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The Rest of My Life
Online
A lot of my time is spent Online, partly by
choice, partly through increased mobility problems.
So Internet groups - listservs, mailists, newsgroups
of all sorts- both participating in them and researching
them take up a lot of my spare time.
My vote for the most supportive and entertaining
on-line group worldwide would definitely go to [ST]WTTF,
.... the best bunch of people around! About to celebrate
it's eight anniversary, the Star Trek Women's Terrorist
Task Force [alias Gender Issues In Science Fiction ]
is indeed a force to be reckoned with. This list could
devised the cure for all known ills, has power over
good and evil, and contains professors, writers, poets,
musicians par excellence. With enough technical
experts to run the world's computer systems single handed,
its combined wit faster than a speeding exocet, [and
the killing power of ten disturbed mother tigers only
when called for], this group could rule the world any
day it chose... but just let us get finished analysing
this episode of Babylon 5 or Buffy first....
WDVL (WooDViLle), a web developers list is probably
my favourite 'techie' list: it's the place where you
realise that there's always someone out there who knows
how... and who's willing to teach. The Ivan Illich school
of education in real life...
Offline:
Apart from my piles of books acquired during
the course of my degree, which I'm still getting through,
though I admit with more pleasure now than when speed-reading
to meet deadlines [this is why they call it 'reading'
for a degree - because your booklists could last you
the rest of your life?], my interests are technology,
science fiction - especially Anne McCaffrey & Babylon
5,cats, I'm a secret Archers fan... yes folks, I confessed
online to shedding tears while listening to every repeat
of the death of John Archer! Hell, one of my earliest
memories is listening to the repeat of Grace Archer's
death... that programme probably has an awful lot to
answer for! Studying? Well, of course - I'm working
on an MSc...
Musical
taste:
Before March 2002, it could be summed up as Virgin radio's
original playlist, with a little pink added. As a child,
I moved house so many times that I can usually accurately
tell you the year of any hit of the late 50s and 60s
not through any great feat of memory but because I can
remember where we were living when it was playing. I'm
sure there's a piece of research to be done on how the
adverse affects of a childhood spent in army garrison
towns can be mitigated through exposure to music...
but I found working through countless deadlines while
at Cambridge, that Virgin brought back a lot of memories...
that, together with a dozen CDs got me through to my
finals...
However, post March 2002, http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/
is my radio station of choice.... particularly the Evening
Sequence 7-10pm GMT presented by
Tom Robinson
What I choose to listen to, when I'm sitting working
on a deadline at 3am are various Tom Robinson CDs, plus
depending on mood Janis Ian, Dear Janes, Sheryl Crow,
kd lang, Loudon Wainwright III, Neil Young [unplugged],
Tina Turner, Joan Armatrading... and lately Order
By Chaos
But what if you measure musical preferences by who I'd
put my hand in my pocket and pay to see play in a month
when the clients have been slower than usual in paying...
Tom Robinson comes top of the list!
Why
Tom Robinson?
Well, it isn't only that there are few role-models for
those of us of mature years [alias Agéd Crones]
who are out there as queer or gay yet who happen to
be in relationships with members of the opposite sex...
but it helps. And after all, he has been out there very
vocally for all us Diverse Folks since the days when
it wasn't even fashionable to be queer... let alone
bisexual...
It's also because of the feeling you get picking up
yet one more compilation as you're wandering spitting
mad 'round HMV in a break from jury service: when you've
been caught in the middle with a particularly patronising
judge on the bench, and fellow jurors who are hanging
on his every word, Tom's a voice of sanity you really
appreciate...
There's also realising the changing faces of the verses
of Glad to be Gay on compilations keep you in touch
with your own Queerstory...And then of course the guy
gives you musically everything from punk, jazz, country
[ yes, really], rock, as well as one of the most enjoyable
& educational live shows you could ever take your
13 year old son to see [as I did many years back]. With
lyrics some of which you can too painfully identify
with, others laugh with; I snuck 'Law and Order' into
a Radio Medway country music programme in 79 ...well,
it *sounded* authentic C&W! Some you spent your
wild youth getting drunk to, then later nostalged over
at the Cambridge Folk Festival, and of course, there's
your first Pride.... And for me the *only* song I can
find the chords for on a guitar is still Too Good To
Be True!
What else
I do apart from work:
Apart from spending an awful lot of time in front of
a screen? Anything which can be loosely defined as a
craft - so: not just writing, or animating gifs for
presentations, but also embroidery,
silk painting, Photoshop, creating huge fluffy mohair
sweaters, web, papercraft, weaving, glass painting,
fundraising, jewelry making, cookery.... with an awful
lot of etceteras on the end!
Family...
I have a son, Daniel, who's 28
and teaching in an inner city school in London, though
soon to move to teaching in an international school
in Spain. I love him dearly, even though as two Aquarians
together we're too opinionated to comfortably share
the same physical space for long!
...And
other animals:
We've one cat (Gemma) who's
got the best pedigree in the household, and two spaniels
(Britt & Milly). No, I don't like dogs. I really
don't like dogs.... But I blame the subliminal messages
being sent out by TV shows such as Pet Rescue and the
Battersea Dog's Home.While we had the vague thought
that we had room for one small dog after our domineering
house rabbit Sophie passed on to that last warren in
the sky... these two somehow joined the family
after a trip to Wood Green Animal Shelter... let that
be a warning to you all...they put something in the
tea in the restaurant! On the whole, two dogs are less
trouble than one rabbit!
Life
history?
I'm far less attached to it than I once was: one
key fact which I've only been willing to share publicly
recently is that I'm an incest survivor.
In 1989, I was finally able to yell back at my drunken
and abusive parent, and I look on this as probably
the most important step I took in becoming my own
person... in that I'm not the quietest of mortals,
I realise that if it took me over twenty years to
turn around and fight back, then there's probably
some value in sharing the difference doing this made
in my life. However, the piece I'm writing whose work-in-progress
title is Recovery is just that - very much a work
in progress.
Franni
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