I was born in Hollywood, California at Kaiser Hospital to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas. Who miraculously are still married, 40 + years later. Things went pretty uneventfully until I was a year an a half old when I went from toddler-walking-around-the-house-as-long-as- I-was-holding-on-to-something, back to crawling. After 15 years in and out of hospitals, I finally got a diagnosis. By that time, the diagnosis was an anti-climax. We knew it was neuro-muscular and the diagnosis didn't come with a treatment. So I got on with my life.

I grew up the oldest of four children. I have two sisters: one, two years younger than me, the other ten years younger and a brother seven years younger. I lived in Southern California until I was thirteen when we moved to Rockford, Illinois a town with a population of about 200,000 and 90 miles NW of Chicago. After 9 years in Illinois, I discovered that wheelchairs are allergic to snow. So I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1980.

Eventually, I graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a BA in Dramatic Arts. Yeah, talk about guaranteed unemployment! Anyway, I managed to keep myself busy writing, acting, acting coaching, directing and doing political/volunteer work. I got arrested doing civil disobedience various times. Worked on lots of campaigns. Ran for office, twice successfully, a few times unsuccessfully. Got appointed to many State, County, committees and commissions, City advisory boards, mostly on disability issues. However, I've also worked on environmental and economic justice issues.

Of course while all this was going on I met, fell in love and moved in with my sweetie Carol. We met in college at the Science Fiction Society at SIU. About a year after I moved to California, Carol followed me to Berkeley (the phone bills were killing us). We moved in together a year after that and we've been together ever since. Our relationship began and remains an "open" one long before either of us knew anything about Polyamory. For her, I think, it was a desire to be honest with me, stay with me, and possibly explore her bisexual desires. For me, I couldn't promise sexual monogamy to anyone (I'm a slut, see The Ethical Slut: A Guide To Infinite Sexual Possibilities, by Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt).