Chris Jane was born in California in the 1970s and moved 10 or 15 times over the years before finally making it to New England. The younger years were happy, but awkward. Tricks to try to be like the cool kids at different stages of childhood: wearing the trendy label (this worked in 5th grade, but had no effect in 6th); lacing sneakers with thicks (effectiveness not determined); wearing black like the other 13-year-old kids who were wearing black (was rightly called a 'poseur'); being the textbook definition of a teenager with no posing, just naturally (worked out fine for Chris, but wasn't as much fun for the parents). Despite a poor academic high school performance and a vehement aversion to even more schooling, Chris enrolled in college four years after leaving high school and stayed through graduate school. Unfortunately, a writing degree doesn't exactly invite an onslaught of job opportunities, so work was varied and often interesting: college instruction as an adjunct English professor; editing book-length manuscripts in the home office of an enthusiastic believer in the law of attraction; and when the graduate degree was deemed an "over-qualification," the 2 p.m. - 10 p.m. shift at the front desk of a hotel. Work life is still spotty, interrupted now and then by writing stints, but that seems to work.