About me

 Like many bloggers seem to do, I am tempted to start by saying “I am a mother of a 4 year old daughter” or “I am the wife of a seriously awesome guy” or “I am an attorney”.  And while all of those things are true, they are also all things that would define me through someone or something outside of myself…and I certainly existed well before I became those things.

So what about me?  Me. I was born in the Midwest in 1974.  I grew up in a few places in the Northeast during my childhood and do not feel particularly tied to any one of them anymore, although I have fond memories of all.  I’ve lived within 5 miles of Boston for the past 13 years, and this will likely be home forever more.  As for family, my parents got divorced when I was in college and I have one brother who’s younger than me.

I love to garden and think my organic tomatoes are pretty killer (bad pun intended).  I’m a non-fiction bookworm, lately books about the food and farming industry.  And not just one book on a particular subject, but many at a time. I love to cook and bake, but I am lost without a recipe. My food philosophy hovers around vegetarian, meaning I am vegetarian about 360 days of the year, but if the mood or occasion so strikes, I will indulge in some salmon or an oyster about a handful of times any given year.

I am forever the observer, the ponderer.

In the iTunes store you might find me downloading EDM, bluegrass, Patsy Cline or big band music. Some of my phobias include riding bicycles on busy streets, clowns and those stuffed monkeys that bang cymbals.  I used to have a major phobia over dolls with moveable eyes, but having a daughter whose number one favorite activity is playing with dolls forced me to deal with that one quickly.  I have no sense of direction and can still get lost going to my mom’s house if I don’t go the normal route.

I am an atheist. Have been since about middle school. I get the feeling it makes some of my closest friends and family uncomfortable, though I am not sure why.  I’m still guided by the Golden Rule, just like almost everybody else.

Lean in a little closer…shh…I am an introvert.  Though I love a good dinner party as much as anyone, if I cannot decompress in some solitude afterwards, I am not nice to be around.

My general tendency is toward night owl.  Present child rearing obligations really no longer allow for this, but old habits die hard and so I caffeinate by day.

I could subsist forever on bread and butter, coffee and chocolate…and, depending on the company, a lot of red wine might be required too.   My guilty pleasures are hand-cranked popcorn with lots of butter and sea salt, brownies and homemade chocolate chip cookies.

I don’t get people who spend ridiculous amounts of money on things like jewelry, bags or cars, live in extraordinarily large houses or play the lottery, or who flick cigarettes out their car window like the world is their trashcan.  I admire people who live very simply, and I am trying to live that way myself.  In a shiny, loud consumer-driven culture, it’s very hard sometimes.  Even a minimalist likes pretty things.

I am not always as patient as I should be. I can be quick to judge and I don’t have much tolerance for willful ignorance.  I am too serious for my own good sometimes and silliness does not always come easy for me.

I think comedians, astronomers, mathematicians, and small scale and organic farmers are the smartest people in the world because they must have their finger on the pulse of our world around us to understand it so well.  If I could invite six people (living or dead) to dinner I’d set a place for Alice Waters, Wendell Berry, Henry David Thoreau, J.I. Rodale, Steve Martin, Michael Moore and Bill Maher.  Conservation, comedy and controversy all breaking bread together.  Brilliant.

I over-analyze everything, perhaps to a fault. My education in science and the law have both trained me well in the pursuit of reasoned truth and knowledge, and fortified skeptical tendencies—for good or for bad—that were already innate since birth. I am trying to cobble together these qualities into a bona fide freelance writing career.  The going is still slow.

But (you knew it was coming) I’m also the parent of a wonderful little girl—my little M.  She’s a Virgo, born in 2007.  As a result, my perpetual quests for always seeking out what’s “right” have seemingly greater consequence.   If nothing else, she has tested all stances that I took before she entered the world.  How is it that I have come to discover that I know so much and know so little at the same time?  She has given me new perspectives and a new lens through which to view life’s issues, both big and small.

She is my little lodestar and I am following her lead to determine what really is important in life, and why.

And oh yeah, I am the wife of a seriously awesome guy (I had to get that in somewhere).

Kristen M. Ploetz