of “the right way” to do things.

This is my way of helping cease that. Media will still be media, peers will still be peers, adults will still be adults. But, we will all have a place to go, our future will have a place to go, that encourages us to simply be us. To embrace who we are, to let it hang out, to help our youth navigate through to be proud of who they are and confident in pursuing their true goals in life. The things that make us all happy.

There are just two weeks left now. Because of all of you I have made my goal. Which I am beyond grateful for. Part of me feels greedy to ask for more. But all of the voices that have come forth with “If only I had a place like this when I was growing up” and “I really need a place like this near me” make me want this open tomorrow. And those that have said “I have been scared to go for my dream for so long, but you have inspired me to go back to it and really pursue it” make me want it open yesterday. The simple fact is to make this happen as quickly as possible, I still need your help, your support. We are currently at $6130 with two more weeks to go. Just imagine what we can do in two more weeks!! Can we reach 200 backers?? $8,000?? Can we blow this completely out of the water?? I think we can!

I can not tell you how excited I will be the day I can stand up inside of the finished, open UberDork Cafe and say:

“Look what WE did!!”

If you’ve been following along, or know me at all, you know that the Wall of Love is going to be my absolute favorite part of this whole place. I will hug it every day and may the Force be with anyone who tries to deface it.

So, from a place for my daughters to go and a community to be nurtured and hope to be given, this has turned into the physical representation of what a community can do when they believe in something, when they believe in themselves.

To those that don’t believe, well my girls and I proudly stick our tongues out at you, wrinkle our noses and then smile and wave are lil geek/nerd/dork flags. And we are honored to have an entire community standing behind us doing the same.

“Life’s like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending. “ ~Jim
Henson

To join the lovers, the dreamers, the community, click here to visit the Kickstarter Project Page.

This next post was going to be all about my lil dream. The giant, quirky chunk of me called UberDork Café.

But, that is going to have to wait until the next post. By the end of this, you’ll understand why.

This one is about what I learned today. (Well, Friday which is when this is being written. Ok, being started. Jinkies I’m behind!)

A big chunk of the joy that is UberDork Café has been a dream of mine for quite some time. A dream that I have shared with very few people. There are a couple of reasons for this. What it all boils down to though is this- although I’m very much a “this is me and I’m pretty darn proud of me” kind of gal, this is SO important to me, I have been scared. Scared to share it. Scared to hear what others have to say. Scared to have to actually be the one in the front of the project, rather than hiding in the background. Scared to take that leap of faith- in myself. I walk into walls, so leapin, yeah could have disastrous results.

But I did. Arg. Alright #truthbat. I had only taken the running start toward the leap. You know what though, the more people I told, the faster I ran. The more of a reality I made it by setting up the Twitter and Facebook accounts for it, the faster I ran.

Then last week @NakedHobo (who really has been a huge support to me and UberDork Café) told me about kickstarter.com. I spent Memorial Day combing through the site. Mesmerized by all the great projects on there. Kickstarter is a platform for people to use to raise funds to kickstart their projects. Books, artwork, band’s first CD’s, independent films, a bicycle operated butter churner, a mobile gluten-free bakery, all sorts of ridonkilously kick ass stuff. All sorts of people dreaming big, audacious dreams right along with me. All sorts of people seeking to make changes in the world in their own small way. It’s so beautiful.

The gist of Kickstarter is this- you submit your project idea to them (after making sure it fits their guidelines). Once they approve/accept it, you pick a goal amount (i.e. $5,000) and a time frame (i.e. 60 days). You then set your project profile up and work it. It’s up to YOU to get the word out and get people to visit and back (i.e. pledge/donate/show you some monetary love) it.

Here’s the twitst- they get fun stuffs, set up by you, as a reward for baking your project. So maybe, just maybe if someone were to choose to back UberDork Café at the $10.00 level, should I be accepted per my proposal to them, you’d get a pocket protector with the UberDork Café logo on it. Just maybe. Now, if you make your goal amount by the goal date- you keep it. If you raise more, yuppers you keep that too. But, if you don’t – you don’t get anything. That’s right. But, the backers don’t get charged either then so they are not out any money. Which means YOU have to put in the effort to reach your goal

So, Memorial Day evening, I hunkered down, crossed my toes and hit “submit” with my project information. Then I took a ginormously deep breath and waited. Wednesday night I got a response. Again…deeeeep breath. I clicked on my message and read it.

I read a giant “yeah, thanks but no so much.” I was crushed. Then, as I read it for the 123rd time, I was pissed at their reasoning. There were many projects up that fit the reason for “might not be a good fit” they had given me. I moped. I stewed. I freaked. I pouted. I cried.

I then refused to take no for an answer.

Around half past midnight, I sent my retort. I swallowed hard and fought the urge to come at them with both guns blazing. After all, this was my dream, my child in some ways and I get full on mama bear over my kids. Instead though, I chose to reclarify my project addressing their points of concern. And I stuck to my case. I boiled it down to its essence even more. I told them, I know this seems quirky, I know this is a big, audacious dream, but I believe in it. I believe in me.

Holy shit, lemme say that one more time- I believe in me.

While I waited to uncross my toes again, I revisited an old friend of sorts. A man that changed my life in a lot of ways. A man by the name of Kevin Carroll. If you know me really well, you know who Kevin is because I share him and his message with those that I love. Because I believe in them. If you’ve met me, you’ve seen the dream band I wear to remind myself of his message. A message so amazing that you have to hear from him. I cannot do it justice here. I simply can’t. But, here’s a lil bit of it to get you started and PLEASE, if you want to hear more, know more, get a dream band to remind yourself of your red rubber ball (Kevin sent me a bunch of them) let me know.

And Friday around 12:30, I heard back.

“Congratulations! Welcome to Kickstarter!!”

HELLS YEAH!!!

Turns out they believe in my red rubber ball too.

So, the lesson I learned is to believe in my self, my big, audacious dream, my red rubber ball that is UberDork Café.

And my dorky ass has definitely leaped.

Stay tuned for my next blog, my kickstarter project page and all that is UberDork Café. Because, I believe in me, in it and in all us crazy big, audacious dream dreamers out there.

If you were with me for the last post, you got a lil introduction to my dear friend the #truthbat. You also heard tale of the things in the outside world that have driven me to the point of this giant two-part blog. Now I’m going to let you in on my inside world. If you missed the last one, let me get you up to speed right quick.

1)We as women have got to stop treating each other and OURSELVES like shit and blaming it on men. Seriously, knock both parts off! #truthbat

2)We need to put the damn Ginsu knives down, step away from all the bullshit, stop knocking each other down and start building each other up. #truthbat

C) If we fail to do this, we are dooming every lil girl in our lives. Period. #truthbat

As the events in the last post were occurring, there was a theme interwoven directly in my own life. My own relationships with women. They forced me to wield the #truthbat on myself and do some reflection as a woman. As a friend. As a mom. As me.

I’ve always known I wasn’t wired quite like other females in my life. Growing up when other girls were gossiping, primping, vying (i.e. brawling) for social status and boys’ attention, I was doing my own thang. I wore what I liked, listened to what I dug, talked to whomever I wanted to and hung with more guys than girls. Part of me has always chocked it up to being kind of different in general. I just related to guys more than girls. None of the other girls rode a skateboard or played video games, could hack a computer or really shared most of my interests. I was just me. And I still am in a lot of those ways. Not that I haven’t grown, changed, evolved. I have. But, then and now, it’s on my own terms. For me. At my hand. In my own way.

It wasn’t until I was older that I started to reflect on the confusion I face when looking at my own gender. When gossiping didn’t end. When I began to really witness the false smiles. When the females I did bond with started getting stabbed in the back by other females. I still don’t play well with others in that manner. And I’m clearly still reflecting. But now I know that I am not alone. While I still have a bunch of guy friends, I also have a bunch of pretty incredible females in my life too. Others that are also wired differently. Or are they? Is it a matter of wiring?

While on my crusade of reflection, I’ve been looking at women in my life directly, in my life via other friends and completely outside of my life. I’ve been silently watching interactions between women in stores, at functions, on Twitter, on Facebook walls and yes even on the dreaded TV. (Total random side note/question stemming from “boob-tube” as slang for TV. Why is it that boob originated in like 1905 to describe “a stupid person; a fool; a dunce” and is now used to describe our breasts as well?? Welcome to my random ponderings) In all of this, I found a big commonality. Another reason for me to be proud to be a geek girl. In a whole, I discovered a whole lot of love amongst my sisters in geekdom. Enough for me to state that I believe that, in terms of groups, geeky gals bond and support each other more than other groups. You can get several geek girls together and no drama. Are we truly wired differently? Is it because we get so excited when we encounter each other that we bond and support rather than engage territorial behavior? Don’t get me wrong, we will talk all kinds of smack against each other via Xbox Live while playing. But, when we log off, it doesn’t carry over. I have seen so much support from geek girls for other geek girls’ projects and lives in general. It makes me squee. We are, for all intents and purposes, a minority in our own lil right. We’re cool with that though. We’re cool with each other. And we support our fellow geek guys.

Alright, having said that, I need to state, we aren’t perfect. We are not superior. We have our own lil quirks. In fact, one recent incident has been gnawing at me because it doesn’t stick with my theory (ok, technically hypothesis as it can’t truly be proven).

Months and months ago there was a geek girl I started following on Twitter. I Follow Friday’d her every time I did them. I tweeted at her to engage conversation or show support of her project. After months of this I realized that not only had she never followed me back nor replied to any of said tweets, she really wasn’t nice to people. So, I figured “eh, it’s just Twitter” and I unfollowed her. A few weeks went by and the path of turmoil she was creating went outside of Twitter and into people’s lives. It bothers me because it’s people I call friends, but I’m trying not to let my claws out. Yup, I have one of the traits that I have scolded other women for. #truthbat. Mine come out DEFFENSIVELY to protect those I care about or the underdog, not OFFENSIVELY to claw my way to feeling better or to a higher position. Regardless, I am still trying to use them sparingly and I totally didn’t want to start using them on another girl that waves a geek flag or shake up my lil geek girl community.

So, a couple of weeks ago I got a new geek girl follower and she’s great. When it came time to do some Follow Friday’s I used the old one from the aforementioned geek for this new one. I swear my only thought was “oh! I always liked this one, now I can use it for her!” That’s it. Nothing else occurred to me regarding it until the new girl was happy and RT’d it. And like a minute later guess who suddenly requested, after all this time, to follow me? Yup. The Aforementioned One. And I let her. Trying to be nice. Trying to give benefit of the doubt. Trying not to shake up lil community. Does she talk to me now? Yup, she’ll send me a random tweet on Friday mornings. Only on Friday mornings. Now she’s incited full-blown eye twitchage. To make matters more difficult, one of my good friends that is being affected by the Aforementioned One outside of Twitter is left in the same quandary I am. We are used to being ourselves, calling people on stuff and confronting situations head on. Yet, because it is a fellow self-proclaimed geek girl, we don’t feel like we can do that. We are forcing ourselves to smile, be polite and try to let her behavior slide. Which goes against who we are in a lot of ways. I realize the very posting of this is so passive aggressive and I’m not the passive aggressive type. Which bothers me all the more. The decision to do so comes down to two things. The first is me saying “fuck it.” If it shakes things up, it shakes things up and I accept full responsibility for everything that I’ve said here. I’m not sure what else to do and I need to just get it out. Maybe just the purge will do it good. The second is to prove an important point in this whole post- THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS TO EVERY RULE, EVERY THEORY. #truthbat Not every geek girl is wired the same way. Not every woman is wired the same way.

And not every exception is a bad one.

This brings me to another recent situation. We’ve all heard of the dreaded love triangle. The old scenario and it’s variations; two women fighting for same man, same man dating two unknowing women. Not long ago I found myself witness to a doozy of one. I lost track of how many women and the full drama that ensued, which is all unimportant. I know it sounds juicy, but I don’t dish. The reason it is here is to bring forth something that took me aback. Typically when drama of this nature goes down, the women don’t team up and go against the man (at least right away), the first reaction is to extend claws and gouge each others eyes out. Amidst all the craziness, all the drama, all the hurt feelings, the confusion, the gamut of emotions on all party’s parts… two unheard of things happened. The first was two separate women involved on two separate occasions uttered “This would be so much easier if you were a skanky whore, but you’re not. You’re really great” and “Wow, I gotta say I really like you. I didn’t want to, but I do.” Yup, insults didn’t fly. Eyeballs remained intact. Secondly, those two women both offered respect to another woman’s decision as to what she was going to do and what she would and would not discuss and actually followed through with the respect. And only one confirmed geek girl in the whole bunch.

We have it in us ladies. If while faced with matters of the heart, which tend to be the most sensitive of things, we can remain respectful and polite, well there’s no reason why on a day to day basis we can’t work together to move past these stereotypes that we’ve placed on each other. Yup, placed on each other. #truthbat

In my quest of reflection I have worked on who I am. Specifically who I let in my walls. This blog may make it seem like I don’t have any walls. I lay an awful lot of myself out there. But, I assure you I do. It’s a rather complex series of walls as well. Built over the years by myself, sometimes by the doing of others, sometimes by my own. There are people in my life that I like, people that I call acquaintances, people that I call friends and people that I feel a true bond with. Those that I feel the bond with are allowed access past more walls than others. For that reason, I tended to avoid bonding and I think especially women, as odd as that sounds. So, I have, in the last several months, made myself more open to possible bonds.

Out of the bonds I have made, I was wrong about only one. It’s still a hard one for me because we shared some really deep commonalities that most would never understand. Been through the same levels of Hell together. She showed me her Hell, I showed her mine. In the end though, her drive for acceptance of others, for attention from others proved the bond to be false. You have no idea how it hurt to know that I had shared so much with someone who turned around and pretty much pissed on it and bastardized it for her own benefit. You know what though? I’m ok. It didn’t kill me, it didn’t wreck me, it didn’t change me and it didn’t prevent me from bonding with or hurt the bonds that I had with some AMAZING women.

Maybe it’s not so much how we are wired. Those that are similar to me in how we treat the majority of other women, interact with them, support them, peacefully exist with them all have faced the threat of being forced into a stereotype at some point in their lives. Maybe it is a matter of embracing and being true to who we are no matter the circumstances.

These women are all very different in their own ways. If we were all standing in a group, just looking at us and our vast differences, you would wonder what the connection would be. What it comes down to is our cores. Our hearts. Our characters. And I love every one of them. We don’t talk every day, we don’t get together every week. But each one knows I am there for them and I know they are there for me. That if anything was needed the other would be there in a nanosecond. That no matter what direction our lives may take, no matter what distance lies between, no matter how long between conversations, that bond will remain intact. It’s not a forced bond, it doesn’t need to be babysat. It is nurtured naturally in its own way, it’s own pace.

They have all taught me lessons that I will forever be grateful for. Thank you will never be enough. Each has overcome very different obstacles and emerged beautiful, inspiring women. Women who lead by example.

The first happens to be the first woman I have ever proudly called my “BFF” (even though she’s more of a soul sister), who has the biggest, purest heart I have ever seen and we have an undying pact to lovingly whack each other with the #truthbat as needed. The saner pea in our crazy lil pod @StacySnook. She’s also the only one in my life that has truly taught me to embrace my inner girliness I have shied away from for so long.

Stacy’s incredible self journey

Stacy’s awesome salon

Where Stacy prettied up my eyes.

The woman who gives herself far too little credit, is beyond real, who taught me to take risks, that dreams aren’t worth anything if you don’t work toward them and proves geek girls don’t come in one boring mold. In fact, she makes her own in so very many ways. My sexy ass sista in geekdom @KyleeLane

Kylee’s shop (for reals I own some and O M G!! You need!!)

Kylee’s kick ass new project!

The woman who has helped me keep more balance in my life so far than anyone ever has, that has taught me it’s ok to take time out of life for myself to work on me, the person that encourages me regularly that being a work in progress is indeed a good thing, my voice of reason (and dorky sista from another mista) @BerniXiong

Berni’s site (aka a lil corner of sanity)

The woman who reminded me how crazy but how fucking awesome my life is because our lives are so parallel at times it’s straight up Twilight Zone and she was the first IRL woman I met that was just as dorky as me, but so freakin’ aweseomsauce that it made me proud to be a dork. I know we don’t hang like we used to, but she deserves to be here as well. I will always walk through Hell wearing ruffles for her, the woman who made me wish I had a stache to flaunt @SaraSantiago

Sara’s words of wisdom we’d all be better living by

I have to admit I am in awe and so thankful for all the response and support from everyone that read the first part of this post. I hope that the second part hasn’t let ya down.

My quest shall continue. It’s legacy will hopefully live on with my girls. I hope one day they will, as @GeekWithSoul has wished for his daughter, read this and laugh about how things USED to be. That they will have pages of amazing women in their lives that also lead by example.

But this will only be if we make an effort to step up, lead by example, work toward change and gently keep each other in check when we don’t. Seriously, I may love your ass, but if you step outta line, I’m coming athcya with the #truthbat. *mwuah*

Come sit a spell sisters, we need to have a lil chat. Actually what we really need is a shakabuku, otherwise known in Buddhist realms as a swift spiritual kick to the head that alters your reality forever. Let’s just start here first. You may wanna pop some corn or pour a glass of wine, this is going to take awhile and may hit ya as a surprise.

This post has been lurking within me for far too long now. A few recent events have had it building up and have now pulled it kicking and screaming out. Before I begin to run amuck with my babbling, let me hit you with my main point first.

As a gender my dear fellow proud females we, in many ways, have come so far. Yet, there is so much more that has to change. And you know what? It’s NOT the fault of men. It’s our own damn fault. Yup, you read that right. Welcome to the #truthbat. You will see it swung many a time in this post.

Seriously, we have got to stop treating each other and ourselves like shit. You can argue with me all day long that is men that “make us” act the way we do. But, that’s complete bullshit. Bottom line is we alone control our own actions and REACTIONS and it’s time we put our big girl panties on together as a gender and accept that. #truthbat

Woah! Where is all this coming from? It’s a culmination of many things really. A sweet and sour mixture of good, bad, ugly and beautiful. It comes from being proud to be a woman. It come from single-handedly trying to raise lil girls that hopefully will one day grow to be proud breast-toters in the future. It comes from realizing that stereotypes exist that shouldn’t. It comes from people screaming about unhealthy and unrealistic body images thrust forth on our younger gender, yet little has been actually done to truly change those images, those expectations. It comes from “feminists” screaming that bearing cleavage to raise awareness for breast cancer or to prove some whacked out scientist wrong that claims the world will end in a giant earthquake due to women’s breasts is appalling and takes our gender back to the stone ages. It comes from witnessing backstabbing galore and us tearing each other down instead of supporting and building each other up. Most importantly, it comes from having some beautiful, amazing women in my life that remind me on a daily basis what it SHOULD be like.

Not long ago I had a friend ask me for my opinion on Erykah Badu’s newest video for “Window Seat.” Rather than describe the video for you, as seen through my eyes, I am linking it here so you can see it through your own.

Erykah Badu- Window Seat, Unedited

So, I watched it and gave him my opinion. We discussed the feedback he had been given and sent me a link to comments on it. The comments surprised me so much, I then went searching the internet for more. In all honesty, this post began with those comments. That’s how long this has been brewing. Over all most of the responses were really quite positive. Of the negative ones (and I mean really negative not the random “damn she got a big ass”) 98% of the ones I read were from WOMEN. Of those, the majority were down right brutal. “Bitch” was used abundantly to refer to her and many women went so far as to talk shit about how many baby daddies she has. Seriously? You really had to take it to that level?

I will let you watch the video and come to your own conclusion. Your own idea of who “us” is. In the event you miss what she says at the end, I am placing it here for you to read:

“They who play it safe are quick to assassinate what they do not understand. They move in packs, ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another. They feel most comfortable in groups… less guilt to swallow. They are us. This is what we have become… afraid to respect the individual.”

For me, “us” is we women.

We have all heard the old joke “Get more than two women together in the same room and there’s gonna be some drama.” You know what, on some levels, it’s right. And it’s our fault. #truthbat

Why is that? In nature it is the male of the species that puff up their chest and fights over territory. Yet, we puff up our hair, implant our chests, slap on war paint and sharpen our claws. Against EACH OTHER. We claim oppression, we scream for equality, we outwardly protest and scoff the media and entertainment industry’s portrayal of what we are “supposed” to look and even act like, yet what do we DO to actually CHANGE it? In fact, we actually INFLICT those very same things on EACH OTHER. #truthbat

One of the “we’ve come a long way, but we should be so much further along” moments of late brings me back to my arch enemy- Barbie. I never liked her growing up and as an adult she makes my right eye twitch. I remember the vote, I remember quite a few of my sexy sisters in geekdom that were shocked when I was not as excited as many were that Barbie’s new “career” that won out was Computer Engineer Barbie. The plan and simple answer to that was “they’re gonna screw her up and she’s gonna look ridiculous.” I tried to think positive, I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. I ignored all the hype around it and then one day took a deep breath and looked at the finished product they had come up with. I cocked my head to the side and fought the “yup ridiculous.” I really did. Then I took a close look and blurted out a good ole fashioned “what the fuck?” Her breasts were clearly smaller than the rest of the Barbies on the market. I was pissed. (I know, I realize the irony in me being pissed that the unrealistic body Barbie struts around in is actually becoming more realistic. But, to my defense, it’s the fact that it was done so on the one Barbie I can relate too. That older generations have viewed women with larger breasts as stupid and now the computer engineer needs to have smaller boobs hit close to home for me.)

I also was ready to fight on it. One thing about me though, is I never fight without knowing the facts behind what I am fighting about. So, I researched. I found many articles citing the smaller breasts on the Computer Engineering Barbie. With side by sides to prove it. I also found a quote from Mattel that stated that it coincides with their attempt at “depicting a more realistic and healthy body type.” You know what else I found? That they actually worked with the Society of Women Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering to develop the wardrobe and accessories for her. They tried. Her sparkly spandex pants make me cringe, no laptop a true computer engineer would use at work comes in pink and the high heels are questionable. But, she’s Barbie. One can’t expect Mattel to completely buck their standards for her in order to represent one profession. And maybe she had a presentation to do that day. Yup, I am wielding the #truhbat on my own self. The “should be further along” applies just as much to me as it does to Barbie in this case.

I know despite the vast differences between how this doll looks and what she portrays and me, that there may be an opportunity for girls to get more interested in becoming geek girls. I know no matter these differences that it does not make me any less a geek girl, any less me. I know that Barbie has never and will never define ME. I also know that we need to make sure that all our lil girls out there know that no doll, no actress, no pop singer, no rocket scientist, no quirky single mom writing blogs, NO ONE ELSE PERIOD defines THEM. THEY define them. In their own ways. On and in their own terms.

Now while Barbie is busy turning her headlights down a notch, ABC and FOX are busy banning Lane Bryant’s most recent commercial. ABC’s stance is the commercial is “too sexy for primetime.” They specifically cited “too much cleavage” as well. Lane Bryant purchased a time slot during Dancing With the Stars for this mind you. The same time slot that Victoria’s Secret has aired their commercials during. Fox used the excuse the commercial “is too long.” It’s 25 seconds. FOX did end up caving and aired the commercial once at the end of American Idol after Lane Bryant threatened to pull ads with them entirely.

Again, I will let you decide. Here is the infamously banned Lane Bryant commercial: I want to note a further frustration. This morning while I was grabbing the link to this video, the one viewed by over 1 million people came with a disclaimer “This video or group may contain content that is inappropriate for some users, as flagged by YouTube’s user community.” and stated I must log in as proof I am over 18 to view. Seriously??? The same disclaimer better be on the Victoria’s one I’m going to pull next.

Banned Lane Bryant Commercial (almost 300K viewed deemed not inappropriate)

Here is Victoria’s Secret’s “What is Sexy” commercial that has aired on both ABC and FOX during prime time. (Note the Vickie’s commercial length of 1 minute) New note: I clicked on 23 different Victoria’s Secret commercials all viewed hundreds of thousands to millions of times, not a warning on a single one of them. And ya know what, Lane Bryant’s model doesn’t grind and roll around all lustful looking like the Vickie’s ones do. Oh the eye twitch.

Personally I think it’s insane that Lane Bryant’s ad was even remotely questioned. And it has nothing to do with the fact that my body looks like hers and not a Victoria’s Secret model. It has to do with the mockery that is the double standard that is presented. If the tables were flipped I’d be saying the same thing.

But, that is just my opinion on the matter. I, again, went searching for other people’s opinions. Women specifically for the sake of this blog. You know what I found? A boatload of women that AGREED with the banning. One woman stated “It’s not the cleavage that’s the issue, it’s the size. There is like a gallon of boob poured into each cup. It’s too distracting.” And there were women that agreed with her. On another site, a woman said “Who cares if you can relate to her more because she’s fat (and she is.) Her face is pretty but her body is another thing. Models are models because they look good and take great photos…stop lowering the standards to make yourselves feel better.” And ya know what? Yup, there were women that agreed with her too.

So, a lil something to think about while you are making your decision on this- according to a vast array of resources, the average US woman wears a size 14. Ashley Graham, the Ford Model in the Lane Bryant commercial is a size 16. Alessandra Ambrosio, one of the models that Victoria’s Secret uses most, is a US size 4.

Women come in all shapes and sizes and we buy bras and underwear. As consumers we buy MANY things. Hell, we’re known as “shoppers.” The way we are targeted in advertising in general is a whole debatable topic in itself. But it is this one example that I am using. Not only is the banning of this commercial concerning to me, so are the reactions and, in some ways more so, the LACK of reactions. Double standards of any type are a slippery slope. A slope that we as women need to climb, TOGETHER.

Together is one of the main themes in this ever-growing post of mine. Because of the length that it has already achieved, it will be the main topic of my follow up post to this that I have already written. But I want to give you the opportunity to digest this chunk first.

No matter how different every human being is from the next one, the mere fact we are human beings gives us a commonality. There are always things that we can relate to with someone that is even our direct opposite. But to do that means to step out of our comfort zone for some. To do that means to take the time to have an open mind, open eyes, open ears, open heart. The fact that we are all women makes us that much more closer to those commonalities. To similar struggles. Struggles that would be far less if we stopped stabbing each other in the back and knocking each other down.

If we put the Ginsu knives down and stepped away.