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An FAQ under construction and in progress.
Who am I?
How old are you?
As of this writing, I turned 28 on December 14, 2006. At any given time, I'm (current year - 1978) years old. I don't understand the obsession with hiding one's age, so I don't care who knows it, although I'm a bit weirded out by the idea that I'm almost thirty--mostly because I can't believe time has passed this quickly. Hell, I remember when I was weirded out by the Big Twuh (current date - 1998) years ago.
Where are you?
Birmingham, Alabama. Sometimes I refer to the actual suburb affectionately as "Elbow, Alabama," but it's not as boondocksy as that makes it sound. It's actually very American Beauty up in here. I swear, for example, that they stole the cheerleading routine sequence from my high school.
Seriously? Alabama?
Yes, Alabama. I'm on a small mission to rehabilitate the state's image by getting literate, articulate people online to admit their provenance.
You're not British?
Why do people always ask me this? Okay, granted, it makes sense now that Movies in Fifteen Minutes was published by Orion Books in the UK. But before "Van Helsing in Fifteen Minutes" was even a glimmer in my eye, people online kept asking if I was British. I think it's because I use words like "twee" and "grey."
What do you look like?
Well, number one, I'm a white girl. I know, I know, but I'll get it out of the way because the name Cleolinda Jones confuses people--I think because it sounds so much like Cleopatra Jones. My Yahoo avatar looks reasonably like me, in a completely unrealistic cartoon way: the hair is pretty spot-on, although my real glasses are wire-rims and thinly rectangularish, and my eyes aren't that blue (they're actually sort of a blue-green with a thin layer of brown around the pupils. Why yes, I do have Mary Sue eyes). A coworker of my mother's once said that I have "the brow of Ingrid Bergman." The woman who does my hair said that I have "a little cupid mouth," which I think was a compliment, and I have to be careful not to wear dark lipstick. Beyond that? I'm totally hobbity. Short, wide, plump... hairy? Let us draw a veil over that last question.
Where do you go to school?
I've referred to schools I've attended before, but since this is an official FAQ, I'll say simply that I went to a private college as an undergraduate and currently attend, on and off, a graduate program at a public university, both in the Birmingham area.
What do you study?
I was, believe it or not, a Spanish major/French minor in college, with an unofficial concentration in creative writing. They didn't have a CrWr major, you see. At one point I combined the two by translating some Cuban short stories into English with a favorite professor. I'm currently working on a creative writing MFA, which will probably take me ten years all told, given the amount of time I keep taking off for book-writing or health reasons (usually a mix of depression and PCOS).
Why do you talk about your depression so much?
Because I'm not ashamed of it, nor do I see any reason to be. I'm not always proud of the way I handle it, but I don't think the illness itself is anything to be ashamed of. It's a chronic illness the way diabetes is--a chemical imbalance--except that it's brain chemistry rather than insulin levels. It's my hope that talking about depression in general and my experience with medication in particular will help people in similar situations, and reader feedback indicates that it does. That said, I try to talk about it in as objective a tone as possible, rather than angsty emo pleas for attention--that is, I would say, "Yesterday was really bad," rather than "omg you guys I don't want to liiiiive."
Occupation: Girl on LJ
Occupation what why?
"Occupation: Girl" is just a phrase that occurred to me, but I liked it enough to stick with it. Someone asked me if I would eventually change it to "Occupation: Woman," which isn't really the way I think of it. It's "Occupation: Girl" in the sense of being a young woman who doesn't really know what she's doing with her life or where she's going yet, yes, but it's also "girl" as opposed to "boy." Have you ever heard the song "What It Feels Like for a Girl" (I recommend the Duane Thamms remix)? It uses a sample of dialogue from a Charlotte Gainsbourg movie (The Cement Garden):
Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short... wear shirts and boots, because it's okay to be a boy. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading... because you think that being a girl is degrading. But secretly... you'd love to know what it's like. Wouldn't you? What it feels like for a girl.
It's kind of like that.
So are you a feminist?
Hell yes. I get so angry when people treat "feminist" like a dirty word. You know what "feminist" means? It means that you believe that men and women are equals. Period. It doesn't mean that you think women are or should be superior, it doesn't mean that you hate men, it doesn't mean that you don't shave your legs, it doesn't mean that you invade Poland in your spare time. As Sars at Tomato Nation once said,
If you believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes, you are a feminist.
Yes, you are.
How long have you been on Livejournal?
Since Halloween 2003.
Why Livejournal?
Can I friend your journal?
Will you friend me back?
What does "friending" mean?
Why is your normal journal a journal and m15m a community?
How do you do your signature at the end of each of your entries?
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Publishing
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