mon·o·cer·do

This is me.

When I first conceived of this Web log (which hates to be called a "blog"), I refused to create an "About" page out of sheer pretension. I figured that since the whole site is one big "About" that there was no need to attempt to summarize the staples of my personality into one neat, left-clickable synopsis.

But then I realized that hypocrisy was rapidly overshadowing pretension since the first thing I look for on any personal site is the "About" page. Out of sheer guilt, I decided that I owed the same to all of the random visitors who mistakenly come to this site after searching for things like "roll-on-the-floor-and-drool," the lyrics to various Simpsons songs, and "is my Coffee Mate creamer bad?". If I can't help these folks with their Googles-gone-bad, at least I can offer this:

I, Sarah The Arbiter Of This Site, was born on the 1st day of the 12th month in the nineteen hundred and seventy-eighth year of Our Lord. I grew up on the shores of Lake Erie near Cleveland, Ohio, knowing two things for certain: Thou shalt obey traffic laws and THE LAKE IS NORTH. You can imagine my awful disillusionment (and disorientation) when, in the summer of 2001, I moved to Chicago where sidewalks are often referred to as "the alternative lane," and the lake is most decidedly NOT NORTH. My entire transportational and directional credences shattered, I took a job at a start-up software company, which required me to answer questions like, "Can I upload my monitor now?" and "Where is the ANY key?".

After spending a full year Uninstalling and Rebooting My Sanity Down the Toilet, I was frightened enough of the business world to invest "unrecommended amounts" of legal tender in a graduate degree in the Humanities at The University of Chicago (my undergraduate degree is in French Education). MA completed in June of 2003, I continue to live in Chicago with my boyfriend, Jason (aka "B"), one super cute flat-faced kitty, occasional mice, and two house plants. I was painfully unemployed for six months after graduation, but am now working as an adjunct instructor at a local community college, changing my official status from unemployed to underemployed.

Otherwise...

-I recently discovered that I love Bloody Marys (extra spicy with extra olives).
-I do not have cable. I would not have cable if it weren't free.
-I have an unhealthy fear of birds.
-I am not religious.
-I am not good at pool.
-I am sad I didn't get to go to this.
-I have been a vegetarian since I was 13.
-The picture on the masthead of this site is of Tanya Donelly, the former lead singer of Belly/Throwing Muses, who no longer produces good music me.
-I want to have a cat that looks like this and name it Dirty Hairy.
-I am a self-taught Web hack, and maintain this site manually, without the benefit of any blog or site building interface. Originally, this was done so I would be forced to learn HTML via brute force. Now, however, I realize that this was a really, really bad idea.
-I have lived in France.
-My favorite beer is Guinness.
-My hair is blonde-ish.
-I have 20/15 vision.
-I have no tattoos.
-My mother is an English teacher and I talk to her every day.
-I refuse to bleach my teeth to #FFFFFF white.
-I have never been camping.
-I love etymology.
-I am bitter about the Oxford English Dictionary 2003 revisions.
-I think Marilyn Vos Savant is a crock and I resent her for selecting such a lame pen name.
-The word "bunny" can almost always make me laugh.
-Other domain names I considered for this site:
undergroundgrandma.com
fancykittymoney.com
rattastic.com
chickennecks.com
-I am a big fan of the prefix "mini."
-I have made this "About" section very un-mini, so I am going to stop it now.

If you have any other questions, comments, or other, email me but please, think before you write.