INTRO PROFILE

[Catherine Coleman]

THE OLD CROWD – INTRO

***Name:
Catherine Coleman

***Nicknames/IDs:
catoman (which I hate but it's just too late to change now) and catlily 
(LJ)

***Age:
31

***Family:
A husband (Mickey), who is 25 years my senior, and I therefore have 2 
step children (both in their mid-late 30s), and 2 step-grandchildren, 
who call me Granny Catherine, when they want to wind me up (ie, whenever 
they don't want something).  Husband also comes with a very large 
family, including a MIL who comes to stay too often for my sanity.  I 
have a very eccentric, manic-depressive, beekeeping, Amish looking 
father who lives in Greece with my long suffering mother - which puts 
them just far enough away, thank you very much.  Oh and a brother who 
only calls me when he needs something.  Typical.

***Home
About to change - am swapping a lovely heathside house in Blackheath, 
London, for an old farmhouse in Norfolk.  Scary.

***Birthday, Place of Birth:
22 April, Bedford UK (although moved shortly afterwards to Lincolnshire, 
until I escaped in 1990)

***Education/Job/Role in Life etc:
BA Hons in English Literature/History.  More recently law school which 
Mickey saw as an investment - I'm part of his retirement fund.  I'm 
thinking of doing an LLM (Masters in Law) in the autumn, but fear my 
brain is too rusty to cope.

Work - everything and anything.  Worked through college - was a mean 
scooper of ice cream, used to mystery shop for the Post Office, managed 
a newsagents, traffic surveys, potato picking.  Then "real" work - 
medical/history of medicine research for a couple of years (including 
rewriting chapters on sexual deviancy which was fun).  I know far too 
much about far too many weird and wonderful diseases to make me sleep 
well at night - and my almost hypochondria probably has something to do 
with that.  Technical writing for people who had ESL, temping all over 
the city, then, worked in HR for Citibank, for a while, which is where I 
met Mickey. Since I finished law school, I had an abortive attempt at 
studying tax, and have settled happily into the lifestyle of a 
housewife.  Which is all about to change.  Ugh.

Hmm, role in life?  A fine balancing act between doing what I want to do 
and pretending to do what Mickey wants me to do.

***Other things we might want to know about you:
Not much.  Atheist, carnivore, INTP (which my husband never believes - 
he thinks I'm an extrovert - but I'm shy!), fairly typically Taurean, 
hate the fact that I'm a Rat, although Tabouli made me feel better by 
telling me that I was a Water Rat (I love the Wind in the Willows).

***First contact with Harry Potter:
Just before PoA was released.  When was that, summer 1999?  Bought the 
other two for the grandkids, and got sucked in.  Does anyone else 
remember their excitement when it dawned upon them that they were 
reading something *seriously* good?

***Favourite Potter things (books, characters, ships, fics, objets 
d'Art, general enthusing):

Books:  Copying Penny -  PoA is my favourite, but GoF comes close 
because it's longer (!), and because of the plot development.   I'm 
hoping that OoP will be the best yet, and I'm looking forward to 
learning all about Lily.

Characters: Harry, Hermione, Harry, Sirius, Harry, Snape, Lupin, Harry, 
Mr Weasley... but not Ron.  Definitely not Ron.

Let me add another - Lines:
Changes all the time, after hearing Stephen Fry read this on numerous 
occasions it's now Dobby defending Harry:

"Winky must not talk like that to Harry Potter!" said Dobby angrily. 
"Harry Potter is brave and noble and Harry Potter is not nosy!"

Cracks me up every time.

Ships: H/H of course, but don't like the way things are going.  Shippers 
- remember, whatever happens in OoP, there's still two books to go 
including an *epilogue*!

Fics:   The only one I've read properly (and used to beta for), is 
Ebony's, which I'm not ashamed to say has made me cry on more than one 
occasion.

Merchandise/Films:   Bleurgh, to the movies.  They have their good 
points - ie, some of the sets, etc, but *why* is Columbus' daughter in 
practically every scene, and *why* do they keep changing superior 
dialogue?  And *why*....  OK, I have to stop here, before I'm banished 
to the movie list.

I have too much merchandise - a desk clock of Harry at Platform 9 and 
three quarters, the Sorting Hat bookends, a plush Hedwig ( I took the 
tacky collar off), most of the games, too many copies of the books - 
recent additions have been a sorting hat, and a chocolate owl, which is 
too darn cute to eat (until my hormones next start raging, anyway).

***Extent of Potter obsession:
Again - agreeing with Penny - I can't quite get to grips with Neil being 
"mild to moderate".  I'd probably come out as moderate to extreme.  Yes, 
I am obsessed, and certainly, when I was also an HPFGU moderator, I 
spent far too much time on this for my husband's liking.  And I guess 
after next week I'll be going into posting overdrive again (will be 
typing on the PC when they carry it out of the house, no doubt).     I'm 
not obsessed to the point of it impinging too much on RL - not anymore 
anyway.  But, the thought of only having one week to go before we get 
our hands on OoP fills me with much more enthusiasm than, say, moving 
house, so perhaps I have got things slightly out of proportion....

***Other interests/activities:
Obsessive book collector.  I panic if I don't have something to read 
with me at all times.  Cook book junky - love food, and am coming to 
terms with shortly having to do most cooking on an Aga.  Ugh.  Pretty 
obsessive about Buffy too, and am a real B/S shipper.  I am also 
currently enthusiastic about gardening, which is a Good Thing, because 
there's going to be plenty to do once we move.  I am sending Mickey on a 
brick laying course, so he can make me a wall out of reclaimed bricks 
(I've always had a thing about walled gardens).   Oh, and driving my 
relatively newly acquired mini, which is called Pig.

***Current/recent reading:
About to start Orynx and Crake (Margaret Atwood).  Have next to my bed 
right now - Yann Martel's "Self" (loved Life of Pi), Elizabeth Kay's 
"the Divide" which looks promising, Kathleen Tessaro's "Elegance" which 
looks quirky, and "A History of Reading", Steven Roger Fischer.

Have also recently read "I Capture the Castle" – Dodie Smith (which I 
agree was lovely - want to see the film), "The Merlin Conspiracy" – 
Diana Wynne Jones, "Boys and Girls Forever - Reflections on Children's 
Classics" - Alison Lurie, which was interesting, but the HP chapter was 
infuriatingly inaccurate.  Refers to "Patrick" Pullman and says that 
Hagrid is a cockney.  Please.  <rolls eyes>.   I've read loads of 
children's literature as well in the past few weeks - Celia Rees, Tim 
Bowler, Melvin Burgess, who is seriously warped ....

***Current/recent listening:
Fixated on The Marriage of Figaro, to the extent that I follow the 
libretto on CD Rom.  Can't get the OMWF soundtrack out of my head 
(still!), and just bought the latest Dandy Warhols album.  Bought the 
Girls Aloud cd (Pop Idol the Rivals band), and pretended it was for the 
grandkids when a friend took me to task over it.

***Current/recent viewing:
Big Brother 4 (TV), How Clean is Your House (makes me feel smug, but 
still totally related to the little girl last night who said she read 
instead of doing the cleaning), The Dinner Party Inspectors (deliciously 
bitchy), still waiting to see the final 3 episodes of Buffy, and will be 
watching the final episode of this series of Friends tonight - it's been 
back on form, I think. There just too many films I need to go and see, 
but I'm watching lots of DVDs instead.  They help me cope with the 
ironing.

Will that do for now?

Catherine