Not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be

Female. Liberal. Progressive. Straight. Attached. Cynical. Geeky. Defensive. Offensive. Lazy. Outspoken. Shy. Contradictory. Writer. Editor. Critic. Professionally long-winded. Sometimes.

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No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool. (T.S. Eliot)

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I'm a writer, editor, and interviewer for The Onion A.V. Club. So is kp3000, otherwise known as Keith Phipps. So is scott_tobias, otherwise known as… well, you can probably guess. These days, both of them do their posting at The A.V. Club blog, so check them out there. Me too, sometimes.

Lots of people ask me how I ended up with one of the best jobs in the world. It's a long story, but if you really want to know… you should probably start with the story of how I didn't get the job at The Onion. Then move on to how I did get the job at The Onion.

No, I cannot get you a job at The Onion. The A.V. Club pretty much only hires new people when we start up a branch in a new city, and the comedy section only hires new people when Hell freezes over and Satan starts tap-dancing and singing falsetto arias in Hyperbolean. But you're welcome to ask questions about the business if you like.

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On friending: You're welcome to add me to your Friends list; you don't have to ask. Anything I post here publicly is for public consumption. But I don't make an announcement every time I get a new friend, ’cause that seems like bragging, and I tend not to add-back lurkers. So if you want two-way interaction, you gotta start with one-way interaction. Speak up! I'm mostly here to talk to people anyway, so sound your barbaric yawp over the rooftops of my journal.

"Yop!" is also perfectly acceptable, if you want to get Seussian about it.

And if you're in the Chicago area, by all means, lemme know, because I'm always interested in meeting new locals. I occasionally even organize informal meetups for that purpose. I also try to attend the Chicago-area LiveJournal meetups organized by Meetup.com. See chicagomeetup for details.

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Who's friended you today? Enter your LiveJournal name: script by marnanel

Cast Of Characters:

Once, this section explained my relationship to a bunch of non-LJ people I referenced periodically in my journal. But now most of them have LJs, and LiveJournal isn't so much my private interface with interesting strangers as the Number Of The Beast, which we all must have stencilled on our foreheads at some point before the Apocalypse. So now it's just a guide to some people I like and know in real life.

Cass: Short for cassielsander. My boyfriend, or significant other, or whatever other lame, not-quite-appropriate term is appropriate for someone I've been in a relationship for, at this point, literally half my life. We aren't married, and neither of us have ever had kids. Maybe we'll do one or the other someday. We're not categorically opposed to either, we just don't necessarily see the point. In the meantime, we see a lot of movies.

thefirethorn: My cousin, my closest confidant since around the time we were both able to talk. It sucks that we live a thousand miles apart, but we lived 2,000 miles apart when we were children, so I guess we're getting closer. At the rate we're going, I imagine we'll be living in the same town when we're 80. She's a relentlessly optimistic and enthusiastic booster in my LJ, which is both heartening and embarassing, and you will be tempted to think she's just me under a different ID, telling myself that I rule. You would be incorrect. And yes, she's like this about other members of her family, too, particularly her husband sirmacncheese, her brother modernorpheus, and her son fireandcheese.

Stephen: The founder and former editor-in-chief of The A.V. Club. The nicest guy in the world.

Chris: A good friend (and reigning alpha GM) who lives in Evanston. Getting to know him was a pathway to getting to know a lot of other at-one-point-Evanston-based people who have created LiveJournals over the years, though few of them ever actually post any more. They include inediblebuddha, zerbie, loopygirl, attackmonkey, bobbler, kreestopearq, kneelbeforezod, asparas, and snubkin. (They generally call him "Evil" or pax_malificus in their journals. I don't.)

keystroke: At this point, I know about five guys named Paul, all of whom have been given cruel nicknames to help my social circle distinguish between them. The only one I've ever referred to in my journal is the one I personally dubbed "GoodPaul." Of all my non-Cass friends, he seems to be the one whose sense of humor most dovetails with mine, and he gets more of my obscure references (and I more of his) than anyone short of my favorite geeks, aizuchi and komainu. This sometimes leads to us sitting next to each other at social gatherings and trying to make each other crack up like 14-year-olds in a boring math class. He claims to have evolved a sinoidal flap since he first met me, because I took such great delight in making him snort ginger ale out of his nose with laughter.

phaedrusdeinus: An endlessly fascinating and though-he-won't-admit-it perverse man who finally broke down and got his own LiveJournal. Nyah nyah nyah.

"Mags": magdalene1, whom I met through phaedrusdeinus, but got to know through LiveJournal. She's a LiveJournal superstar, but I Knew Her When. She is Teh Niftie.

welcomerain: My former college roommate back in Iowa, a longtime friend, a persistent early adopter who I look to to find out what I'll be reading, watching, buying, playing, etc. two years from now. She was on LiveJournal long before I was, and she and her husband spookyfruit have both said goodbye to it, so I guess that means I will too someday, ’cause I've got to keep up with them. Meanwhile, you can still read her webcomic stories about Spooky. They rock my world.

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