Profile

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 20 years (married for 15+). I'm 45 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 Past President of the local chapter (http://www.knoxvilleiaap.org/) of my professional association, IAAP (http://www.iaap-hq.org), Treasurer of my local kink group (http://links.magenta.com/~smpex/), and Knoxville Chapter Vice President (effective December 1, 2008) of my union, United Campus Workers (http://www.ucw-cwa.org/) (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.

To paraphrase a friend, I'm a

• middle-aged (I guess -- I'm 45)
  
• middle-class (I guess -- we have a mortgage and don't *quite* live paycheck-to-paycheck)
  
• middle-American (I guess -- Southwestern modified by 18 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.)

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 (http://waywordradio.com/), via Pab Sungenis (http://cnx.com/?p=679)
  

Believe it or not, I actually look a lot like a homelier version of this userpic (http://userpic.livejournal.com/43596051/527480): 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 (http://www.livejournal.com/allpics.bml?user=janetmiles), there's one that shows my hair when it's up in my idea of "formal".

• "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