About

I started this blog in 2002. Until now, my "About" page has been pretty much the same, and the last two years it has been tremendously out of date. So, the short version:

My name is Lee (Ann) and I am a 29-year-old single mom of a little boy named Mateo. He is awesome and likes to impersonate Cookie Monster when eating crackers. He will be two years old in June of 2009, a thought that just blows my mind.

Teo's father - referred to as The Boy throughout this site - lives in France and we remain good friends, despite a rather abrupt end to an eight year relationship. I met him in October of 1999, on the fourth day of a study abroad trip that ended up extending well beyond the original year-long intended stay. The first year I spent in Paris was the most wonderful of my life - and I even knew it and recognized it at the time. Life could not have gotten any better, falling in love with a person and a place all at once. Everything felt charged and electric.

In the years that followed, I got a degree in journalism, and then another in linguistics. I taught English for two years, and then got a job in the Parisian books/art world. I began studying Arabic, learned to do a bunch of computer crap that actually turned out to be worthwhile, and did my best in a very tiny kitchen. I learned Spanish, traveled around the world, ate some amazing food, and developed friendships that will last a lifetime. Mostly, I spent social evenings drinking wine with friends and walking around the streets of the most beautiful city I know. Sometimes, even now, I wake up in the middle of the night after dreaming of those streets, and I continue the walks in my head until I get to my old apartment on the rue d'Odessa.

At 26, I discovered I was pregnant. With the arrival of the Tates, everything changed: The Boy and I split up when he was four months old, a decision that had been a long time coming. I opted to move back to the United States instead of raising a child alone in a foreign country. After a few months living with my parents, I moved to Portland, OR, where I work full-time and bust my ass to make it happen for me and my music-loving tiger.

This journal now chronicles Teo's life as much as it does my own, as of course priorities shift once a child is in the picture. I don't know why I feel the need to get it all written down somewhere, but there you have it.

Other places of interest:

- Flickr photos - Mainly just of the Tates, now, because he is way more photogenic than I am
- Books page - I started on a mission to keep track of all the books I read. It began really well and then fizzled out, but I am trying to pick back up again (four years later). This is the old part of my site and uses the old look, I still need to work on updating
- Flicks page - Same deal, with movies