I'm a cartoonist, living in Portland, Oregon, in a house I co-own with friends I've been living with since for 20 years. I love going to movies, but if I was richer I'd love going to plays and musicals more. My favorite things are hanging out with friends, reading comics, talking about geeky stuff (science fiction, role playing games, musicals feminism, etc.) and reading. I also love talking about politics; I'm a very liberal Democrat. But I don't like anger or meanness, and I try to see some good even in people I disagree with. Although they sometimes make it difficult.

I'm not very outdoorsy at all. This is strange, since judging by the profiles I've read here I may be the only non-outdoorsy person in the country; but there you have it. I'd rather stay inside with a weird German board game or a conversation than go climb a mountain or walk on a beach.

I'm a cartoonist, with a graphic novel coming to bookstores in November 2010, and a left-wing political cartoon appearing in obscure publications that don't pay very much. I have ambitions to create many more graphic novels.

I also co-own a house with two close friends. Well, really, the bank owns it, but we're buying it little by little. I think we currently own the space from the front door to a few feet into the kitchen.

Cartooning, debating, arguing, and being calm. And finding things funny.

Well, you'd have to ask them. If I try imagining what the first thing people notice about me is, I wind up either being too negative ("They notice I'm fat! Oh nooos!") or too positive ("they notice my vibrant energyness and my easy yet not disturbing laugh"). Probably I shouldn't even go there.

I'll try to limit myself to less than a hundred...

Books: Guns, Germs, and Steel. Ordinary Victories. The Riddle-Master Trilogy. Doomsday Book (really, almost anything by Connie Willis). Red Mars. Water For Elephants. Stuck Rubber Baby. Fun Home. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

Movies: Duck Soup. Being John Malkovich. Amélie. West Side Story. Mulan. Ran. City of Lost Children. Bullets Over Broadway. I Heart Huckabees. Pan's Labyrinth. Cyrano de Bergerac (the one with Gérard Depardieu). Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle. Lots of Jackie Chan movies.

I usually prefer independent movies over mainstream movies; there are exceptions, but most huge mainstream movie events are just let-downs.

Music: Any musical by Stephen Sondheim. I love musicals in general -- both artsy musicals like Assassins and First Lady Suite, and more popular musicals like Wicked and Avenue Q.

Other than that, I like smart yet geeky pop music (They Might Be Giants, Dresden Dolls, Talking Heads), and I enjoy listening to Bluegrass without actually knowing anything about it.

Food: I'm the least foodie person you'll ever meet; I prefer food to be cheap and unpretentious. If I can eat at a good diner, or Chinese restaurant, then I'm happy.

Television: Slings and Arrows (best TV show ever), Firefly, West Wing, Farscape, Dead Like Me, Singing In The Rain (the original, not the Steve Martin remake), WonderFalls, Buffy, Arrested Development, So You Think You Can Dance, and others. I don't watch much TV lately, because I'm too busy drawing, but I like TV; extended stories allow for a style of character-based writing that I enjoy, and that movies can't pull off as well.

And I'm watching Dollhouse, but I'm wincing through it as often as I'm enjoying it.

Because I spend a lot of time drawing, I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts. My favorite podcasts involve stories -- This American Life and The Moth are the absolute top of my list, and I have to potion them out carefully so I don't run out too quickly.

Friends, writing, reading, comics, and two other things that I don't really find that important. Well, sleep and food, I suppose.

I spend a lot of time refining stories in my head (some of which I eventually get down on paper); sometimes I think the people I know best are fictional.

Hanging out with friends, who come over for talk and great hole-in-the-wall Chinese food and watching "Farscape."

Or just as often, I'm working, alas.

If I was willing to admit it here, it wouldn't be all that private.

Well, okay: I like looking at century-old photos of groups of people, especially groups of children, and speculating about what their lives were like. I can waste a lot of time doing that.

What this question really means, I think, is: are you the sort of person who could write me, and expect to get a response? And the answer is, if you're smart, funny and geeky, then I'd probably like to know you.