There goes the neighborhood! INTRO PROFILE

[Amanda Geist]

(smiles sweetly) I'm here!

Listen, my time is severely limited for the next couple days...I'm packing
husband and children off to sunny California to sponge off his brother and
sister and see Mickey and all that. Not incidentally getting the house to
myself for the critical weekend upcoming. But I'm doing clothes and packing
and getting car "activity bags" together and stuff.

Because of this, I have simply lifted the intro/bio I just posted over on
FAQ (Cindy wanting everyone to reintroduce themselves). It's a different
format, got different questions, but it's pretty thorough and it's *done,*
and I can post it now instead of waiting until I have time to type something
else.

Seriously, thank you so much for thinking of me!! And I also am *delighted*
to be invited here!!! If you give me enought time, I might say something
intelligent instead of just going on my good looks, too.

~Amandageist
(Snape is not a vampire)


>Real name:

Amanda Lewanski

>Also known as:

Amandageist
Amandar, Queen of the Universe
VoldeMom, Evil OverMom
Bar

>Age/Sex:

almost 38/not too much since I got a full-time job and have small children,
too

>Birthplace/Livingplace:

San Antonio/just south of San Antonio. My escape plans have thus far failed.

>Family Life:

Oxymoron on the face of it.
Married 12 1/2 years, to the same man, and I'm sure I can recall his name if
you give me a minute....but it's true love, this is a man I gave a HP watch
with a little gold snitch that ticks around the seconds, and he *wears* it.
Have produced three children with said man (probably because I wasn't
working full time). Daughter, 8 as of June 7; son, 6; spare son, to be 4 in
about two weeks. Cat that we keep in the garage because his, um, control
isn't what it used to be. Details upon request but I wouldn't encourage it.

>Personality:

On occasion.

>Words friends have used to describe you:

Hm. Just lately, an (I thought) fairly close co-worker said I'm aggressive,
pushy, demanding, and insulting. Nobody ever tells you what you *want* to
hear. Oh, I use good examples when I explain things. And I make my life
sound like Erma Bombeck. These last two I take as compliments, even though
my life *is* like Erma Bombeck and I'm just passing it on.

John has said that I am wise; Michelle has said that I am a good friend; and
Sheryll is coming back for a second visit even though my children are
involved. Will that do?

>Words you have used to describe you:

Overweight. Former trophy wife. I have no idea what to say here, I don't
think about me much of the time.

>Things you do when not staring at the computer:

Heh.
Get up at 4:30, shower/put on part of face; wake up children around
5:15-5:30; feed children; while they're eating, put away dishes from
dishwasher or fold laundry or run a new load or make husband's lunch (and
theirs, during school) and select their clothes from the neat stacks of
clean clothes that never get carried upstairs, we live out of the laundry
room; chase them upstairs and get them bathroomed and teeth brushed and
dressed and finish putting on face (the stuff that smears when kids mess
with you so I put on last--lipstick, mascara); (usually) draw scar on
Michael's face with blonde eyebrow pencil (perfect for the task, by the
way); iron clothes if needed; on Tuesdays, collect garbage and change
litterbox and put in trunk to set by street; get dressed, stuff kids in car,
try to be on road by 7:15 (school days, Kasia's bus comes at 6:35, she must
be dressed and ready by then; Tomek's comes at 7; Michael and I leave by
7:15, but it's summer so I have more leeway).

Stop at gas station on way to get Dr. Pepper and something to eat to keep
myself awake in the car, since I readily fall asleep driving and must guard
against this. Eating is the only--I do mean the only--thing I've never
fallen asleep doing. I pick stuff that is complicated and must be fooled
with. Usually this is breakfast, I don't have time to eat with the kids.

Drop Michael (and now Kasia) at Renna's house about 8:15; drop Tomek at
Children's World a little later (yeah, like I can afford to put more than
one of my kids in a paid daycare, so I put the one who needs most to be
around "normal" kids). Drive to work, get there around 9:00. Revel in the
adult environment. Edit things, talk in complete sentences, take only self
to the bathroom.

Leave work around 6 or 7; possibly hit the store on the way home and get
bread, milk, or any of the zillion things I forgot because I never remember
to put it on the list, or forgot the list entirely. Get home around 7:30,
usually in time to eat with kids (although sons never eat dinner, they just
don't, no idea why); every other night is Bath Night; stick them all in the
tub at once to save time, probably warping daughter, too bad. Bedtime is
supposed to be 7:30 since they get up so early but it's usually more like
9:00. Go downstairs and do laundry or clean up some; stay upstairs and pay
bills or clean up some; husband will usually do the dishes; if husband is
not playing computer game, download email and read some, respond to a few,
delete vast majority unread because by then it's about 10:30 or 11 and I
have to get up in five or six hours.

On the weekends, it gets busy; that's when I do the stuff I have no time to
do during the week.

> Comfort foods:

Hm. I like the yogurt that comes with the little chocolate balls in the
thing on top, and you stir it in. Except I don't take that to work anymore
since I called my husband on the cellphone and went on and on about
something being wrong with the car because it was making a funny noise, and
found out that it was the little balls rattling in the little top
compartment of the yogurt package. Have yet to live that down.

Chocolate is good. Maple butter (imported, intoxicating). Sometimes ice
cream.

These days very often don't eat much; no idea why I'm still overweight,
probably my stay-awake stuff in the morning.

>Education/Work:

Yes/Yes

(sorry)
B.A., English (Technical Writing emphasis, which does *not* appear on my
degree because it's not a concentration, just an emphasis, so I parked my
rear in the dean's office until they gave me a letter on letterhead saying
I'd put that extra year in and completed the emphasis). Took eleven years
and a husband willing to pay for me to finish (see "former trophy wife"
above; I used to be worth it). After hiatus having children and somehow
missing the raging market for freelance editors in rural south Texas, found
employment *in my field* as a technical editor for a consulting firm this
last December. Love the job but it came about four years too soon.

>Language skills

English. Virtuoso.

>Technical know-how:

TechnoSquib. Am not, alas, the person who coined this term, but they coined
it in a post to me, and I popularized it.

>Favourite HP book:

PoA.

>Favourite HP character(s):

Do I really need to answer this?

>Favourite HP line

Too many to select a winner.
(new addition: "Excuse me," Snape said icily, "but I believe I am the
potions master at this school." I just *love* the delivery; was upset that I
didn't get to see Rickman do "icily.")

>Watching/Avoiding the HP movies?:

Watching. Loving. Enjoying the overlap of my enthusiasms via the casting of
Alan Rickman as Snape. Visual imagery of movie does not get confused in my
odd mind with the verbal imagery of the books.

>Into HP fanfiction?

Not at all. Won't read it until book 7 is done; I want my vision of the
characters to be solely JKR's until she's finished. I will not be able to
keep different written characterizations separate, as I can the visuals of
the movie.

>Books you'd recommend to just about anyone:

Guy Gavriel Kay, anything, but favor the Fionavar Tapestry. Anything by
Martha Wells. Chris Stasheff, Charles deLint, and William Least HeatMoon
(nonfiction).

>Favorite TV shows?

Like I have time for TV.

>Favorite movies:

Mmmm.
The Ghost and the Darkness, for making things I can see sleeping in the zoo
more frightening than Jurassic Park dinosaurs.
Alan Rickman, anything.
James Mason, anything.
Peter O'Toole--Creator, My Favorite Year, The Ruling Class

>One thing about your life you'd change if you could - you may not say "lose
weight."

Okay, I'd be taller. Having my mother alive would be changing *her* life;
having my husband sound like James Mason would be changing *his.* Damn. Oh,
probably not having to worry about money 24/7. I'd hate to waste a big
chance like this on "not leaving my purse in the shopping cart last Tuesday
so that it wouldn't get stolen."

>One thing about your life you wouldn't change even for an advance copy of
Book 7:

Having gone to New York to see Alan Rickman. For those of you who know the
song "I Hope You Dance"....for once, I *danced,* and I think doing so has
changed me in good ways. I don't usually do things like that.

>Philosophy for an easy life:

Why even think about something that doesn't exist? Nobody has an easy life;
if I had all the money in the world, I'd find something else to worry me.

Caveat emptor?
Carpe diem?
Laugh a lot?

People who can sum up their philosophy in one cute little line shouldn't be
out unaccompanied.

>How you found HPfGU:

Some variety of web search; I didn't use Google then. I had one, count 'em,
one friend who'd read HP, and she is not the kind you can theorize themes
with. She *is* the one I "cast" the movie with, and we were 2/3 right with
our main choices. Plus I had a baby and was at home all day and needed adult
conversation. Almost three years ago now.

>Active at other HP sites:

Only affiliates, and Snapefans (which, by the way, as a month older than
Chatter, was the first spinoff of HP. It doesn't remember it is, anymore). I
check the Cauldron for news.

>Your most rock solid OoP prediction:

Snape will die.

>Members of the fandom you have personally met:

Sheryll
Penny
Kelley (who has babysat my children, too)
John
Joywitch
Jim Ferer
Joy W.
Cindy
Debbie
(Neil on the phone, he got a *few* words in betwixt me and Sheryll)

Possibly forgetting someone. I have a terrible memory for names.

>Add a question of your choosing and answer it:

If one wish could be granted you, would you choose a benefit for yourself or
for someone else?

After severe waffling (see "worrying about money 24/7" above) I'd probably
pick someone else and have my son Tomek able to speak normally and fluently.

~Amanda