This was written for the Speak Freely webring collaboration. I've been on the ring a while, but they just started doing collaborations. I don't really like this entry, and I'm not really sure why I did it. In the space of a week I've suddenly found myself on two webrings that do collaborations (one that I've been on and just began doing them, and one that I "applied" for months ago and forgot about.) and I'm not at all sure I like it. But anyhow, I've decided to give it a shot. The project was to "write an entry that tells about you 'in a nutshell'. you can do it in whatever style you want (as a story, as a list of facts, etc)." My reaction? I can't fit in a nutshell. I couldn't even fit in a coconut. But I thought about it anyway, and this is what I came up with. I wrote it today when I was not in class. "not in class" of course implies that I should have been in class... I'm sick, and I'm doing my best to do nothing, hoping that that will help me feel better. So far it's not working, but it does feel better than doing something, so I guess that's good. So, before I start, let me just say I hate overviews. I can’t even write a biography of myself, there’s no way I can write a “this is what my journal is about” essay that I’m happy with. I live under the presumption that every minute of my life has been shaped by every minute that came before it. This makes it absolutely impossible to tell “my story” because there is no place to begin. I can’t say where I am now without trying to say where I was before, and where do I begin the story of where I was before? It would almost have to start with the day I was born, but even that isn’t good enough, because what about the story of how my parents got to be the way they are? I don’t even know most of that story, so I couldn’t start there even if I wanted to. That said… I think you can tell a lot about a person by their favorites. These are mine, right now, today, March 8, 1999, and they are subject to change. Singer: Ani DiFranco. She isn’t really subject to change. Ani keeps me sane. Color: Blue. I’m not picky, I like all shades of blue. Blue has always been my favorite color, except for a week in kindergarten when I thought blue was a boy color, so my favorite should be purple. Luckily, I got over that quickly. Movie: Empire Records. I watch that movie over and over again and never get tired of it. I just love the, “we’re all fucked up, some of us just hide it better” theme. I believe that with a passion. Besides, do you remember when Warren goes back to the store and starts shooting up the place, because he wants a job? That is so something I would have done. Well, minus the gun, because I wasn’t brave… but the really wanting something and having no concept of how to ask for it- I know that. I also love Foxfire, Ever After, Chasing Amy, and lots of other movies I’m forgetting and will think of as soon as I post this. Book: I can’t pick one. I’ve never been able to pick one. I’ve read thousands of books in my life, and only one or two that I can distinctly remember not liking. I could write a list a mile long of my favorite books, and still have forgotten half of them. There is only one thing I can say for certain… I have no faith in adult literature. I’ll admit I haven’t been reading it for near as long as I’ve been reading children’s (or young adult) literature, but I have yet to find a fiction book specifically aimed at adults which could really compete with Alice in Wonderland or Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, or Peter Pan, or The Never Ending Story, or L.M. Montomery’s books. You want me to keep going? Caddie Woodlawn, the Narnia books, The Secret Garden, A Wrinkle in Time, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Black Beauty… I’m not saying that I think all children’s literature is good and all adult literature is bad… I’m saying that the best children’s books seem to be a whole lot better than the “best” adult books. “Best” is in quotation marks, because I keep trying and I’m not at all sure who decided what adult books are classics, but I don’t seem to agree with them. (the biggest exception is Carson McCullers. I like her.) For a while, I thought the problem was me. Maybe I just haven’t grown into adult literature yet. Now I’m not so sure. I know part of the problem comes when I blur the line between adult and young adult literature… I love all of Maya Angelou’s books, but I consider them more young adult than adult. Maybe I only do that because I love them… but mostly I do it because I think I would have loved them if I’d read them when I was 12. Now, I think the problem mostly comes from fantasy. Every single book I loved when I was growing up had some sort of alternate universe. It could just be the U.S. 100 years ago, it was still Not Here. And I understand that adult books can have that… they just don’t seem to very often, and I can’t figure out why. The other problem is romance. Jane Eyre was a perfectly good book until she started to fall in love with that guy. I don’t care about relationships. Is it possible to have a book where a strong female character over the age of 11 deals with some issue that does not involve romance? If I want a relationship, I’ll go reread Annie On My Mind, I don’t need to read about some girl (that I liked until she grew up) falling in love with some guy, especially when it takes her 200 pages to figure it out. Okay, I didn’t mean to go on about books this long. (note to readers: If this is your first time reading here, know that this is normal. My entries have no structure, they have no beginning, middle, and end. I write whatever I think of, and hope that this will help me understand it.) Anyhow, besides favorites… I think I should put The Labels in here. I get more questions about The Labels than I do about anything else, and they seem to matter an awful lot to the people who choose to read this. So here they are. I am a lesbian, although I’ve decided to stop writing that in stone and start writing it in pencil, just in case. I’m a junior in college, I live in a dorm room, and I am the luckiest person on earth that I don’t have a roommate this semester (because my old one dropped out and they couldn’t find me a new one.) I’m obsessed with music. I’m 17. (…this is your cue to stop and say, “she’s what? But I thought she said she’s …” so, yes, I’m 17 and I’m a junior in college. It wasn’t a typo. I alternate between thinking that this is a Huge Deal and thinking that it’s nothing. Usually, it’s nothing. It’s just who I am, it’s normal to me.) I’m a feminist. I haven’t shaved my legs in over a year, but that doesn’t mean I never will. Before last month, I never wore makeup. I’m a loner, if by loner you mean someone who finds it much easier to be alone than with other people. I think you probably already got the bookworm part, but just in case, I’m a bookworm. I’m the only child of two parents who are still married. The family tends to look disgustingly normal on the surface. I’ve recently decided they did the best they could, and that I will never understand them. I’m a country girl… when I came to college, I was surprised we have water when the electricity goes out. I have thousands of memories of sitting in the top of a tree reading a book, and only two of ever being in an apartment building. I’ve never been in a subway. I have a tendency to discover something new, and then spend every spare minute reading everything ever written on it, until I’ve completely exhausted all my resources and I have to move on. I believe with a passion that I would learn more if I could spend four years with no obligations that I will have learned after spending four years in college. I really can write in neat, grammatically correct sentences, but I can’t think in them, which means you won’t see them often. I don’t proofread I don’t edit and I don’t censor this journal. It is what it is. I am a geek, and please don’t try to tell me I’m not. I would much rather sit at my computer and tinker with html on a Friday night than go out drinking with the people I live with. I have a problem with the word “friend.” I can’t say, “This is my friend, so-and-so.” I hold the word up to the impossible standards of my relationship with my ex-girlfriend (before she was my ex, of course.) I’ve lived with the same people for six months now. We hang out after classes and we usually go to dinner together. I am more “friends” with them than I have been with anyone in years… and I still can’t call them my friends. I’m working on that, really. I was depressed from about the time I turned 12 until about the time I turned 14. I was hospitalized three times, and I still fight almost daily to stay sane. The truth is I don’t think this entry tells you any more about who I am than any other entry in this journal. Most of them are far-off ramblings of someone with far too many issues. Probably the best way to get some idea of who I am is to jump in and start reading. Don’t worry about combing the archives for explanations, you probably won’t find them. The school story isn’t in there, if I ever find a way to tell it that is shorter than 500 pages, I’ll let you know. There is a short version that I don’t really like, if you want to know it e-mail me, I promise I don’t bite. I suppose there are a couple “this explains this” entries, but I can’t think of them right now. I am who I am and I don’t fit into neat little, “this is who I am” statements.