BASIC STATS

Name? Christina Marie Volpe. But everyone calls me Crissy.

Nicknames? Crissy is really more of my "name" then my "nickname". But aside from that...let's see. A couple of people call me "Rei", or "Rei-chan", or a variation thereof (I particularly liked "Mistress Rei", which Michi and Ruka used to call me, and "Mama Rei", which Maurynna and Avian used to call me.) When Lady Terentia and I cosplay together, our celebrity couple name is Teeny. And once upon a time I was Lieutenant Commander Crispy Long, but that was a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away...

DOB? October 24th, 1980. This makes me a Scorpio on the cusp of Libra, and also the Year of the Monkey. But I don't read horoscopes and I don't like monkeys. (Well, maybe little ones. That aren't currently flinging poo.)

Blood type? A+. The Japanese use blood type to determine personality types, much as Americans use zodiac signs. Supposedly A types are, on the one hand, calm and composed, but also arrogant perfectionists. They appear strong, almost to the point of aloof, but they avoid other people and confrontation. They're often artists, and are a bundle of nerves on the inside. They're driven to better themselves all the time, and often don't know how to relax.

Me? I don't know what you're talking about. :)

Ethnicity? I'm proudly American! But my heritage is Italian, German, and Austrian. (And I've actually been to Austria--so pretty!)

Languages spoken? Just English. I suck. I took French for ten years! But I started studying it again on Duolingo, so...we'll see?

Hair color? Mousy brown streaked with gray, although I usually dye the gray before conventions.

Eye Color? Pretty similar to my hair, actually. (Well, minus the gray.)

Height? 5 foot 4 inches...making me two inches taller than my mother. I win.

Sex? Female.

Location? Currently living in Queens, New York

Romantic Status? I am seeing someone exclusively

Occupation? Administrative Assistant

Family? I live in Queens, a tenant of my dad. My mom lives in Pennsylvania with my stepfather and my grandfather. One stepbrother lives in New Jersey with his wife and their kids, and my other stepbrother lives in another part of New Jersey with his girlfriend and their kids.

Pets? None. I don't even have fish anymore.

Hobbies? I play a lot of video games these days, actually more PC than console, which would have blown my mind as a teeanger. I rewatch Frasier way more than is probably healthy. I still enjoy drinking and watching truly awful movies (you haven't lived until you've seen the Star Wars holiday special), working on this website (all of my others have been more or less abandoned), and I'd really like to teach myself to sew, after twenty years of cosplaying in other people's creations.

Dream? To live in beauty and comfort with at least a small amount of stability.

Quote? "The more you love, the more you can love--and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of the majority who are decent and just." ~ Robert A. Heinlein

PERSONAL

Favorite games? For the computer, The Sims 3, Heroes of Might and Magic III: Complete, Stardew Valley, and Surviving Mars. For console, I'm still in love with Super Mario Brothers 3 (and most other old NES games), I can play Mario Party at the drop of the hat, I love but suck at DDR, and I can kick almost anyone's ass in Puzzle Fighter. For board games, shoot, I'll try anything.

Favorite anime? The top spot probably belongs to Fatal Fury, both the OVAs and the Motion Picture. Sailor Moon, of course, and Revolutionary Girl Utena, and Card Captor Sakura, and Magic Knight Rayearth, and Vision of Escaflowne.

Favorite movie? The Crow, The Martian, Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail, Spinal Tap ("These go to 11."), He-Man and She-Ra Secret of the Sword, Zoolander, Eurotrip, The Last Unicorn...there are probably more that I'm forgetting.

Favorite TV shows? I really like Frasier, Soap, and my guilty pleasure is probably The Crown.

Favorite color? I'm going to go with my usual: "Blue and red and black and gray...all of the beautiful colors are so very very meaningful".

Favorite bands? Counting Crows, Metallica, Weird Al Yankovic, and the Eagles. There's more, of course, but I think listing those four will give you a pretty good idea of just how diverse I am...

Favorite Hangouts? My house, the Hayden Planetarium, Alice's Tea Cup, and the Adirondacks.

Favorite Food? Bologna and cheese sandwiches with mayo on white bread, tuna with lettuce and tomato, and fried dumplings and chicken and broccoli. While my tastes have expanded VASTLY, I can eat those (I do eat those) pretty much every day without getting sick of them.

Likes? Getting time to work on my websites. Goofing off with my friends. The Adirondacks. The kids in my life. Small kittens and puppies. The fall. Really wacky stockings/tights. Absinthe. Having really intellectual debates. Viewing really beautiful pictures.

Dislikes? PUNS. I HATE PUNS. I also dislike being interrupted when I'm concentrating (seriously it makes me want to be violent). I hate white noise and loud noises. Bad grammar and spelling make me wince. The Arby's they erected near the end of my block where a beautiful, 100+ year old German restaurant used to stand. Oh, and I really hate Arnold Schwartznegger.

COSPLAY

Favorite character? I know it's obvious, but I'm going to say Sailor Mars. She's the only one that I feel I want to do ALL of her costumes.

Best known for? Again, I'll say Sailor Mars. I think it's what most people associate me with.

Got started? It's a bit of a long story. I've always LOVED Halloween. And even as far back as the eighth grade, I wanted a Chun Li costume, but I had no idea how to go about it--I always thought I'd have to take my Street Fighter booklet (remember, this is from the days before the internet!) to an old German seamstress somewhere in my neighborhood, and that it would cost a thousand dollars, and that it probably wouldn't come out right (it'd end up looking like a dress, because that's all most people know how to make), so it was a lost cause.

Then one day (spring of 1999, I think), my stepfather e-mailed me with a link to an eBay auction for a Sailor Mars fuku. I missed the end of the auction, but I was so disappointed, I took a chance and e-mailed the seller, who turned out to be Setsuna Kou. She made me one of my very own, and that was my first cosplay costume.

To tell you the truth, though, at that point, I didn't even know the term "cosplay"! I just wanted a Sailor Mars costume for...whatever. Whatever reason. So I hung on to it.

About the same time (perhaps a little earlier), my friend Usagi Seion (who was the person who got me into Sailor Moon in the first place) and I wanted to start "Teh best Sailor Moon page EVAR!" (okay, we weren't really going to call it that, but I think that's pretty much how we thought of it in our minds), with images of EVERY Sailor Moon artbook image, screencaps of every episode, just...you know. Everything. The only problem was, neither of us knew how to make a website. ::laugh:: So Usagi Seion decided she'd be in charge of the artistic design, and I decided I'd be in charge of the technical mumbo jumbo. Now, I learn better by trying, then by studying, so I decided to make a "trial" webpage to learn on. I still wanted it to be useful, though, and Sailor Moon related, so I decided, since most Sailor Moon images exist somewhere on the web already, I'd make an image gallery of people dressed up as Sailor Moon characters. My search for people dressed in Sailor Moon costumes led me to a Sailor Moon newsgroup, which led me to my first Sailor Moon cosplayers, which led me to the COSP mailing list...and it was all downhill from there. :)