I am a scientist.
A *library* scientist.
Long ago in the days of yore, I was raised on an isolated hilltop in the Appalachian corridor. Raised, not born, because to get to a hospital you needed to go a county over and *leave* the Appalachian corridor.
My father was a telephone man. He loves his cats and considers me the son he never had, which I suppose says something about the quality of my brothers.
My mother was born mostly deaf. She grew up being told she was too stupid to do things like math and to this day conveys with an elegant scowl of disapproval her upset that she never got to take trig. Upset. That she never *got*. To take trig. Think about that. Her parents preferred to let her think she was stupid than to explain that she was in truth extremely hard of hearing because it was somehow less shameful. After marrying my father, she got a hearing aid and became the first woman on either side of the family to get a master's degree. Vengeance! Thy name is all those letters listed after her name!
Together, they embraced the form of parenting known as "When a child asks a question, give him/her a book and tell them to figure it out." Inevitably, their youngest child has degrees in things like medieval studies and library science. Despite this, I appear to be gainfully employed, because the universe appreciates a good joke.
In the fourth grade, I discovered sarcasm. It was one of the great turning points of my life.
The next great one would be January 3rd, 2006, the day I became a coffee drinker. I celebrate this great anniversary every year. By drinking coffee. Life is beautiful.
Once, when I was living alone in a place larger and more dangerous than my current rural hamlet in the buttcrack of Ohio, a man tried to break into my house in the wee hours of the morning. I ran at him while waving a battle axe over my head, screaming "summergimurne" over and over, because apparently when panicked, I channel a Roman sailor. He panicked and bolted, smashing into my stack of patio furniture. It was glorious.
And my ret pally's name is Fluffy.
Welcome to the world of a short squirrel in high heels.
