The Desert Mermaid

My Username: A padparadscha is a pinkish-orange variety of corundum (or sapphire), although some say only those from Sri Lanka can be called such. The word is derived from the Sanskrit term padma raga, which means 'color of a lotus blossom.' It has also been described as 'sunset' colored. And, importantly, the name was not taken when I started this blog.


I have strong opinions about weird things. (Now! With illustration by ursulav! It's not actually about me, but it uses a similar line--so it seems I'm not the only one ...)


I have a lot of imaginary friends, but I call them characters and put them in stories and try but fail to draw them. Eventually their adventures will show up on bookshelves!

I went to the University of Oregon and majored in the incredibly useful areas of linguistics and anthropology, and now for some reason I have a job telling kids awesome things about space and science.. Mostly I use my linguistic knowledge to invent languages in my spare time, because why not. Never ask a linguistics student how many languages they speak. (I have studied Spanish, Swahili, Japanese, Hawaiian, and ASL, but English is the only one I speak like a native.)

I still live at home, so it's lucky for me that my family is awesome. I've got a breathtakingly sensible jack-of-all-trades mom, a brain surgeon dad with OCPD , and a younger brother and even younger sister who are off in California working at those "real jobs" I keep hearing about.

Things to ask me about: The car crash when I was six, the birthday with the mutant sheep heads, fainting while watching a brain surgery, The Chapstick Incident, my laundry-sorting rabbit

Things I recommend you not ask me about, lest I chew your ear off: conlanging, books, religion, evolution, astrobiology, cats, my dolls, synesthesia, that time I went to Kenya for no good reason

Things I have done: Graduated from high school, graduated from college, been reported missing, volunteered at a children's center, hiked to Delicate Arch, made Lewis Black laugh, played stand-up bass, earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, carved a lost-wax ring, ridden a horse (with a name--Sam) through Canyon De Shelley, gotten two tattoos (one down my spine), been to Zanzibar to meet the Zanzibarbarians, translated "Yellow Submarine" into ASL, been stopped by a herd of buffalo while learning to drive, swum through stars in the Indian Ocean, brewed a damn fine rose lemon ginger ale

Also, I make a damn fine cup of tea.


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