We'll start out with five fairly well-known things around here:

1. I'm only 14

2. I'm female

3. I love writing, listening to music, and playing music

4. I love Steely Dan

5. I'm from Maine, ayuh!

And five lesser-known tidbits:

1. Confessions from the CD collection: I actually only have 2 'Dan albums: Can't Buy A Thrill (their 1st, which panders a bit to commerical rock radio, as the inclusion of David Palmer on lead vocals on a few tracks shows) and Aja (the critically-acclaimed seminal jazz-rock album, which was their 6th). But I still love 'em, more and more every day, and my goal is to get at least all 7 classic albums by next year.

Also, despite my known passion for jazz, I own only 2 classic jazz albums, one of which is the ubiquitous Kind of Blue. I'm working on this, however, at the same rate I'm gunning for Steely Dan!

2. I will have ridden horses for 10 years this fall, despite the fact I haven't really enjoyed riding in the past few years. When I was little, however, horses were all I thought about! Actually, at age 6 I threw a fit at school when a new student, who also loved horses, joined the class, and I was forced to share my title of "Princess of the Horses."

3. I fell in love with the piano at approximately age 3, was able to generally ignore it through my true childhood years, and fell back in love in 6th grade when, quite out of the blue, I received a keyboard for Christmas. Well, it all went downhill from there; I banged around, sightreading the right-hand parts of every single carol in the Christmas books I had, until the discovery that a teacher I was obsessed with was married to a jazz pianist (who is the one and only true OAJD, as some Loungers know him, in fact.) This produced such a wild fascination with him (which started out as fascination with him by means that he was married to her, but quickly spread into fascination with him for his own sake), that I was actually inspired to ask, firmly, for lessons. A spinet piano was delivered to my house in late September of 2005, and my formal lessons began on November 30th, 2005. So a total stranger (whom, to this day, I have not met, and not because I haven't been scheming on that, either! ) spurred me on towards formal piano lessons. Weird to think of it, eh?

4. I have recieved detention twice in my life, both for disturbing class, and in both cases that class was math, albeit different math classes (once in 6th grade, and once in 7th)!

5. I am on very friendly turns with a total Bushbot, who remains one of the funniest people I know, despite the fact that he and his family are addicted to Kool-Aid, so to speak.