CAST O' CHARACTERS

First of all, I'm egbridges. I am a PhD student currently dissertating in Germanic Studies and Communication & Culture at a midwestern Big 10 university. I'm originally from Arkansas, where I lived and went to school, college, and did my master's, moving northward in 1998. I have also spent two years studying in Germany, most recently 2001-02, which I spent in Berlin.

Other things I am (not necessarily in this order):
dyke more or less in the middle between butch and femme, human companion of Henry the Beagle and Gertie and Jones the cats, human companion of Meghan the girlfriend, sober and drug-free, an ex-vegan who gave up the lifestyle as a result of the aforementioned time in Germany, a really good cook, an avid road-tripper, a sci-fi geek, a surprisingly happy chronic depressive with chemically enhanced neurotransmitters, a workaholic.

Meghan - She is the wonderful human I gladly call my partner. Working on a Master's degree in Central Eurasian Studies and having finished one in Information Science, a fluent speaker of Finnish and Estonian with a decent command of Russian and even a little Swedish and more recently Azeri, she is this foreign language nerd's dream - super smart, adventurous, an avid traveller, a fan of subtitled movies, and fascinated by arcane grammatical systems. Yowza! She also has a surreal sense of humor, tolerates my weirdness and loves all animals, including mine. All this, and she's cute too!

Kris and Faye - They are my two best pals here on the homefront. Kris is a sweet worry wart who likewise has the so-called mental illness known as depression. She and her boy Bill might get hitched soon. Faye is a free spirit ex-hippie girl who speaks fluent French (along w/ German). Her dog Niko is a playmate of Henry's, as was her dog Rain before her untimely passing. As an added bonus, these two are not only my friends, but also they are colleagues of mine as well. We are the founding members of an elite fighting force, a team of superheroes known as the Female Avengers.

Cooper - She was the guitarist in our band the Hussies (for which I played bass until about a year ago when I left for Germany), now the drummer for the Whoremoans, among other bands. A Master's degreed school psychologist by training, she is currently in career transition. Though generally quiet, when she does talk, it's almost always deadpan-dry but hilarious. Her dog Toki is one of Henry's friends.

Henry the dog - He is a beagle/hound dog mix who acquired me as his human about 3 1/2 years ago, leaving a life of hard time at the animal shelter and entering a world of dog parks, regular bedtimes, and soy-based dog food. (*TANGENT* and no, this is not just b/c I'm such a hardcore vegetarian - Read up on what is actually in 99% of commercially available pet foods, and ask yourself this: "Do I want my dog to enjoy a diet of road kill?" That is but one of the secret ingredients in the "meat by-products" you see on the label. I'm not kidding! Check the facts! *END OF TANGENT*) So Henry, with his adorable beagle eyes, happy-go-lucky personality, and warm heart, is a very special little creature. WWHD?? He models the unconditional love to which we would all do well to aspire.

Gertie the cat - She is a beautiful calico who has been through it all with me. She is now approximately 11 years old, and still getting into her own innocuous forms of mischief (mostly involving hiding behind furniture and pretending to jump out and attack w/out using her claws) and leading a mysterious double life as an alien sent to observe human behavior, carefully disguised as an adorable calico cat. In 1994-95, she spent 4 1/2 months reporting to the mother ship, returned by a neighbor who found Gertie eating her cat's food after being teleported back to Earth. This was a very happy day for me. Incidentally, she is not named after Gertrude Stein, but rather the little sister in the movie "E.T."

Jones the cat - I accidentally brought him home one day when I had gone on a routine trip to buy dog food at Petsmart. They had kitties from the shelter, and I stopped to say hi to them, only to discover a 5-year-old orange tabby who was neutered and declawed and looking forlorn. The first cat I had actually called my own, Joe (May his little soul rest in peace!), was an orange tabby who looked very similar. I opened the cage, and Jones jumped into my arms. I couldn't leave him there. He has turned out to be a well-behaved and loving kitty. I can't imagine why someone gave him up. "Jones" is the name of the orange tabby cat in the "Alien" movies, incidentally.

Ubertuff is a pal and fellow Diarylander. We met as Fulbright scholars in Berlin (she was part-time in Frankfurt, but spent a lot of time in Berlin on my couch), sharing the triumphs and tragedies of a year in the land of the Teutons and Drag Kings (some who used their powers for good, others for evil). Our best moments included sitting around my apartment in our boxers and t-shirts drinking soda and watching bad music videos on Mtv or VIVA (German-language music channel). She now resides in Tulsa, OK, but she may be moving elsewhere soon.

My parents:
My Dad is a part-time Baptist minister and part-time college lecturer in English and Philosophy in Jonesboro, Arkansas. He was a fulltime Southern Baptist minister until I was 15. He is very intelligent in a downhome sort of way but really bad at fixing things and generally kind of clueless. He's a phenomenal classical/country/rock-n-roll guitarrist, though. For obvious reasons, he is not thrilled that I am a dyke, but four years after I came out to him, he is getting a bit better. His biggest quirk is that loves animals (to a neurotic degree - and this is a vegan w/ 2 cats and a dog saying this) and has collected quite a menagerie, much to my Mom's chagrin.

My mom - She is still with my Dad after 30-someodd years, and she is still an 8th grade English teacher after 20-someodd years. She was *my* 8th grade English teacher as a matter of fact (small school district, small town). She has a very dry and very sharp sense of humor. She read Kurt Vonnegut to me out loud when I was a kid. She is equally unthrilled about my dykeness, but has tended to be less vocal about this than my dad has been over the years. She appears the typical preacher's wife on the outside, but she is secretly kind of radical (though she would never, ever consider herself as such).

Note: If googling brought you here to read a bitchy rant, I have deleted that kind of stuff. Formerly, this section included a bit about some not-so-positive feelings regarding a few of my exes. However, in an attempt to come to terms with my past, I have vowed to no longer go off about my experiences with these people. What's done is done. Let's move on. Next.

Monika - She is a super-hottie Polish girl with whom I had a very therapeutic post-dump fling. Can we say shaven-headed, visible arm muscles, sexy accent, and a PhD student in Cultural Studies? Yes we can! The experience was nothing but positive, and we are now on excellent terms. I also have about a 10-word vocabulary of Polish, at least 8 of which are sayable in mixed company.

The Germans:
the Schuberts - Anna, Hans-Karl, and Gesine, my former host family, with whom I am almost as close as my real family. I lived with them for 10 months in Hamburg in 1995-96. We're still in contact, and I've gone to see them many times. We e-mail and phone pretty regularly. Anna is a student in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Gesine is an architect, and Hans-Karl is a freelance industrial computer programmer.

Noemi - My best dyke bud in Berlin . We spent much time together there playing soccer, shooting the breeze, and dancing the night away at dyke parties in the queer clubs throughout the city. I send her grrrl punk CDs.

Stay tuned! More to come...

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