I was born in the late 1940s in New York's Hudson Valley, about an

hour's drive north of the city in Newburgh. It was a pleasant place for

growing up bookish and musical, & I visited the city often with my family.

I went to college in Washington, DC, at Trinity, which had a new

sophomore year abroad pilot program for English and history majors at

Oxford University. The year involved plenty of travel: Greece, Italy,

France, Spain, Scotland, Wales, & Russia, mostly looking at art. I spent

a year after college at Columbia in the School of the Arts MFA writing

program, and then left on an odyssey that took me around the country

and Canada 3 times in 3 years, hitchhiking until I bought a VW van, and

spending several months here and there (Vancouver Island, Big Sur,

Ojai). I ended up in Jenner on the northern California coast, and am still

living in the Russian River house I bought in 1975. I began studying

the computer in 1997 in order to use my artistic and language skills in

freelancing for profit.