A roadmap, in excruciating detail, to nowhere in particular:

Once upon a time, we were me and I—Polly Poppins—was the Queen, but then revolution happened, as it is wont to do and now we are no longer a monarchy but parliament, if you will. We take turns writing the posts, hosting the Wednesday question—there's a regular Wednesday question—and entertaining each other. I am no longer the Queen although perhaps maybe still the Prime Minister.

We are still laboring with the pangs of bursting forth into a democracy. We are still under construction. We still have to write our real bios and make some changes to the constitution of this blog. Mostly cosmetic. But the content is sound and the founders are all present and accounted for.

Let the roll call begin:

Polly Poppins is constantly cranky and eternally optimistic in San Diego. She started this blog. Now she makes everyone else do all the work and spends a considerable amount of time speaking of herself in the third person.

 Alice (aka, All Over Alice) is that girl you met on the plane ride home from anywhere. She spends a considerable amount of time in the air, doing what, no one really knows. Especially not Alice. The best she can tell you is that it involves perfectly polished nails and a map.

Bookgirl works in publishing in New York. So she sends her friends free books, all the time. With no warning. This is not a hardship. She also has perfect hair and skin without lifting a finger. And while she wants you to love her for her brilliant mind, she's also not above being flattered for her pretty.

Chance splits his year between Seattle and Wyoming. A self-described selfish and generally crabby guy, he also never passes up the random chance to make the world a better place, if only because he would like avoid living his next life as a bug.

The Dol is also a San Diegan. D.O.L. is short for Daughter of Liberty, because she is a political junkie. She was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2008 and continues to rabble rouse here and there. Also, she throws a fabulous party and always has the best shoes.

Diosa got her nickname in Mexico, where she brought grown men to silent, worshipful adoration. Seriously. They thought she was a movie star. She's actually a web programmer in Rhode Island. The Dol and Polly almost sold her for walking around money. Seriously.

The Model comes to us by way of Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo, Milan, and, most recently, Tucson. She spends her days being fabulous. That is when she isn't travelling across the country, flying across the globe, or transcending time and space. She likes to keep her options open. We try to, ahem, model her behavior.

Pandora is our youngest writer, occasionally known as the house elf. She balances her time between college and heartbreak (others, not her own) and can usually be found holding a glass of wine and making boys do her bidding.

We have regular, albeit idiosyncratic features:

Not-a-Post is an impromptu forum for thoughts, quips, and notes. We take our posts very seriously and don't want to junk up the archives. This is serious business here, people. Please try to keep that in mind.

Step-in-Time is an impromptu performance given with the sole intention of keeping another person, namely me, from being bored. Usually heard as: Do Step in Time!

Begging the Question is a regular Wednesday feature where one of us poses a question and we all answer. Answering is absolutely required. But before you break into a cold sweat, we should be clear: we do not have any expectation of honesty, sincerity, or virtue. Those things are not even encouraged.

Meeting adjourned!