Profile

Note: Bio imported from LJ, hence the LJ-centric links. Someday I may update it here, but no guarantees.

In an emergency situation, every second counts. I participate in the LJ Abuse Emergency Contact Information First Post program.

I have set my journal to "Adult Concepts" because I don't write for children and I've gone back to "not friends-locked by default".

Who are you?

I'm Janet Miles, just like my username and e-mail address. Life is simpler for me when I don't have to keep track of what name I'm using where. I'm pretty much out to the world about my preferences; I feel safer that way. Yeah, I know that doesn't make a whole lot of objective sense, but it works for me.

I'm happily married to Dale, and we've been together 21 years (married for 18). I'm 46 years old; I grew up in Arizona and have lived in Tennessee for 18 years. My first language is English, and I can also communicate in Spanish and ASL (American Sign Language). I used to be able to read Hebrew, and I can count to ten and say "I am Ranma Saotome" in Japanese. I don't think that last will ever actually be useful, but there it is.

I'm Jewish by culture (but not observant), and am Pagan by inclination (but not very observant).

By day I'm a mild-mannered an Administrative Assistant (I support 20 full-time staff and 15 student employees); by night I'm Chair of the Past Presidents Council of the local chapter of my professional association, IAAP and Knoxville Chapter Vice President of my union, United Campus Workers (UCW-CWA Local 3865).

In my copious free time, I hang out on the Internet (LJ, mostly, these days; not so much Usenet anymore), read (mysteries and science fiction and fantasy, mostly), crochet, almost knit, play computer games (usually puzzles, arcade-type games, and RPGs), and wish I still went to more science fiction conventions.

Speaking of computer games, Griddlers is my current obsession.

To paraphrase a friend, I'm a

• middle-aged (I guess -- I'm 46)
  
• middle-class (I guess -- we have a mortgage and don't *quite* live paycheck-to-paycheck)
  
• middle-American (I guess -- Southwestern modified by 20 years in The South)
  
• pervert.

I'm married. My husband is more or less vanilla, but cool with my playing with others. (I am not looking for playpartners, but I'm also not not-looking.)

Got a story or joke you wanna share?

I sometimes claim to have no sense of humor. Actually, I do have one, but it tends to be a bit off-the-wall. Some of my favorite jokes are:

• Q: Why do ducks have flat feet?
  A: So they can stamp out forest fires.
  Q: Why do elephants have flat feet?
  A: So they can stamp out burning ducks.
  
  
• Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
  A1: One to put the giraffe in the bathtub, and one to paint the tractor a bright happy shade of A-flat-minor.
  
  A2: Fish.
  
  
• Knock, knock.
     Who's there?
  Objective case.
     Objective case who?
  Wrong.
  --from A Way With Words, via Pab Sungenis
  

A picture?

Believe it or not, I actually look a lot like a homelier version of this userpic: I'm short, fat, have long medium-brown hair (my real hair isn't wavy, though), and wear glasses. If you look at my usericons, there's one that shows my hair when it's up in my idea of "formal".

A quote that means something special to you?

• "But I prefer staying loose and weird on the streets to having apocalyptic showdowns. And if I must have an apocalyptic showdown, I want a decent script, a crew backstage, and shills in the audience." -- SlackTop, on the virtues of dealing with courts rather than cops
  
  
• "Give me a sledgehammer and I can uninstall *anything*." -- Deirdre Sholto-Douglas
  
  
• "Knowledge is Power. Power Corrupts. Study Hard. Be Evil." -- t-shirt
  
  
• "People should not leave pointy sticks in the ground. A simple credo but I'm sticking with it." -- Rivka, CallahaniCon Nashville Annex 2001
  
  
• "This cannot be my room because I cannot breathe ammonia." -- Joanna Russ, _Useful Phrases for the Tourist_
  
  
• "You know the bagpipe was originally an instrument of war. 's truth! Imagine yourself as a Roman legionnaire, camped for the night, far from home and familiar faces, and waaayyyyy out there on the hilltops you hear this gawdawful wailing noise. And you know that for each and every one of those pipers, there are 500 Celts, naked and painted blue, who want to get to know you, up close and personal, with knives." -- Joe Bethancourt

I have a User's Manual.

I have some things I believe. And some other things I believe, specifically about marriage as a right. And some more things I believe, about feminism and BDSM.

I have a policy on the "LJ friends list" thing:

1. If you are a community, feed, fictional character, ongoing comic or story, or something like that: I'll add you to my reading list without asking.
2. If you specify in your journal or profile that anyone may add you without asking: I'll add you to my reading list without asking.
3. If you are a public figure (e.g., well-known author) who has in excess of 250 readers already: I'll probably add you to my reading list without asking.
4. If you have already added my journal to your reading list: I'll take that as an invitation to add yours to mine.
5. If you don't fall into any of the above categories: I'll probably ask, because I've been told "No, please don't" more than once. When I ask, I try to say who I am, where I know them from (e.g., "you commented on so-and-so's journal, and I followed you back to yours" or "thus-and-such suggested you would be a good person to ask about thingie" or "hey, don't I know you from Usenet somewhere?").
6. If you want to read my journal regularly, go ahead and add me to your reading list. If you seem interesting and not crazy-in-bad-ways, and if you don't piss me off, I'll probably add you back to mine. I do like to get a note saying how you ran across my journal, and if you know me from somewhere else, especially if I know you in physical-space.

Want to know where that person who just added you to zir friends list came from? Try this utility:

LiveJournal Connect! Enter your username in the left box, someone else's username (or a * for a random one) in the right box, and press the button! -> Quiet Mutual 2 chains No 1-hop Coded by sachmet

Want to compare your friends list to your friend-of list? Or compare your list to someone else's? Try this link (snagged from griffen's page). Note: This does not work if you have the "Mutual Friends" option selected.

Who's commenting in your journal?

Because I keep forgetting this information:

• Syndicated feeds
  
• To add a memory when there's no memory button
  
• LJ open support issues
  
• LJ birthday list (which ought, I think, to be linked from the birthdays panel on one's MyLJ page)
  
• Viewing old (deprecated) schemes
  
• LJ Book
  
• LJ Archive
  
• LJ Icon Maker