taliesin...meImyself......STATS (6.15.97)
"Hey, I ain't no demographical statistic victim!
So quit desiring to see lists of features!"
-- Skin & Bone Words Girl
A G I N G
Okay, enough of the female age hysteria. Statistically 11.26.70. You figure out the rest if you think numbers mean anything.
G E O G R A P H I C A L L Y . S P E A K I N G
A pretty pure NYC suburb kid -- i.e. can't drive, love-hate relationship to the NYC subway system -- but born in Taiwan, which also known as The Republic of China. No, that's not the same as China, also know as People's Republic of China. In fact, if you were indoctrinated in Taiwan by old men of KMT from the mainland still stinging over having lost the rest of the country to the communists, you'd have a love-hate relationship with China. (Are all relationships so confusing and self-contradictory?) But I grew up in the US, so I don't have that problem -- except when China treatens the safety of relatives I still have in Taiwan, like during the first Taiwan presidential election the beginning of last year (1996). In fact, I flew back to Taiwan on the very day of the election and had a Will prepared just in case. Thankfully the Will never had to carry out its duty.
E D U C A T E
The best I managed in the academic path is a perhaps entertaining but utterly useless B.A. in studio art/art history (minor in Green Gartside a.k.a Scritti Politti) from Barnard College, the all-women affiliate of Columbia University. Highly recommend the college -- but not the web site which is worthless. You get personal attention because the school is small, but you still get to take all the fun classes at Columbia, which is just across the street. Columbia's web site isn't too bad, but sadly it lacks pictures of the campus which is quite nice for a school in Manhattan. It's like a world onto itself. My favorite hangout was in and out of the Avery arts and architecture library. Unfortunately a ramp for the wheel-chair bound has since been built over my favorite spot on the steps outside the building. There's a nice artsy café in the basement. I used the library itself mainly for strolls -- nothing as sweet as the stale dead air of musty books for the lungs.
Wandering off topic but...Nearby to the west of Columbia campus is the nice Riverside Park alongside the Hudson river. Unfortunately a busy highway separates the park from the river. And a recently discovered treasure up at Ulysses Grant's tomb on the northern tip of the park is an amazingly well-designed garden of unusual plants -- nothing tropically exotic, but nevertheless not native to NY, or so I've been told. Towards another park to the east of the campus, the big one in Manhattan -- yes, Central Park -- and a little bit further south is supposedly the largest but unfinished modern day gothic-style cathedral, St. John The Divine. Snobs from the Old World mocked and taunted it, but I loved it so much that on rare occassions I actually donated some $ in the hundreds. It's one of those typically NY flaunt-the-we're-a-cultural-melting-pot type establishment, an Episcopalian but-oh-we're-so-open-minded church. So much so that it withstood a goth screeching Diamanda Galás The Plague Mass concert, which, for better or for worse, I missed.
I N . L A B O R
If a person = his/her career, then I'm nothing. Why else would I have gone to a liberal arts college ;-) Currently on extended vacation traveling the cyber zone. Was cruising on the administrative conveyor belt for the life of my working hours, stalling at one point at the lowest pecking order of a small NYC graphic design firm. Don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for administrators. And for all the honest working men and women relieving the 'dirty' nitty gritty tasks off the others. So, here's to all you disgruntled postal employees, receptionists and secretaries, cleaning staff, clerks, etc. etc. or at least the ones who do their jobs well in spite of the lack of appreciation + compensations: Thanks! But a gal's got to contrive to steal a break once in the while to recover from the mind-numbing drudgery, right?