what's winterson?

what is winterson? well for starters it's my name and the name of this domain which i registered several years ago. although i registered the domain to give my family personalized email addresses i'm the only one still using one as apparently my family prefer such easy-to-remember addresses as nicoltr1999v2athome@aol.com.

after i taught myself some basic html i set up a simple page saying welcome to winterson.com, preserved for all eternity by the internet wayback archive. the page had a small link to write to me but the majority of mail would be spam. on occation i'd receive a mail asking what the website was about or mail from students asking about jeanette winterson. most recently this site has become a blog created with the idea of showing my friends and family around the world how life is different here, though i'm deviating a lot from this plan with my random ramblings.

jeanette winterson is no doubt the most famous winterson, taking up a full 80% of all google references to winterson if you include all the various spelling mutilations of the name 'jeanette'. per salon she is 'england's literary outlaw', a prizewinning lesbian novelist who is the source of the quote at the top of this page. i haven't read any of her books but would like to when i have some free time (ha!). jeanette was involved in a landmark domain name case against a squatter who was holding onto the domain jeanettewinterson.com among others. while most settled with the squatter, jeanette fought back and won, setting a precedent that everyone has a right to his/her own name so long as one makes a living from that name. course it doesn't say anything about people who share the same name, which obviously crossed my mind!

despite jeanette's popularity, this site ranks 6th on a google 'winterson' search which is by far the most popular keyword bringing people here. fifth place belongs to an obscure dead australian band called, you guessed it, winterson. according to their website, winterson's songs "...[had] a strong emphasis on dynamics, often leading to an apparently incoherent or unpredictable song structure." umm, yeah! you can have a listen yourself on their sample page.

this lucky winterson is probably the only winterson ever to have won anything in the lottery. ken winterson won $1000 in a florida instant scratch-off game back in 2002 and looks absolutely thrilled about his good luck. either that or it's one of those fbi stings where they lure in fugitive criminals by telling them they've won something. luck in gambling isn't in the winterson gene pool, methinks. the most i've ever won was at the luxor (vegas, not ancient egypt), about $40 on a goofy horse racing game. of course i lost about $100 ten minutes later placing nonsensical bets on the roulette wheel.

there's a winterson road near the baltimore airport in maryland with a string of random airport motels on it. this particular hotel, the microtel inn & suites, looks like the type of functional anonymous motel where you could wake up one morning and wonder how life has passed by so quickly and why the hell aren't you on a beach sipping a cocktail in thailand.

last but not least, winterson is a character in a video game called max payne 2 which i bought at mbk and played for about 5 minutes before getting distracted and never playing again. can't seem to get too involved in games these days- they don't hold my attention like they used to and i've got too much other stuff to do.

so that's the winterson story. not much to the name really, but certainly more fortunate than this poor guy!!!