Oh, all right. Let's start with the vital statistics.
I’m a spinster and live with three cats in an over-100 year old house in a small town in Wisconsin, and work for the state bureaucracy. Here's a link to a picture of me I don't hate too much.
I graduated from Whitman College, a small private college in Walla Walla, WA. Since they put a link on their alumni directory to my homepage, I figured the least I could do was return the favor, so here it is.

I collect gryphons-- mostly the pewter kind, but others as well-- and decorative tins (they’re handy for storing things in), and books. More about the books later.

I'm politically and personally independent, have opinions on all sorts of things, and usually am more than happy to tell you what they are.

My little gremlin (who's peeking over the line at you) tells me that you are visitor number

Things I Like To Do

I'm a fan of various TV shows (past and present), including Remington Steele, Forever Knight, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., The Flash, Scientific American Frontiers and Antiques Roadshow.

I used to write fanfic, although I haven't in a while. I've collected my favorite bits on a webpage. Feel free to jump over there and read it.

I'm also a voracious reader. My perennially favorite authors are Dorothy Sayers, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Jane Austen. I read mostly mystery and science fiction, but also enjoy history, biography, the occasional intelligent romance novel (no, that is not an oxymoron), and science-for-the-layman books like Germs, Guns and Steel and The Song of the Dodo, among other things.

I also make historical, fantasy, and science-fiction costumes. You can find pictures of some of them on my Costumer's Page. Sorry, I've had to take down the page with the Forever Knight dolls; I ran out of webspace.

And, like most people I know, I love good food. I'm the official archivist for Ma Kosti's Cookbook, a recipe collection by the members of the Lois McMaster Bujold mailing list. It has a nice variety of recipes, and was just updated.

I’ve got a webpage up with pictures of my trip to England, complete with travelogue.
I’ll be putting up one with pictures of my early-December trip to New Orleans after I get back.

Really Neat Websites By Other People

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I've got rather eclectic tastes. As a result, these websites are fairly varied and really have nothing in common except that I found them useful, amusing, or interesting. Here's hoping you have fun browsing them! :)

Check out the Asian American Kashrus Kosher Recipe site. It has some really cool Kosher Asian recipes on it (No, I'm not kidding. They're really are both Kosher and authentic Asian cuisine) and is also a good place to start learning about traditional Jewish culture.
And here's a link to the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream homepage.

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The Louvre website has tons of wonderful artwork on-line. You can also use that link to take virtual tour of the Paris catacombs.
The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto has some nice stuff, too.
If your taste in art is a little more unusual, check out the Museum of NonPrimate Art.

But if you’re a costumer, like me, you absolutely must check out the Victorian & Albert Museum (V&A; for short). It has the most fantastic historical costuming displays. I spent an entire morning drooling on the glass of the display cases on my last trip to England, and another afternoon gaping shamelessly at the treasures on display at the British Museum.

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Sodaplay’s Constructor is one of the most delightful ways to lose track of your time I’ve found on the web. Try it out!

I can always kill an hour or two on the Urban Legends Pages. It’s amazing what some people will believe....
The Junk Science page and the Darwin Awards can be interesting, too.

If you’ve been messing with computers as long as I have (over two decades now), you’ll find the online games at iFiction a real nostalgia trip!

If you want to "read" a lot of science fiction really fast, check out the Book A Minute page.
And the Episode Guides site is really useful for looking up details on that TV show you loved as a kid (or the one somebody older than you keeps raving was the best thing ever).

My Friends' Websites

Or in some cases their workplaces' sites, if they don't have homepages of their own.

Steve Salaba
Sarah Chodrow
James Bryant
Dianne DeSha
Claudia Drescher
Agnes Charrel-Berthillier
Maureen Wynn

Any comments on this page welcome, especially if you like it! :) You can send me e-mail if you like.

Last updated 1/18/01