For those of you that have ventured this far into the shadows, a brief litany of sunshine and rainbows. And remember kids, if you can't think of a good pick-up line, use the one that worked for me. 'Wow, you have a really nice ossuary here!' - Cemetary Man

Well, I suppose since you've stuck with me this far, I should tell you a little about myself. I just turned 25 a few weeks ago. I had a pretty good birthday, by all accounts. Spent most of it in the coffee house across the street from my apartment with a bunch of friends. Then I was taken out and gotten nicely toasted. (Thanks guys)

I love all kinds of music excepting only most rap and salsa. Yes, that does mean that I love country. *Nyah!* My favorite bands are Wumpscut and Depeche Mode. Other than that I pretty much listen to anything from ethereal to electronica. My heart lies with industrial/standard goth, though. But I'm also an old school punk, and an 80's metal fan. Personally, the fact that hair metal is making a comeback just gives me the absolute giggles. I love classical music, my favorite composer being a tie between Edvard Greig and Holst. If you've never heard the Planets, I suggest you go find a copy. It is some of the most passionate music in existance.

I have a wonderfully frightening 7 yr. old son named Matthew, who lives with my parents. I decided when I was 18 that I was in no condition mentally or emotionally to be taking care of a baby. I didn't want to drag him through me trying to grow up, so I let my parents adopt him. He is the sweetest child in the world, *very* intelligent, and one of my three proudest accomplishements. I often wonder what my life would have been like had I decided to stay and raise him, but I know with the utmost certainty that his would have been worse. Sometimes we, as parents, have to make decisions that seem to be wrong in order to let our children have the best life that they can.

I also have a 5 month old daughter, Maya, who is trying ever so desperately to learn how to crawl. She gets very frustrated when she can't get her knees under her, but sooner or later she'll manage. :> She is my third great accomplishement. Having a newborn again as been a definate education, but I wouldn't give her up for the world.

I am very happily engaged to the most wonderful man in the world, and after 4 years we are finally getting married. My second greates accomplishment is managing to not drive him off in the course of that four years. He is my love, my life, and my soul. We are going to have and Druidic handfasting officiated by a Pentacostal priest. (Don't ask) (No, ask, it's a funny story). We're kind of doing the quickie ceremony this time, next Midsummer we're going to have the official wedding, with bridal parties and all of that. You know, the for the parents and pictures wedding.

I love to read. In fact it is very rare to find me without a book somewhere near me. I love horror, my passion is short stories. You can find anything from Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey through Piers Anthony and Charles De Lint to Poppy Z. Brite and Robert R. McCammon. If its in print, I'll read it. My favorite author is Charles De Lint. If you've never read any of his stuff, and you like urban fairy tales, I highly reccomend any of his books.

I have worked at a variety of places, including a jewelry cart in Coconut Grove, Miami, as a stripper for 4 years (not an experience I would recommend to anyone). I've worked in bookstores, restaurants, pizza places, and have spent the last two years in that peculier form of indentured servitude known as temporary staffing. I am currently working for the University of Wisconsin, in the Journalism and MAss Communications department. It's a great job, and they don't care what I look like at work. As I type this I have blue hair, jeans, a tank top, and no shoes on. (My Birkenstocks are under the desk.) You can only hope to be lucky enough at least once in your life to land a nicely paying job that accepts you as you are and not as they think you should be.

That kind of jumps around a bit though. As the Mad Hatter said, "Start at the beginning, go on through the middle, and when you get to the end, stop."

Born in Oklahoma, I was moved to Alamagordo, New Mexico when I was too young to care, then moved to Melbourne, Florida at the tender age of 11. It was there that I realized two things. The first being that I was happier at night and with the inherent creatures of the night then I was any other time, and two, that I hated Melbourne. So, I upped and moved to Miami in 1994. I lived in almost every part of Miami you could mention, and it was in one of those parts I met my fiance Peter. In due course someone convinced us to move, and wanting to be elsewhere at the time, we moved to Milwaukee, WI. That's about it for the whereabouts stuff. I've lived in Ireland and Londodn on and off, but haven't been able to make it back for years.

My finace and I are both pagan, if you hadn't noticed. I follow the Path of the Morrigu. It's kind of a female warrior Druidic path. It encomnpasses not only warfare and death, but also the healer and the lorekeeper aspects of the Morrigan. I am teaching myself herbalism, so if anyone knows any good websites, please e-mail me and tell me. My fiance is a Druidic bard, and a wonderfull artist. We will be at GenCon this year, down in the artists section. If you are going, please stop by and say hello.

As a side note: my Mom and step-Dad recently logged onto my site and left me an interesting message in my guestbook (now deleted) condemning this site and all sites like as 'cesspits of evil'. Personally, I think I did a very tasteful job on this site. None of the pictures are crude (although my stepdad did say that the pictures were only fit to be shown in Playboy. I told T.J., the photographer who took most of the pictures on this site, and he is incredibly flattered that someone thinks his work is that good.) :> I've tried to make my site funny and interesting with the Mope Opera. And I've tried to help other people learn about this wonderful thing that we call goth through the links page. If you hven't checked it out yet, it has a series of links making fun of Goth, there is also a Gothic Parents Resource page, something we need more of. But I don't think they looked at any of that. They just saw the black and the clothes and didn't bother to see past the surface. Yes, I am a pagan, I make no apologies for that. I have been a pagan for 10 years now, and will be a pagan until die. This isn't a phase, nor is it to piss people off, this is what I believe. I try not to condemn any one elses beliefs, why should they condemn mine? And I have also been a goth/punk for 12 years, and I don't plan on changing that either. I make no apologies for who I am and my beliefs and clothes aren't hurting anyone who isn't doing it to themselves out of a need to control other people. So if you've logged onto my site to condemn it, go right ahead. There are thousands of us out there, both pagans and goths, and we don't need your censure or your approval to live our lives as we see fit.

Thank You. Thank You. *Bows and walks off into the gathering dusk, pentacle twinkling in the light of the moon.

Yeah right, anyone ho knows me will know I immediately stuck my nose in a book and wandered off to a coffeehouse. :>

Into The Night!