I was born on November 3, 1969 in Nashville, TN {Scorpio with Aries rising}, an only child of academic parents. Though I grew up in a small town just outside of Nashville I was fortunate enough to be able to travel. I also lived in Chicago and New Haven, CT when I was very small so I had a better idea of the world outside TN than most I went to school with. This made me somewhat of an outcast, but that made me a better person, I believe, in the long run.

The town I grew up in was known for three things: Charlie Daniels', brown recluse spiders in the elementary school, and book burning. Growing up there was not easy, I was always correcting my teachers and being chastised by my peers for using '50 cent words' despite my dyslexia and what has since been diagnosed as ADHD. I was a tomboy, and most of my social time was spent either with kids much older or much younger than myself. Generally I played by myself building things out of wood or legos, spinning fantasy worlds, reading, or watching old movies.

Once I got out of high school I attended Vanderbilt University were I earned a BA in Anthropology, and learned that ethnography was not how I wanted to spend my life. Upon graduation my delusions of the value of a 'Liberal Arts' education were quickly shattered, and I spent the next several years doing everything you can possibly imagine short of dog catcher or waste disposal engineer.

In 1995 I took a month long trip to Budapest Hungary and London England, (passport picture for that trip at left). This adventure shook me awake from the meandering dream that had become my life. I realized that I was just drifting and the party wasn't really all that much fun any more. Being myself, being goth, and all those other parts of who I am didn't mean I had to have a crap job. I could be more than that; and so I decided to go back to school.

In the two years that I went to Nashville Tech I learned a bit of everything having to do with graphic design, programming, and about the net. Not long after I left there I discovered that I wanted to eventually be a sys admin and began certification as an MCSE+Internet. I found myself fascinated by almost every aspect of computers, networking, and the Internet. The only tests I took were for NT 4.0 Server, NT 4.0 Workstation, NT 4.0 Enterprise. Other facets of computers and networking interested me as well.

I left Nashville in 2002 after a really nasty breakup with a little SOB who eventually was responsible for the deaths of my cats that he said he loved, and thus I left with him. He killed them through neglect and stupidity via a drinking problem he didn't have in the five years we were together. I still blame myself for leaving them with him.

When I left I moved to San Francisco. I was convinced to visit and move out here a month later by my friend Kurt. I knew I would have to leave Nashville but I wasn't’t sure where to go. I’m just grateful I had Kurt’s wisdom to help me through that bad period. I met Kurt through my favorite videogame series, Soul Reaver. He composed the music, which I absolutely fell in love with. When I got a copy of the Soul Reaver 2 promo soundtrack, it had a digital error on it that made bad noise. I emailed Crystal Dynamics customer service about it. The CS guy recognized me from the fan forums and forwarded my email to Kurt. We started corresponding, and the subject of Everquest came up. I ended up moving my old retired character to his server, I had quit about nine months earlier, and we became friends over the next few months. I tell this story because if this hadn’t happened I wouldn’t have made it to SF.

The summer of 2004 I found myself single yet again after moving in with Someone who moved down from Seattle for a while. I was poking around some dating sites and a really funny one was mentioned on Slashdot; MMO Dating, a dating site for gamers. As a lark I went and set up a profile. I got a lot of exactly what I expected... guys who thought goth chicks were hawt and who played Counterstrike which I had zero interest in. Most of them were into metal or completely ignored my warnings that vegetarians/vegans, people from out of my area, and hardcore sports fans would have their messages deleted. Then I got an email from one guy who saw the site on his gaming list and thought it would be funny to look at, until he saw a picture of a blue haired girl in San Francisco in rotation on the front page.

His was the only email I responded to out of dozens and dozens. We emailed for a while and finally met for dinner. He was still on the end of another relationship, so we were just friends at first. We would have dinner, email, go to movies and we even went to a gaming convention. The best thing though was playing games online. I started a new character in City of Heroes and we played that for a while. Then we played World of Warcraft beta together.

Not long after my 35th birthday my mother died. Erick drove me to the airport to catch my flight out. I spent most of my time back in TN on IM and he was a really great comfort to me. I felt like I was being a horrible burden on him at the time, but he really did a lot to get me through it. Right after the funereal I had to fly back to SF then right back out a few hours later for a week in Budapest, Hungary with my father. Erick came and stayed with me, then took me to my early morning flight. The whole trip I really missed him, and once I came back we started dating in earnest. He drove down every week from north Marin for months.

I moved in with him all the way up in San Rafael in October, 2005 and New Years Eve we got engaged. On October 30, 2006 we were married.

So, I live in San Rafael with my boy and two rambunctious ginger kitties who mean the world to me. We see Kurt and his wife and new child regularly but otherwise we are pretty anti-social. Our evenings and weekends are filled with gaming, watching geeky stuff and alternately petting, playing with and yelling at the kittys.

I work at a small game developer as a Production Assistant, which means I do whatever needs to be done at the moment. That is shaping up to mean spending a lot of time working on the internal linux server and taking over maintenance of the website, as well as anything else that comes up. I am working with at least two people who have worked on installments of my favorite game.