The low down...

• I was born in 1981 to a pair of misfits. He was a high school drop out who went AWOL from the Navy and had been shot in the head while working as a cab driver. She was a Portland area groupie (I have no proof, but boy, has she eluded) who once threw a brick through the window of a bank. They both came from wildly dysfunctional homes, so they cohabitated until being guilted into marrying in 1977 by her mother who wouldn't let them sleep in the same bed when they came to visit her. They found Jesus sometime around 1985. I don't know where he was hiding, but the game was over. Talk about a mess.

• I was married before I was 19 and divorced before I was 24. This is what happens when you get caught up in the culture of religion. I read "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" and embarked on a long distance "courting" relationship with a boy who seemed sincere, but was kinda no good. He didn't know he was no good at the time, so I can't blame him or accuse him of fooling me. It was just an all-around ill advised venture. And a gorgeous and thoughtful and complicated little boy was born from this ridiculous union... the proverbial phoenix, rising from the flames... or something. So in relation to that....

• When Silas was a baby I did the SAHM thing and HATED it. I had a nasty case of PPD that nobody seemed to notice and almost didn't make it out the other side. To make things worse, all of the Bradley-Method moms in my hometown weren't the crunchy, hippie, earth mother types... they were religious and judgmental and angry about... well, I don't know what they were angry about. But they foisted book after book on me touting the virtues of spanking, scheduling feedings and naps, and basically being completely disconnected from your child as a person. It was pretty much the polar opposite of attachment parenting and was a very damaging thing for both Silas & I to be exposed to. Our bond was hanging by a thread and the divorce only seemed to make it worse. It took us a long time to reconnect and really start to understand each other as mother and son, person and person.
  

• He is the coolest kid on earth. He happens to be one of the most complicated people I know, but this comes with the territory. After all, the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. He brings infinite amounts of humor to my life.

• I deal with crippling mental and emotional idiosyncrasies that make it borderline impossible to function. I've had issues my entire life... I saw 3 different therapists before I turned 8... as far as I can remember they were all really into Jesus and they wanted him to cast some demons out of me. That never really worked. I spent many years feeling lost and aimless and depressed and impulsive, alternating between this and that and feeling like I was losing my mind. In the last couple of years I started reading up on things and doing some research to figure out exactly what was happening in this elusive brain of mine. Turns out... I am afflicted with the wildly misunderstood Bipolar Disorder. The category I fall into is actually Bipolar II, which is different from the general disorder in that I don't experience full-blown manic episodes, but hypomanic episodes instead. I basically self-diagnosed this and took my notes and print outs and candid journals to two different doctors and they both agreed with my diagnosis. It pays to do your research, so long as you're not a hypochondriac. Heh. I'm currently on meds that are working swimmingly! They clear the fog just enough that I can do the work of being functional. They also help to stabilize my mood cycles to help prevent my falling into a depressive episode. Contrary to popular (and my own mothers) belief, they do not make it impossible for me to hold a train of thought, thus keeping me from getting all depressed since I can't properly think about anything. That's not only condescending and douchey, it's flat-out wrong.
  

• Ever since my divorce I've been living in sin in a hippie town on the water with a handsome boy with a beard. Best decision ever. We've been together since September of 2005, living together since February of 2006, and engaged since the summer of 2009. We like each-other bunches, to say the least. He's pretty much the glue holding all of us together... he's some serious crazy glue.

• We homeschool Silas. More pointedly, we unschool Silas. Best decision we've ever made... He's mellowed a ridiculous amount since we pulled him out of public school and is finally hitting his groove, now that he has been given the room to blossom and flourish and all of those cliches that totally apply. He's got the freedom to be himself and is truly coming into his own. It's a great thing to witness.
  

• I'm totally fat. I love myself the way I am... and the way I am is a lot of what makes me WHO I am. I'm not changing my biological makeup for society, you, my mom, or anyone else who may want me to. I plan to rock this body I'm in, in leggings if necessary. It's the only body I'll ever get. I plan to take care of it.
  

• I love cooking, thifting, decorating, sewing... I put the feminine in feminist, yo.