I was meaning to do something about it earlier, but I never did. Then I started going back over old journal entries -- nothing quite so masturbatory as putting a journal online, unless it's reading your own journal online to see what happened to Yuhri today -- and found that I'd started renaming characters. I thought, oh, this is a bad thing, and so we have this inventory.

As time wears on, they might take on new names, but in the meantime -- well. The ones who show up most frequently have reference here; the rest, it'll be up to the people who read regularly to translate.

Mom - They're frightening things, mothers; at first because they're larger than life, and then because one day, suddenly, they're not. Once upon a time she threw thunderbolts like Zeus. All along I thought they'd sizzle my skin off, only to discover in my new old age that they were actually little frogs, bright, blinking, shiny frogs that hop in out of the rain -- out of the rain if you can believe that -- into the shoes you left out in the entryway of your grandmother's farm in Nagano. Harmless things too silly to be taken seriously until they build their communes in the toes of your boots and you slide your feet in to go get groceries....

Sister - "Fine, I'll send you money, but it's coming out of your bail-and-bribe fund." -- "That's okay. I'm not leaving the country until next spring."

Dad - "Are you sure he's dead?"

Heisenberg's Principle - The more one knows about the location of a cat, the less one knows about what the hell it's doing.

Jazz - ...is a friend from elementary school, and then high school. She did a five year BS in Computer Science at MIT (of all revoltingly good schools), and then changed her mind. Then she did a law degree at University of Washington. Having thus encumbered herself with a student loan in the size of Japan's Gross National Product, she has gone on to study psychology and do QA at start-ups in a desperate attempt to pay back her loans before the economy collapses and she ends up washing dishes at banks.

Tara - We went to middle school and high school together, and now -- in California -- we live a short twenty minutes apart. She introduced me to the Guy. I was bridesmaid at her wedding and while I watched her with the photographer, experienced a bizarre moment of epiphany. If I ever get married, I'm not doing the planning by myself. Any man who makes me do it myself is not a man I want to marry. She works as a software engineer for a German company, lives in a beautiful home in Mountain View that she's methodically recreating from scratch, and has a husband that worships the ground she walks on. She also cooks like a madwoman.

Binky - We went to college together, where we each took turns being a rock for the other one to limpet to. She completed a Masters of Music at Northwestern, (she plays bassoon), after which she did web work and production for a startup. Now, post-school, she roams the US trying to find her way, developing first-name friendships with national parks up and down the west coast. She and my sister, sharing as they do an offbeat view towards careers and how to live life, deal extremely well together. Despite the fact that she's caucasian, we once convinced my sister's ex that she was related to us. ("I'm drinking green tea to make myself look more Asian," she told him. "I can see it," quoth he.)

Flamingo - We met online, actually; I consider her a college friend nonetheless, because that's what she was: just different colleges, different states. She graduated from Duke, went to McGill, and then got her Masters (Cognitive Psychology) from University of Colorado. Now she lives there with two mildly homicidal Maine Coons named Marcus and Oz, and works for a startup as a Technical Writer. As I recall, she's the reason I have an online journal at all; at the time, I was following her lead with slavish devotion. You can read her writing online at Bounded In A Nutshell.

The Guy - aka Freak Boy. The first man I've ever been in love with. He rides a motorcycle. Collects anime. Breaks my computer and then fixes it again. Opinionated. Asian. British. Cooks. Eats in my living room and then leaves a mess. He used to work for HP; now he's not. His family, originally Chinese, comes from a mythical floating island somewhere in the Pacific (maybe) called Mauritius. Apparently, Creoles live there. The Guy thinks I'm a Sanrio doll.

She Who Will Be Obeyed - At one time, she was known as 'Indian Woman'. Now she's our manager, with a wry, off-kilter sense of humor and a formidable technical know-how. She is, by the way, a very good manager.

Firecracker - A spitfire of a Chinese woman with a round-headed baby and a genius for redefining English; she sits on the other side of the cube wall, and occasionally crawls up onto her table to stare at me over the partition. Has a small son, born in December of 2000, and a husband who claims to be from Mauritius. Despite being only 4-foot 3, (and I exaggerate only slightly), she looms large.

Slushpuppy - 22 years old as of September 14th, 2001. He is half Korean, half something else, and dropped out of high school to work full-time at my company. Now, five years later, he has more skills than the entire team put together. He's wry, witty, and endlessly entertaining; he owns his own slushpuppy machine, which he can't find, and a house in Southern California. Plus, he reminds me eerily of my cousin; as a result, I constantly call him Brian without thinking. As of September, he no longer works at my company.

College Boy - A new college grad from Georgia Tech when he joined the company a month after I did, in September of 2000. Chinese, athletic, and very very smart.

Indian Mom - Sits next to me at work. Has one son, born around Thanksgiving of 2000. Calm, patient, and occasionally nuttier than a fruitcake.

Indian Woman (the Second) - Joined the company later than Indian Woman (now She Who Will Be Obeyed), and so gets 'the Second' put after her name.

The Intern - Not really an Intern, but we called her that in order to get her past Human Resources without too much yelling. We were experiencing a hiring freeze at the time. As of September, she no longer works at my company.

The Roommate - Almost the same age that I am, she's Korean -- first generation, born overseas -- with flawless English and an equally flawless skin. She eats, oh, endlessly, at all hours of the day and night. I've often been awakened at two in the morning by noises in the kitchen, and go out to investigate only to discover that she's busy making noodles. Despite this, she has the figure of a chopstick. She has a decidedly bent way of looking at the world, and is absolutely a riot, as well as being a fantastic roommate.

Smurfette - aka SRPOP, the Marshmallow Peep. My roommate before The Roommate, she is blond, blue-eyed, dizzy, and mixes the immune system of a sponge with the hibernation instincts of a grizzly bear.

Sako's Boy - My sister's boyfriend. Like my sister, he is an avid outdoorsman, with a lazy, easy-going charm that has won him an easy victory insofar as my sister's family is concerned.