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Saturday, August 09, 2008

The Six Things Meme

Shez tagged me to do the six things meme. I don't normally do memes so I thought I'd do this in pictures.

1. When I was in my 20s I taught English at the University of Illinois at Chicago. One of my classes was expository writing based on cyborgs and robots, virtual life, etc. We as a class created a virtual world that the students inhabited. All their grades went toward points in their virtual worlds. There was also a MUSH version of this, but here's a link to the web version. Navigation is garbagey but remember it was like 1997, ok?

2. When I was in my 20s I co-founded and edited a very avant garde web site that got a lot of press and traffic. These were the avatars created for us by the site's illustrator. The site has been taken down now, and its domain name hijacked by a porn site. I'm the one on the left:


3. Shortly after Benny turned two I began designing, creating, and selling clothing for children. Click the image to visit my old web site, now defunct. My specialty was jackets, that's why my old standby email address is jackets at rpsd.com. I don't sell stuff any more. In fact, I wish I had all the stuff back that I ever sold. The money was not worth it. Now I just sew for fun and for the people I know and love. Lesson learned!



4. As a teenager I was very seriously into showing horses, my own and other people's. This ended rather abruptly when I injured my back. Here I am on one of my horses -- actually this is the one that hurt my back and made it impossible for me to continue riding. He was an awesome horse, though, very hot and fiery, lots of fun to ride, always a little out of control:





5. I have a Boston Terrier named Leroy. Well, he's technically Benny's, but...





6. I used to be a very unnatural blonde. Someday I intend to be blonde again:





That's all the news I care to share today.



Edited to add a couple more pictures for Tina:




Here's my fat chestnut pony that I first fell in love with when I was 8 and he was 4, and kept with me until I was 21 and he broke his knee by gambolling around in an icy pasture. The picture above is us winning the American Morgan Horse Association Youth of the Year (1988) and the below picture is me with our trainer driving him in a meadowbrook carriage. We did a bit of driving after the back injury. This was in Kentucky. I'm the passenger.



2 comments:

  1. Whoa! When you say '4-H' and 'rode horses' and 'had Morgans', I picture a chubby horse doing gymkhana events...I didn't realize you were one of those kids who rode in Saddle Seat classes and had great pictures taken while you were doing it. I *really* love the shot, even though it's dated and funny in a way, the horse is SO shiny and you are SO shiny and happy looking.
    You should try riding a Paso Fino. It's no worse than riding in a car.

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  2. Aww, thanks. :) I had about a decade of showing horses before I had my injury, and I went through a chubby-pony-gymkhana phase too. :) My precious best horse-of-my-heart was a chestnut Morgan, 14.1 hands, prone to chubbiness, and enjoyed egg and spoon races.

    I have ridden Paso Finos -- I think they're pretty awesome! Maybe if I get myself strong enough with the bike, I can ride enough to train a pony for Sadie someday.

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