About Me

I am a proud Chicagoan, though more often than not, the leaders of my city (and my state) are embarrassments. The city and all of its people deserve so much more.

While I love being outside in my city (or other cities), I am not what anyone would ever call outdoorsy. Nature makes me nervous. Actually, I'm not alone in this. Yes, I realize this study indicates folks with higher levels of neuroticism prefer urban environments - I'll own that!

Being a University of Az grad (BS & MS)I have an unreasonable disdain for the Sundevils (ASU) and Trojans (USC).

Unpopular opinion for a Chicagoan - NY has the best pizza. Sorry, not sorry.

I love Prince. Other than the early R&B I was exposed to as a kid (which 100% formed my musical tastes), Prince is my longest musical love.

Speaking of music, my first concert was Sting's Nothing Like the Sun in 1988 (yep, I’m that old!).

I hate - and I do mean hate - raw onions. Cooked onions require negotiation. In an odd turn, onion rings are awesome.

I don't trust beets. They neither feel nor taste how they look. What are you trying to be, beets?

I love Star Wars with all my heart. Ever since little me saw that opening crawl on the big screen the 70s, I was hooked. I love much of the expanded movie-verse...even the prequels (with the exception of the exceptionally problematic JarJar, Nute Gunray, & Watto). Now 7-9 on the other hand, they do not exist in my world.

Also, I'm super into comics (Marvel) and comic movies. While the X-Men and Deadpool are my favorites to read, I do love most Marvel movies.

DC movies or comics? Just no.

So, I guess I'm on a media kick now, but I'll run with it. Zombies. All. Day. I like them fast, slow, slightly sentient, or otherwise.

Ok, last movie thing, I promise. If you like horror and you never watched any of Roger Corman's Edgar Allen Poe movies with Vincent Price, binge some now. I think they are all awesome, but House of Usher and Premature Burial scared the heck out of me as a kid.

My first pets were two fish. They were named Fishy and Ishy. I was very creative.

I am learning to play bass (poorly). I never realized how much of what I love about music was actually the bass line. Go figure.

I love photography and am pretty decent at it.

I adore plants. I am also very bad at keeping them alive.

My family and I love Saturday Night Live. I have literally been watching it since it started in the 70s, though I didn't understand most of it at the time. A good 50% of my family's exchanges on any given day are comprised of SNL lines.

In grad school, whenever we studied, my friends and I ate Red Vines, Smart Food, and (when one of my friends had been home to Massachusetts recently) Devil Dogs. Clearly, we were studying SLP, not nutrition science.

This isn't a fact about me, but two really cute things my daughter would say when she was little. She called computers "Tom-Peepers" and technical difficulties "tentacle difficulties".