off the deep end

[ckaratnytsky at nypl.org]

     I think you've all gone mad.
     
     To wit:  At the top of the list, the redoubtable hg.  No, sorry, John, 
     it's not that he's a Ph.D. in training:  It's that he's under 30!  A 
     28-year-old punk kid, to be precise--neither Colonel Blimp *nor* Big 
     Daddy (mendacious personals aside), which is how he existed in my 
     personal mental construct!  (That's written with a smile, hg, but I 
     still happen to be wearing my flameproof nightie, if you're so 
     inclined.)
     
     But, wait, there's more...  Let's see:  Bonnie's getting married, 
     Grip's name is Larry, female Jean is not a male Zhan, Christopher buys 
     shoes in Mankato where Don teaches, Andrew substitutes drug-induced, 
     cereal-box-reading masturbation for TV watching (go, Andrew!), lurkers 
     are coming out of the woodwork and EVERYBODY'S writing in the third 
     person!  And on, and on!  Wheeeee!  I love it!  It's a good thing this 
     computer stuff happens while one is sitting, cause if Tommy the P *is* 
     hiding out on this list and decides to reveal himself, I will have less 
     distance to fall to the floor.
     
     And, with that, Chris jumps into the pool:
     
     Anglo-Irish lit-head Chris became a theatre librarian, when, in a rare 
     moment of prudence during those heady, hard-to-be-a-saint-in-the-city 
     eighties, she realized that scrounging a life in the jungles of 
     academe was not her cuppa tea.  She has worked as the scripts 
     specialist here in the NYPL for more than 12 years, where she catalogs 
     the manuscripts of the obscure and the celebrated with equal 
     affection, serves the public with aplomb and still has time to e-mail 
     the world.  A natural-born troublemaker, she believes passionately in 
     personal involvement in social issues and serves on the executive 
     board of her local union.
     
     Half-Italian, half-Ukrainian Chris, whose spiritual home, like Richard 
     Romeo's, is Ireland, is 35, has a view of Central Park that she can't 
     afford (north end, not posh by any stretch), more albums than cds, and 
     more books than either.  She has a dog, she has cats.  Once, she had a 
     husband.  She has worshipped at the altar of the goddess Patti Smith 
     (who played her first NYC concert in nearly 20 yrs. a coupla weeks 
     ago), and looks forward to a nosalgia-hazed trip to the land of 
     Quadrophenia with those lovely gents, The Who.  In general her musical 
     tastes run high on Brit prog-rock, with King Crimson coming in at the 
     top of the heap.  (But, really, she likes anything and everything 
     musical.)
     
     Inexplicably, she's made it through Remembrance of Things Past more 
     than once and Gravity's Rainbow never, but the rest of the stuff, yes, 
     yes.  (She will *not* organize that group read, btw.)  She works in 
     theatre as a stage manager when she has the time.  She has had no 
     plastic surgery and would be a really good a secret agent.  She admits 
     to having made an al wang joke once and bad puns often.  She delights 
     in sexual innuendo (virtual and actual).  And, now, she thinks she'll 
     slink off in embarrassment.
     
     Chris