My name is Shasta. I was born in 1971 to a pair of San Francisco hippies; my mother worked for the Grateful Dead at the time, and my father was--and still is--a luthier. When I was 5, my parents divorced, and my mom, little brother, and I moved to Dallas. As it turns out, the integration of hippie families from San Francisco into Dallas community life is not especially seamless.

Since my parents' divorce, I've had three different stepfathers, but the first two weren't my stepfathers for long. My current stepdad has been married to my mother since the mid '80s, and when I say "dad," I'm usually talking about him. I have four brothers who range in age from 33 to 8: one is a full brother, two are half brothers, and one is a stepbrother. No sisters.

I moved a great deal as a child, both within and among cities. The one I ended up thinking of as my hometown was Seattle, where I moved when I was 12. I actually rather liked high school, which is, I realize, an unfashionable thing to say, but it's true. I liked college, too. I started out and finished up as an English major, though in between, I flirted with the idea of studying drama, comparative religion, or communications. I had enough credits in drama courses to count as a minor at most schools, but the University of Washington didn't allow students to declare minors. I graduated at 21 and took a job as a receptionist for a real estate company; the year I worked there seemed very long.

At 22, I moved to Southern California and started graduate school. I have master's degrees in English and history, and I am currently writing a doctoral dissertation on female cross-dressing in seventeenth-century English drama. School was much easier when I was set on pursuing a traditional academic career. Now, I'm not really sure what I want. This uncertainty, combined with certain temperamental flaws and the fact that researching and writing 250 pages on an obscure topic is inherently difficult, has been a major source of emotional turmoil for me over the last couple of years.

I am married to a man I met in grad school; he's completing a Ph.D. in math and works full-time as a software engineer. We balance each other out: he helps me to be more grounded when I need to be grounded, and I help him remember how to play when he forgets. We have two labrador retriever mixes and an orange tabby cat; at the moment, we're also taking care of a second cat, who is happiest when you throw Q-Tips across the room and let him fetch them for you.

I don't know whether or not we'll ever have kids. Maybe. We'll see how I feel after I finish my dissertation.

I hate wearing fingernail polish, but my toenails are almost always painted. I am sometimes cynical, but I'm also idealistic. I believe in the knight but not the fairy tale. I love the road, but I do not love cars. I romanticize the idea of living in the country, but I know I could never be happy living far from a city. If you stand on the Santa Monica Pier with me at dusk, I will probably point to the sky and tell you that I love L.A., albeit in a Randy Newman kind of way.

I get restless sometimes, and I think I always will. I'm not so good at moderation. In anything, really. My short-term memory is excellent, but my long-term memory is terrible. Concepts and impressions stay; facts don't. I keep a journal in part because when I don't, huge chunks of my life disappear from my head. When I read my journal, I sometimes think I must seem totally insane. You may or may not be happy to know that most of the time, I feel mostly sane--the madwoman in my attic is really just kind of neurotic on occasion, and she's in no danger of setting anything on fire. Not intentionally, anyway, and those of you who happen to know about the time I burned up the microwave in seventh grade can just zip it.

I worry that I'll never do anything I'm truly proud of. I'd like to be great at something, but I suspect I'll have to settle for being good--sometimes very good--at several things. I can be counted on in a crisis. If I love you, I will dig you out of a Mexican prison with a spoon, but I'm not as reliable when circumstances are less dire. Which is most of the time.

I appreciate what's around me, but Orange County does feel soulless at times, and when I feel that most acutely, I miss things. I miss autumn air and autumn sweaters. I miss living near my family. I miss independent theaters and bookstores with hardwood floors.

And you, too. I also miss you.