This isn't everyone or everything, of course, but here are few who might need some explanation or who might be confused with other people with similar names, and a few miscellaneous explanations of things. (Aunt) Avalon My favorite aunt, and a real character, she's my dad's older sister, not to be confused with my mother's younger sister who is occassionally mentioned under various pseudonyms. Bill Forstchen An old and close friend, and the person responsible for starting the chain of events which led to my meeting and marrying Mark. Bill dragged me to the 1996 World Fantasy Con (the boring one for writers) near Chicago where I met the employer who later moved me to a Chicago suburb where I met Mark. Bill's an author and wrote the Rally Cry series among others. We met in 1989 when he was checking Purdue out for his PhD (in Military History) and have been fast friends ever since. He has a really strong shoulder, which I've irrigated thourougly in the past, and a beautiful daughter, Megan, who's my fairy god-daughter. My main claim to fame as far as she's concerned was my foresight in buying Dino for her when she was born. Dino is the beloved security object, a little stuffed dinosaur which played music, which reminded me of one of my beloved security objects, Giraffe, a stuffed giraffe which played music. I ought to just give Megan and Dino and Giraffe their own sections, the way I'm going here. (But I won't, too lazy!) Bob and Mary Our next door neighbors, and about the best neighbors a person could ever wish for. Bob's retired and works in his yard a lot, and is fairly chatty, but never too chatty. He's also really funny sometimes, and always very sweet. Mary sometimes shares goodies or vegetables with us, but mostly we see gregarious Bob. Dell Dell and I were separated at birth (despite having been born years apart).   I met Dell when I was working briefly for the computer games company during the first half of '97 and now he's one of my bestest buddies.   Dell's an incredible artist, does a lot of sf illustration among other things. "geeking out" Slang for "geeking around". Spending time doing geeky stuff like, for instance, working on the computer and writing web pages. Generally I use "geeking out" to refer to time spent on the computer. Jon Jon's my brother, and no, we're not related by blood or law. We just kinda adopted each other in high school and were so like siblings that it lasted.   Jon's married to Pilar, who's so cool that I think she's good enough for him.   Maybe too good.   Ow! Stop kicking me!   Anyway, Jon's a photographer and lives in Chicago and is the best brother anyone could ever want.   People do get a bit confused though, because he has a ne'er-do-well sister and people tend to exclaim, "I thought your sister was in jail!" when he talks about his "sister" who went to the fancy photo school. Katy Katy and I met in 3rd grade, played in box forts in my basement, often got chased by janitors while exploring Purdue's tunnel system and grad houses, played at her house (which was equiped with a spire room in the attic and a secret staircase), and are still best friends.   We trade wildly decorated snail mail (hers is far better than what I've been sending, let's face it, she has all the talent and I have all the laziness), and this journal is also partially for her as well as myself and a few others.   She works in a lab that's working on cancer research, and is becoming a writer--she always wrote, now she's getting published. Kazumi Also known as The High Priestess, Kazumi--oh the fun that can be had on the web, including being ordained by the Universal Life Church.   I met Kazumi in high school, been best friends ever since.   Used to drive all day to visit her in college, we'd trade journals back and forth to keep in touch, sing Que Sera, Sera in the rain.   Kazumi also works in a lab and is about to start med school.   And she's one of the other people I write this journal for, besides myself.   Mostly I write it for me, though, which is a good thing since she hasn't read it since the very beginning when she pronounced it quite neat.   ;P   She had a shrimp in an aquarium in her office for awhile which would dance around until it saw her coming, and then it would go and hide.   Poor little sucker didn't make it, the grouchy dancing shrimp bought the farm. Mark Mark (aka Kepper Jack) is my lunatic husband.   I'm madly in love with him and get all sappy about him.   I try to keep this to a bare minimum in the journal to try to avoid making people puke.   Mark's a computer programmer, gamer, and writes a bit as a hobby.   He dotes on the cats and spoils me rotton and is almost as silly as I am.   He's my very best friend. Mel This is my friend Mel (aka Honeybee or Honeybee Mel), who Mark also adores.   She's my buddy and someday we want to go to The Safe House together to hang out and let her check out the cool spy decor.   She reminds me a lot of me when I was younger. We've never met since she lives Way Far Away, but I consider her an honorary little sister, and close friend. Her and Angel and I form one of those rare triangles of good mutual friends and honorary sisters. (Angel can't be confused with anyone else, but is equally beloved.) The Other Mel This is Mark's friend, Mel, who I also adore.   This Mel lives here and is a big sweetie.   He drove the U-Haul for me one of the days I was moving, caught the U-Haul when it started to roll off into the backyard--jumping into it as it rushed towards the woods, and is pretty much my hero. (Actually, since I first wrote this, he's moved down to the Chicago area, but he and Mark still get together to game together.) Peter Peter and I went to college together and he's still living in Santa Barbara, so I'm wildly envious of him.   He does computer graphics and now has his own SGI workstation.   Did I mention that I'm wildly envious of him?   He also makes an obscene amount of money, and can go eat good Italian food whenever he wants, something I've yet to find in the midwest.   Yeah, I'm really envious of him.   Anyway, he's one of my best friends and favorite cronies. He also worked on the art for Shattered Light along with Dell and company (not a coincidence that both he and I worked on SL--I suggested they hire Peter). pond Our pond is an above-ground pool given over to koi, waterlilies, toads, dragonflies, and so on. I'll try to describe it better later, but am just tucking this note in quickly so people won't get too confused. Sibley Sibley is an online friend whose url changes so often that I've sentenced her to this page so I can just change one link each time she moves. We got to meet in real life when she came to visit in June of 1999. Tim Tim S. has been a friend for at least 16 years--watched me grow up.   He's an alpha geek, runs the server I'm on now and helped me set up my own server.   Actually, he's the one who got me into html--you can blame all this on him! The Other Tim I'd like to tell you but then I'd have to kill you.   I can tell you that Tim W. lives in Ft. Collins, CO, has been a really good friend for years, and taught me how to shoot.   He's also a sf fan, a book scout, and is trying to sell a really good novel right now.   The interesting stuff is classified.   ;P Toad Island Toad Island is a little plastic cave (of the sort one gets for amphibian pets) bolted to a piece of wood so it floats in the pond. You can read about the night Toad Island erupted from the dark waters (well, sort of) or see pictures of Toad Island and its inhabitants. the magnolia tree formerly known as a pussywillow tree Not being too knowledgeable about trees, I dubbed the tree outside my window a pussywillow tree, thinking that the pussywillow-like bud-things (not buds which turn into flowers, but ones just like on pussywillow trees) on it must make it such although I'd never known the pussywillow tree behind our house when I was really little to have flowers. Finally I saw trees just like it at a plant nursery and found it to be a Centennial Magnolia tree, much different from the kind of magnolia trees I'd grown up seeing. © Jade Leaves Designs