Anitra L. Freeman

<-- Photo by the International Fountain in Seattle Center. Documentary Proof I do go outside.

One of my favorite photos. -->

DOB: July 17, 1949 at 3:08 AM in Helena Montana. My mother reminded me of the exact time every birthday for as long as she lived. If you are fond of astrology, this makes me a double Cancer with moon in Aries. I figure that's as good an explanation for being bipolar as any -- I'm a fire-and-water mix.

Raised: Mostly in the Pacific Northwest. We moved a lot. I went to 12 schools in 12 years.

Reside: In Seattle Washington, for a number of years, and plan to stay.

School: A lot. My only formal degree is an Associate of Arts in Computer Science.

Web pages: The ones below and about twenty other places (There Is No Such Thing As Internet Addiction.)

Myers-Briggs: It's always complicated. Depending on my mood cycle and what needs doing, I am infp, enfp, intp or entp.

Bipolar does not mean I attract metal filings. It does mean that for most of my life my Native American name could have been "Dances with Roller Coasters". I have about twenty years of experience in computer programming and systems analysis, but my career was constantly disrupted by mood swings. In 1995 the swings bottomed out in an eight-month depression that left me on the street, broke, out of work, homeless and ill.

It was the start of the best period of my life. I got diagnosed and began taking Lithium. I became able to relate to the people around me consistently, and complete projects. I found a self-managed shelter and got involved in the group that ran it, SHARE (Seattle Housing and Resource Effort). I began writing better than I ever had before. Even on Lithium, my carburetor is set a little higher than average. I have many projects going ( http://www.speakeasy.org/~anitra/projects.html ), I maintain a large number of websites, I'm on a lot of email lists -- including eight that I started myself. I still don't know how the rest of the people on this list keep up all their activities, plus families, and keep posting! : )

I'm still a bookaholic. I can always find time to read -- I read to put myself to sleep, I read to wake myself up, I read in the shower, I read while I eat, I read on the bus, I read while walking down the street. One day I looked up from my book while I was crossing the street to see another woman in the crosswalk coming toward me, reading a book. She glanced up, too, and our eyes met. We grinned at each other -- kindred souls.

I believe that creativity is very close to the essence of our spiritual natures. We are most ourselves when we are making something. I believe we are in the process of creating the world, but don't feel guilty over the bad things that happen - we haven't got it down yet. God is very real to me -- and God is not a codependent. God is at least as good as the ideal human
parent, and therefore wants us to Grow Up. I believe that if we all took responsibility for the world directly around us and started working with the other people around us to make it better the earth could bear a striking resemblance to the Kingdom of God.

I like the books of Orson Scott Card because he deals a lot with trying to live our ideals as fallible humans in an imperfect world.