Collects stints: military (pre-war), forest firefighting (two summers), South Sudan (8 months). Loves cats. Solution-oriented. Staunch liberal with background working on indigenous issues. Well traveled. Self-identified feminist whose favorite shows pass the Bechtel Test. Formerly a devout Catholic, now happy being momentary concentration of mass/energy. Conscientious. Appeared on television four times expressing misguided confidence in folk-creatures. Somewhat embarrassed about that last fact.

[If military is a red flag add 10% to our match.]

New to the area. Most my time is spent writing, exploring the city, and helping family whilst trying to see where I can put my diverse past experiences to use. I recently finished a dual BA in Anthropology and Applied Indigenous Studies. School took a bit longer to complete because of my recurrent tendency to set out and explore the human condition. After a stint in the military I moved to Arizona to work as a community coordinator for Navajo Indians effected by a land dispute. I've spent many formative years living with Navajos and was informally adopted into two families. In 2007, while attending school and feeling frustrated that life was stagnant I threw on the backpack and moved to South Sudan for 8 months where I wound up overseeing food shipments to the Sudanese People's Liberation Army. Come back, resume school, and fight forest fires for a summer job. It's been that kind of life so far but now I want to develop some roots before seeking out more adventures or going back to school.

Using proper capitalization (evidently, a rare quality these days). Making a fondness for cats seem masculine. Speaking quietly on a cellphone in public. Tracking down the rightful owners of the occasional misplaced wallet. Being that one person who goes out of their way to report a building-wide problem or inform the barista that the wifi has been down for the past 3 minutes or pullover to remove an object from the street.

I make a solid effort at trying new things that take me out of my comfort zone. In the past year: took singing lessons, taught self to cross-country ski, started podcasting (which is painfully humbling), took up video production and bought a DSLR.

Ambiguous ethnicity. In the 7th grade someone asked if I was the foreign-exchange student. In Poland I get pegged as gypsy, in Italy as a Moroccan, when I worked in Ireland people took me to be Spanish, Navajo Reservation it's assumed I'm Mexican, and in Sudan I was accused on two occasions by gunmen for being an Arab spy.

Books: Non-fiction books: Jared Diamond, Charles Mann. Sebastian Junger. History. Freakonomics, Tipping Point, Mind Hunter, Why Nations Fail, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Joseph Campbell. Science Fiction: anything Arthur C. Clarke or Ray Bradbury, to a lesser extent Asimov. Herbert's DUNE series (first four anyway). Recently: A Confederacy of Dunces, The Good Earth and The Watership Down. One of my most prized possessions is the complete cassette set for the BBC radio play of Hitch Hikers Guide to the Universe.

Music: U2, Beatles, Moby, Vangelis, Ennio Morricone, Air, Royksopp. Beethoven when writing. I'd like to think some of my favorite songs have a transhuman appeal. The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" has lyrics that any human being at any point in history can relate to and appreciate. [+] When we colonize Mars they'll teach that song to kids and they'll identify with each verse. (Yes: ice melts there.)

Television: 30 Rock, BSG, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking, Ghost in the Shell, Rome (HBO), and Deadwood.

Blogs: Lefty politics: Talking Points Memo, Kevin Drum (Motherjones.com), Matthew Yglesias (Slate). Wonkette. Favorite science blogs: Not Exactly Rocket Science (nature), Tetrapodzoology (zoology), BoingBoing, Mindhacks (neuroscience). International news: Al Jazeera.com.

1. Audiobooks. One of my all time favorite things, they make mundane manual tasks enriching: chopping vegetables to Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, learning about Magellan's circumnavigation while folding clothes, driving up north to The Good Earth.
2. Having water to swim in. Really does make a difference as I found out from the absence of it living in Arizona and Sudan (was along the Nile but, crocodiles).
3. Exponential growth
4. GI Bill. Still debating if it made being in the military worth it but it's quite nice to have school entirely paid for once you're out. (Yet incredibly, very few bother to use it.)
5. Public libraries
6. Living in a future where Google has been invented.

Syria. Bahrain. How much of our behavior (and therein, our life's trajectory) was genetically prescripted or externally influenced. What society would be like if we based it on actual scientific fact instead of subjective cultural beliefs. What's more effective than democracy. How I would design a pro-choice billboard (have to think about this every time I drive to Brainerd.) Whether humankind is really evolving towards enlightenment or if history is just a rehash of the same behavioral patterns. How to seem funny yet insightful on dating profiles.

Staying out of jail.

I was fired from Walmart at 16. Life has been a downward spiral ever since.

In addition to that, I'm 33 and still don't know how to use semicolons. Hence the excessive application of commas.

You're capable of pointing at something on the screen without having to smudge it with your grubby little fingers. (Seriously, why is that so difficult?)