I hadn't known it at the time, but Sailor Moon and Pokémon were some of my first animes. I started watching them at a very young age and actually owned a few episodes on VHS cassettes (Well, my Mom owned the cassettes, and the fact that she had a big VHS library of anime should reveal a lot about where I'm coming from). I'd watch these episodes over and over until my parents later introduced me to two other animes by the names Vampire Princess Miyu and Serial Experiments: Lain. Both were fairly complex and difficult for me to understand but I enjoyed the concepts and characters so much that I developed an interest in anime and manga and grew up with it as my favorite pastime.

When I was in grade school, no one around showed much an interest in anime so my interest somewhat faded over those years but once I reached the summer of eighth grade, I started reading a popular manga known as Death Note, and found interest again right in time for high school. I had finished the anime of Death Note prior to this but wasn't satisfied with the ending and wanted to stay in that world of characters a bit longer. It was then that I began to realize that the manga of a series is good for two things: providing a longer, and more in depth story line (something the anime cannot always do) and satisfying the want to have something else with the same characters as the show. I now almost always read the manga that corresponds to the anime.

Upon entering high school, I was ecstatic to hear that there was an after school Anime Club in which people of that same interest gathered to watch and discuss animes they liked. We would meet one afternoon a week a watch the first episode of a series (of the leader's choosing) and see what we thought about it and whether next we'd want to watch another of the same or a different series entirely. I soon became the leader of the club, and now have the responsibility of choosing all the shows. (There are worse jobs to have...)

Over the years, anime has been more than just a pastime for me; it has become a second reality. I get so caught up in the story line and problems of the characters that they feel like my problems as well, and I can't concentrate until I finish that series and all the conflicts are resolved. I found myself wishing certain characters were real and even liking them better than real people. ("Don't write that, they'll call you a sociopath," my Dad warned. Too late.) Much to my dismay though, there's a fine line between the real world and fantasy and although everyone has their own way of coping with situations, we can't shirk responsibilities forever and must eventually deal with them as they come about.

The whole macrame thing began one hospital stay when my brother was admitted to Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center when I was 10 years old. As part of their "child life" program, counselors did crafts with sick patients and their siblings. I loved it -- was drawn to it, even -- from the first time I tried it. I have to admit, my initial go-round wasn't very impressive, so I took to learning more at Friendship-Bracelets.net and purchased a book about friendship bracelets at AC Moore.

Things really took off in the sixth grade. I started by printing out patterns from the website, but soon began creating my own designs, often derived from anime characters or rock band logos. Many of my friends admired my creations and I began accepting "commissions." My mother suggested I sell my products on Etsy, the internet-based handmade crafts outlet. So it was there that I opened my shop, Sierra Sundries, and sold dozens of friendship bracelets including many custom designs for customers.

For years I was inseparable from my clipboard, outfitted with computer-generated patterns and spools of multi-colored embroidery floss. Car rides, trips to the beach, Thanksgiving dinners -- anywhere I could sit undisturbed for more than a few moments, I would be busy weaving hundreds of strands into some Pink Floyd prism or space marine helmet.

Relatives would peer over my shoulder and remark at how difficult the process appeared, and I would usually respond to the effect, “To you it looks complicated, but it's not.”

I suppose it was in that same spirit that my dad suggested I try coding. He based his suggestion, he said, on my penchant for curling up in a corner with my string and clipboard and patterns, and "shutting out the world." He suggested that code was all about patterns, and templates, as well. He also said that, while not as pretty as macrame, code could still be beautiful. And although things made with macrame might keep you warm, code could run a nuclear power plant.

So he gave me a book with a CD, Zed Shaw's "Learn Python the Hard Way" (seriously!) and walked me through the first few chapters. When he saw that my head didn't explode, he left me alone. (Which for him meant calling Mom from work daily and instructing *her* to check on my progress...)

I once had a misconception that coding was all about smashing giant blocks of numbers together in some way that machines liked, and numbers and I have not always been friends. Or at least that's the complicated way it looked in the movies (along with big flashing red bars that screamed ACCESS DENIED or DATA UPLOAD COMPLETE). But it wasn't. The lines of code *were* like the threads of a friendship bracelet, one built atop the next, whole sections copied, some woven into others, others looping back, all held together between matching brackets.

I experimented with different IDE's, sometimes just using a plain text editor. I looked at what other people made online at Active Stateand learned from their patterns, just like I had with the friendship bracelets before that. There is LOTS of trial and error, as there was at first with macrame, and a small "missed stitch" in one line will ruin either a bracelet or a program, equally. But in the end, you can make something beautiful.

So I code, for fun. And I still make and sell friendship bracelets. The dirty secret is that, given the cost of materials and the sheer amount of time I spend on each bracelet, I make *very* little money per hour on my macrame.

Hopefully, I will make up for all that one day when I start selling my code...

When I was very, very young, and people asked me what I wanted be when I grew up, I would say "a judge." This made my mother very proud, and she would frequently -- some might say "continuously" -- ask me that question in front of her friends, family and often near-perfect strangers, beaming all the while as I gave my too-cute answer.

Of course, I had no idea of what a judge actually did. Just a vague notion that she was someone in a long robe who sent bad people to jail, which seemed an absolutely splendid and highly necessary occupation. Later on, Mom would try to explain to me the dreary concepts of "due process" and "reasonable doubt" and "juries," but I would have none of it. What was the point behind 12 Angry Men when you already had One Happy Me? Who needs the Dred Scott Decision when you can have a Judge Dredd decision?

Nowadays, I'm way past wanting to be a judge, AND my Mom says I am "too judgemental." (Irony. Get it?) I see everything in black and white, apparently, and have a decided inability to walk a mile in another man's moccasins. Even placing aside the obvious concerns re fashion and hygiene, I refuse to be culled into complacency because of some "cultural moral ambiguity."

There is Good in the world. God, Angels, Ice Cream. And there is Evil. (And the fewer names we voice for that, the less powerful it will become.) Focus upon, embrace, emulate and protect the Good. And don't make excuses, concessions and compromises for the Evil. Seem's a pretty straightforward way to live.

"But what about people whose worldview and culture are just different from yours? Y'know, all those "moral cannibals?" Well, I value Life. And I value Peace. And Dignity. And if your worldview does NOT value these things, then put your moccasins back on and keep walking.

I prefer to think of it has having a strong moral compass, coupled with not a lot of patience.

It's not so much that I'm a Bible-thumper (although the Amish *DO* rock!) In fact, I have not even read the entire Bible. Now, Catholics as a general rule don't feel too guilty about not having read the bible cover to cover because we've already put some really smart theologians on the payroll to do that for us and write the Catechism, which, among other things, resolves all those Eden/Dinosaur issues and puts Leviticus in his place (talk about yer judgemental!! geez…). But a while back my Dad told me to make a point of reading Ezekiel and Revelations. "This is the over-the-top stuff," he said, with that distinctive eye-twinkle that usually accompanied his gifting me with a stack of pulp-era sword & sorcery books or 1980's indie graphic novels. But unlike those pulps and comics, I actually got around to reading these bible books, and they left an impression.

Maybe it was the dream imagery. Both Zeke and Patmos Johnny based their books on dreams they had. Dreams as in visions while sleeping, or waking visions? Never really recorded, best I can determine, but what visions they were! Strange multi-headed beasts, wheels within wheels, trumpets, chariots, golden cities... and of course, those wonderful Horsemen! And all to paint a picture of Retribution: Evil people, getting what's coming to them.

All of which brings us to my fascination-from-an-early-age with The Final Judgement and The Apocalypse and The End of Days and all that. Is the end really nigh? (please!) Because there is just way too much suffering and Evil in the world, and it seems to be brazenly on the march. None of the governments seem to be able (or worse, want) to put an end to the torture and beheading and outright slaughter of Christians and other people of Faith in the Middle East and Africa. So I'm thinking we could use a couple flaming chariots right about now.

I have been very lucky (or so he's told often told me) that my Dad made a point of exposing me to all kinds of music. I grew up listening to opera and Iron Maiden and sea chanties and Al Stewart and Mozart and The Rolling Stones and Fred Astaire ("All they ever talk about is his dancing -- but listen!!" ) and Oscar Peterson and Bob Dylan and The Plasmatics and Gregorian (and Tibetan) chants and Stockhausen and Philip Glass and the Dave Clark Five and Harry Chapin and George Strait and The Vogues and The Troggs and The Zombies and The Cranberries and Broadway show tunes and The Jackson Five and bagpipes ("now listen carefully: this is *God's* Music!") and the Kronos Quartet and John Foxx and Gary Numan and Patti Smith and the Moody Blues and AC/DC and Britney Spears and P!nk and King Krimson and Richard Wagner and videogame soundtracks and Chris DeBurgh and an absolutely silly-large collection of Christmas carols that he would sometimes play in July because, y'know, like "Mame," and Donovan and Eminem and Kraftwerk and Cher and Bono and Eno and Enya and Edith Piaf and Lisa Stansfield and Motown and Windham Hill and Chess and Sun and Sun Ra and Africa Bambaata and Pharoah Sanders and Stan Getz and Coltrane and Bird and Pink Floyd and Keely Smith and Richard Strauss and Nine Inch Nails and every bad-haircut 80's synth-band that ever recorded. Every. Ridiculous. One. And The Mills Brothers and The Chambers Brothers and The Everly Brothers and the Dorsey brothers and "Vehicle" by The Ides of March (which he would play over and over again in the car, "because there's never been horns like this, before or since!") and Irish drinking songs and Yo-Yo Ma and The Mamas & The Papas and Siouxsie & The Banshees and Florence & The Machine and Flatt & Scruggs and Graham Parker & The Rumour and Richard Hell & The Voidoids and Gilbert & Sullivan and The Ramones and The Diodes ("'Red Rubber Ball!!' Best Punk Cover Ever! Here, let's listen to it again, it's short...!") and Van Halen and Van Cliburn and Van Morrison and Van Der Graaf Generator and The Four Tops and The Four Lads and They Might Be Giants and Buddy Guy and Joe Cocker and Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson and Bill Nelson and Nelson Riddle and the guy who released an entire album of all Beethoven's chamber music played at once whose name I forget and I'm glad.

So it was kind of a surprise when I got to high school and realized most everyone knew and listened to just one or two kinds of music, or was sort of content with what played on the radio, or worse: Pandora, which plays yet more music like the music you already know and listen to, all the while providing you with a false sense of your own cleverness. It's not that what they listen to is bad (no music is bad) (okay: polka), but how about mixing it up a little?

When I finally found myself buying my own music, I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that it was stuff for which I could find no equivalent in my Dad's collection (no mean feat). The people who insist on classifying music call it "Metalcore," which Wikipedia calls "a broad fusion genre of extreme metal and hardcore punk." Whatever. It's bands like Bring Me The Horizon, Bullet For My Valentine, Born of Osiris, and Killswitch: Engage. My Dad says I like them because "like Nine Inch Nails, they combine intense vocal passion with mathematically precise, albeit raucous, musicianship." Again: Whatever. I also have a soft spot for hard rock from girl-fronted bands like Halestorm, The Pretty Reckless, Paramore, The Birthday Massacre, and my so-far all-time-favorite, In This Moment (with Maria Brink, pictured above).

I run. All the time, I run. For most people, running is a chore or some strenuous activity. Since I started High School, I have run cross country and in the Fall and Track & Field in the Spring, on the Varsity squad.

Whether it's track or X-country, I love the feeling of freedom that comes with a solo sport such as these. By solo sport, I mean you don't have to rely on other people for success like in other sports, such as soccer or basketball, but rather focus on beating your own set times and work to finish a race at your own pace. However if you find any aspect of this sport to be difficult, you have to overcome obstacles on your own without anyone's assistance.

I have found running to be relaxing and use it as an opportunity to collect my thoughts. Some people have written about the “Zen of Long Distance Running,” thereby betraying their ignorance of what “zen” means. What they mean to say is “the quiet happiness of long distance running,” or more probably “Holy Smokes, where did those endorphins come from?” An actual “Zen of Long Distance Running” would have to impart some kind of great wisdoms, and so far the only insight I have stumbled upon is "Never wolf down a bean burrito right before a 4-miler." But as so happens with us in the US, we romanticize some Eastern/Buddhist concept, popularize it, even commoditize it, while all the while screwing up its true meaning.

All of which got me to thinking about a proper Western spiritual take on running which of course made me look up the patron saint of running, and – as Ellen DeGeneres might say – yes, we do have one. Saint Sebastian was a captain in the Praetorian Guard under Emperors Diocletian and Maximian, and when Dio found out he was a Christian, he had him tied to a stake and used for soldiers' archery practice. But Sebastian was such a badass that, even after getting so pincushioned full of arrows that he is also the patron saint of pin-makers (true!), he survived.

After recovering his complete health, he chased down Emperor Dio and denounced him publicly for his persecution of Christians. So the Emperor then had him beaten to death and his corpse thrown into a toilet.

Sebastian: Patron saint of runners and athletes and pin-makers, but not strategists.

But I don't think about poor St. Sebastian or the Western mis-appropriation of the term “Zen” when I am running, I just think about running. Usually after a long day at school I'm not in the mood to talk to anyone so I like the idea of participating in a sport that takes my mind off things and not having to constantly associate with people. That way, people say, “Look, there goes Tash, she's such an athlete!” and not “That Natasha is so moody, what's with her?!” See? Win-Win.

I first became interested in the horror genre when I saw my first episode of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer at a young age. Buffy Summers, gifted by The Cosmic Balance with powers and abilities far beyond yadda yadda, used her skills not to thwart bank robberies but to bludgeon back the Forces of Hell which were massing just around the corner and down the block. The Chosen One, she had to sacrifice love, comfort, stability, and any semblance of a normal girl's life, to do it.

Understand that this made absolutely, crystal-clear perfect sense to my world-view at the time. More importantly, it still does.

With a flying round-house kick and an urgently delivered wooden stake, Evil would be sent packing, until the next episode. Later on, in video games like Hunter: The Reckoning and the Silent Hill series, it would be fewer round-houses and more shotgun shells (a *lot* more, as I think about it) but still that Evil was beaten back, often in a nick of time, and usually by protagonists with special insights that allowed only them to see the threat to humanity. Hunter's "imbued" ravers and bikers and H.P. Lovecraft's studious investigators may have been unlikely heroes, but my heroes they were. They stared into the face of the Abyss, emptied a clip into it, and once again righted the ship of civilization.

I'm not a fan of the chainsaw-maniac-slasher "horror" genre, because the fear it conjures is too pedestrian. Crazy guy with an axe? Call the cops. Horror -- real horror, the all-consuming truly terrifying kind that fills the pit of your stomach with dread and your mind with unremitting despair, isn't the lone killer under your bed but the pantheon in the universe next door, looking for a way to get in here. Murderous psychopaths can only destroy your body, but Hell will, in the words of Clive Barker's famous cenobite, "tear your soul apart."

That is where true horror lives, in the threat to soul. It is only when the soul is imperiled that the "monster" holds the ability to change you and potentially everyone around you in a manner from which there is no redemption. There are no prosthetics for lost salvation. As Dante intuited, the very premise of Hell is the abandonment of hope.

Used to be that my love of the horror genre made me a bit of an odd-duck among my peers (although not to my parents, who not only "got it" and encouraged it, but are probably most responsible for my discovering it). But now, thanks to shows like The Walking Dead (which I have still never seen) the "in-crowd" has discovered they like being scared. But the thing about zombie apocalypses is this: When Hell starts giving up its dead, humanity has already lost. Where was The Chosen One when civilization collapsed? Why did she fail? Was she not vigilant enough? Could she not make the sacrifices required of herself (and all true Heroes)? Or are the writers trying to tell us that we don't have a chance, that all our heroes are too busy trading redemption for comfort?

Horror as a metaphor. It's what set the Buffy series apart from just about any show of its kind before or since.

And so it is that most books and video games and movies that describe themselves as "horror" are centered around humanity's failures, losers and also-rans. The characters may be survivors, but civilization shouldn't just be about surviving another day, it should be about triumphing in the face of encroaching entropy and evil.

That said, I'll still beat your high score in House of the Dead 3...