The hardest thing about this entry is what order to put things in—anything I put first will sound like I think it's the most important thing about myself. So I'll start with the stipulation that these are in no particular order:

I'm a dialectologist. I've loved both maps and pronunciation my whole life and have been lucky enough to get into the field where I get to think about both professionally—if only I could find a tenure-track job.

I'm from Massachusetts. I moved to Philly almost nine years ago, and I'm still getting used to it, but it's been slowly growing on me all along.

I'm a performer. It's hard to find time to actually get on stage now, but you can always find opportunities to perform in some way, even just among friends. I'm a better actor than I am a singer, but I like singing more.

I'm a geek; I'm a puzzle solver; I'm an unexpected extrovert; I'm a distributor of peppermints.

Trying to find my way in academia, and/or decide if that's where I want to be finding my way.

The first thing people notice about me is usually that I've got a pencil behind my ear. (You never know when you might want one!)

Apparently I don't spend a lot of time ranking books and movies with respect to each other to decide which ones are my favorites. Well, my favorite book of all time has to be Charlotte's Web; The Little Prince ranks very high as well; and beyond that I might add in Amy's Eyes, much Thurber, Pratchett, some Stephenson—possibly the Baroque Cycle—and maybe A Song of Ice and Fire standing in for a lot of fantasy/SF.

Movies is a little harder. Maybe Beauty and the Beast, the Rhapsody in Blue segment of Fantasia 2000, Contact, The Great Muppet Caper, Amélie, maybe Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Spirited Away?

The only TV show I really watch regularly is Jeopardy!; all-time favorite shows include The Muppet Show and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I want to interpret "favorite shows" though as meaning favorite Broadway shows, in which case my favorites include My Fair Lady, Fiddler on the Roof, Guys and Dolls, and In the Heights, among I suppose many others.

Favorite music, relatedly, is largely showtunes; also very fond of klezmer and I have a soft spot for the Grateful Dead and other '60s–'70s rock.

Favorite foods: Fresh mozzarella and basil. Capogiro gelato. Burdick's hot chocolate. Spaghetti sauce with a lot of mushrooms and peppers. Corn chowder. Grapefruit. The Thousand-Layer Bread from Rangoon, on 9th Street. Peppermint.

Hot chocolate with peppermint in it; public library card; showtunes; easy access to maps; crossword puzzles; occasional hugs. (Also semicolons?)

Vowels and language change. Wordplay and puns. Puzzles and games. Songs for a New World. Recently, how to fight sexism in geek culture.

Cooking dinner at home, and then either seeing a movie or going salsa dancing.

Experiences are best shared. If I see something beautiful, I don't feel like I've really seen it until I've shown it to someone else too, or at least told them about it.