- by Fish

As far as my girlfriend can tell, it's a perfectly normal transaction. We go into the gaming/science-fiction store. I find the out-of-print book I'm looking for. I take it to the counter. I pay for it. We leave. But once we've stepped outside the door onto the sidewalk, I begin laughing uproariously. She stares at me blankly, understandably having missed all the stupid alpha-male subtext of the previous encounter. She doesn't know the species, so I can hardly expect her to recognize the behavior patterns. That's why she didn't notice that when we approached the counter, the cashier looked at me and suddenly stopped chatting amiably with his friend about Magic: the Gathering. She didn't notice the hard, stony-faced look that overcame him once he took me in: my average-length hair, beardless face, t-shirt without any slogans upon it, and (despite the August heat) shorts instead of jeans. She couldn't sense the body language that he began emitting: You're a "normal". Normals like you aren't into this kind of stuff. Why are you here in my store? You make me uncomfortable. I delight in this irony. I'm not the "normal" he thinks I am; I'm a deep agent, a weirdo gone undercover in the normal world. Only my outward appearance is mundane (and even then, not on all days -- but it is today.) And this is a man whose passion for his atypical hobbies was so strong that he opened his own store devoted to them. His store is his refuge from an world that doesn't understand his unconventional interests, and I, seemingly the "normal", have invaded his safe space, intruded into his geeky womb. And worse yet, I've brought a girl. This might be okay if she bore the outward signs of a geek-girl... but she clearly does not. He can smell the normalcy wafting off her like a perfume. (And anyhow, geek-girls don't wear perfume.) His mannerisms turn short and clipped, using the bare minimum of syllables to tell me the price and to mutter the amount of my change. Inwardly, I'm already giggling at his knee-jerk presumptions, which is why, once we've left the store, the laughter bursts out unabated.

"Normal" is exactly what I'm not looking for this time. I'm badly in need of a haircut, but have left it long and shaggy. I have not shaved today. My shirt is rumpled. I'm wearing black jeans and my ludicrously-colored Chuck Taylors. This time, I'm going to the guitar store. I need to be broadcasting my credibility this time, because music store employees are exceptionally (and excessively) clannish. If you've got the credibility (which basically means your fashion sense hasn't moved beyond the long-hair-and-rail-thin look that was popular among metal-band roadies in the late 80's) they exude helpfulness and camaraderie. Otherwise, you're just an amateur, someone who doesn't need to be taken seriously, someone who's beneath contempt. Someone who doesn't know a Epiphone from an Ibanez. Someone who thinks a "Telecaster" is the guy who reads the evening news. I'm putting on what costume I can because I'm at a disadvantage: I actually want their help. I know basically what kind of guitar I'm looking for, but not quite -- and they will take advantage of my ignorance if I let on, trying to get me to buy models that are outside my price range. I need to get in on their good side, and bear outward signs of being "in the know". So I'm slapping on the war paint and the feathers and trying to blend in. It works, of course. The guitar tech (who's actually semi-normal; his hair is not quite collar-length, and he appears to understand the relationship between food and health) is affable, showing multiple versions of the model I'm interested, consulting the store database for availability of similar models. Hunter need new spear and axe? Me check cave.

Technologists define themselves less by what they are than what they aren't. They aren't slimy marketing weasels; they aren't useless, bureaucratic managers; they aren't toothy, insincere sales reps. At a company like this, life really is all too often like Dilbert, where the technologists disdain anyone and anything that seems at home in a business environment. Technologists don't like "suits". And when there's no dress code, they don't even like ties. "Uh... why are you wearing that?" I am asked more than once. It's not like I'm a walking Armani ad. I'm wearing jeans and sneakers, and the tie has rhinos on it. But nobody wears a tie in this office unless he's got a meeting with someone from outside the company and needs to look respectable. Hell, on many days, people don't even wear shoes, so if the shoelaces aren't tied, a Windsor knot is right out. Since we have no visitors today, and since I'm not ordinarily the type to be meeting with business reps anyhow, the "corporate noose" seems out of place. "What, you got an interview or something?" someone jokes. I start to wonder what would happen if I wore a tuxedo to work.

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, live in concert. Every guy in the audience but me has really short hair and really long sideburns.

Sunday night, and it's time for the weekly gathering at a friend's house. The event: the Simpsons and the X-Files. What once started as "Why don't you come over this Sunday night?" has turned into a weekly tradition. The hosts don't even answer the door anymore, leaving it unlocked so we can just let ourselves in. I shuffle in, mug "Hi honey, I'm home," to the gathered crowd, slip off my shoes so I don't track street gravel onto the carpet, and take a space on the couch. The usual crowd is there, making the usual in-jokes, eating the same snack foods as always (this, itself, the product of an in-joke). We all make the same ritual sing-along to the theme music as the show begins. And I realize that there are some tribal rituals I can live with.