About me and this blog

I am a 38-year-old geeky gal living in Irvine, near Los Angeles, CA. Living with me is my husband Paul, a programmer for Blizzard Entertainment, and two unemployed Burmese cats, Zen — the one with the game controller — and Satori. Starting at the age of 30, I was progressively “nerfed” by a series of illnesses, including Graves’ disease and myalgic encephalopathy, and went from loving my career in teaching to being a bedroom blogger.

I have a BFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University, and finished the coursework at Cal State University, Los Angeles, for my master’s in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). Prior to becoming disabled, I was a sign language interpreter in the college setting, and later taught English grammar and writing to underprepared deaf college students. I enjoy many nerdtastic pastimes from the The New York Times crossword to Kingdom of Loathing to rewatching Firefly episodes for the nine jillionth time.

Currently, I am the editorial manager for Grassroots Skeptics, and a staff writer for AbleGamers.

This blog covers topics including games and geekiness, chronic illness and disability, health and medicine, and skepticism and science. The latter two inform this blog strongly. I am a proponent of critical thinking and science-based medicine, something I have found missing in many blogs and support forums about chronic illness.  More about me and skepticism can be found in this interview with Skepchick.

Terms

There is a long-standing debate over the terminology of this illness. Names like chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), myalgic encephalopathy/encephalomyelitis (ME), ME/CFS, chronic fatigue immune deficiency syndrome (CFIDS), post-viral fatigue syndrome, and neuro-endocrine immune disorder have constantly been analyzed for accuracy and implications. (If you clicked the Wikipedia link above, you saw that ME redirects to CFS.) Going by the newest criteria, I say I have ME, but refer to the illness in general as ME/CFS.

(photo by Amy Davis Roth)