Well, now it's time to tell you something about myself --- things other than my being an artist and sometimes a poet, my interest in anime, gaming, and cons, my boyfriend, blah, blah, blah. If you've been through this site, you've seen all that. Not much to tell you there --- you tell me something about what you think about it all.

Right now I'm a full-time student at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC and live in Gaithersburg, Maryland --- the commute is a royal pain in the butt. Originally I'm from Caldwell, New Jersey and went through the usual childhood traumas inflicted by the school system and my classmates. I survived them all, burying myself in study and art, and ignoring ninety percent of the school body (most of who I didn't know. Of the few I did know, seventy-five percent were the jerks inflicting [or at least attempting to inflict] the damage on my psyche or were just plain dull. So much for having a social life) to escape into the real world: art classes in New York at the Art Students League and retail sales to pay for the classes and going to cons. Eventually I escaped from New Jersey entirely.

So here I am, in Gaithersburg and going to college. I still go to cons, selling my art and remaining largely unknown save to a few other artists (which is actually sort of nice: no-one will suck up to me, so I can believe any compliments [or critisms] without thinking the other person is insincere). I'm into gaming, usually "Tales from the Floating Vagabond", "Chill", "Teenagers from Outer Space", "Mekton", and a few others. They're most comedies --- even if it's a serious game like "Chill"or "Mekton" (at least the way Rich is running it, it's meant to be serious), the gaming group I'm in (which comprises several of the people in Barb's on-line TFOS game, including my boyfriend) will still manage to make it funny, at least some of the time. That and cons wind up being my social life.

Actually, there's also JASFA, which occurs on a semi-regular basis and rotates among three locations: Paul's townhouse, Brian's place, and Sue&Tom's. What it is: a bunch of anime fen descend upon whichever agreed-upon locale to watch anime from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon. Attendance fluctuates a great deal and the anime runs fom the serious to the silly, both subbed and dubbed (if it hasn't been translated, there are usually at least three people [Rich, Sue, and Tom] who speak and read Japanese). Taping is allowed so long as you bring your own VCR. Just another bit of my social life --- with the added bonus of getting to see all the different anime styles out there. Let's me develop my own and become a bit more accurate.

I also have a job (actually i've had it since around October or so, but it's nothing to brag about ---yet more retail work) at Utrecht, which is small but growing chain of art suppy stores. To be specific, it is an artist's supply store, not an arts&craft store --- if you want stencils of any kind, gilding materials, or decoupage or anything of that nature, look somewhere else 'cause Utrecht doesn't carry it. What it DOES have lots of is paint, more paint, canvas, more canvas, stretchers, paper (watercolor, drawing, pastel), matting and framing materials (but they don't cut the stuff for you), brushes of all kinds, and portfolios. There are a few other, somewhat oddball things, but you can check that out at their website: www.utrechtart.com and get the catalogue (which has more stuff listed in it than the site does) or just order from the site. Yeah, it's a shameless plug, but I work there (in the DC store), so I might as well mention them so long as I work there.

On a slightly more cheerful note: my boyfriend won one of the Hi-Lo jackpots (run by Mix 107.3 from early fall to early spring. They've kept upping the low and high limits of the jackpot: the range is now from $10k to $25k. Paul didn't get that much, but he did darned well all the same. I have yet to win.) a while back and he feels much better now --- he has money in the bank to do a few things that he's wanted to do for a couple years now: buy a house and a new car.

What a relief! It's taken a good long while to find a place, so I haven't been paying much attention to the site --- but in a couple weeks, my boyfriend and I will have a place to call home. Even though it's not a single dettached house (it's a duplex), it's better than paying rent on the townhouse we were in. PLUS: there's no HOA to deal with, so no extra fees to pay to bunch of people who think they have the perfect right to dictate what flowers your garden should have and the color of your window shutters (among other things). My workroom won't be any bigger, but it'll have better light --- and that's just about I all care about for the workroom. It's got other nice features as well; pictures of the new house might show on this site after Paul and I settle in and have the scanner and the computer hooked up again at home. We'll see.... it's been a quite a few long strange months since this house-hunting adventure began....

I'll have more stuff on this site once the scanner is set up again. Yes, there's more stuff to be had. Go take take look at it when it's up.

As you can imagine, it was a long,strange process finding a new place; now we've been here for about six months. My workroom is still an unusable disaster area --- but it's getting better (the piles of stuff are sinking down to waist- and knee-level, instead of being chest- and waist-level). On a more morbid note: my father died February 2nd (early morning hours --- I got the call while I was at work. I'm still not used to saying it, much less thinking it). My life immediately started going through some crazy (and very slow) beurocratic weirdness because my father had named me the Executrix (sounds kinky, but isn't and certainly no fun at all). Everything's almost straightened out with that stuff finally. Thanks to getting some money form this, my boyfriend's been able to get a new computer, new printer, and some nifty software (which, of course, I'll get to play with) --- now we just have to hook it all up. In the meantime, I'm still working with the old Dell 200 mHz (the new one is 1000 mHz: a "screamin' machine". I can't wait). Also because of my inheritance --- and because I couldn't stand it anymore (I refuse to become a retail manager and dealing with the head store manager as a sales associate was bad enough; getting even a half-step closer to her position and dealing with her on that level would have been intolerable) --- I left my job at Utrecht (which means the link goes bye-bye. I'm not promoting a business I no longer work for) and I feel much better now. Now I just have to find a new job to tide over until autumn, when I'll have a job that's actually in my field as an artist (thanks Bill!).

I finally have a job --- weekends at Jo-Ann's Fabric and Crafts. It's just twenty minutes' walk straight down the street. The other thing has been on hold, but it's getting there (according to Bill. The workroom is still a disaster area, so I've been working on stuff in my bedroom --- it's a good thing that I don't paint. A few things have been added to the site now that Paul got a new scanner --- it's a bit eccentric, but it makes nice stuff for the most part --- since the old one doesn't work so nicely with Win2K (darn Microsoft!).

Well, that's enough for now. Go look at what is here. Have fun!