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Name: Mara
How did you find out about the community?: I actually found this via a google image search for "Rhaegar Targaryen" and came upon somebody's user account and I clicked through.
Age: 28
Location: Oregon, USA
Occupation: Currently a stay-at-home-mom; former project manager and assistant editor.

All About You
1. I've always been in love with castles, but to be perfectly honest, they seem impractical and rather drafty. I also love to study architecture and frequently dream about building my own home--actually, you know, with a hammer and nail gun and everything. My dad got me one of those little templates that architects use that have little toilets and sinks and bathtubs and different bed sizes and I used to occupy myself with that for hours and hours as a kid as my own childhood home was being built.

I think my ideal home comes first in a feeling, and then a vision: I want it to be warm and comfortable, with ample space to store books and little nooks to read. It must have a hidden passageway, possibly two. I like light and color and windows and wood and stone. I like a fireplace as the center of the home, and I always thought it would be cool to have a home that was a combination of castle, craftsman, and roman villa, with stone and timber outside, and the open courtyard in the middle. There would be a decadent bathtub. I swear, being six feet tall makes most standard bathtubs pathetic. Oh, and there would be a porch, with a swing.

Ideally, it would be set somewhere in the woods, with a lake you could walk to and lots of hidden trails and spots in the woods and fields where you could build forts and have battles and train the squirrels to joust or something. There would be gardens around it that are mostly wildflowers and zucchini and tangled roses that grow everywhere. It would be a house that you would feel safe inside, ready to adventure and imagine. It would be very green and be powered by solar and wind, and have catchbasins for an underground rain barrel to use the greywater for tank flushing and non-drinking water, things like that. Lots of light and windows to minimize dark corners. And yet, sometimes, you need a dark corner to light a candle and curl up in an oversized oxblood-red leather armchair with a great book and a glass of wine. It would be that kind of house. And it would smell like the fresh-sanded wood I always associate with my trip to Finland, the crisp mint/pine smell of winter, warm baked apples, and bergamot.

2. Ah, wishes. Tricky little temptresses, that. The altruist in me would have the impulse to use the first two for some grand, sweeping wishes that would end world hunger or suffering or something like that, and save the third for myself, but of course genies are very tricky creatures, and I'd hate for the solution to "End world hunger" to be killing off the poor, or ensuing a giant, sweeping plague that limits the population. No, with wishes you've got to be strategic. I think, instead, I would wish for every person to have a greater sense of empathy—-to be able to put themselves in the place of others, and put aside their own bias and judgement for one moment. The second wish I would wish is the ability to pause time and really soak in the wonderful, fleeting moments that pass by so quickly, to be able to rewind mentally and recall those things that are gone so fast. Before having a baby I would've answered this very differently, but those are my two for now. The third, I'd keep in reserve. You never know when you need a wish handy.

3. Well, I'm terribly proud of having a baby. I know, I know; that tends to get lumped in with "girly things that girls say once they get all baby-crazy." I swear, though, having a natural childbirth with a baby nearly twelve pounds in under four hours? Yeah, look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't be just a tiny bit prideful about that, bucko. But, in all seriousness, in terms of things I am proud about that I have accomplished on my own, I would have to say I am proud of the ability I have to continually re-define myself. I've done a lot of different things and had to re-invent myself a few times, and I feel like resilience is an accomplishment in and of itself. I don't like to let things hold me down, whether they be physical impediments or mental challenges. I've got two degrees, traveled, and have taught myself numerous wacky useless skills. I'm rather proud of that.

4. I would say that Knowledge is the most important to me, because it is from knowledge that all other things spring. How can you be friends with someone without knowledge of them? How can friendship turn into love or to family without understanding and the sharing of ideas? How can money be gained without knowledge of the systems behind it? And it could be said that the continual pursuit of knowledge is its own adventure. Now, that's not to say that if I had to save either my husband and child from a burning building, or my books, I would choose the books--of course not! Knowledge just for the sake of knowledge is dead; wisdom is knowledge plus humanity. Of course friendship, love, etc are all incredibly important to me as well. If I filled this out on a different day, I would possibly have a different answer.

The least important of the group for me is Adventure. I've never been a very adventurous, thrill-seeking person. It's not a quality that I personally relate to. I would prefer discovery over adventure, mostly because discovery implies a revelation at the end of a long search, whereas adventure is sort of that take a truck out to a mudflat and try and flip it ye-haw! feeling that is just not me.

5. Hmm, interesting. I guess I've never really thought about my values or ethics being summed up in just one quote. Well, I happen to be a Lord of the Rings fan (among many other things) and I've always liked Gandalf's quote: "...so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." What it means to me is that we can either spend our time worrying about whether or not we're spending our time worrying about the right things to worry about, or we can live our lives. Either way, the clock is going, and you can't un-worry and un-think the time you've lost on frivolous fruits. Seize the day, and all that. And on a larger scale, it is a message, I think, that no matter what is going on on a larger scale in your lifetime, what will be, will be, and you can either fight the flow of time or go with it and shape the bank of the river.

6. Haha, money. I'm... just ok with money. I have grand aspirations to be more frugal, but ultimately I too get suckered in to a "deal" here and there. Shifting from two paychecks to just one has been a transition, so this is a topic that's been on our minds lately. I understand the value of hard work and was raised with a very hardworking set of parents. I do have savings and investments and every little bit counts. Money doesn't really freak me out--to be honest, I don't really think about money much at all. Which is probably a sign of my resolute middle-classness, isn't it? Oh dear.

7. Reading has always been a hobby for me. I'm a very fast reader and I've always been interested in fantasy and speculative fiction. I have favorites in particular that I re-read every year. Or try to. I don't have a ton of time for this these days, but I remain very fond of it.

Writing, as well, has been something I've been doing for a long, long time. In fact, I was cleaning my sewing room and I found a short work of fiction written from the perspective of a very snarky magic mirror, dated circa 3rd grade. Suck it, Gregory Maguire!

Sewing and crafting in general have also been a major source of fun and relaxation for me. I love to research, design, and sew historical garments, anything from 8th century Viking reconstructions of a dress fragment found in a burial ship to sturdy Victorian corsets. My house is a total mess most of the time because I'm always working on about five projects at once.

8. Death. Let's be honest; nobody knows what's beyond the great beyond. I don't like to think about dying.

Enclosed spaces. I just don't like being shut away in somewhere small. In fact, people like me were probably the ones who came up with the whole "bell to ring over your grave site just in case you weren't actually dead" thing. I am tall and many spaces don't fit me well. I get claustrophobic and I hate it.

Powerlessness is also something that can give me anxiety. And I don't mean, oh no somebody ordered me a sandwich and it was tuna salad and I wanted turkey and I am POWERLESS TO STOP IT OH NO! I just mean being held against my will, or forced to watch someone be in pain, and not be able to do something about it.

9. I am tenacious. I don't let things hold me down for long. I push myself to get back up and try again. I roll with the punches. Some would say I am "relentlessly cheerful." That, of course, is not accurate, but I have had people (who usually don't know me very well) say so. In reality, I am a guarded optimist.

I am insightful. I see things for what they are. I find connections in things and between things. This makes me a great researcher. I like to imagine, debate, theorize, and explore. I can easily put myself in someone else's shoes and think like them for a moment. I can out-debate people by arguing both sides of a discussion.

I am kind. I talk easily and freely to people, and people have told me that I am easy to talk to. I tend to attract people who need to talk; I'm usually the office "Dear Abby" for that reason. I enjoy being nice, and it comes easily to me to shmooze, joke, flirt and gain people's trust. I don't think I could pull off "femme fatale" if my life depended on it.

However, I am also guarded. I don't have any long-term friends. Ok, maybe, like, one or two. But I'm not the kind of person who had a BFF in school, or kept in touch with high school buddies, or who stayed up late painting toenails and bonding about training bras with girlfriends. I don't open up fully to people except in very rare circumstances. And I have a very hard time keeping friends.

I can be spiteful. If I am wronged, I hold onto it for a long, long time. I don't like to be offended or mocked or ridiculed and I don't take practical jokes well at all. I will at the very least theorize and strategize on how to seek my imagined revenge against a perceived insult. Even if I may not actually carry it out.

I am stubborn. Very hard-headed. I have lastworditis in a major degree. When I am convinced that my logic is sound, and my crusade is right, I can be a real bitch--sometimes on purpose.

A Song of Ice and Fire Related

1.How many books from the series have you completed? All but the most recent one; I am currently re-reading from book 2 onward.

2.Daenerys Targaryen: It was Daenerys' story that first drew me to the books, and she continues to be a favorite character. In between all of these chapters about intrigue and interwoven characters, there she was. Every time I came to one of her chapters, I stopped and found myself reading it slowly, and there's just something about her as a character that I enjoy. Really dealt a crappy hand by fate and pegged as so many things, she has to fight through her history and her present and her dreams to find her own identity. I think many of the women in this series have that same struggle, and hers is the one that engaged me the most.

Arya Stark and Sansa. Or, Sansa Stark, and Arya. I know you said three characters, but I am going to put them in the same bracket because, in a way, they are two sides to the same coin. Both stubborn, both proud, both tenacious, but in completely different ways. Arguably, neither of them would've survived, had they been placed in each other's circumstance. Arya is way too blunt for court and Sansa would've been hopeless in combat. Yet, like sisters do, they need each other. I really root for both of them, and want to slap them both sometimes.

Cersei Lannister: While Jamie is fun to read, and Tyrion is devilishly clever, there is something fascinating to me about Cersei. Not that I think she's a good person, just that she is a good character. As in, well-written. I just think she is interesting. She is dominant, controlling, confident, and is trying so, so hard to receive just an ounce of her father's and really her whole house's admiration—something she feels she is due but also feels she has earned, above and beyond. She is highly sexual, highly agressive, traits that are praised in men, but not welcomed in women. She's quite an enigma.

3.Theon Greyjoy: Towards the later books especially, I find him and the whole rest of the Greyjoys to be dull as, well, seawater. I read his stuff and I just can't bring up an ounce of give-a-damn about him. I think he was incredibly short-sighted and dull to boot. I don't like him.

Bran Stark: His sections are just... boring. I don't care what happens to him.

Lysa Arryn: Lysa is one of the many "questionable mothers" that Martin has in his books, and of them all I like her the least. She has so stunted her son emotionally and everything about her and the Eyrie is just unsettling. Secluded, precarious, mentally warped... yeah. No thanks.

4.#1 Favorite moment in all of ASOIAF so far? Why? You know, this is going to sound weird but the Red Wedding was the moment in the series where, for me, the tide has irrevocably turned. Martin was all like, "Oh that guy? The son of the guy you were totally rooting for? The one who is going to clearly take back the North? Yeah, naaaaaahhhh I think we'll do THIS instead!" And as a reader, it's incredibly disarming. It's like the literary equivalent of the "I am not left-handed!" Scene in The Princess Bride. Times about twelve.

5. Oh wow, hmm. I really don't know, to be honest. I would almost hate for it to be tied up in a neat little bow and happily-ever-aftered. I would also hate for the issue with the White Walkers to not be addressed, because I don't really know what's going on in the larger scope of the plot there. It's like, while the middle of the kingdom is fighting, we've got these major forces going on, in the north and in the south, frost and flame, like Ice and Fire... HEY WAIT A MINUTE, I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE G. R. R! Lol. But seriously. I have no idea. I think whatever I've planned mid-read for an ending has been blown out of the water by the twists and turns he comes up with. Who knows; it could end with Rhaegar and Lyanna waking up in bed and going, "You know, I had the strangest dream..."

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