ABOUT THE SITE
My personal website turns 13 years old in 2010! I first put up a page on Geocities in 1997. It was horrific, of course, by today’s standards…I remember the blinking .gif’s (including one that flashed, “Up All Night” as a neon-like sign, lol). I moved the site to a couple of other different free servers over the years before buying avidity.net in 2000. Thirteen years later (oy!), my web-presence is still here.
ABOUT THE SITE OWNER
It is a fact universally acknowledged that viewers of “About me” pages are in search of Interesting Details of the webpage creator.
(You win points for catching the above literary reference.**)
It is time to bow to audience expectations and provide said facts. In an Interesting Manner.
Hrmmm…let’s see. I’m many-degree’d, lol, with two B.A.s and one M.A.: B.A. in Economics and one in English, and the M.A. in English. I studied Medieval & Postmodern lit, as well as various pop culture topics (NOT a popular choice in grad school). I taught college English in various forms for six years, and do go back to it every so often, but the educational system left such a bad taste in my mouth that it is always a last resort for me. By and large, learning takes place by living life, not in a college classroom (and degrees are losing relevance every day). Gaaah I won’t get on that soapbox now! I do still enjoy lit and reading and writing, and I’ve been working on my own novels for years. I’ll finish them one day so I can reach one of my life goals, which is to be a published novelist.
However, these days I’m much more interested in homesteading, sustainability, voluntary simplicity, and real food. This interest started in 2004(ish) when I developed an allergy to peanuts. Yep, developed, as in never had it before in my life. I’ll share the story again some day (I think I’ve written about it at some point in the past), but basically I was under tons of stress, miserable, and trapped. Hel-lo, allergy! Furious that I was so allergic to something, when I’ve never had an allergy in my life, I went searching for answers. Why, who, what, where. I also had to become a label Nazi so as to avoid peanuts…and, well, that’s where the house of cards started to fall. “There’s WHAT in my food?” “They put THAT in THIS?” and the perennial favorite, “WTF?!?!” while scouring labels.
So I devoured websites, books, everything. Lots of conflicting info, sure. But enough threads of similarity were there to lead me to my current belief that real food is what can heal us, cure us, and save us from the lifetime of agony that “they” tell us is inevitable.
Hmph. We’ll see about that.
Although food issues are at the forefront of my mind these days, I do have other interests. ;) I’m addicted to my computer, and it’s a love affair that started way back with my first Atari, and then deepened during a BASIC programming class in 8th grade. It would be years before I actually had my own computer (not until just after college), but once I got my hands on one, there was no turning back. I’m not a programmer and I don’t build computers (although I can); I love them for the creativitiy they bring out in me via designing, pixel art, writing, reading. During grad school I also developed an interest in cyberculture, cyberpunk, and posthumanism theory, and my online nickname, “Cyberdelia,” is from the movie Hackers, one of my all-time favs. Odd that I am now feeling pulled to a back-to-the-land way of life, quite the opposite of posthuman theory (maybe I should call it post-posthuman?). But no matter what, I’ll always have a computer. It might be the only thing I eventually need solar panels for, but hey, everyone’s got their weaknesses, right? Mine’s computers & dark chocolate. ;)
Other interests include gardening (duh, need this if I’m gonna homestead, right? Heh) and herbalism; I really hope that this year I can start a more formal study of medicine-woman-based herbalism. I want as much control of my health, and the health of friends & family, in my own hands as possible. Ideally, I want to study with Susun Weed and Kiva Rose; I so greatly admire the work both women are doing.
I also love creating art, mostly digital, but also by doing crochet/knitting, sketching, painting, and assemblage art. I love to read and apparently collect books (she says while eying the large & growing collection, a second collection that has sprung forth after the first one was culled down years ago). Walking/hiking is my favorite form of “exercise;” I only wish I lived closer to the woods so I could hike every day. I used to own & ride & show horses, and one day hope to ride regularly again. I’m a fairly spiritual person, but my spirituality is pagan: rooted in nature & kindness & honoring ancestors/the old ways/the seasons; lots of labels might fit it, but only partially. I prefer not to label it at this point. My politics are wild & varied, and the only politics I care to discuss these days are those connected to food issues. I also love movies and scifi/fantasy, and while I used to really love going to scifi conventions (of which I’ve spoken about a lot on this blog), I find myself moving away from it these days for many reasons (which I probably won’t speak about). I’m a huge animal lover and while I currently only have one kitty and two cockatiels (and the wild birds I feed), my plan is to eventually have more cats and some chickens, goats, sheep, a milk cow or two, and a horse.
*considers if she’s delivered any interesting details*
Ok, enough of this. I’ve got chores to do. Later! :)
**The reference is from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: “It is a fact universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”