Joel Sax of the blog Pax Nortona, Twitter handles @EmperorNorton and @Bipolar_Blogs and all over the Internet since 1988, challenged me to list 50 things about me. I’m going to boast a lot in this interminable list. Forgive me. I also cheated by listing each city I’ve lived in. I could have listed each job I’ve held rather than each career and far exceeded 50 items. Here goes:
- I was born in San Francisco.
- I lived in Saudi Arabia for five years as a child.
- When I was seven, we moved to Cambridge, MA.
- Later, we moved to Rancho Palos Verdes, CA.
- Later, we moved to Valley Forge, PA.
- Then we briefly lived in West Los Angeles.
- Then we moved to Hermosa Beach, CA. I’ve lived with my parents in Hermosa Beach at various transitional times as an adult, too.
- I went to four elementary schools (in Saudi Arabia, MA, & CA).
- I went to one middle school in CA and one junior high in PA.
- I went to three high schools. That’s nine schools total before I graduated from high school.
- As an adult, I’ve lived in Westwood, CA…
- Berkeley, CA
- Oakland, CA
- Manhattan Beach, CA
- San Francisco, CA
- Benicia, CA
- Kentfield, CA
- Petaluma, CA
- Laguna Niguel, CA
- Eugene, OR
- Helendale, CA
- Mission Viejo, CA
- I have bipolar disorder.
- I’m a mother to a teen boy.
- I’ve been married since 1997, so I am capable of a stable relationship if not geographic stability. We move together.
- My husband and I met in 1994 as I was recovering from a psychotic break.
- Although I had moved back in with my parents at the time, the man who became my husband described me as the most independent woman he had ever met.
- I’m a proud geek.
- I love math and database design.
- I first designed a website in 1994.
- I was a drama geek.
- I love public speaking.
- I’m a performer, or more aptly a diva, at heart.
- I gave the eulogies at both of my maternal grandparents’ memorials.
- Here I totally boast: I got 100% on my math placement exam as an incoming freshman at UCLA.
- I started off college as an honors biochemistry major at UCLA.
- I regret not continuing my study of mathematics beyond a year of honors calculus at UCLA.
- I was suicidal when I attended UCLA.
- I attended a community college after quitting UCLA.
- I ended up graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Legal Studies from UC Berkeley.
- I have a Master of Arts in Psychology from New College of California.
- I am a California Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.
- I attended Fuller Theological Seminary, but did not complete my degree.
- My career history is just as flaky as my education and roving lifestyle. First I was a legal assistant.
- Then I worked as a nonprofit administrator.
- Then as a psychotherapist.
- Then in commercial real estate.
- Until I was hospitalized at the age of forty-one.
- I have been on disability since that hospitalization.
- I’ll be fifty-two in August.
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