I've been coming here to the State of Insanity chat web site since July '97. ..at the insistence of my friend Teaser.. *S*   She had found me lost in The-Park..  and once i got an eye full of SOI.. I never went back..  SOI became my home from that day on.

    I will turn 23 years old this June 28th 2000..  I'm originally from Boise, Idaho..  but, I moved to LaJolla, California in '95 to go to school at UCSD...  where i have since earned a Bachelors Degree in Psychology.  I always thought that I would one day be a therapist ..  and well .. there is alot of time for that .. for the mean time ..  I am working for Hewlett-Packard here in San Diego.

    I live with my girlfriend Becky, with whom I've been involved since October '96.. *S*  She's originally from Colorado Springs, Colorado.  Becky is a senior this year at UCSD ...where she's majoring in Economics.

   I've been doing a great deal of soul searching lately ..  and I feel that i must become a writer.  There is much to tell.  Many truths to hand out to my fellow people.  I have been working on a few ideas for a novel.  ..One is where I will write a thinly vieled auto-biographical novel dealing with my own awakening.  ..I hope some day i will be able to earn enough money where i will be able to write full-time and not have to work for an employer.   I would love to be able to travel the world and write as i go.  Just me, my laptop and my gal.  *grin*    one day .  i promise you ..  *S*

    I will be adding a few more pages onto my main page.  I thought it would be fun for me to have a page devoted entirely to descibing myself to you ..  so that you can learn about the kind of person I am.  There are a lot of things that I am very adament about .. and what I will do very soon is create some pages devoted solely to my opinions ..  *S*  You will either liek this or hate this ..  either way ..  I hope that you will let me know what you think in my guestbook ..  *S*

  My favorite author is most certainly Radclyffe Hall ..  she is best known for writing The Well of Loneliness .  Published in February of 1928, ..shockingly candid for its time, this novel was the very first to condemn homophobic society for its unfair treatment of gays and lesbians.  Banned outright in 1928, its publication marked an act of great courage which almost ruined Hall's literary career.  Although over half a century has passed since its initial publication, the issues of prejudice and persecution that  Radclyffe Hall addresses remain sadly relevant today.
 
 

   The Well of Loneliness can be seen as being to the Lesbian Collective..  what Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique was to the Feminist movement.  I believe that it is our duty..  all of us.. to read this book.  I've never been the same... since the first time that i read it.  It's surely one of the most important books of the Twentieth-Century.  *S*

    In 1928 censors in England and the United States suppressed the book for its portrayal of lesbianism, although the book contains little explicit sexual content by contemporary standards. "Simple working, the humble and the poor as well as a host of distinguished men and women...came forward to defend me." Some of the intellectual figures who supported Hall during the trial included Virginia Woolf, H.G. Wells, Bernard Shaw, and Aldous Huxley; others, "whom I had supposed to be friends," supported her when the press did, then shunned and attacked her, "howling with the wolves," when another portion of the press attacked her. The most painful part of the censorship ordeal, what Hall calls "the blot on my escutcheon," was that, in spite of The Well's international renown, it was long banned in her native England. The Well's popularity and social significance are undeniable. Reprinted more than any other work of lesbian fiction, The Well has been embraced by lesbians as a landmark in our literary tradition.

    Very simply, ..Radclyffe Hall shaped the way that the world began to see lesbians in particular during her lifetime.  The world of gays & lesbians emerged from the shadows with a help from Hall's writing.  Virginia & Leonard Woolf, (Hall's contemporaries) .. called it "back room business".  Certainly, it is no one else's business, whatever you choose to do in your private life.  Radclyffe Hall was different.  Even though she was very shy in an upclose scrutinous environment ..she never once cowered at the sight of adversity.  She called herself the "Champion of the Inverts" ...and truly ..  so she was.  A martyr for her cause.  A modern day Joan de Arc.  Hall wrote The Well Of Loneliness with full knowledge of the impending consequences.  In her lifetime, it reached far past 1 million copies sold.  An international bestseller of great proportions for that time.  While others were cloaking their true sexual orientations ..  Radclyffe Hall flaunted it.  A thorn in the side of the patriarchy.  A thorn in the side of the set ways of the world.  She was a "new womyn".

    Hall's reasons for writing The Well are remarkably familiar and resonant today. She hoped the novel would inspire "the inverted in general to declare themselves," beckoning her fellow inverts to come out of the closet. She sought to provide positive role models for her "own kind" and to increase "tolerance" in the world, particularly among parents, for the inverted. Hall portrayed homosexuality as biologically-based; protagonist Stephen Gordon is a martyr to her nature by, in the end, giving up her beloved Mary to "normal" love.

  The Well Of Loneliness can be found at nearly any bookstore or public library.  I urge everyone who visits this page .. to read this book!
 
 

    As soon as i can.. I'll be scanning some old pictures of me from when i was younger..  and also perhaps some newer ones as well..  like the ones shown above.  The pictures that I have here were taken on tuesday, the 6th of July..  so..  they are fairly recent.

    I'd like to give my very sincere thanks to Teaser for having such a fantastic help page.  If it hadn't been for her..  this could not have been possible.  I'm as much of a novice as they come..  so..  I am indebted to her for her help. *S*

    I thank you all for viewing and reading through my homepage.  *S*  It will be growing and offering many new things..  especially a book review that I thought that I might do as well.  *S*  Some of the authors and influential womyn that you may see highlighted here in the future are Colette, Naomi "Mikie" Jacob, Djuna Barnes, Romaine Brooks, Violet Hunt, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein & Alice Toklas, Clemance Dane, Natalie Barney, Dr. JoAnn Loulan, Betty Friedan, Ellen Degeneres &  Anna Heche, Trisha Todd, Ani DiFranco, Alison Bechdel, Rita Mae Brown and many many others.  These are some of my icons & sheros.