What I've Been Doing

I have been editing, teaching, writing newspaper articles, and doing massage therapy. It has been fun and interesting to be back in school getting a degree in creative writing and finishing my first book. I am not married, although I almost was a couple of times, and am not interested in having children--something about as unheard of in our society as me being an atheist and a vegan.

I'm in the UVU anime club and the Society for Creative Anachronism, I really enjoy science fiction, I was a professional creative chef, I sometimes can get food to grow in my garden before wild creatures take over (I recently found raccoons), I was a radio DJ by the name of Corny Lorny, and I used to be a psychology major because people are comfortable talking to me (this also helps with interviews).

The funniest thing in high school was that I could go dancing at The Palace on high school and college nights because I went to college in the evening starting my sophomore year. I remember loving to dance to 80s music such as Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, The Cure, and Siouxsie and the Banshees but hating everything new. I especially thought this when I worked at two music stores and as a DJ.

Mr. Baron was the most amazing teacher and great person, and he taught every one of my siblings in either electronics or computer science. I seem to be the only girl in the history of Provo High to have taken all three electronics classes and was, of course, the only girl in all three. (I, thus, have no excuse to ever be unable to use electronic devices!) I also took stage crew and auto shop, so I covered most of the bases for tomboy classes.

I was in college for what would have been my senior year, and I could go on for hours as to the interesting moments there. For example, I had a German professor who made us dance the funky chicken, commented whenever I wore anything but black, reminded my smoker boyfriend that he was killing himself every day (true enough), and had defected with his brother from East Germany only a few years earlier before the wall had come down.

Having four older siblings often meant meeting people of different ages. It was so sad, for example, to learn that only those in your exact age group ever got together for high school reunions. What use was that when I almost never associated with people my age?

I remember Nicholai Geils-Lindeman was a German exchange student during the wall demolition (I have a piece) and he so wished he could be there. He was somehow reliving America's 60s and became a key to my own country's past. Imagine a giant with long blond hair, freckles, jeans covered in floral patches, and who always had a smile and a laugh at the ready.

Niko sold me his treasured black bass guitar (I play) and I named it Schwartz--having no idea that Schwartz meant the color black in German. I even asked him to a school dance, Girl's Preference, and he was devastatingly sweet and polite as he told me he was dating a Japanese girl--she was about half his height. She was named Kumiko, just like the girl Daniel loved in "Karate Kid II." Kumikos always get the guys, it seems.