About Me

I’m one of those right and left brained people; my father was a veterinarian and my mom was an artist. (She passed away when I was in my early twenties.) I graduated from University of Oregon with a degree in English in 1996, and then a few years later I went back to school to get my teaching certificate at Northeastern Illinois University. I finished student teaching high school sophomores and juniors and decided that wasn’t the life for me. Since then I have worked every job you can think of, including dressing up in a Hello Kitty suit and taking abuse for Sanrio. I currently work as a manager at Quimby’s Bookstore here in Chicago, the greatest bookstore ever, specializing in independently published zines, comix and small press books, or just anything subversive and weird.

I enjoy karaoke, writing, publishing (my zine is called Caboose), watching “Dr. Who” in its current incarnation (my current celebrity crush is the tenth doctor, played by David Tennant) and all of its spin off shows like “Torchwood.” My next goal is to get my husband (Joe) and me’s karaoke KJ company, Shameless Karaoke, off the ground. We have about 1200 songs so far and the list continues to grow since we are obsessed karaokers both at home and out in the city. We frequently go to Rory Lake’s Karaoke Dreams shows around town here in Chicago, but mostly at the FDR Hall at Honore and Courtland.

I am currently finished with chemotherapy treatment for Stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a type of cancer. I go for treatment at the University of Chicago, where everybody is very nice. My first plan is to go skydiving, get a new tattoo and then join Weight Watchers to get rid of all the pounds I put on while being on steroids. So cancer people get all skinny doing chemo? BULLSHIT.

I also enjoy many other things: playing with my fancy new I-Mac, taking pictures with my shitty pink digital camera from Target, begging my husband to get me a pug, juicing weird vegetables, anything pretty and shiny and Japanese, listening to the sound of my kitties’ paws on the duvet, looking at PBTeen catalogs, making mix CDs in I-Tunes, singing in the car, blaring the AC when it’s super hot out and then being so cold I have to put on a sweater, getting all jazzed up on caffeine and writing, vintage shopping, making corkboards out of old photo frames, laughing laughing laughing right before bed, reading celebrity gossip magazines, chewing gum even though I have TMJ, anything tiki, rubber stamps, rearranging the furniture, finding more efficient ways to move things from one room to another, pizza, the Delia’s catalog, making fun little podcasts for friends on Garage Band, science fiction and fantasy, creative non-fiction and memoirs, PK Dick, Haruki Murakami, Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, Brian K. Vaughan, the color green, funny little decorative lights, green tea flavored pumpkin seeds, playing word association games, public radio, trail mix, pretending that I’m the musician behind the song I’m jamming to, dancing, Dance Dance Party Party, anything with a sitar, shopping at health food stores, shopping at cheesy new age bookstores, zines about illness, collecting clip art books, finding weird notes people have written, fat animals, hanging out at the dog park, pretty pieces of paper, decoupage, doing exercise videos and learning fun new dance moves, bellydance music, mystic shit (“This metaphysic shit is dope” -Madonna), herbal facials, apothecaries, alternative medicine (a-hem, excuse me! “complimentary therapies”), exciting people about new things, making new friends, introducing friends to each other, riding my crappy $30 bike, and lotsa other stuff!