This is my blog. It was hard won, but easily acquired. I have a tendency to appropriate accents and often find myself throwing the word y’all around. Two accents I’ve never appropriated are Russian (where I was born) and Brooklyn (where I grew up).

In high school, I was a mechanical engineering major and was a finalist in a competition at Boston University. I was the only girl there and I kicked ass. I know how self-aggrandizing that sounds, but it’s a true and useless achievement. I was a lousy student, but managed to get into Sarah Lawrence College where I discovered my inner nerd and studied 10 hours a day. Now I obsess about things I don’t know enough about, like css and html or, how the person I’m raising got into the body of the little girl I made or, how I wound up where I am today. Life happens in the strangest ways.

Some of the books and music I love are listed here.

When I was a child, I spent too much time in my own head; now the rest of the world gets to do it too. I’m hoping you’ll feel a little bit less lonely after your visit. If you’ve got something to say, but don’t want anyone else to hear it, you can contact me directly: irinalester@gmail.com