The Muse of Fire FAQ

In the interest of letting you, the reader, familiarize yourself with me, the blogger, here’s the ever ubiquitous FAQ to Not an Independent Thought in My Head – O! For a Muse of Fire blog.  Damn, what a long name.

1) Who are you?  I really wanna know.

I’m a 26-year-old woman trying her hand at this blogging thing with the intent of just having a place to put down her thoughts.  I’m currently in two ruts: 1) I have no academic outlet (and I really don’t want one, to be honest) and 2) I’m in a creative writing rut.  Journaling/blogging is all the writing I have at the moment.  That’s perfectly fine – I expect it’ll be all I have for a while in terms of writing.  In general terms, I’m a sister, a daughter, a girlfriend, a friend.  I’m a word geek who peruses the OED for fun.  I’m politically aware but not exactly argumentatively inclined.  I’m blowin’ in the wind at the moment, so I can’t give you an exact definition of me at the moment.  Oh, I’m also – ta-da – Mexican!  Born there, raised in Michigan.  What a combo, donchaknow.

2) The URL of your blog.  "Not an Independent Thought in My Head?"  And what’s that got to do with "O! For a Muse of Fire?"  What’s that from?

To answer your last question, that’s from Shakespeare’s Henry V.  It’s the first line of the play.  The blog description is the line that follows.  I have no muse of fire that can ascend the brightest heaven of invention, so I’m invoking it here, hoping that some good will come of it.  As to "Not an Independent Thought in My Head," I came up with the idea after reading the blog of some chick at Michigan who a) couldn’t register her own website but needed her boyfriend to do it; b) was converted to Christianity by the Left Behind series her boyfriend had her read (oh, forget the various millennia of monotheistic, Judeo-Christian teachings and go with books crappily written about the End of Days); c) made a connection between John Kerry’s nomination to the Democratic ticket and his membership in Skull and Bones and immediately concluded that her vote might not count this time around (hey, if that’s true, it’s all fair game since my vote didn’t count last time and Bush is also a member); and d) just has no head for thinking for herself.  I’ve encountered other women like this everywhere, women who share my politics, too.  And men do it, too.  Blah.  I just don’t get people who depend on their significant others for formulating thoughts.  Anyone who argues their take on anything and everything by invoking their significant others as a source of ultimate authority is, well, wrong. 

And how hard is it to register a domain name by yourself?

Really, though, the title of "O!  For a Muse of Fire" is the wannabe antithesis to "Not An Independent Thought in My Head."  Please, muse of fire, fill this head with all the independent thoughts and stories it can handle.

3) So what’s your blog going to be about, my dear?

Me.  Me, me, me, me, me.  My thoughts.

4) What do you do for a living?

I’m an editor at a sports marketing research company.  Because I don’t want to lose my job through foolish commentary regarding my position (which I love, by the way), I’ll refrain from talking about the office.  However, the funny stuff that happens at lunchtime is fair game.

5) You say you’re an academic on permanent hiatus – what the hell does that mean?

It means that I’ve walked away from academia (I have in a Master’s in English in case you’re curious) and have no intention of going back at the moment.  I have two reasons why I walked away: 1) I wasn’t admitted to any Ph.D programs and 2) the academic market is rough-going.  I don’t fancy the stress that’s placed on those who are part of that over-saturated market.  I still dabble in Early Modern culture, history and literature (note the TypeList on the sidebar) – you can take the girl out of academia, but you can’t take academia out of the girl.  I still bore my family and friends with occasional word tangents.  I still gleefully tell anyone who’s willing to listen why Romeo and Juliet is an awful piece of dramatic literature.   I have no plans to return to academia at the moment.

6) No religion or politics?  Snore.

Well, maybe once in a while.  Unlike other sites, though, I will try to back up what I’m saying with evidence, stats and well-reasoned arguments.  I won’t just provide a link and tell people that they’re stupid.  I won’t dive into that often, though, because the environment in which I was raised allowed for very little argument, so I tend to keep my politics/thoughts-on-religion cards close to my chest and play them only when absolutely necessary.  I can’t change your mind, you can’t change mine, so just let me believe my beliefs without telling me that I’m going to hell, okay?  I’ll respond in a quite nasty manner.  Like the time the guy at the gas station tried to convert me to his Baptist church as 7:30am after I got three hours of sleep.  Yeah.

7) So will you tell us your politics in brief?

Sure, in brief.  I’m a registered Democrat; I tend to vote along party lines due to the way the pieces fall when it’s election time in Michigan.  I’m pretty much a moderate.  I’m not very religious, so the religious right’s arguments that I bow down before the one they serve don’t sway me at all.  I went to a very liberal university (University of Michigan – Ann Arbor); not exactly a great thing when some of the demanded measures are pretty far out and nutty.  I still remember the meeting of a now-defunct Latino/a group with Lee Bollinger that a friend persuaded me to attend.  I’m sorry, Lee.

8) What are your other interests?

Well, click the About Me link on the left side of the page and you’ll know.  But briefly, I’m an Early Modern geek who loves to run, read intelligent literature (Dean Koontz is not literature, people), strike up conversations concerning how great Dominick’s sangria is, attend the theater, write in books, watch documentaries that assert Richard III was an evil person so I can shout at the TV that he wasn’t (yeah, I’m a revisionist, what can I say?), and hike until I can hike no more.  There’s a lot more to me than that, but I’m running out of fuel here, people.

9) Anything else to add?

Uh, that’s what this blog is for, sweetheart . . .