About Me — Maria Shimizu Christensen

Mostly sunny to partly cloudy. Occasional thunderstorms.

I only do Star Trek cosplay. So far.

I surprise people all the time. I don’t mean that I throw surprise parties or lurk behind doorways waiting to jump out creepily and unexpectedly, hoping to make people scream. Well, there was that one time… Anyway. Moving on.

What I mean is that revealing some aspects of myself to people who don’t know me well often elicits surprise. Shock, even. I’m not always sure why.

When I turned 50 I completely embraced my geek identity, booked tickets for a Star Trek convention, and never looked back. When I casually mention that I cosplay at conventions, eyes grow wider than I think can be possible and people say, I never would have guessed that about you. Apparently, women my age should be more of something or less of something than I am. Or something. For the record, I am now closer to 60 than 50, and I dye my hair purple.

I can’t decide between pink and blue, next. My 57th birthday lunch.

I’m the author of a handbook for living in Seattle that came out in 2007. It’s clearly out of date now, as is any street cred I once had for being a published author. Wow, you’re an author? You wrote a book? they ask with incredulous…