over the edge

Over the Edge blog is someone I lived with on the intentional community (communal farm). She has since moved off the farm, and is making it with her alternative lifestyle out in the world. Really interested stuff to read. She's really thoughtful about everything she does. She originally left the farm to pursue a degree in sociology at the place I went to school, but she wasn't enjoying it, so eventually left without finishing and became a doula. Cool-a!

Dead Luck

Dead Luck blog is by my friend Matt, who is my DM and my friend's husband. I think I first met him at an office Christmas party at Green Pastures, when he introduced himself as a writer and reached into his lapel for a card that he didn't have after all. Dead Luck is his novel, and I have read it in an early version, and I think he's going to be very successful one day. The last blog entry he left, over a year ago, was about how a story of his, an offshoot of the novel, was published in a zine. I highly recommend you read the story if you are into SF/fantasy at all.

One day, I mentioned soccer to him, and he joined my team. Weeks, incidentally, before I quit the team. Eventually he tore his ACL, for which I take full credit for having gotten him to join the team. On the first drive to soccer practice, I mentioned I was looking for a SNES version of Shadowrun, by sheer chance. This is how I eventually got an invite for the D&D game that he's the DM of.

If I may make a suggestion, dear reader, always have a D&D game run by a novelist. The story and characters are fantastically creative and riveting. I look forward to these games like crazy, and very little trumps a 6 hours game of D&D at Matt's, even with my busy schedule.

Matt has an insane amount of knowledge and trivia in his head. He and his wife are some of the nicest, normalest weirdos I know, and I adore them. Also, he likes Tori Amos. random, but true.

By day, he is a software developer of some sort (Ruby?).

Malcom

Instead of lyrics to open up this entry, I will put this embedded video, to act as a soundtrack as you read.



I met Malcom during a temp job in New Orleans. He worked across the hall from me. I thought he and his friend (Alfonze?) seemed to have a lot more fun than my dysfunctional office (that is a whole separate entry's worth of dysfunction), but I later found out theirs was just as problematic. When he would come into our strife-heavy office, it was always a highlight of the day. He eventually invited me to see a movie with some work people (Phone Booth, starring Colin Eyebrows. Can't think of his name). It was probably the first time I felt like I was fitting in at a workplace. I went to the movie with Lauren, and she and I were astounded to find Malcom wearing a lot (a LOT) of tie-dye. Didn't quite know what to make of that, to be honest.

Later I found out he has a massive collection of figurines. Like, action figures. And loved video games. I discovered he was kind of a geek. Even later, I discovered he is like the biggest geek to walk the earth (in a good way; I after all belong to the Austin Pangeeks, so that's my position on it). But he's really creative. He designs and sends these hilarious greeting cards. One was of Neo and the Prophet, and another was of GIR from Invader Zim riding a pig.

He and his (now) wife moved to San Francisco several years ago. I've kind of lost touch with them since then, except for MySpace, which he stopped updating. But now we're friends on Facebook again, so that's good. Maybe if I ever make it to SF (a possibility in January), I will get to see them again.

He doesn't seem to retain anonymity in his blog, so here is his Facebook, if you're interested in what he looks like. (Obvs, I couldn't do that for Jane, who doesn't even blog under her real name)

Bluestocking (Jane)

we had our mindset
all things know, all things know
you had to find it
all things go, all things go

I'm going to start my blog introductions, which I mentioned doing a few entries ago. I will go from the bottom up. Since Jane's blog doesn't update in my feed for some reason, she's forever at the bottom.

I don't remember the first time I met Jane, but we met related to Russian as undergrads. She lived near the Russian House, and was in a higher year than Jamie and I were in German. She was one of the most impressive people I'd ever met. I think one time I found out she played cello and I tripped and fell because I was so impressed and jealous. She had a very cute boyfriend. She was incredibly smart. I remember deciding the Echols program was effed up if she wasn't in it. And she's super cute on top of it.

She has since proved herself all the more impressive, navigating upper-echelon academia despite frequent migraines and cold, cold weather. She seems to read about a book a day, according to GoodReads. And she travels like crazy! Again: jealous. She owns her own place, in a big city, which is awesome, and I hope I get to it soon. Then we can talk about Joss Whedon and costume dramas, because oh, did I mention, she is completely able to have non-academic fun, too.

Her blog updates are often about her list of things she has to do, or what work she managed on her dissertation, or if not, what events transpired that kept her from working on it. And all manner of things in between to document her days. When she travels, she makes wonderfully detailed updates about every aspect of her experience. She keeps things personal because she has managed to remain more or less anonymous for the past (10??) years she has kept the blog. She does all the layout herself, and it's tasteful and classy. She will address you "Dear Reader" in the manner of Jane Austen. She is probably my most prolific blog buddy, and sometimes I have trouble keeping up! But it's always a delight to have something fun to count on.

• "Chicago" Sufjan Stevens