Hey! that's me! Oh, bugger.

Dunno about you, but those classes and conferences and such where everyone goes round and says who they are and why they're there, and once in while someone will be honest about being there because they were made to, and everyone else wishes he'd made up a lie like they all did, and so avoided bringing the whole group down, and I was going somewhere with this...

Anyway, I'm not here because I was made to be, which is a mercy. I'm here because doing this stuff, writing and putting up pics and drawings and so forth is fun. As soon as it isn't, I'm outta here.

First things first: My mother didn't name me 'pericat'. I did that my own self, one afternoon some years ago when I was installing an early version of ICQ and, needing some memorable phrase to satisfy its imperative demands for a handle, some phrase that wasn't already in its databanks, I spied my cat. Named Peristroika Periwinkle and answering, when he chose, to Peri, he was just then draped over the top of the giant 20" sparcstation monitor where he could simultaneously bathe in afternoon sun and do his one good deed: prevent all that wonderful heat from escaping the monitor and rendering it, oh, I dunno, long-lived?

'Peri' was taken, but 'pericat' was not. Problem solved. How, I ask you, was I to know that 'pericat' was not just a variety of azalea bushes, but the surname of what must be several provinces' worth of French people? There weren't no Google then, this was the dark ages of Yahoo and clean, staid web pages with only the occasional blinkie.

Time went by, and I realized I found instant chat stressful and that this wasn't likely to change, so I stopped using ICQ much. However, more and more things I did online needed me to have a unique name. So I got used to it. I think mom is dealing pretty well, too. And if those French people want to argue, they can go sniff elderberries. I've got a stake in the name now.

Buzzwords: I'm a middle-aged lesbian living in British Columbia with my partner. I've been here going on four years, and hope soon that CIC will get their fingers out of their noses long enough to bless my citizenship application.*

Prior to falling madly in love with a rank furriner, I lived in Texas, and some other places now and again, but basically in central and south Texas, and will someday publish my Pretty Good White Girl Burrito recipe. Meantime I just wonder what it's like to grow up places that aren't made of fossils.

I studied set design in college, picking up a BFA from Baylor University in Waco and an MFA from the University of Texas in Austin. (I'm rather proud of that.) I ultimately left theatre work because I needed a steady income, but I remain fascinated by the nuts and bolts that go into making "the place where the story happens," as I think of it.

So, now I do computer stuff for a living, like 99% of every living creature on the planet.** It is, after all, where the money is, and my current job allows me more personal freedom than any other I've ever heard of. At one time I played a hell of a lot of Diablo online, and wrote spot reports about the gaming sessions, some of which are still up somewhere besides my freebie site. Prior to moving here, I rode a motorbike most everywhere, including across country both ways, and half of England. Those were fun trips, and I've no idea if my accounts of them remain online anywhere, but if they do, Google will have them in the rec.motorcycles and/or rec.motorcycles.uk archives. (The Diablo stuff can be harvested from alt.games.diablo. It's true, usenet is forever. So watch your language.)

My 2004 New Year's resolutions.

Me, in colour.

Frankly, that should be quite enough, don't you think?

* They have. As of the thirteenth of May, 2004, I am Canadian.

** Okay, I know it's not that many. I've heard of the whales, and the minefields, and the Brazilian farmers, all right? They're all a major priority.

And there I am, going off on slices of a percentage, like you care. Okay, so— if you care about this stuff, just take it as read that I'm totally with you. And if you don't, then fine. The People Who Care will be coming through here any day now, and be making serious changes to everything around you which will impact how you live from where you buy your smokes to if sushi will make you sick tonight or next decade, so please just move aside and keep the noise down so they can work.