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jenettJumping on the bandwagon, since this seems a useful kind of post to have around here: an introduction to things you may or may not care about me. I'm particularly interested in meeting new folks on Dreamwidth, and to making different patterns of connections than I might currently have (since, as much as those are great, this is new space!
From the more obvious to the sometimes less obvious....
(No, really. Concise takes me at least 5 times as long as not concise, and I like giving specifics and examples. I use cut tags for most things over 3-4 paragraphs.)
* My father was English, and my mother was raised in the UK. I grew up in the Boston suburbs. My casual writing is a combination of both sets of spelling and grammar. People seem to cope.
* I go by Jenett (or Jenett Silver) pretty much everywhere online these days, and everywhere offline except for work and documents that require my legal name. The spelling confuses people, but it may help to know that it has elements of my legal name (hence the two ts). Also, a jennet is a female mule, and I try not to be that stubborn. Jenett is also the name of the heroine of the Tam Lin ballad..
* I'm a librarian at an independent high school in the Twin Cities.
* The thing I love most is being able to connect people with information that matters to them. Doesn't matter so much what the information is, or what they're doing with it. Just that it matters and makes the world in some way better.
* I'm interested in almost everything to some degree - especially when people are talking about stuff they're passionate about. I'm much better with the world before 1750, and in Western Europe and the US than elsewhen and elsewhere, but have generally at least heard of other things, even if I don't know lots of details. (And time and energy allowing, love to learn more.)
* And, of course, I'm a huge reader. I read almost anything that sits still: my reading these days is balanced between character driven science fiction and fantasy, narrative non-fiction, microhistories (books focusing on a particular topic or item), and a certain amount of young adult reading to keep up with books for work. But really, I'll read almost anything, given the time and proximity.
* I have a complex history with music - I'm a former music major, which broke me in a couple of not-so-good ways that I'm still slowly recovering from. At various times I've sung, played piano, bassoon, flute, and folk harp. (Singing and harp are my two current interests.) I started the![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
musicmakers community here on Dreamwidth, and want to use my time here partly to talk more about this part of my life.
* I'm 33 (and female, if it wasn't obvious already). I live with one cat, whose name is Athene, in a little tiny (400 square foot) house in Minneapolis. We live with a bunch of books.
* I myself seem to be far more heterosexually wired than most of my friends - not hard, since I'm really really close to a Kinsey 0 even if you count occasional dreams and other subconscious stuff. (My friends really do cross the spectrum, through, in multiple dimensions.)
* I was married in 2001, got divorced in late 2005, and have been contentedly single ever since. My former relationships were all polyamorous (though I'm not sure what the future might hold), and I've generally enjoyed relationship geekery as part of making those relationships better. I admit I'd like the *right* relationship sometime - I'm just really picky about what that needs to involve and I'm not interested in repeating past problems.
* I plan ahead a lot and I'm usually working to about 90% of total possible capacity (to allow for the unexpected). Spontaneous changes of plans tend to be hard for me for both internal (needing to change course) and external (juggling other plans around) reasons. Again, people mostly cope, though my close friends do tease me about it. (My idea of plans requires 'what if' forks for possible needs, so I'm actually reasonably good in emergencies and chaos despite this.)
* I spend most of my 'community' time in the Pagan communities. I am priestess of a small coven called Phoenix Song, based in Minneapolis. I've been on our Twin Cities Pagan Pride board for going on 4 years now, and participate in a number of Pagan forums. It's where most of my 'free' time goes.
* It's also where a lot of my writing time goes. I have a public blog that talks about a bunch of 'how' questions about my coven work (not the magical bits, but the 'building the spaces I want to spend time in' bits.) and I also do a bunch of writing aimed at helping people seeking Pagan teachers or groups to search more thoughtfully.
* When I thought about writing this, I wanted to say I don't spend much time in fannish communities. And then I realised that was a little silly, because I just got back from Minicon, am the hotel chair for this year's 4th Street Fantasy Convention, am playing Alternity (an alternate-universe Harry Potter game), and several other things. I do read some fanfic, but it's mostly either stuff people I know pointed me to, or that is an AU fanfics that explore 'what if' branches but it's not a universal truth.
* However, if you live inside my head, these are all 'things I do that are cool' rather than 'places that are my default social community' or 'places I get my primary identity/social community from'. I'm okay with that.
* I think that relationships come in many different forms - and I treat the low-key, casual interactions with civility and consideration, but still a lot differently than people I'm close to and have significant ongoing interactions with. I'm lousy with remembering birthdays or special events unless they're someone I talk to a whole lot. I tend to call close friends on stuff in private rather than public. Trust is something I take very seriously - both giving and receiving.
* I come from a very small - but heavily book and arts focused - family. My father (a theatre professor and author) died when I was 15. My mother is in the Boston area, my brother's in Connecticut (a freelance writer, theatre critic, and former bookstore owner), and my sister is a library science professor in Wisconsin. I love my family, but we're all very 'when we have something to say' communicators, and we're quite capable of going months without talking to each other just because we're doing other things. This spills over into the rest of life.
* Other things I do sometimes include spinning yarn (drop spindle), baking bread and improving my cooking skills, and very occasional bouts of playing World of Warcraft. (I'm lucky when I manage a couple of hours a week, and that hasn't happened for a while.) I'm currently taking herbalism classes, which I like a lot.
From the more obvious to the sometimes less obvious....
(No, really. Concise takes me at least 5 times as long as not concise, and I like giving specifics and examples. I use cut tags for most things over 3-4 paragraphs.)
* My father was English, and my mother was raised in the UK. I grew up in the Boston suburbs. My casual writing is a combination of both sets of spelling and grammar. People seem to cope.
* I go by Jenett (or Jenett Silver) pretty much everywhere online these days, and everywhere offline except for work and documents that require my legal name. The spelling confuses people, but it may help to know that it has elements of my legal name (hence the two ts). Also, a jennet is a female mule, and I try not to be that stubborn. Jenett is also the name of the heroine of the Tam Lin ballad..
* I'm a librarian at an independent high school in the Twin Cities.
* The thing I love most is being able to connect people with information that matters to them. Doesn't matter so much what the information is, or what they're doing with it. Just that it matters and makes the world in some way better.
* I'm interested in almost everything to some degree - especially when people are talking about stuff they're passionate about. I'm much better with the world before 1750, and in Western Europe and the US than elsewhen and elsewhere, but have generally at least heard of other things, even if I don't know lots of details. (And time and energy allowing, love to learn more.)
* And, of course, I'm a huge reader. I read almost anything that sits still: my reading these days is balanced between character driven science fiction and fantasy, narrative non-fiction, microhistories (books focusing on a particular topic or item), and a certain amount of young adult reading to keep up with books for work. But really, I'll read almost anything, given the time and proximity.
* I have a complex history with music - I'm a former music major, which broke me in a couple of not-so-good ways that I'm still slowly recovering from. At various times I've sung, played piano, bassoon, flute, and folk harp. (Singing and harp are my two current interests.) I started the
musicmakers community here on Dreamwidth, and want to use my time here partly to talk more about this part of my life. * I'm 33 (and female, if it wasn't obvious already). I live with one cat, whose name is Athene, in a little tiny (400 square foot) house in Minneapolis. We live with a bunch of books.
* I myself seem to be far more heterosexually wired than most of my friends - not hard, since I'm really really close to a Kinsey 0 even if you count occasional dreams and other subconscious stuff. (My friends really do cross the spectrum, through, in multiple dimensions.)
* I was married in 2001, got divorced in late 2005, and have been contentedly single ever since. My former relationships were all polyamorous (though I'm not sure what the future might hold), and I've generally enjoyed relationship geekery as part of making those relationships better. I admit I'd like the *right* relationship sometime - I'm just really picky about what that needs to involve and I'm not interested in repeating past problems.
* I plan ahead a lot and I'm usually working to about 90% of total possible capacity (to allow for the unexpected). Spontaneous changes of plans tend to be hard for me for both internal (needing to change course) and external (juggling other plans around) reasons. Again, people mostly cope, though my close friends do tease me about it. (My idea of plans requires 'what if' forks for possible needs, so I'm actually reasonably good in emergencies and chaos despite this.)
* I spend most of my 'community' time in the Pagan communities. I am priestess of a small coven called Phoenix Song, based in Minneapolis. I've been on our Twin Cities Pagan Pride board for going on 4 years now, and participate in a number of Pagan forums. It's where most of my 'free' time goes.
* It's also where a lot of my writing time goes. I have a public blog that talks about a bunch of 'how' questions about my coven work (not the magical bits, but the 'building the spaces I want to spend time in' bits.) and I also do a bunch of writing aimed at helping people seeking Pagan teachers or groups to search more thoughtfully.
* When I thought about writing this, I wanted to say I don't spend much time in fannish communities. And then I realised that was a little silly, because I just got back from Minicon, am the hotel chair for this year's 4th Street Fantasy Convention, am playing Alternity (an alternate-universe Harry Potter game), and several other things. I do read some fanfic, but it's mostly either stuff people I know pointed me to, or that is an AU fanfics that explore 'what if' branches but it's not a universal truth.
* However, if you live inside my head, these are all 'things I do that are cool' rather than 'places that are my default social community' or 'places I get my primary identity/social community from'. I'm okay with that.
* I think that relationships come in many different forms - and I treat the low-key, casual interactions with civility and consideration, but still a lot differently than people I'm close to and have significant ongoing interactions with. I'm lousy with remembering birthdays or special events unless they're someone I talk to a whole lot. I tend to call close friends on stuff in private rather than public. Trust is something I take very seriously - both giving and receiving.
* I come from a very small - but heavily book and arts focused - family. My father (a theatre professor and author) died when I was 15. My mother is in the Boston area, my brother's in Connecticut (a freelance writer, theatre critic, and former bookstore owner), and my sister is a library science professor in Wisconsin. I love my family, but we're all very 'when we have something to say' communicators, and we're quite capable of going months without talking to each other just because we're doing other things. This spills over into the rest of life.
* Other things I do sometimes include spinning yarn (drop spindle), baking bread and improving my cooking skills, and very occasional bouts of playing World of Warcraft. (I'm lucky when I manage a couple of hours a week, and that hasn't happened for a while.) I'm currently taking herbalism classes, which I like a lot.
