Welcome to my blog/story website! A little about me: I live in Vandalia, which is a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, in the United States. I have two grown children, who went away to college in other cities—both within driving distance, but far enough away to develop some independence and not hang around too much with their friends from high school. My husband and I thought that was just right. (Update, May 2014: They’ve graduated — YAY!!)
I work in the legal publishing industry and have a law degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Although I’m originally from Southern California, I came to Ohio in 1983 because I received a scholarship to law school. I met my husband while he was an engineering student at Case, and we have been together ever since.
I’ve always had an interest in how changing cultural narratives shape the development of our society, weaving together various aspects of history, law, sociology, cultural anthropology, psychology, philosophy, politics, religion, mythology, folklore, and the arts. On the occasions when many of these strands intersect and align, that’s where to find a place to stand with the lever to move the world.
One such change took place when the neurodiversity movement spread across the Internet several years ago. As with other civil rights advocacy efforts in the modern era, it calls for acceptance and accommodation of human differences—in particular, autism and other neurological differences. I expect that some readers will have come here from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, where I serve on the Board of Trustees, or from another site that focuses on neurodiversity and disability rights issues. My personal website may touch on these topics occasionally; however, I don’t intend it to be specifically about neurodiversity or autism politics. I’m not writing it to change anyone’s views or to promote any particular agenda.
Rather, it’s meant to reflect my impressions of life in a society that is changing more rapidly than any other in history—a society that is just beginning to discover the vast diversity it contains, to understand and feel comfortable with differences instead of suppressing them, and to draw strength from our shared stories and traditions in positive ways while navigating this complex cultural shift. I hope that my readers will find it meaningful when seen from this perspective.