Are you wrapped up in your passion for CG to the exclusion of everything else? You work out every day to keep in shape, I believe...

Oh, I don't know about that. I think I am pretty well wrapped up in my computer. Sure, I work out, but that has been a standard in my life for quite some time. And I do read, but I do most of that while I am eating (when I remember to eat) or while working out or right before bed. The rest of the time outside of work I spent sitting in front of the computer. During the week, that is. On the weekends, I might not touch the computer except to answer some email. I like to hang out with friends and go out dancing and stuff like that. Due to my sleep disorder, I have to keep a very strict sleep schedule and not swing my hours around at all. And since I work third shift, that means I sleep from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. every day, weekend, holiday or otherwise. And weekends get very boring when there isn't anyone to hang out with because there is very little to do after about 9 p.m.

You seem to have time for your family as well. There's a whole section of your Site dedicated to your niece Chelsea...

Well, as I have said before, I can write HTML in my sleep. I put that Chelsea stuff up there because my brother kept asking me to email all of his friends around America pictures of his new baby. (My brother doesn't have a scanner; mine is junk, though, hence the crummy quality of the pictures). Anyway, it was a big hassle for me because of various limitations with different email servers and things were getting bounced back and one guy could only receive text and no pictures and stuff like that. A few web pages and then emailing them all the link was far, far easier.

Finally, you've gone public on the subject of living with Narcolepsy, a somewhat disruptive and disabling sleep disorder. Would you like to talk about it here?

Well, I'm just matter of fact about it. I don't need to talk about it here and have people yawning and getting bored because I got off topic. I just don't mind talking about it, either.

Do you find having gone public helps you deal with it?

I do believe in informing people so there can be more understanding. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 24, but know that I started showing full symptoms by the time I was 11 or 12.
What about you and MS?

I used to keep it to myself for quite a while, but I have no problem talking about it now. It didn't show until I was about 44 and I wasn't diagnosed until three years later, so I was lucky, I guess. For a younger person it can be a serious threat.
My attitiude: I have a choice between suffering from it and living with it, and I prefer living to suffering any time. On a bad day people sometimes think I am a little tipsy, but with the right attitude those situations can turn out quite funny. I learned that being able to take it light-heartedly helps to stay on top of the symptoms. But you know all of that... end of discussion before everybody starts yawning and jittering... *grin*

thanks a million for your patience, Karen. I found this little chat very interesting and entertaining, and I hope our readers will feel the same.

We are bound to see a lot more of Karen's work in the future. Would you care to bet on it? She seems all set to become one of those Brycers whose pictures will "pop up" everywhere, instantly recogniseable as her work.
We did this "interview" over a period of about two weeks, using email. Karen and I never actually met and we never even talked on the telephone or on real time chat.

I also owe thanks to Karen for encouraging me (by example, unknown to herself) to speak in public about the annoyance I am learning to live with.

Please take notice that this article was written in August 1999. Some of the items mentioned and some Web links may have changed by the time you are reading these pages.

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