Almost a nerd
Jason the Boy Genius (I’m not joking about that!) is a big race car fan. He never misses a racing season with his grandparents at Mid-Ohio in Lexington, and this year was no exception. Despite being on a tight deadline, I agreed to go with the boys to the Indy race today (what fun, I go often but also miss some due to summer camp conflicts).
I justified my wasting a perfectly good writing day by convincing myself that I would balance it with reading and documenting the research for the next article on the way up. Since it’s a good hour and fifteen minutes one way, I figured that’d give me two & a half hours of time going through interviews–my favorite but most time-intensive part of the article-writing process.
We pulled in just as I had started documenting the research after reading through it. The Indy race itself hadn’t yet started, but the preliminary race (I call them Baby Indy cars; Jason’s car-specific knowledge doesn’t appreciate that) was about to get going. I figured I could watch that race, do all my spreadsheeting (on paper), and put it away in time for the big race.
Then I thought about all the folks I’ve seen over the years at Indy races and realized I’d never seen any of them carrying a spiral notebook and shimmery purple folder crammed full of interviews to the grass in the S-curves. Knowing I had better verify this idea was OK, I piped up from the back of the car.
“Hey, I’ve got a question. Do you think it would be OK if I took my notebook and folder with me to do a little….”
I didn’t even get the question finished before two solid, resounding, almost reverberating “NO”!!!s came back in unison.
“You would be the biggest nerd ever if you did that, mom. No way.” I could almost hear the teenage embarrassment in J’s voice at the mere thought that his mother would be doing work while cars zoomed around the course.
I spared them both (and myself?!) the humiliation by leaving my stuff in the car, but couldn’t help but notice that the lady in front of us was reading a romance novel during the Indy baby race. No one even gave her a second look.
Well, except for Jason and I. I was jealous; he was relieved someone else looked nerdier than his mother in public (for once). He’s just lucky it was too bright to read in the blazing sunlight…
Tweet
It's pretty simple, really. I'm a writer who loves writing about writing, and sharing all the tricks of the trade with other writers. And when I'm not writing, I'm thinking about writing. I have a hunch you know what I mean :)