|
  Since
I'm writing this myself, it's really more-or-less an
autobiography. More or less depending on my
memory.
So given that, perhaps a more accurate phrasing is this is my
speculative autobiography. But that probably describes all
biographies to an extent. I mean, how OCD does someone have
to be
to record every minute of life from birth?
As fair warning,
you'll likely find my opinions and philosophies scattered throughout
this document. Mostly you'll get anecdotes and events from my
life . . . as I remember them . . . today.
I'll begin at
roughly the beginning, but the odds are this biography won't be told in
chronological order. I'm not a linear
thinker. I'm
more of a cluster thinker, if you allow the clusters to spider web
outward and link in a complex tree structure. So expectsome
jumping back and forth.
To start at the beginning, I was born an Air Force brat at a little
hospital that also served the local Piute Reservation. Since
I
was about six weeks early, my dad says I looked just like the Piute
babies, my skin very red and I had a full head of black hair.
Then, while I was young, my hair just turned blonde
overnight. It
didn't fall out and come in another color; it just changed.
Apparently, other members of my family tree have experienced
their hair drastically changing color too. An aunt's hair had
been blonde into adulthood before it rapidly turned bright
red.
My friends tell me this is an "alien" gene. Or, they say my
hair
change was just a sign I'd been swapped out, making me pure alien.
We moved a lot, so I grew up traveling. When my
brother was born, my dad was running the
computer end of some Air Force exercises. So my mom's off the
to
hospital and he doesn't know about. Since I'm a toddler, I
have
to be somewhere, so the base commander babysat me. Then my
father
first hears he has a son over the radio as the pilots had apparently
heard the news first. All that became a line of being babysat
by
commanders, including once by a Naval commander aboard a submarine.
We
stayed put for about 5 years on Okinawa. Although my dad was
TDY
for part of it, as he went off to the Vietnam War. As well,
he
had a tour in Thailand. While on Okinawa, my brother I
supposedly
learned fluent Japanese . . . fluent for kids. We watched
local
television all in Japanese and played with our Okinawan neighbor kids,
since we lived off-base for a while. From the base's
broadcast,
we received American programming, but it was translated into
Japanese. To hear the English, we tuned in our radio and so
our
programs were done in simulcast. Without the radio, shows
like
Bonanza were really strange in Japanese. However, Lost in
Space
worked in both languages.
I started grade school in Okinawa, so I had a kimono and on Girl's Day,
when the coral-pink fish was flying--it looks like a fish shaped
windsock--we'd wear our kimonos and we'd do demonstrations of Oriental
dancing and such. So that's probably where I developed a love
of
"costumes" and for fans. There was a similar day for boys as
well.
 My
childhood was relatively normal. We kids often played along
an
escarpment where we'd find caves. Sometimes we went all the
way
down to the beach to chase blue sand crabs. In combing the
caves
we once found a lot of bones. Being kids, we pretended we'd
found
dinosaur bones and we were archeologists. Don't all kids go
through a dinosaur stage? To be honest, I still find the big
lizards pretty cool. Anyway, parents didn't believe our
stories,
because they know there wouldn't be dinosaur bones on
Okinawa. The island is really a big rock.
So it's not
until one of the enlisted parents mentions our "find" at work--which
was inside Quonset huts--that they piece it all together.
Sure
enough, we'd found a caves with bones from WWII. I don't
recall
if the remains had belonged to soldiers or women and children, who
walled themselves inside rather than be taken prisoner. Had
we
explored past the bones, we'd have found an old ammo dump.
That's
another thing about Okinawa is that ammo dumps were
everywhere.
Once my dad and his buddies found a dump beneath a Quonset
hut.
And yes, I've actually incorporated much of these facts in a short
story . . . but I haven't really found anyplace to send
it.
One day I'm sure to discover a perfect home for it.
I'm
sure finding and playing with human bones has absolutely nothing to do
with why I like to write horror and such. Hmmm.
I
went to school in a Quonset hut. We had skating rinks and
even
carnivals that the G.I.s set up. One of my favorite rides was
a
large cage suspended from a crane. A lot of us were loaded
into
the cage then hung on to whatever you could find while the crane swung
us around. Another great ride involved climbing to the top of
a
pole where we got into a harness. Then we jumped off the
platform
and slide down a guide wire. At the bottom, a couple of G.I.s
caught us before we slammed into another pole. I think that
was a
parachute jumping training platform.
Thinking
about parachutes, that was another of my childhood toys. We'd
play with a parachute, letting it fill with wind then drag us across
the grass. Okinawa is pretty windy. We flew kites
practically year round. And we flew fancy ones . . . box
kites
and dragon kites, some with rounded edges, and you name it.
We
shot off firecrackers and slid down hills in cardboard boxes.
So
a pretty normal childhood really.
 After
Okinawa we moved to the States where I lived in Pickstown, South
Dakota, alongside another Indian Reservation. I used to go on
the
reservation to play with the kids there. Our duplex was near a forest,
so I did a lot of climbing into sticky pine and evergreen
trees.
In winter, we waded through snow, which isn't something I see a lot of
anymore. So the move was a real change from the
rocky,
island tropics of Okinawa.
I remember lots of typhoons while
living in Okinawa. We'd use heavy duty tape--duct tape, I
think,
although we called it typhoon tape--to tape up the glass
windows.
Being on an island, you got the full wind, eye of the storm, then the
reverse winds as the back half of the storm passed by.
 Because
Okinawa was the first real place I remembered living in, moving back to
the States felt more like moving to a foreign country. I'd
grown
up eating fresh pineapples and coconuts. For a treat, we ate
persimmons and chewed on sugar cane. So mainlining sugar is a
quick-n-easy dessert to me. If you like bubblegum, the gum I
bought from a local vendor was so much sweeter and softer than anything
I've ever found elsewhere. The closest I've found
is at
Asian markets.
We bought sugar cane and fresh fruits sometimes
off a papasan's back. You saw Okinawans carrying a bundled
load
while walking or riding a bicycle. Or you saw a three-wheeled
truck carrying a load down a narrow street. Back then driving
down Highway 1 was a long trip between Naha and Kadina.
My
dad's
stories are all amazing. In Korea he did aerial photography.
In Vietnam, he set up RADAR sites. Maybe one day
I'll
devote a page to the
stories he's told about his various tours overseas.
So, I'm back in the states and we're moving so often I didn't finish
full year of school in one place until after my dad retired.
Sacramento was lovely. While living there we went camping at
Yosemite National Park. If you've never seen the giant
sequoia
trees, try to. They're incredible.
There's a few
hollowed out that cars drive through. We had some friends who
were transferred along with my dad, so when we moved, our friends, the
Van Horns, moved with us. And we went camping
together. I liked camping because I missed the
forest in
South Dakota. So I would get up early and go into the woods
to
sit. One of my best memories is of sitting on an old stump
when a
family of deer, a buck, a doe and a fawn, walked over to nibble
grass. They were so close I could've touched them.
Of
course, my brother and the Van Horn boys came barreling out, making a
ruckus that scared off the deer.
 It
was this same trip that a brown bear tried to get into our
car. I
know no one is supposed to feed the bears, but that doesn't mean it
doesn't happen. So we're in a line of cars that's not
moving. People are tossing out marshmallows and there's a
group
of three bears snarfing them up. My dad asks mom what we have
and
all we have are life-savers. So dad tosses one of
those.
One bear really liked it . . . and while dad is trying to open another
roll, he turns and the bear has tracked the candy to our car and is
leaning in. Dad starts rolling up the window. His
Air Force
buddy jumped out and snapped a photo. By then, the bear was
just
standing with a paw on the car.
It was also in Sacramento that I
learned the value of reading signs. During a visit from my
cousin, he, my brother and I headed to the base swimming
pool. We
were about to cut across a field when we noticed a big sign posted on a
fence. One of actually said, "Let's read the stupid
sign."
Lo and behold, it said something like, "Warning. Artillery
Shelling in Progress." So we decided not to cut across that
particular field.
Like a lot of girls back then, I was in the
brownies then the girl scouts. I did a lot of "girly" things
like
joining drill team in high school too.
Once again, we lived
off-base in Montgomery, Alabama. We stayed in an antebellum
house
that had been "carved up" into four apartments--two downstairs and two
up. We lived downstairs and had huge pecan trees in
back.
Our school had a store where you could buy school supplies. I
mention it because I'd never seen that before or after.
Certainly
we didn't have any such place in the high school where I taught math,
aviation and computer science.
I've never been a deep
sleeper. On Okinawa, the Creature from the Black
Lagoon haunted my sleep for
six months. I've always had and remembered a
dozen dreams a night.. As
well, I've always woken up frequently, or got up
sleepwalking.
But I've always been able to tell a dream from reality. So
one
night, I woke up and heard crying. I went into the
hallway.
In the niche beneath the staircase I saw a ghost. I still
remember her and could point her out in a line-up. She was
quite
beautiful with very long red hair and she wore a filmy, flowing gown of
another time period. It was years later when I
talking to
my dad that he mentioned that place was haunted. He never saw
the
ghost but he smelled her perfume. My mom never bought or wore
perfume.
I saw another ghost after we'd moved to
Dallas. This ghost didn't have distinct features.
He was
more of a shape, like a shadow except made of light. His head
bore a distinct triangular shape, like he wore a tricorn hat. I'd never
told anyone this before my friend Susan spent the
night. I
wake up, hearing her call my name over and over. I rolled
over
and told her to go back to sleep. In the morning, she was in her
sleeping bag, staring. wide-eyed awake. She then described
the
same shape, including the triangular head, and said it hovered around
my bed all night. That was what had kept her awake.
Now she
told me this and described it before I confessed to having ever seen
anything. The time I'd seen him, I'd woken cold and was going to pull
my covers back up, but the ghost was pulling them up for me.
This ghost often made strange noises when no one else was
home. I hear the silverware rattle or the toilet would flush.
But
mostly he was a helpful ghost. One time I'd gone
out front
to practice my high kicks and was doing so on
concrete.
This was during my drill team days. There wasn't a sole on
the
street. I kicked and my back foot slipped. I went flying
backwards and would've cracked my tailbone at the very least if the
ghost hadn't caught me then set me down very gently. Of
course,
I'd first thought somebody had caught me, except there's no one
behind. There were no trees nearby. And nobody
could've set
me down then run out of sight in the time it takes to turn one's
head. There were even finger marks showing as skin
depressions
under my arms. So maybe it wasn't Casper, but it was a
beneficial
ghost.
Because I started first grade at 5, I was always a year
younger than my classmates. Because I have a December
birthday, I
couldn't take the school offered driver's ed course until after my 16th
birthday. So I ended up not driving until later.
However I
did start flying lessons. Maybe it was the Air Force in my
dad,
but I, my dad and my brother all took
private pilot lessons.
Because my brother was younger, he started out with a glider as you
could be younger to solo a glider than to solo a powered
aircraft. As an adult, he was in the Army reserves
for a
number of years and flew a helicopter. But me, I only flew
airplanes, although I did get to fly a Navy T-34 and a piper cub
taildragger. Mostly I flew single-engine land
aircraft. On my 16th birthday, I earned my private
pilot's
certification. Meaning I could legally fly passengers . . .
if
someone first drove me to the airport. Yeah, ironic huh?
Flying
-vs- driving has interesting differences. As a student
driver,
you can only drive with a licensed driver in the passenger
seat.
A student pilot needs to fly alone in order to log pilot-in-command
hours and they aren't allowed to carry passengers. For those
who
don't know, if you have 2 pilots up front, the one with the higher
rating is, by definition, the pilot in command, even if he never does
any of the flying. If a student drivers wrecks, he takes out
another driver with him. Student pilots only take out
themselves. Right about my 18th birthday I earned my
commercial
and instrument ratings.
To
get the commercial rating required a lot of extra hours. I'd
already passed the written exam. I knew all the
maneuvers.
But I hadn't met the minimum hours. After school (college by
then--as I started college at 17) I went to the airport and flew the
same route every day for a couple of weeks. Sometimes my
grandmother rode with me and knitted. Daily like clockwork I
flew
a three-leg cross-country. The basic calculations were the
same. All I had to do was call for the current weather, made
adjustments, then file my flight plan. The various towers not
only expected me, instead of using whatever call-sign was on my
fuselage, both tower and ground control called me Linda.
There
really weren't many women flying back then and I have a recognizable,
high-pitched voice. A lot like the Japanese Anime chicks, or
maybe it's more of Disney cartoon voice. Whenever I ran late,
they
worryied about me. And when I landed, ground radioed to tell me they'd
sent the fuel truck
Here's
the funny part . . . years later a guy I'd met at conventions, who's
now a good friend and even a minion for the 4 Redheads of the Apocalyse
(if you don't know what that is . . . it'll come up a later in this bio
I'm sure) was one of the fuel truck guys.
I passed the
commercial and took the Instrument Ratings flight test next.
All
certifications and ratings have a written, an oral, and a flight
test. When it was time for the flight test, it wasn't a good
day
for instrument testing. Before I go into why, let me set the
stage. You're wearing a hood so that all you can see is the
instrument panel. There's no outside visual. You
have to
fly the course told by the examiner and perform all the required
maneuvers without a visible horizon. My examiner, by the way,
had
been a pilot for Canada's Snowbirds.
When flying by instruments there are several available approaches, some
of them easier than
others.
At the airport I'd flown out of the main nav-aids were down for
service. The only approach available was a back ADF that uses
a
timed, stepped course. This is a tough path to fly and was
harder
than anything required to pass the exam. The examiner asks if
I'd
like to come back another day to finish up. I didn't know or
realize I was opting for the "hard course" and declined the offer
figuring I'd just as soon be done with the test. Later the
examiner tells my dad he'd been sure he was going to have to flunk me
because he didn't think a lot of his old Snowbird buddies could've
flown that course.
So what I had was the
ADF as my main instrument. It was a back course, so the
needle
read backwards of what was going on. The timing and stepped
part
comes in this way: Once I hit a certain marker, I had to mark
the
time and drop rapidly to a particular altitude then fly straight and
level until the time count was up. On the next marker, I do
the
same. And so forth. All this while using a
backwards
nav-aid and changing settings and communicating with the
tower.
Although the examiner offered to cover the tower conversation for me, I
told him I could manage. Anyway I flew it perfect and stunned
him
because I also kept a conversation going with him throughout.
Back then I could multitask a lot better.
 In
college I took up fencing and SCUBA diving as my PE classes.
PE
at SMU rocked. For a while I kept up the fencing at a local
fencing club, but mostly I used those skills in the SCA where I had a
swashbuckling persona. I fenced a few tournaments and had a
great
time and even got tips from a few swashers who'd been fencing
champs. And having a SCUBA certification was handy when I
worked
on my master's degree…but that's later.
Between the
driving, flying and SCUBA, you can say at one time or another, I've
been a threat by land, air or sea. <grin>
 In
college I double-majored in Computer Science with an Electrical
Engineering minor and in Russian Studies. So I graduated with
a
BS and a BA. I even gave the sorority thing a try, but my
homework load was too heavy to enjoy the sorority activities, and so I
gave it up. However I did have time for D&D,
something I
discovered in college. I kept playing regularly for several
years
too as it was also something my husband enjoyed. Eventually,
I
was one of our group's main dungeon masters. And when we had
conventions in town, I'd run one of my dungeons. I even ran a
dungeon at Origins, when it was held in Dallas. For them, I'd
created "The House of Poe" in which every room was governed by one of
Poe's stories. To survive the adventure meant knowing a bit
of
Poe. The concept was so popular than my original number of
sessions was doubled.
 Ravenar,
my dance troupe, first appeared at some of these local gaming and media
conventions. In Ravenar's Gallery there's a costume album in
which I've put in some of our earliest shows. The most
elaborate,
costuming wise, were our Elfquest show and our Sorceress
show. We
based the sorceress costume on Bethel's outfit--a witch character in an
old series, Wizards & Warriors. The Elfquest costumes
were
based on costumes from the graphic novel series. The coolest
part
here is that we were able to perform that show for Richard Pini--one of
Elfquest's creators. At that time, we did a lot of shows
based on
media costumes . . . but then mostly danced at media
costumes. My
Princess Ardala (from Buck Rogers) was used in our Alien Slave show.
Other
than costumes for dancing, I did recreation and original costumes and
competed in a fair number of masquerades. I've won many
ribbons,
including a Best Hall Costume at DragonCon. I hadn't even
realized I'd been entered in that one until my name was called up.
DragonCon staff had roamed the convention snapping pictures
and
getting names. That's all it took to be entered. I
believe
the judge was Tom Savani. Since I've watched a lot of horror
movies, I recognized his name and was tickled he picked my gown as a
winner.
I see I've sidetracked at bit. From earlier, you might
have thought, how cool, she speaks Japanese and Russian.
Think
again. I also studied French and German in high school.
Did
any of these languages stick? Nope. Apparently the
language
portion of my brain is Teflon coated. But I gave it
a
try. I remember bits and pieces and sometimes chunks of
memory
come back to me. But mostly, I speak foreign languages with a
lot
of arm waving charades. Programming languages, on
the other
hand, stuck.
When I studied the various foreign languages, I
reached a level of being able to manage. Manage,
meaning I
could shop while I traveled. I did okay during my two trips
to
Europe while I was still attending high school. My parents
valued
travel as part of an education. So my brother and I spent our
Spring Breaks touring parts of Europe.
No matter the
country, the locals always thought I was German. Even in
Germany. If you've heard my outrageous accent, you're be as
dumbfounded as I was. I wore jeans and t-shirts and even had
braces. Yet everyone asked, "Are you German?" To
which I
relied, "No, I'm American." Almost without exception, the
following comment was, "No……maybe English?" Again, I
repeated,
"American." To which the argument continued, but now the
country
order varied. Some went with Irish, others with Dutch.
While
my friend Leslie and I wandered through the Reich's museum in
Amsterdam, a man followed us. Leslie hadn't taken German and
I
only had about a year and half under my belt, so I tried translating
the passages on plaques written in Dutch. Dutch is not
German,
make no mistake. Leslie notices this man and panics a
little. So we hurry though the museum but ended up nearly
barreling into the man. He looked at me as asked, "Are you
German?" When I said, "No, I'm American," his
answer was
probably the only variation. He just said, "That explains
it." Yeah, I figure my translations were pretty
bad. I'll
never get a UN job, eh?
I loved Europe. Now
that my blonde had darkened and I've opted to go red, if I ever get the
chance to go back I expect everyone will ask, "Are you Irish?"
One
of the reasons I tried to hit every art museum is that I love
art. Never really could draw well. You can tell
what it is,
but my artistic skills are not in drawing or painting. Not
that I
didn't try. Once we'd moved back to the States, I spent a few
summers with my Grandma in Shreveport, Louisiana. She lived
next
door to a local, well-known artist, Ms. Cora Butler. I spent
a
few hours every day at her home studio while she tried, bless her
heart, to teach me to paint.
Actually I can't criticize anyone
for not knowing my nationality. My husband and I, along with
another couple, traveled to Montreal, Canada for a
convention.
World Fantasy, I think. While we were there, we took a bus
tour
to Quebec City--which is a great tour and I highly recommend
it.
If I go back to Montreal, I'm doing the tour again. On the
bus,
the first question the guide asked was, "Are there any Americans on
board." We four laughed and raised our hands, expecting that
everyone on the bus was American. Yet we were the only
ones. After we raised our hands, the guide said, "Okay, then
English it is." Sure he assumed we didn't know
French. Or
course, he was right. (I had studied three years of French in
high school, but that had been long ago.)
Our Montreal trip was
only a couple of months after 911--the destruction of the World Trade
Center. It turned out that the black men were from
Africa.
The red-haired family was Irish. The Indian fellow was from
India. Etc. To us everyone looked
American.
<laugh> Later at one of the stops the
Irish lady came
up to me and said, "I would've never guessed you were an
American. I was sure you were an Irish lass." So we
all had
a laugh and the bus trip was great.
 Back
to art and paintings in particular, my mom is the talented
painter. She even had a webpage long before I got this
one.
She does portraits, both people and pets. She does
landscapes. She does oil and watercolor. If you're
interested in having a portrait done, and she can work from a
photograph, check out her site. Click here for My
Mom's Art Site.
Actually,
my whole family is artistic in some medium. My dad plays the
pedal steel guitar. I believe it's a 7 pedal
guitar. If you
know these terms you can appreciate how hard an instrument that is to
play. You have foot pedals, knee levers, strings and you use
a
slide bar or picks.
My brother does arc welding as a
hobby. While he mostly makes useful things, like ramps, he
also
likes to make artistic things. If he ever had a good
opportunity,
he'd have made a great stand-up comedian. His wife is the
family
athlete. Sure, I do belly dancing and tai chi, but she
runs. She's working on meeting the qualifications for running
in
the Boston Marathon.
Back to traveling, I highly
recommend it. I've enjoyed parasailing in Mexico, taken a
cruise
to the Bahamas, and while I was earning my master in teaching, I spent
a few weeks in Hawaii.
Since
I was working toward an Earth sciences education degree, my fellow
students were natural sciences educators. I was the only
"tech"
teacher in the bunch. I was already married and teaching high
school by then. Hanging out with this crowd was certainly
entertaining. Some classes, like Sea Level and Salinity
wasn't an
education class at all but one populated by geologists working on their
masters or doctorates.
Things I learned: In Rocks
and Minerals, it's important to know your gemstones. I knew
there
were three classifications of rocks--sedimentary, igneous, and
metamorphic, but told my lab instructor that the only classifications
that mattered were precious, semi-precious and everything else fell
under ordinary. It turns out the mineral part of the class
was
geometry than geology. So when it came to identifying
minerals,
my knowledge of
precious and semiprecious stones came in handy.
 In
Hawaii we went SCUBA diving. That's where the earlier photo
of
the octopus was taken. The guide used my camera to get a shot
of
me handling the surprisingly velvety creature. I went diving
every opportunity I could get and, with a guide, even did some lava
tube diving. The original plan for this trip was after the
course-work was over, my husband was going to fly to Hawaii and join me
and we'd stay on. But things happened and that wasn't
possible. But in a karmic sense of balance, he got to take a
Spanish course along with my parents that ended with a trip and stay in
Mexico and because it was during final exams at the high school, I
couldn't go that time. So I got to dive in Hawaii and he got
to
climb the pyramids at Chitzen Itza.
  My
husband, Chris Donahue, is an electrical engineer and we met in the
SCA. When we met, he'd been a technician and later earned his
degree while working. And he writes, too. So if you
check
out my writing, we co-authored a story for "High Seas Cthulhu" which is
published by Elder Signs Press. We both have stories in three
anthologies, "Flush Fiction, vol. 1" and "Houston, We've Got
Bubbas," published by Yard Dog Press, and in "Loving the Undead,"
published by From the Asylum Books.. Like my father and brother,
Chris was in the Navy reserves for eight years. So
whenever
we traveled, we always checked out Naval sites.
For
eighteen years I taught high school. First I only taught math
as
there wasn't any real computer science courses. Not at my
school. When computer science was added to curriculum, I got
the
classes. So you know how long ago that was, computer science
was
taught using Pascal. Over the years, we upgraded to C, to C+,
to
C++ and in my last years, I taught OOP C++ programming.
 From
the beginning, I designed my courses because the textbooks and course
curriculums were too simplistic. Even when I left teaching,
CS II
statewide standards weren't hard enough and so I'd written my own CS
text and put it as documents on the computer for the kids to carry home
on disc. I also designed our CS III course. At the
time it was the only CS III in the state to receive state accreditation.
I
know my courses were good because my students became TAs at their
colleges as freshmen. Northern Telecom phoned me twice--the
first
time to say they were only taking my students as summer interns, that
they'd dropped all their other schools, and a second time to tell me
that when three of my students--their interns--graduated high school
that they held a meeting and changed their policy. They hired
my
kids to work part-time, from their college dorm, and were going to pay
them 20 grand a year . . . and this was back in the 90s.
I
have a hundred of these stories. I look
back at my
students' achievements with pride, realizing that education is teamwork
between a teacher and student.
Besides math and computer
science, for a while I taught aviation. That was what had
motivated me to earn my Masters and why I picked Earth Sciences.
It enabled me to earn an additional secondary teaching
certification at the same time. It also meant going on all
sorts
of interesting field trips . . . like touring the inside of the Nuclear
Reactor at Glenrose, Texas, before it was finished.
It also meant riding on a C-130 as a member of Civil Air Patrol to fly
to Florida where we received a VIP tour of NASA. If you
haven't flown
in a cargo plane, we sat in netting chairs and as we climbed,
the
condensation forming looked a lot like the mist in the movie Alien.
On
the tour, we were allowed right underneath where the shuttle rockets
launched. And during one of our inservices, I took a course
and
became certified to borrow NASA's moon rock samples.
Yet
I don't feel bad about leaving the teaching field. I've been
replaced by two of my students . . . though not at my school.
Two
of my students, after graduating, decided to get their CS degrees and
become high school teachers just like me. They both stay in
touch, which is wonderful. I even went to one's
wedding. So
I've passed on the legacy. And in one case, I passed along
all
the programs and transparencies and anything else I'd accumulated over
the years as samples and guides.
As you might expect, I
developed carpel tunnel and tendonitis in both arms. The
damage
was rather severe. I was, as one doctor put it, close to
having
my tendons detach in four places. So after a lot of therapy
and
wearing of braces, I started studying tai chi.
  I'd
been belly dancing since I was twelve. My mom and I took the
classes together. And mom made me my first belly dancing
costume.
Considering
that when I'm not writing I'm teaching tai chi or belly dance classes,
I guess I haven't entirely left the teaching profession. But
now
there's no homework to grade. <Grin> I've also
competed in
martial arts tournaments and won a few medals--one gold for Lu Style
and three silver for Yang style, long weapon and short weapon
forms. And I've judged at tournaments. Every year
I'm
invited back, but so far the timing hasn't worked out. The
tournament has repeatedly fell on a convention weekend.
When not
writing, not teaching tai chi or belly dance, I attend as many
conventions as possible as a panelist. Sometimes my dance
troupe,
Ravenar, also performs one of "themed" shows. As
well, if
my fellow redheads, Julia S. Mandala, Rhonda Eudaly and Dusty Rainbolt
are all at the same convention, we'll often be given a 4 Redheads of
the Apocalypse panel.
 The
4 Redheads of the Apocalypse is, you could say, our
characters.
We came up with the concept on a drive back from ApolloCon when we were
all quite tired and punchy. Rhonda had been calling us the
Redheads of the Apocalypse all weekend long. On the drive, I
said
something silly like, "That would make a funny concept . . . if we were
the wives of the 4 Horsemen." From there we decided the
horsemen
would die and the wives would take over the jobs. And so was
created the 4 Redheads.
I'm going to tell you a bit about this
idea as it's really taken on a life of its own. Since its
creation we're as often recognized AS the character we write as
ourselves. And we have something of a local
following. A
couple of our friends and fans have become our minions at conventions,
fetching us things, and have even made up special shirts with an
embroidered logo for the 4 Redheads. We've been told there's
fan-fic about our characters and a couple of times we've been
approached by fans who'd like to do a home-movie sort of project.
 On
the drive back from Houston we decided who would "be" which character .
. . I'm War . . . and the premise for our collected series of
stories. In short--Satan (whom we patterned after our common
publisher at Yard Dog Press) was going to retire and the best
horsewoman got the job. As none of our characters wanted
their
horseman (or horsewomen) position, they all figured being the big boss
would be better. Naturally none of the Redheads are really
suited
for their jobs. If any of them are competent, it'd probably
be
Death/Zoe. But she still hates the work. We put the
stories
together, co-wrote a prologue setting up the premise and an epilogue to
wrap it all up. We posed for the cover and Dusty's husband
took
the pictures. So on my "resume" I can say I was a cover model.
  I'm
also in a biker magazine. One of our themed shows is "Fantasy
Chicks" -- you know, things like Catholic School Girl, Cheerleader,
Dominatrix and Biker Chick--which was my "dance character."
For
promo shots, we took some pictures of me in costume on Bill Allen's
motorcycle. Bill's a great guy. He later wrote an
article
for Planet Biker magazine (it's volume 3, issue 1) and used one of the
pictures of me and him on the bike.
And I model for
Babes with Blades under the name Crymson, making my resume--author, tai
chi instructor, belly dancer and instructor, and model. At
least
this all keeps me busy.
  Back
to the 4 Redheads . . . the chapbook has done really well for Yard Dog
Press and so we've been working on a novel length sequel which should
be published in early 2009. It's called, "The 4 Redheads
in: Apocalypse Now!" Basically, this time the
Redheads have
a new plan for getting rid of their jobs . . . .bring about the
Apocalypse NOW and the job thing is over. There's more
information on this under my publishing credits.
I find most
everything in life interesting. I've taken horseback riding
lessons. I love animals and grew up with all sorts of
pets.
On Okinawa I often caught lizards and brought them inside.
I've
had a multitude of dogs and hamsters as pets. Currently, I
keep
house rabbits, sugar gliders and a cat.
Now you know way more about
me than you probably wanted to. Who knows, as I remember
other
anecdotes or new events happen, I may update this page. Or I'll add another page to the Bio Main Page. Until
then I hope something on this page brought a smile to your face.
|
|
