Congratulations, Mensans, Scofflaws, and generally curious individuals! You have found my never before published cosmic resume. Below you will find some selective weird accomplishments/ notes/ things about my life:
First! My published works. I have a vampire novel published under the pseudonym Genevieve Noir which was written between the ages of 13-15. You can find it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble in eBook and physical book form for purchase. Above is my most recent author photo, taken at my lovely annual hobby of the Endless Night Vampire Ball in New Orleans in October 2022.
I also published a poem in French in the cinquain form called La Nuit, “The Night” through the Northern Virginia Culture Club. They have since disbanded.
- I go by my middle name (I do not look or act like my first name). I have been called Gen, Genny, Genevieve, Evie, Eve, Vie, G, and “Mom”. You can tell when I met people by what they call me generally
- Born in Los Alamos on top of a mountain. The day I was born, the OB told my mother that she had a dream that “something important was going to happen today”. My heart rate was chaotic and I am “not of woman born”, to quote my favorite Shakespeare play
- My family is Scottish/ English/ Czech – the Scottish comes from the MacDonald/ McDonald clan and as David Tennant’s name was originally McDonald, so I don’t look into that any further. The Czech is from supposedly Moravia, but if you look up the city, it was actually Bohemian, so I am ~¼ Bohemian (since DNA verified as well)
- Oldest child, but also technically the middle child, which I’m not supposed to know
- Never married, but engaged thrice – the refusal to end up married from them has been my own choice
- Apparently somewhere (via relative’s research) I’m related to Aaron Burr and by marriage to a famous mobster
- I started talking in full sentences early on, scared a few of my parent’s friends when they would try to “test” me, and called my mother by her first name
- – Father is a MEP/ HEP/ professor of physics. Worked at CERN in Geneva prior to me existing. Mother has a Masters in elementary education but never worked since long before I was born
- Have a nearly eidetic memory when not suffering from burnout, with memories back to age 18 months
- Picked my sister’s second middle name when she was born
- I took gymnastics, ballet, tap, jazz, and soccer lessons as a young child, was a girl scout, and composed classical music
- I made a friend in a fluorescent green moth I tried to nurse back to health when I was 4
- I started learning algebra at age 4 because my father insisted on teaching me
- At 4, my Dad wrote a script on an old green-screen DOS computer so I could email him while he was working on experiments out of town because my mother would not touch the computer. The sound from printing the emails on the old DOT Matrix printer were awful
- Requested a balsa wood lathe and tool kit at age 6 and still like woodworking
- I was the only 7-year-old that I know who could name the quarks and explain what they were
- Won first place in the state-wide geography contest at 7, was featured twice in a poetry and mixed medium art exhibition, and won second place in the spelling bee at 8 – it would have been first but my mother stole my words to study because “I shouldn’t study so much”
- Sewed my own costumes (Sally from NBC, Princess Odette) a few years in a row
- Got to type on a real enigma machine from WWII at age 7
- Started the budgeting and grocery pick up for my family when I was 8. The employees knew me so well that they would ask me to go get my Mom or extra money when I would buy wine or not have enough to pay (which was a regular occurance)
- Learned to knit from a neighbor at 9 and started making my own designs. Also needlepoint, paint, crochet, sew, designed, and made my own clothes. I haven’t come across a craft I couldn’t quickly master. I later knit weird things as challenges – like underwear, or a functional bathing suits
- Had my natural extroversion (I’m an ambivert) forced out of me and was severely isolated and “homeschooled” from age of 8 to 17. This meant I sat in on college classes off and on from age 11. First one was Astronomy 101. I subsequently wrote my essay for standardized testing at 13 on how I never wanted to hear the words “black body spectrum” again. I got 100 on the essay
- Wrote my first novel, long hand, at 11 – it was 150 pages at 200 words per page, about an orphan in the year 1904 who could talk to animals
- Wrote my published novel The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, a cheesy teen vampire novel, at age 13/14. Wrote the sequel at 16/17 – did not published it
- I didn’t “write books” – I had entire worlds designed in my head and would play them out in my head – which is a LOT like what I want to do long term, but that I’ll only talk about if people ask
- About half through my current spy novel, but I never find the right way to get it out, and also it hurts to write on paper as I get older
- Used to design houses for fun on graph paper and still plan to have my one favorite built in person one day
- I had/ have (less now) a hobby of classical mythology
- I was viewed as pagan or Wiccan for a while – had a few people ask me to cast spells for them. Can throw tarot cards and read runes and palms
- My mother told me that I shouldn’t be an archaeologist because it was too much work… or lawyer… or doctor… or anything I really wanted to do
- From age 10 until I left home at 17 the cat population grew exponentially thanks to some mental health hoarding issues that shall remain nameless. “Luckily”, we had 2 and 1/3 acres of land so no one questioned the built up “cat shed” – yes, it smelled. Thanks to similar mental issues pure bleach was used to clean and I now have permanent lung scarring. By “cat population” I mean literally 50-100 revolving cats, who acquired Leukemia, a nearby feral cat colony, and some other awful memories. I learned how to properly inject vaccines (into cats) which (fun fact) at the time you could buy from the feed and seed to keep costs down
- When I left home, my mother held my stuff hostage. I got some of it back 10 years later – most of it wasn’t mine
- At 14 AND 15 we flooded from a river cresting from tropical storms. My mother convinced my father she hired a contractor which would work for cheap taking a long time, and so I now can rebuild a house from scratch as I was the “cheap contractor” – everything from demolition to sheet rock to basic plumbing and electrical. My father didn’t realize the extent of this until I was talking to him years later, and still doesn’t realize the full extent
- Tore my ACL and never got it worked on while working on the house, also shattered the bones in the pinky toe side of my foot up to my heel on one foot, stepped on a sheet rock nail (it went through my shoe between my toes), and ended up literally burned in a bonfire (longer story)
- I spent a LOT of time on my roof, star gazing, and escaping from existence
- I stepped on a rusty cat collar and had a piece of my foot carved out because it turned to blood poisoning in under 12 hours – 3 days before my 14th birthday. This was my best birthday because I wasn’t able to do manual labor because I had to stay off my foot
- Attended a single semester of actual high school and took the ACT Explore. The counselor told me to come to the office and promptly informed me that the test indicated I was ready for college from a learning perspective
- Learned to drive manual/ stick early – permit at 15, license at 16, and my mother decided that I was going to take her on a road trip from LA to NM the first two weeks after I got my license. I did get to stop in Roswell, NM for aliens which was exciting.
- I upgraded my car to a CVT hybrid in 2013 and in 2013 first came into the 1990’s with an automatic transmission…
- I own a ~40 lb side table because my uncle told me it was mine if I could carry it out by myself when I was 16 (he reneged on his offer then condescended to me – I still have the table)
- Interned a few summers in the physics department at a top 50 university, which included helping to run and crimp the first cat5 ethernet lines for the labs, and sorting/ matching keys by sight (still an odd skill, but I rarely use it anymore)
- My mother insisted I include that I had read over 10,000 books on my college applications
- At 17 (after moving out) I interned with the Shakespeare Festival at the college also, and worked on three plays, was in two, and featured in a picture for the circus version of Comedy of Errors as Dr. Pinch in the “HOT SEVEN” of Gambit Weekly. Worked on more plays while in college as a theatre production minor (all behind the scenes)
- Was an extra in The Brooke Ellison Story and Glory Road
- I modeled a bit – I was (my bottom half in a 50’s style spread) featured in a local cooking magazine, a few gothic spreads, and a hand model for a jewelry shoot. Now I both photograph (as a light hobby) and dress up for dapper and theme photos and events, mostly Disney
- Left college because of Katrina and funding temporarily – originally, I was business management, creative writing, and a minor in theatre production. Obtained two Associates degrees with high honors – AA in Liberal Arts, AS in Business Management before returning for my BBA in Accounting from The College of William and Mary
- My bio prof tried to sway me from business to biology
- Was accepted to a culinary school because I bake and cook well (had to learn at an early age or eat <$1 tv dinners) but I don’t want to hate cooking, so I declined
- I worked in management positions between academic careers – at one time I had 5 different jobs at once – and ended up working a night audit manager position for a boutique hotel chain that I still love, so I went into accounting. Also managed an up-scale “adult department store” – and honestly, it was more like couples’ therapy than what anyone would imagine
- I am most proud of my child and being a single mom and while I wish the circumstances were different, I wouldn’t have it any other way. He has driven me to really develop and understand
- leadership and soft skills to hopefully impact and create a world that is a little bit better than it would have been otherwise
- Have made multiple corsets
- Once was hired to video record an exhibition of safety pin eyebrow piercing
- Climbed 13 flights of stairs 9 months pregnant to reset the elevators at the hotel I worked at during Mardi Gras, because the control box was on the roof and everyone else refused. The GM made constant running jokes that I was unbreakable
- Went back to school while working nearly full time as a single mom, made it through a “public ivy”, and obtained a BBA in Accounting with a concentration in Process Management and Consulting, and ~15 graduate level credits so that I could also obtain (and have) passed the CPA exam
- My (then) 3-year-old got to ring the bell at Wren Hall
- I am a typical TWAMP (bonus points if you can tell me what this means)
- I managed too many perfume stores, please don’t make me go to one, they now give me headaches
- I got to tell my mother the story that she was almost named the same name as my grandfather’s mistress after my grandmother’s funeral
- The “celebrity” portion of the CR:
- Have met 3 Nobel prize winners in physics at colloquiums
- Christopher Reeves was a drama queen (but was at the end of his life, so it may have not been intentional)
- Charlize Theron stayed at my hotel, and was a drunk – she went through ALL of our towels
- Trent Reznor was extremely considerate, but quiet. Also was checked in under an old monster actor’s name. I won’t name it directly out of respect
- The singer for 3rd Eye Blind crudely hit on me. I was 7 months pregnant, but you couldn’t tell. One of the other band members came back down and apologized to me afterwards
- Had a conversation with Keanu Reeves, definitely a highlight
- Took photos at a comic con with John Barrowman and David Tennant and George Takai, but they were “in and out” meet & greets
- I came up through technical accounting – research and interpretation of new accounting standards issued. My father called me the “lawyer of accountants” which is pretty accurate
- From 2008-2016 I revised and wrote resumes on the side
- I thrive on learning and teaching others, so I love speaking engagements and have been told I am a very engaging speaker
- I have worked since 2005 with sexual assault and domestic violence organizations including RAINN, the YWCA, and Metro Battered Women, ending in 2020
- I write for Disclosures magazine for the Virginia Society of Certified Accountants and coordinate their young professionals’ column (of which I sit on both Boards). For a year, the joke was that I had my own column as we got it off the ground, and I was spread so thin that I didn’t even care when they renamed an article I wrote “Reverse Ageism” which still to this day makes me cringe knowing my name is on that title
- – I speak and write French (mostly write), and have actually used it to translate documents and write emails to French colleagues at three positions I’ve held
- – I learned to play piano, violin, and the harp as a child. I haven’t played the harp in 25 years because I have naturally long nails and rarely get manicures and don’t want to cut them
- I attract animals, and I once had a raccoon hug my car
- I once rented a van to take 4 children (including mine – only one) to Kennedy Space Center NASA for a day
- I identify as a Xennial
- Have been sky diving and bungee jumping
- I SUCK at skiing. I fell off of a lift. I do enjoy snowboarding
- I have slept under the space shuttle Atlantis
- I am passionate about developing emotional intelligence and leadership skills in others. I sat on the task force for and helped develop three leadership programs for Disney Parks and Resorts leaders when I worked for Disney
- My 13-year-old is also in Mensa and is all about robotics and coding and video games and boy scouts. He is the reason I do everything, but I don’t talk about him much in public forums for privacy purposes
- I sit on both of the leadership committees for his former Pack and his current Troop – and specifically am the SuperNOVA award mentor for the districts for the STEM awards for scouts
- I love to travel and am obsessed with things that glow – I have been inside a glacier, in a dead volcano, swam with turtles, been in a submarine, scuba-dived with manatees and at Devil’s Den, drank coffee on a roof in Istanbul, twirled in the snow at a lost WWII plane near a waterfall, danced in St. Mark’s square at night in a cape, seen the northern lights from off the shore of Reykjavik, run around Coba and Chichen-Itza, been kayaking with bioluminescent jellyfish and dino flagellates, and nearly frozen on a black sand beach
- I refer to my platonic life partner and very best friend as ‘my wife’, which is a VERY long story
- My son hates that he can’t jump scare me
- I rock climb for fun – at one point could scale 50 feet in <10 seconds (dependent on grade), and love archery, and can throw knives
- I regularly ask full grown adults what they want to do when they grow up
- I earned a green belt in Jiujitsu
- My brain doesn’t turn off well, so I wake up with entire projects planned and drafted in my head in the middle of the night
- I am open water dive certified
- I am CPR/ AED certified