About Me

The Kinda Nitty But Not Super Gritty Basics

I’m a 20-something something-or-other living in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I love concord grapes, I cut my toenails too short when I’m stressed, and I enjoy pretty much everything about the color green.

The family’s “missionary” pic

I was born in the suburbs of Chicago’s south side, where I lived with my parents and two younger siblings until 1990 when my family moved to Asuncion, Paraguay for two and a half years to be missionaries. Due to little more than my own stubbornness I refused to learn Spanish any faster than absolutely necessary, and so did not begin to really pick it up until about 6 months before we moved back to the States. Luckily I had the opportunity to speed this process along by attending a Paraguayan school in the afternoons for the first semester of fifth grade, my final semester in the country.

I often daydream of going back to Paraguay for a visit, knowing full well it will be so different than it was when we left in Decemeber of ’92 I’m sure I’d hardly recognize anything. Maybe if I could just get together a good group of folks to enjoy the trip with me… Any takers?

(ETA: I finally made it back!)

When my family came back to the States I returned to my old school in Palos Heights, IL for a year and a half before my dad’s employer transferred him to Milwaukee when I was 12. I spent 7th grade at one school, and 8th-12th at another. Learning and leaving school after school had its trying points from time to time, but I wouldn’t trade my experiences in switching schools for anything. What a great way to learn to adapt!

I went on to attend Carroll College (now Carroll University) where I studied English and Secondary Education, which turned out to be geared primarily toward students studying to teach the younger grades. As much as I learned- and I learned a lot; some quality folks there- I always felt frustrated that we rarely addressed the needs of the high school classroom, which ultimately led to my quitting the program. I didn’t get up the guts to do it until half way through my third year of college, but boy am I glad I finally wised up to the reality of my own classroom needs. I picked up a second major in Theatre instead and never looked back.

If the reality was as gold-tinted I might have stayed.

I graduated in ’04 and almost immediately began working for a roofing company during the day and performing in plays in the evenings. It was during this time I bought my beautiful car, Joy, a Toyota Matrix which I love love love.

Two roofing companies and 4 plays later I moved to Canyon Country in Santa Clarita (pictured), California, about 30 miles north of Los Angeles, where I lived with friends and worked for a production company that taught me to love both sushi and Microsoft Outlook in ways I’d never previously thought possible.

I could only stand about a year and a half’s worth of California before I had to call it quits, however. Maybe if I’d've had another digit or two at the end of my yearly earnings I could’ve found a way to make it work, but in the end the fact of the matter seems to be that while you can take the girl out of the Midwest, you can’t take the Midwest out of the girl.

I’ve been back in Wisconsin since Christmas of 2006 and am doing everything possible to enjoy the most I can out of every day here. There was so much I couldn’t afford to do during college and shortly thereafter, and so much I didn’t think I could do after that. And then I was off to California and nothing here was an option anymore. I feel a lot freer to actually have fun in my own world though now, so I’m trying to do just that. :)

Finding Me on the Web

It’s almost creepy how many websites have got the goods on me. Some: Not so many Behnnie-goods as the profiles are placeholders, but whatever. Among them…

Amazon: My Amazon wish list. If you don’t have one, get one. Fun and awesome. It’s like when you were a kid and “got” whatever you could touch first in the toy catalog. And because I’m a category lover:

• Ferret Wishlist
• Hobby Wishlist
• Home Wishlist
• Media Wishlist
• Miscellaneous Wishlist
• Tech Wishlist
• Togs Wishlist

DailyBooth: My life in pictures. When I have access to the internet and a webcam, that is.

Formspring: Ask me anything. G’head. You can leave your name, ask anonymously– whatever. If it’s a real jerk-y kind of question I’ll delete it, and if it merits a thoughtful answer it might take me a while to respond, but the invitation’s out there.

Goodreads: What I’ve read, what I’m reading, and what I aim to read as soon as I can work up the gumption to head on down to the book hole.

IMDB: I am as surprised as you are that I ever got onto this site, let alone more than once. It is the weirdest page on the entire internet that has anything to do with me, so I *must* list it.

Pinterest: Pinterest. I’m on it.

Tumblr: Tumblr. I’m on it.

Twitter: Twitter. I’m on it.

YouTube: I *heart* YouTube so hard. My early videos are absolute nonsense, and even after I learned how to cut things out they’re often still a great big pile of suck, but I enjoy the crap out of making and posting them and am so glad it exists and is free. Favorite YouTube channels in no particular order? The What The Buck Show, the Vlog Brothers, sxephil, meekakitty, Periodic Videos, Red Fence, Penn Says, and Reason TV.