Crossposts:

http://jenett.livejournal.com/996204.html

[updated May 20, 2013]

Hi there! If you've come across this, I'm guessing you might be interested in knowing more about me.

This space
Like many people, I enjoy conversations with new and interesting folks who wander across my postings in some way, and I've chosen to allow anonymous commenting on public entries, and other choices that make commenting easier. Feel free to join in with comment or conversation.

Me
I'm a librarian living in rural New England, working at a small academic library. I grew up and went to college in Massachusetts, spent 12 years living in Minnesota (most of them working in the library of an independent high school), and have been in my current job since mid-2011.

I live with one cat (Astra), a folk harp, fewer books than I had before I moved cross-country twice (but still books), and a small forest of technological devices. I geek at the drop of a hat.

I have four chronic health issues (asthma, migraines, hypothyroidism, and Vitamin D deficiency issues) that are not a huge a problem individually, but combined mean I'm very attentive to health foo and make some very deliberate choices about where and how I spend time. In general, assume I am a geeky librarian who researches stuff obsessively: advice on how to fix things is less useful to me than other conversations generally. (However, if you want to know what works for me, I am glad to talk about it.)

I am inclined towards British spellings in casual writing, but not always (my father was English, my mother was born in Austria and grew up in the UK - I come by it naturally, and it's gotten more so since I started playing Alternity.) Fair warning.

My 'Net community home of choice these days is Dreamwidth, but I crosspost to LiveJournal, and am fine with comments either place. I try to make it as easy as I can for you to get from one site to the other. Tagging came to LiveJournal, oh, 6 years after I started journalling, and I still haven't tagged most of my posts. I'm slowly working on going backwards and doing that. Really.

What you'll see here is:
Mostly locked posts, for a variety of reasons. I'm generally happy to add most people to my locks these days. (I keep a very small number of more tightly focused filters for trusted-in-person friend type conversations.)

Various posts from me about daily life:
I'm a librarian. I geek stuff by nature. Most of what I write is various bits about daily life, books, music, thinking, doing stuff, chronic illness coping, and miscellaneous other topics. I tend not to write about politics and current events.

Lots of people who keep reading me say they really like my long thinky posts, even if they're otherwise not particularly interested in the subject matter: I am most likely to do them about
- sorting out the inside of my head.
- religious stuff (not basics, but how to learn, teach, share, and explore it better)
- music (with which I have a complex relationship)
- things that bug my librarian brain. Bad history and research. Online interactions, especially around privacy and communication.

Samples of public long-and-thinky that also give a good clue as to how I work include:
- An exposition on a mix CD I made for a particular trip which is really about bits of my musical history.
- General info about how I handle access and subscription on this journal.
- A post about the movie Agora, about Hypatia of Alexandria
- A deconstruction of the history in a Bones episode that involved a purported victim of the Salem Witch Trials.
- My advice to people considering library school (Somewhat dated: since then, I have changed jobs after a year-long job hunt. I will do a revised version, sometime, really.)

And as an example of a non-public one, this one, about my father and the power of theatre and memory and the living power of words made real is one I'm still very proud of.



Crossposts from two blogs:
- My public religious blog (http://gleewood.org/threshold)
- My public professional blog (which I do not link to this username in public spaces)
Both crossposts automatically access-lock, and both have a little header telling you where it came from. The first auto-locks so people can make comments in a non-public space (and sometimes there get to be great points made.)

The second is because I don't make the link between this username and my legal name obvious (because lo, I work in a field where casual Googling of job applicants is pretty common: I'm inclined to be quietly open about my religion, but it's also not a thing I want people to randomly stumble across.)


The current and continuing obsession
I'm one of the players in a long-running (7 years planned!) alternate universe Harry Potter journal-based game/group narrative/whatever you want to call it called Alternity. It scratches all sorts of complicated thinky itches in my brain in ways I adore.

I am immensely proud of the writing and creation we've done there and are continuing to do, am continually amazed by the work of the other players, and I periodically geek about it. I am currently in the midst of a major data and information management project related to it, and I geek about that over here.



(For various reasons, the following posts are access-locked, but if you're new to my reading list, they can get you up to speed. I also adore answering questions about "Hey, wait, explain that plot from two years ago?" to new readers.)

- First, a post that's not mine, but from one of our other players, explaining the basics of what's going on. The game website which includes links to summary posts to help you catch up. The easy way to read is the alternity journal's reading page. And our fen community, which also has game summaries (weekly and by term). I warn you that the game is addictive.

- Me on the awesomeness of collaborative play.

- A post inspired by a series of game events in February of Y4, in which I explain the game a bit and why I think collaborative creation is awesome. There's more in the comments.

- And a post about the concept of the Tutor and the power and risk of teaching, also inspired by some game events around that time.

I am also writing a set of very locked posts (the alternity.commentary.track tag) which do reveal who I'm playing, or are a place for me to talk about bits I can't share without revealing who I play. I plan to release them when the game's over.



Other places I am online
Generally, if it's me doing personal stuff, I'm Jenett. Or JenettSilver, if Jenett was taken. I also write under that name for Pagan stuff.

I am on Facebook under my legal name, but avoid all directly Pagan (or otherwise personal stuff, like specific health details) stuff in public there (which also means I avoid stuff that adds Pagan fan pages or events to my profile.)

Commenting guidelines: Mostly common sense.
Please treat this space something like an open house: you are in my online living room, and if you want to have a conversation with me, in my space, there's stuff that makes that better for both of us.



- Please share a name or online handle I can call you (I rarely post public posts, but when I do, anon comments are usually turned on.)
- I love knowing how people found me (what got you interested?)
- Understand that I probably have reasons for what I say even if I haven't spelled all of them out. Like most people, what I write about online is the tip of the iceberg of my experience, knowledge, or understanding, and of course, online, it's often easy for a mischosen word to cause confusion.
- Asking questions rather than assuming you know all the background is a great way to start.

In other words: I'm open for conversation, but attacks, trolling, and other rude behavior may be deleted or ignored, depending on the details.