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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cthulhu's Librarian" data-source="post: 2464454" data-attributes="member: 11064">I was born in the small town of Pine Bush in upstate NY (upstate meaning "further north than New York City, but not by much) in 1972. My mom was an elementary school teacher, and my dad an antique dealer. I have a brother who is 3 years younger than me, and a sister 11 years younger. I spent my entire childhood, and a portion of adulthood in Pine Bush, living in a house that was in a constant state of repair and remodelling. I guess looking back on it, we were poor, but I never thought of it that way when I was growing up. One of my high school teachers once told me "There are two kinds of lazy students-good lazies and bad lazies. You are a good lazy. Now why didn't you do your homework?" I think that about sums me up for high school. I did very well in elementary and middle school, but by the time I got to high school, I was bored. I was in all the advanced classes, and still found them boring. All I wanted to do was read, go hiking, and play games. I also hung out with an odd mix of people-some gamers, some jocks, some nerds, some "undesirables", and a bitch of a girlfriend who drove my life into the ground for 3 years. In college, I had much the same experience as in high school, but with a really great group of friends (one of whom I ended up engaged to for a few years, but never married). I attended 3 different schools, and had 5 different majors. I ended up with a degree in Anthropology, which is useful if you want to be an anthropologist or archeologist, but not very useful for anything else. But it was the most interesting thing I could find that held my interest long enough to amass enough credits to graduate over 5 years. 2 weeks after my 21st birthday, my very healthy and fit dad died at the age of 43 of a massive heart attack 2 days into what was to be a month long family vacation driving around the country. It was the worst day of my life. I still bounce back and forth being depressed and going on medication, then coming off the medication for a few years, then going back on. He meant the world to me, although most of the time living with him I was too blind to see it. He'd probably hate it, but I'm now paranoid that I'm going die of a heart attack at a young age as well, and I'm no where near as healthy as my dad was.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /> I dated and was engaged to a neat goth girl for a while, but things didn't work out. If we had just remained friends instead of dating, I would have a much different circle of friends these days, as the end of our relationship broke up what had been a very tight circle of friends, some of whom I miss quite a bit, but will probably never see again. After college I bounced around through alot of jobs-bookstores, shoeshining, park ranger, and more. Eventually I ended up in publishing at HarperCollins Publishers, working in the science fiction imprint as an assistant editor for a few years until I decided I needed to move out of New York City and find something else to do. I had met a really, really cool girl in New York, and we dated for a while. When we were talkign about leaving NYC, we decided to move to her hometown of Charlottesville, VA. So move we did, and I lived with her parents for a few months until I found a job. Interesting, and I think it helped things quite a bit for the long run. Eventually, I proposed to her in a hot air balloon, and we got married May 30, 2004. We now own a house, have a dog, and both work in the University of Virginia library system.  Oh, I also play roleplaying games.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  My wife does not, but is happy to listen to me talk abotu them non-stop. She thinks that ENWorld is pretty cool too, but won't post, despite my repeated prodding. thats me in a nutshell, I suppose. I left out the parts about me being a metalhead, punk, deadhead, etc., but I don't really qualify as any of those anymore in image. In spirit, however, I'm the biggest damn pagan-punk-hippie you've ever seen.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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