All about the Monster

In all honesty, I'm just as boring as any other middle-class white 21-year-old. No tales of wonder to be heard here. In December of 2001, I graduated from Salisbury University, where I majored in English and minored in Gender Studies. (No, do not ask me if I'm going to be a teacher. I'm not.) Now that I'm no longer in school, I live with my parents and brother in our home in Greenbelt, Maryland. In the summer, my mother and I raise silkworms in our living room. That is as close to having pets as we get. I managed to get through 12 years of school with a spotless behavior record and a commendable academic record, and I survived 3 1/2 years of college without suffering from alcohol poisoning or contracting a venereal disease, but you won't find my name associated with any heroic efforts or world records.

Employment: My first job was as a Finance Office intern for the city of Greenbelt. While holding this title, I filed vouchers, stamped invoices, counted money, copied documents, and did various odd tasks around the office for one summer. A very decent job for a 16-year-old, and I had to take a test to get the job, oooh! The summer after that, just after I graduated from high school, I entered the "wonderful" world of retail, where I worked as a Sales Associate (read: cash register monkey) for The Cosmetic Center. The summer was pretty tolerable, but the following winter, when I got 6 weeks at home, I worked there for the last week before Christmas and the following January, and THAT was where I developed my nervous aversion to phones. I await the day when people use email for nearly everything and have telephones only for absolute emergencies, with joyful anticipation. In my first year of college, I worked in the dining hall. (see How to Piss Off the Silverware Girl.) 'Nuff said. The summer after that, I got myself a job as a counselor at a day camp run by the city. (see Top 10 Lines of a Camp Counselor.) In my second year of college, I got a job with the university's recycling program, which had me driving a big clunky van around the campus and hauling enormous bags of paper and other recyclable goods, and stayed in that job until I graduated. I thought that by graduating in December and therefore competing for new jobs with a much smaller number of people than I would in May, I'd be able to find a post-college job really fast, but I seem to have graduated in December of the wrong year. The job market is not good for just about anyone except those with advanced technical skills, and it's especially deadly for English majors. Therefore, after 3 1/2 months of sending out literally dozens of applications and getting only a few interviews to show for it, I went out and worked the food service and retail circuit, and got a job as a server at my local Chevy's. As of writing this, I just finished my training and am struggling with a test they make us take before we're put on the schedule. I'll let you all know when I find a job that doesn't require that I wear black socks.

Ideology: Mostly liberal, but there are limits. I'm pro-LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered), which is a big help, considering that I'm bisexual; pro-civil rights, staunchly feminist, and pro-choice, but not very socialist or pro-animal rights. I plan to enjoy myself if I make a lot of money in the future and I'll eat just about any meat except veal. I don't object to organized religion but I do believe in the separation of church and state, and that public school is not a place of worship.

Hobbies: I like to do things with my hands. I like to write, and hope to make a living at it some day. For the past few years I've been heavily into fan fiction but am now starting to write original fiction a little more devotedly. I also do graphic design. In tandem with the raising of silkworms, I spin (yarn, not around and around) and knit. I may have some photos up in the future of some things I've made, but not yet. A page full of links related to my hobbies can be found here.

Oddities: As I mentioned above, I'm bisexual and completely comfortable with it. The more I learn about the place of bisexuals in society, the more militant I get, and my friends in Breaking Through GLASS (SU's LGBT club) found this quite amusing. I went to a few gay pride-related events with them while I was in school. I enjoy being called a bitch even though I'm a fairly even-tempered person most of the time. I take the epithet as a sign that I'm standing up for myself and people are noticing. I am hopelessly drawn to children, will befriend them in any place, at any time, but don't want any of my own. I refuse to wear high-heeled shoes, which isn't easy given the choices women have in footwear these days. Speaking of footwear, I'm also not above wearing slippers in public, though that has sort of lost its oddball appeal now that I'm back in Greenbelt, where being a little offbeat is the rule rather than the exception, and I have more comfortable walking shoes. I grit my teeth at just about everything shown on MTV. I went to a party school but I don't drink more than one and a half drinks when I'm with good friends, and rarely ever approach anything resembling a party. I have never colored my hair and don't intend to start. Although it's a long way off, I hope to go through menopause without being nudged into going on HRT.