When making an 'About Oneself' page, one is always faced with the difficult choice of whether to make a simple bulleted list of vital statistics, which is boring and could conceivably be used by stalkers, or whether to simply ramble on for pages in the hopes that any visitors to the site might possibly be able to fish some thread of coherancy out of the rantings. I've always had a fair measure of success with the first method, plus some measure of pride in my ranting skills for the second. However, this time I shall be rebellious and choose option C-a sort of odd melding of the above..
Here, then, are some general statistics about Joy Kuddles the Kare Bear.

Born 8.8.82 in Chapel Hill, to the relief of my mother, the approval of my father, and the general distaste/dismay/disgust of my three siblings. Raised in a sort of sticky combination of Catholic values and liberal beliefs, all combining to form the odd little creature I am today. Spoiled mercilessly from birth until about the age of 15, when I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to be a junior bitch anymore and made an effort to fix my grubby little soul myself, with limited but heartening success. Taken to Europe at the respective ages of 1.5, 5, and 14 and driven all around the US about once every summer. Began playing piano at 8, quit at 15, and now devote myself almost exclusively to loud, often off-key singing along to the radio. Became a hopeless romantic at about 10, a cynic at 14, an anarchist at 16, and am currently in the process of changing my religion...to what exactly, I'm not yet sure. Come back in a year or so and I might have an answer. Gave up on basketball at 12, decided against cross country at 15, and began fencing all three blades in earnest at 16. Planning to fall in love, live in sin in a nice big house in the country, have large numbers of dogs and cats, and no children. Bought my big brother's old '89 VW Jetta, standard shift, diesel, in Spring '99; learned how to drive it at about the same time, and festooned it with bumperstickers, Darwin fishes, alien heads, etc. I'll get a picture of it (it's named Schmogwei, by the by) up eventually.

As for a picture of me...I do have one on my hard drive which looks more like me than most others; however, a) there is another person in there who should, in all fairness to himself, be edited out, and b) it's something like 190K in size. I'd rather like to downsize it just a trifle, before I get it up here. But never fear, eventually you'll be quite able to gawk at moi in all my non-photogenic, red-eyed-from-the-flash-of-the-camera glory.
Well, call me indecisive. In truth, I can't really edit poor Jamie out, seeing as my copy of Paint Shop Pro rests in peace on one of my zip disks, and the drive isn't working at the moment; and, by the same token, I can't reduce the size at all. So...here it is. Please don't hate me because I look like the Antichrist. Or because, in that particular picture, I happened to be with a nice guy. Trust me, 'tis a fairly rare occurrance.

I'd be the one on the right.