All About Me
or, My Life as an Anthropomorphized Tablet of Valium

Name: Richard

Sign: Leo, of course. [Note: if you missed my birthday, Amazon provides an easy way to make amends.]

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, USofA

Life Story (abridged for your pleasure--and hers!): Let's see...where did it all begin?

In Mississippi, I believe it was--a small, quaint, relentlessly ignorant, loving, nosy, phony, adorable, special town. That's where I was born and raised. (There's a wee gallery of pics from my youth at Flickr.com, if you're interested. But maybe you're not. Suit yourself.)

Fast forward to 1986: I graduated from high school and moved on to Millsaps College, a teeny-tiny, teeny-weeny liberal arts college hidden away among the rolling hills and sprawling homogeneity of Jackson, Mississippi. While I can't say Millsaps prepared me for the adult world--much less the scintillating world of graduate school--I will admit that I learned a great deal in the way of social skills. I also made some of the most enduring friends of my life. And like many college students, I learned the limits of my alcohol endurance. (It's startling but true: parts of my existence have been painfully banal.)

Immediately after graduation, I decided I'd had just about enough of Mississippi, thank you very much, and marched my happy ass down to New Orleans, where I lived for the next three years. I finished my M.A. in Dramatic Lit and Criticism at Tulane University and then moved on to....

Exciting, glamorous, NEW YORK CITY, where I proceeded to get sicker than I've ever been in my entire life. No kidding: that cold, wet snow and those dry, stifling radiators wreaked havoc on my poor system. I was there to finish my PhD in Performance Studies at NYU, and that turned out to be a total cauchemar, too. Nevertheless, something very good did come out of my Father Knickerbocker days: it was then that I first met my very own curmudgeonly and lovable boyfriend. Of course, back then he wouldn't give me the time of day. (He says I was too fat. He must have been joking....)

So, after slightly more than a year in the Big Apple, I returned to the Big Easy at the request of a reasonably good grad program in English Lit. As fate would have it, though, I left that program to finish a second Master's in Arts Administration. During this transitional phase of my life (I'd always planned to be a prof, you see, and was suddenly abandoning ship), I made quite a few amazing friends and several more trips to NYC. And wouldn't you know it: on one such sejour I was reintroduced to Mr. Boyfriend....

After several months of torrid e-mail love, Jonno (for that is Mr. Boyfriend's Christian name) picked up his things and forsook his own hometown (NYC) for New Orleans. We just bought an old house in the Faubourg Marigny and are in the process of renovating it. In the meantime, we're living in a charming little shotgun with our hounds Kika and Gaston and our very aloof cat Lola. Homos with two dogs, an SUV, and reasonably professional jobs who are restoring an old house? How truly perfect and vile....

As for the name sturtle, it comes from a saying/read that was popularized by my friend Zod: "You're so nelly, you put an 's' in 'turtle'." Of course, the only way to carry out such a grammatic endeavor without sounding like you're from Upper Slovenia is to put the "s" at the beginning of the word: ergo, "sturtle." I know, it doesn't sound particularly funny, but when pronounced with over-the-top sibillance a la Charles Nelson Reilly (sssssssssturtle!), it's pretty freakin' amusing. Trust me.

And no, I don't think I'm especially nelly, myself, but I know I have my moments. If you don't believe me, just throw me up in the middle of a bunch of drag queens and watch me go to work.