Name: Katie Sullivan

Online Aliases: Scarlet, KatieScarlet, Snowfur, The Grammar Faerie, Skarlette

Main Hobbies:  Writing, reading, drawing, Disney comics and animation, wasting time on the computer, World of Warcraft, babying my fish, keeping up on current events

Age: upper 20s

Sign:   I'm an atypically even-tempered Scorpio

Height:  5'6" or so, depending on what shoes I'm wearing and if I'm slouching or not

Weight:  Oh, like you really expected me to tell? :p

Favorite Color: Blue

Favorite Smell: Fresh Lilacs

Favorite Foods:   Macaroni, Grilled Cheese, Root Beer, Junior Mints, chocolate chip cookies

Home:   I have lived in Wisconsin my entire life. Yes, I like cheese. No, I do not own a cow. Yes, it snows here in the winter. No, we do not wear Eskimo parkas. Yes, many of us are of Scandinavian descent. No, we don't all talk like the people in Fargo!

Yah, hey, uff dah. I don't talk like dat, den, do I?   Pass the lutefisk.  Yah.

Travels: Florida (1989 and 1996), Texas (2001), Colorado (1996), Illinois (1996), Missouri (1996), Nebraska (2005),  Iowa, Minnesota, around Wisconsin, plus a 1990 cruise to the Caribbean islands of Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, Martinique, Barbados, Bequia, and St. Kitts.

Family:   I am an only child (quality, not quantity!)  ;)  I'm very close to my parents--and yes, they're just as weird as I am!   My maternal grandmother also lived in my house for about 13 years until she went home with the Lord in March of 2004.  Missing you, Grandma.

Friends:   My best friend is Kayleen Connell.  We went to high school together, attended the same college, and I was wench...er, maid...of honor at her wedding.  We don't live in the same state any more, but we get to see each other at least once a year and keep in touch online.  Here's a picture of the two us dolled up as Old West Wenches when I went to visit her in Texas!

Pets:   I never had a pet until 2001, when I started my career as a fish mommy.  I now have a bunch of crazy goldfish and bettas!  Visit their webpage!  (You're not honestly surprised to learn my fish have their own webpage, are you?)  I adore all my fishies and try to pamper and spoil them as much as possible.  :)

Ethnicity: 1/4 Norwegian with large doses of Irish and German, a bit of English and Dutch, and just a pinch of Scottish and French--making me your typical American mutt!  ;)

Education: I graduated with High Academic Honors from high school as part of the Class of '98.  In high school I belonged to the National Honor Society and Spanish Club. I graduated magna cum laude from a school in the University of Wisconsin system in May of 2003 with a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature.

Employment History: I worked as a webpage and webgraphic designer for a local ISP for a year, then had a summer job at a mini-golf place.  From November 2001 until February 2009 I was a library page.  I shelved and un-shelved books, made photocopies, dusted things, filed stuff, maintained databases and scrapbooks, etc.  Since February 2009 I've been employed as a circulation desk clerk, where I check books in and out and handle fines, applications, reserves, etc.

Dream Career:   My dream is to become a published novelist.  Since late 1996 I've been tweaking and editing a 300+ page manuscript titled Heritage in the Stars--follow the link for the full scoop on that!

Past Career Goals: I am interested in meteorology, especially hurricanes.  I actively tracked hurricanes from Hurricane Bob in 1991 through the 1997 season.  I once considered becoming a meteorologist, but math and I don't mix.  My hurricane cartoons are here.

Artistic Stuff: There's a gallery of my best/favorite/most recent art here.   My art is created primarily with Prismacolor colored pencils and/or Paint Shop Pro 5.0.  I primarily draw for my own enjoyment and don't consider myself a serious artist; it's just something I do for fun.

Favorite Authors: (In no particular order) G.R.R. Martin, Brian Jacques, Arthur C. Clarke, David Eddings, Douglas Adams, J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, Peter David, Dave Barry, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, and Shakespeare.
My all-time favorite book is, and has been since third grade, Richard Adams' magnificent novel Watership Down.
Some of my favorite reading comes from Disney duck comics.  I was practically taught to read by Carl Barks' exquisite comics, and  I love Don Rosa's work.  $crooge McDuck is one of the greatest characters of modern literature!

Favorite Music: (Again in no particular order) Richard Marx, Josh Groban, Celine Dion, The Eagles, Enrique Iglesias, Shakira, Bryan Adams, Mariah Carey's older albums, Broadway stars Michael Ball, Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman, and some stuff by Don Henley, Rod Stewart, Billy Joel and En Vogue. I don't like Country music or rap. 

Favorite Plays: As national touring companies perform near me, I've seen Phantom of the Opera three times, Les Miserables three times, and one time each for the following:  Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The King and I, and Showboat.

Favorite movies:   (No particular order) Pirates of the Caribbean, the Austin Powers series, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, National Lampoon's vacation movies, the Indiana Jones trilogy, Twister, Titanic, Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing, Mulan, Lilo and Stitch (and pretty much all the other Disney animated films), The Naked Gun and its myriad of spinoffs, War of the Worlds (1953), The Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns (2001).  I'll also watch just about anything with Antonio Banderas in it.

Trekkie? I like Star Trek, especially Q and the tribbles!  I was a full-fledged Trekkie in middle school and early high school, but I'm not really into it anymore.  My favorite series is The Next Generation.  I only watched the first few seasons of DS9 and Voyager.  (And yes, Star Wars is cool, too.)  Fellow Trek fans should be sure to read the humor fic I co-authored:  Q at Large!

Harry Potter? After years of mocking Harry Potter books for being obnoxiously popular, and drawing attention away from a certain other British young adult fantasy author I admire greatly, I finally caved in and read the darn things starting in October 2003.  I now officially insert foot in mouth and admit they are excellent.  I was pleasantly surprised to find them to be very well written, intricately plotted, exciting, funny and addictive.  I've now read all the books, and have a little website devoted to the most fascinating character in the series, Severus Snape.

Lord of the Rings? Yes, please!  I've read and greatly enjoyed the main trilogy, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion. The movies are awesome, and movie-Aragorn is insanely attractive.

Anime?  Manga?   Sailor Moon is the only anime I'm really familiar with, though I've caught a few bits of Ranma 1/2, Boys Over Flowers and the Miyazaki oeuvre.  I really prefer manga over anime.  Sailor Moon was the first series that captured my interest, and since then I've branched out into other series (thank you, public library!)  
My favorite manga series are Ranma 1/2, The Queen's Knight, Skip Beat!, Love Com, Ceres: Celestial Legend, Peach Girl, Fushigi Yugi, Boys Over Flowers, Magic Knight Rayearth, and Please Save My Earth. 
Other series I've read and enjoyed are:  Aria/Aqua, Basara, Beauty Pop, Cantarella, Cardcaptor Sakura, Chobits, Emma, Inu-Yasha, Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne, KARE First Love, Kitchen Princess, Imadoki!, Maison Ikkoku, Marmalade Boy, Mars,   Oh My Goddess!, One Piece, Platinum Garden, Ragnarok, Rurouni Kenshin, Sand Chronicles, Tsubasa, Ultra Maniac, W Juliet, The Wallflower, Wild Act, Wish, and XXXholic.  I'm turning into quite the manga geek.   ^_^  Too bad they're so expensive to collect!

Furry?  It's obvious from the rest of my website that I love animation and fiction of the anthropomorphic sort.  I'm not part of the "furry" community, however, and my interest in the genre is never more than PG-rated, thank you very much.

Sports?  I like to watch hockey occasionally, and I enjoy most of the Winter Olympics, but otherwise sports are not my thing.

Computer Games I Occasionally Obsess Over:  These days it's mainly World of Warcraft.  Other ones that I love:  The Sims (and all expansion packs), The Sims 2, SimCity 2000 & 3000, Llamatron, Zoo Tycoon (with expansions), SimAnt, the first three Harry Potter PC games, Age of Empires, Age of Kings (and Conquerors expansion), Age of Mythology and Oregon Trail II.  Plus oodles of games on Neopets.

World of Warcraft:   Yet another obsession I have to blame Kayleen for.  ;)  In the summer of 2005 she and her husband finally convinced me to try WoW.  I had resisted, knowing I'd become addicted.  I did--badly!  Told you so.  ;)  But I love it.   My main character is a level 80 human mage, Skarlette, on the Stormrage server.  Screenshots and other WoW-related stuff can be found over at this page.

You Collect What?  I am an avid deltiologist.  (That's a fancy word for "post card collector!")  I have over 13,000 cards, new and old, from all over the world.  I primarily buy them in antique shops.  My oldest card is from 1900, but I also love brand-new cards.  I have cards from as far-away (for me) places as Tahiti and Sri Lanka, and as close as my own community.

Misc. Interests:   I'm a history buff, especially interested in North America between the Civil War and WWI, Egyptology, Medieval Europe, and Precolombian exploration of the Americas.  I'm also interested in historical and general linguistics, geography, cryptozoology, animals, nature, anything to do with natural disasters, astronomy and religious studies.

Other Favorite Animals:  In addition to my pet goldfish and bettas, I like llamas, manatees, koi, foxes, rabbits, ducks, ostriches, camels, ferrets, wolves, polar bears and giant anteaters (in roughly that order.) I llove llamas! They're adorable!  I have llots of pllush llamas. ;)  My (now very old) llama movie parodies are here.

Pet Cause: Save the manatees!  These poor, harmless, gentle animals are nearing extinction!  I am the proud adoptive mom of Howie the Manatee! Visit this site to find out more about these poor creatures, and get information on how to "adopt" a manatee of your own!

Neopets:   I used to be massively addicted to Neopets, but since I got into WoW I've pretty much abandoned it.  My main account is scarletkarnage, created back in April of 2001.  My oldest pet, GonzaloJunior, used to be in the top 100 of the Neopian Book Awards, back when it first started.  I also collect JubJub T-shirts. (JubJubs are my favorite Neopet.)   Visit my store to see the current size of my collection.  I did have one comic published in the Neopian Times.

Nessie?   Aliens?  I'm quite interested in cryptozoology, especially of the "lake monster" and sea serpent varieties.  It's terribly arrogant to think we've discovered every single animal species on the planet.   I also believe in extraterrestrial life.  It just makes scientific sense that we aren't the only critters in the universe!  As to whether they've actually visited Earth...I'm skeptical but open.

Political Affiliation:   Democrat, somewhere between moderate and liberal.  Voted for Gore, Kerry and Obama.  Volunteered with the Kerry campaign in 2004.  Proud to live in a blue county in a blue state!

Weaknesses:  Procrastination, depression, being a packrat who attracts clutter like a magnet, and obsessing over way too many interests and fandoms at one time.

Theology:    Short answer:   I'm a Christian.  A Lutheran, to be more precise.  Long answer:    [Warning:  Personal opinions ahead.   Flames will be ignored.]  The Apostles' Creed pretty much sums up what I believe when it comes to the Big Questions.  I believe in God, a Supreme Being, a Benevolent Creator, etc.  How could there not be?  Look at the universe!   How else did it get to be there?  How else does it all stay in working order? The cosmos is an inconceivably huge and complex place, and only God can be responsible for it.
(My main unorthodox quirk is that I prefer to think of God as transcending gender and reserve the "He" pronoun for God's earthly manifestation, Jesus Christ.  But then I'm a nitpicky English major when it comes to silly things like pronouns.  ;)  I just frankly think it's insulting to try to confine God in a biology-based niche.  God is so beyond things like that.   God does not fit into nice little boxes for us to label and file away.  God is everywhere, everywhen, everything.  If everybody could remember that, and realize that God loves all of us, and then be nice to each other, the world would be a much better place!  I know, I know...duh.  And easier said than done...)
I'm also increasingly frustrated with the right-wing evangelicals who claim to be Christian but spread hate and discrimination, are judgmental and hypocritical, and give the religion a bad name and reputation.  You don't speak for me, and I'll be so bold as to say you don't speak for God.  Do onto others as you would have them do onto you!

Stuff I don't like, find annoying and/or think is distasteful, in no particular order:  [Warning:  More personal opinions ahead.  Flames will be ignored.]  Excessive profanity, roadkill, math, large chunks of meat, bigots, racists, terrorists, perverts, people with no sense of humor, Internet drama, monkeys (especially the ones with red butts), redneck hunters, the death penalty, guns, people who discuss their bathroom habits in public, Scooby Doo, vomit, bad grammar, bad spelling, l337 ch@t$p3@k, flames, spam e-mail (especially the kind that promises to enlarge body parts I don't even have), bullies, litter, people who don't recycle, people who put food and other inappropriate things in the recycling bins at work, when fandoms get overrun with porn, wrestling, twangy Country music, rap, overly verbose literary criticism, people who insist that goldfish should live in bowls, that little smirk Dubya does (and pretty much everything else he does, come to think of it), when someone else claims the shower first and I have to wait for it, and more stuff I'm probably forgetting.  No offense.  ;)

Number One Pet Peeve: Misused apostrophes, especially in the word "its".  Sure, it's picky, but I was an English major, you know!  ;)

Well, that's probably waaaaaaay more than you really cared to know about little old me.
I hope you enjoy my website!