Who Is This Woman?

This is an intro­duc­tion to me that goes beyond the stuff on my LJ user info page. I’ll try to remem­ber to update it as things change. Remind me if I don’t, okay?

I’m orig­i­nal­ly from Gads­den, Alaba­ma. My par­ents moved the fam­i­ly to Mari­et­ta, GA in 1971, back to Gads­den in 1974, and to Tuck­er, GA (anoth­er Atlanta sub­urb) in 1977. We’ve been in Geor­gia ever since. I spent a cou­ple of years in south Geor­gia, but have oth­er­wise lived around Atlanta for 27 years. 

We seem to be relat­ed to the entire native pop­u­la­tion of Alaba­ma and most of north Geor­gia, with most­ly Scots-Irish-Chero­kee heritage.

My par­ents are usu­al­ly referred to here as Nana and Papa, which is what my daugh­ter calls them.

I’m the old­est sur­viv­ing child of four: Will, me, Wendy, and Matt. Will died (at 2) just before I was born, due to malig­nant hyper­ther­mia that hit dur­ing a rou­tine her­nia repair surgery. Wendy is in edu­ca­tion. Matt is a doc­tor. Both are mar­ried, and I have one nephew, also named Will.

I was raised as a strict South­ern Bap­tist. I got over it.

I’m a sur­vivor of child­hood sex­u­al abuse (not from a par­ent, thankfully).

I was a very suc­cess­ful stu­dent in primary/secondary school. I won’t say “good,” because I real­ly had bad habits. I just hap­pened to have a learn­ing style that fits very well with Amer­i­can pub­lic school­ing meth­ods of the time, and I test well.

I had a Nation­al Mer­it Schol­ar­ship at Agnes Scott Col­lege. I attend­ed there for one quar­ter, then dropped out to get mar­ried. I also attend­ed Mer­cer Uni­ver­si­ty in Atlanta and Dekalb Col­lege (now Geor­gia Perime­ter Col­lege) for a bit. I’m attend­ing South­ern Poly­tech­nic State Uni­ver­si­ty now, work­ing towards a BA in Inter­na­tion­al, Tech­ni­cal, and Pro­fes­sion­al Communications.

Scott was my high school sweet­heart, Scott. I was 18, he was 20. He was a religion/biology major at Mer­cer. He was going to go into youth min­istry, then marine biol­o­gy, then he switched to vet­eri­nary med­i­cine. He was a youth min­is­ter for a time while we were together. 

We were mar­ried in 1985, then had a low-dra­ma divorce in 1987. No kids, no prop­er­ty, etc.

I began dat­ing Ed in 1988. He’s a mechan­i­cal engineer.

Wayne (Katie’s father) and I met and began dat­ing in 1988, and were mar­ried in 1989. Wayne had degrees in mechan­i­cal and elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing. He did destruc­tive test­ing, then was a qual­i­ty engi­neer for a defense sub­con­trac­tor. He died of leukemia in 1999. The chem­i­cals he used in the destruc­tive test­ing almost cer­tain­ly con­tributed to his illness.

Katie was born in 1990. She’s my mir­a­cle God­dess-gift. We start­ed home­school­ing in 2000, and absolute­ly love it.

After Wayne and I were divorced, Ed and I got back together.

I was briefly mar­ried to Paul in the mid-90s. 

Paul and I had a rela­tion­ship that was open from day one, and Ed and I con­tin­ued to date ’til a few months after sam­bear and I got involved. We’re still friendly.

Yep, that’s three divorces in by the time I was 30.

Sam and I met in 1998, and have been togeth­er ever since then. We’re polyamorous but were not active­ly so for about four years. We were a bit busy blend­ing our fam­i­lies at the time.

Sam’s kids, Genevieve and Rowan, lived with us until 2003. They’re 13 and 16 now and live in north­ern Cal­i­for­nia with their moth­er and her partner.

We were involved with anoth­er cou­ple from 2002 to ear­ly 2003. I still miss her, and what we had togeth­er as a family.

After a cou­ple of years of get­ting to know each oth­er, Sam and I com­bined house­holds with curiousmay9 in ear­ly 2004. We live in Cas­tle Car­i­tas.

I’ve been dis­abled by fibromyal­gia, chron­ic myofas­cial pain, and arthri­tis since 2000. I did­n’t accept it enough to start fil­ing a dis­abil­i­ty claim until 2004. I still hate the “d” word. I’d been work­ing out­side the home since I was 11.

My pro­fes­sion­al back­ground in soft­ware QA, tech­ni­cal writ­ing, and the like. Before I got into tech stuff in the mid-90s, I worked in office man­age­ment, med­ical tran­scrip­tion, account­ing, bank­ing, retail, and office clerk­ing in an HVAC office. I was even a gas com­pa­ny dis­patch­er for a brief time. I spent five years work­ing for a fun­da­men­tal­ist Chris­t­ian for­eign mis­sions board, man­ag­ing their self-insured ben­e­fits pro­gram. I start­ed telecom­mut­ing in 1990, while preg­nant with Katie. It’s still my favorite way to work.

After a mul­ti­ply-con­vict­ed felon began stalk­ing me and Katie in 1996, I got into online safe­ty advo­ca­cy. I’ve done vol­un­teer work with Work­ing to Halt Online Abuse since 1997. I’m their exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent and web­mas­ter now.

I’ve done inter­views about online safe­ty with var­i­ous print and tele­vi­sion media enti­ties since 1996, includ­ing CNN, the BBC, 20/20, the Asso­ci­at­ed Press, US News & World Report, Oprah, ZDTV, Glam­our, and Sveriges.

Our house­hold includes 160 pounds/20 paws of critters.

Shel­ley, the tor­toise­shell cat, is 15. She was mine ’til Katie was born and has been Katie’s cat since then. She con­sid­ers Katie her kitten.

KG is a deaf 12-year-old cat and is all white. She acts some­what autis­tic. I can’t remem­ber how long she’s been with curiousmay9 but it’s been for most of KG’s life.

Sparks is an 8‑year-old orange tab­by. She’s the friend­liest of the four cats, being a total cud­dle-slut as well as a cat of very lit­tle brain.

Wiz­ard, the grey tab­by, is about 2.5 years old. He’s some­what obnox­ious. If I did­n’t know bet­ter, I’d swear he was a tom rather than neutered. He has his sweet moments, though, and is the only cat I have ever seen play fetch.

Kar­li is about 2. She’s a Great Pyre­nees/Akbash cross who joined our fam­i­ly in late sum­mer of 2004. A friend referred to her as “an indoor pony,” but she’s not large for her ances­try. She’s also very sweet, allow­ing lit­tluns to crawl all over her with­out com­plaint. The cats are her “herd” to pro­tect, and she wants every­body who vis­its the house to stay for­ev­er. Bark­ing at boo­jums is her favorite pastime.

So, those are the main not-on-LJ names you’re like­ly to run across here. And way more than you prob­a­bly want­ed to know about me!