Crystal

                 		   There once was a wee bonnie dame,
	                 	   To channel Scotland she came,
		                   From Cleveland, Ohio
		                   You're reading her bio
		                   Yes, Crystal is REALLY her name.

Once upon a time (August 3, 1967), in a land far away (well, Mt.Vernon, Ohio), Donald Thomas Carpenter and Jacqueline Lee Lipps Carpenter brought into this world an 8lb, 5 1/4oz blob of protoplasm with spiky black hair and an utterly silly name: Crystal Lyn (who in their right mind gives a child an adjective for a first name when they are going to be stuck with a noun for a surname???).

This child had the fortitude and good sense to acquire a sense of humor and an agile mind. Which more than made up for a complete lack of coordination and any social competence what-so-ever. Once she learned to read, a whole new world opened up to her and she rarely came out of it except to occasionally eat and sleep. Reading was such a passion that even in highschool French class, she would read fantasy novels rather than the text (although, she rarely answered incorrectly when called upon). Even now, she reads voraciously and would sooner spend money on books than on clothes or nearly anything else.

She is more than merely a bespectacled bookworm. A Greater Goddess of Domesticity, she is quite talented in the kitchen, more than slightly clever with a needle and thread (she sewed her own wedding dress of ivory satin and lace), and is very clever with her hands (drawing, painting, sculpting and the like).
She is raising two beautiful daughters named Jacqueline Anne and Shannon Leigh who are tiny versions of their mother, in looks, intelligence, and temperament (the boys have to be chased away with large sticks for heaven help them if one of those girls catches one!).

Many things are near and dear to her heart. Among them, music so good that it has physical effects on her body, people who make her laugh, stimulating debate, idle banter (thus the addiction to IRC), philosophy, logic, good architecture (Frank Lloyd Wright is her hero), the Art Nouveau style, designing things herself (yes, she did the pallette with her name on it herself), singing, sculpting her own form (she wishes to look like she just stepped out of a health spa commercial), doing things independently, painting landscapes and still lifes, making charcoal drawings of people that impress me, rollerblading (even though she is far from being any good at it), and just having a good time as much as is possible.

The picture of her that you see was taken in 1988 or 1989. It is the best that she has looked in a photograph since she was a small child. All of the shots taken since the children were born show a typical exasperated mother look that is not in the least photogenic. When she is not being hassled by an incompetent photographer and her progeny, she looks very much like the photo you see here: calm, serene, relaxed, but with an impish gleam in her eyes (or is that just an eyelash?).

If you want to know anything else E-Mail her at crystal@en.com (all personal questions will be answered with all the consideration due to the subject matter).

                                 Crystal