Some quick-reference vital stats:
Birth date: July 11, 1979Place of residence: Jersey City, NJ
Occupation: Office monkey. Dreamer.
Hobbies: Knitting, crossword puzzles, television-watching, internet, reading, kvetching, growing my hair.
Music: Don't define me by the music I listen to, please. I like Stephen Sondheim, Stephn Schwartz, Jason Robert Brown, Ashman & Menken, Michael LaChiusa, Lerner and Lowe, Aimee Mann, Michael Penn, Elvis Costello, Squeeze, XTC, Hem, The Beatles, Elliot Smith, The Loud Family, Simon and Garfunkel, and other music your gramma listens to.
Once upon a time, a baroness and a wizard decided that they should be married and issue offspring. Luckily for the offspring, they quit that S.C.A. crap long before the children were brought forth, and so it was to two regular old civil servants that two little girls were born on July 11, 1979. After seven months of residing together in uncomfortably close quarters, a condition which would remain unvaried throughout their life and to date, the youngsters emerged to make their impressions upon the world. It was the only time they were ever early for anything.
One of the little girls was named Octavia Bronywyn Phillips, "Octavia" due to her mother's rather nerdish fondness of Roman history and the works of William Shakespeare. This child soon made it clear to all that she was to be known by friends and intimates as Tavie, and only as Octaviawhen they were mad at her or needed her to fill out some sort of form. (If you're rhyming the word Tavie with a savoury sauce eaten with mashed potatoes, you're pronouncing it correctly.)
Tavie spent the first eleven years of her life in Brooklyn, New York. When she turned eleven her family moved to Roosevelt Island, New York, where she lived until she graduated college. Afterwards, she moved to Jersey City, NJ with two of her best friends, and it is there that she currently resides. Please do not stalk her.
At the age of 15, Tavie made two important discoveries: one, that she was not enjoying high school at all and would not continue to attend it; two, that Kids in the Hall was the best tv program ever made in the history of the world. Both of these discoveries would influence her life greatly in the years to come.
(Coincidentally, Tavie's departure from the world of high school took place the very same month during which former Kid in the Hall Dave Foley's new sitcom, NewsRadio, made its debut on NBC, and Tavie finally attained her high school diploma-- through means too complicated to outline here-- the very month that said sitcom was cancelled. It may appear to future historians that Tavie dropped out of high school just to watch NewsRadio, and indeed, this theory is difficult to dispute.)
Through her fandom of the Kids in the Hall and her addiction to "that internet thing", Tavie became acquainted with several people who would become some of her dearest and most beloved friends. More than one of these friends exerted major influence in helping her shape her life, and aided her in her return to academia. Tavie still works in New York City. She hopes one day to fulfill her dream of Divahood. She is also a self-described nerd who lives in an extremely messy apartment. In 2002, her 15-and-a-half-year-old cats, Lily and Rosie, died within a few months of each other. Tavie misses them very much, as they were her babies. Inca and Maya, two tuxedo kittens from Brooklyn, came soon after to comfort her in her loss.