I am like you. This blog, this face, and this life are like countless others, except these are mine.  At the moment, I am 35 years old, size 6 and 5’6”. I am mother to 3, wife to 1, housekeeper to a 100 year-old house. I garden in the summer, complain about the winter, miss the land and family of my childhood, cook a lot, exercise a little, let laundry wrinkle in piles and think the mowing of lawns is one of the First World’s great follies. (I still do it, about 4 times a summer.)

I’ve done the following tasks in exchange for money: played a violin at more weddings, concerts, gallery openings, street corners, arenas, parks, parties, and events than I can remember. Oh, and on a sailboat, (that was interesting.) I’ve carried large trays of food to hungry diners and served tropical drinks while my uncle sang old Hawaiian songs. I’ve sold shoes on commission, maintained a retail sheet music catalogue, taught 100+ small people to make nicer sounds on a violin, thrown my weight against grand pianos in heels and in front of tens of people, and worked in two different school kitchens.

I have irrational preferences for fountain pens, Dominican cigars, black clothes, Crane’s stationary, corn tortillas, minor keys, citrus, bass-baritones, and British humor.

I harbor silly distaste for neon, fake sugar, skinny jeans on men, Easy Cheese, soul patches (when not accompanied by a beard,) slugs, flannel sheets, Twilight, lutefisk, and whining.

And that’s about me.