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TechnoMom's profile Cynthia Armistead / 41, Female / Member since September 2007 / Last seen 1 day ago

I'm the most outspoken introvert you'll ever meet. I started out intending to be an English professor, took a left turn into putting the first husband through college, learned to use computers out of self-defense while working the normal pink-collar jobs, and found that I'd become a computer geek a few years later. Terrible surprise, that - but far more lucrative. Still working on the degree, been through two more husbands, settled on a marvelous life partner who is better than all three of the others put together. I did get an avatar of Bast and the world's most wonderful daughter out of that time, though, so it wasn't all bad.

And not too long after it, I met Sam, who I'd say is my soulmate if I believed in such things, but I don't. I will say that it's awfully darned odd that two very atypical people would meet each other in a very small liberal congregation in a very Republican county that both had joined and attended for the sake of their children while studiously avoiding absolutely ANY "singles" or "young adult" or "divorced" activities, as they did not want to use the congregation as a venue for meeting people. And they did, anyway, by virtue of someone she'd vaguely encountered on a needlework newsgroup years before, then met in a music committee meeting (said person having moved many states in the intervening years); and who he had known when in college a decade earlier. It was good that we had met, because that gave her something that say when he gripped her arm and said "WHO IS THAT WOMAN AND WHAT IS HER EMAIL ADDRESS??!!" I'm still tickled and all a-twitter, nine years later.

Put the English major and the geek together and what do you get? A technical writer! I'm also a very good software QA analyst. Unfortunately, I've been disabled since 2000 due to fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, ankylosing spondylitis, migraines, and a long list of other invisible disabilities. I'm still waiting for the Social Security Administration to agree (I was silly and didn't start that process 'til 2005), so I've got another three years of limbo (their estimate) to go. At least.

In the meantime, I'm trying to improve my health enough to return to work, as that would be far, far preferable than being "disabled" anyway! I attend college course online as much as possible, learn things on my own, read voraciously, and participate in a variety of groups on and offline.

My family is more important than anything else in the world, so if I just don't post for a time, it means that I'm focusing on them.

Oh - I'm dangerously prone to sing with absolutely any or no provocation. It's hard to get out of range, because I have a hellaciously big voice with a huge range, a true lyric dramatic soprano. Don't worry - I don't cut loose with opera. But I won't make any promises if anybody else starts singing gospel, old country or "oldies" or Broadway or standards or, really, absolutely anything that I can find a way to harmonize with (yep - I'm a soprano with a harmony fetish. Weird.) Or if anybody gets a guitar out. I have a -4 weakness for guitarists.

I also love gaming (can you tell?), but we pretty much always place diceless these days. We find that we get along best with indie gamers, or at least that they "get" the way that we play better than most folks - we're story gamers.

I do cross-stitch, and design it. I prefer atypical designs, which is really what led me in to design in the first place. I've maintained a list of pagan and "different" designs on one of my web sites for quite a few years now. I haven't been able to stitch as much as I like lately because my eyes have started to act up along with the rest of my body, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to go to the doctor and get that straightened out soon.

Let's see, what else - I'm an internet safety advocate. I've been very outspoken on that subject since a multiply-convicted felon targeted me and my daughter in 1996. He still hasn't gone away, so we have a web site deveoted to that topic, Cyberstalked.

Sam and I are polyamorous, which is another word for "responsibly non-monogamous." At times, we have had open, consensual, loving relationships with other adults while staying involved with each other. In fact, we were both involved with other people when we met. We'll probably have other SOs in the future. Our (outdated, but under "renovation") relationship agreement is published on another web site, House Fireheart. It's published like that because we kept getting requests from people who wanted to see it, or to know how we came up with it, so when we decided to revise it we chose to start the process out in the open. I've always been "out" to my daughter, who is nearly 17 now anyway, and Sam's kids have known that we're poly for many years now, and no longer live with us, in any case. Our families and friends know, as well, so putting the information on the web isn't a risk.

I have a blog and occasional podcast about living well despite chronic illness at Fibrant Living. I will update that shortly, I promise! "Real life" has been particularely REAL lately.

My portfolio site holds my professional writing samples, resume, and the like. The articles really need to be updated, but I haven't really worked in a few years, either.

My main site is TechnoMom. It started out on MindSpring's (now EarthLink's) servers back in 1995, when I was an employee there, then I registered the domain and moved it to a friend's server, where it lived for many, many years. It has always been a very eclectic site, with everything from parenting information to rants about censorhip, details about how I run our household, what I think should be in a family groupware system, tech support information, book reviews, lullaby lyrics--you name it. It had everything that lives on my various web sites now, too!

And finally, little things that don't go elsewhere end up on my LiveJournal. I still have one mainly because I have friends on LJ who won't read blogs any other way, and they use the LJ filtering system that won't work unless I read their entries while logged in to LJ. Yes, it's a racket. But I don't want to lose touch with them, so I put up with it, so far. Most of what I post there is nonsense, though, unless it's also posted to TechnoMom.

My Blogs

CyberStalked

http://cyberstalked.org/

Internet safety issues discussed by advocate Cynthia Armistead, including the story of her family's trials after being targeted by a cyberstalker in 1996.

Latest Post: Connecticut Woman Charged After Using Internet to Harass Ex-boyfriend’s Wife

Fibrant Living

http://fibrantliving.com/

Fibrant Living is for people with fibromyalgia or other chronic illnesses who want to live a vibrant, joyful life despite their diagnoses.

Latest Post: Tips & Tools for Working From Bed

TechnoMom

http://technomom.com/

41-year-old Atlanta Mom talks about raising a teen daughter while dealing with several invisible disabilities, keeping home and family together, going to college, and try…

Latest Post: Welcome, Gillian!