I like reading, movies, theater, and comic books. I am a fencer and woodworker. I'm trying to teach myself photography. I can juggle. I like sailing and hiking, and, like most people, I especially love to travel.

I'm not an extrovert, but I do enjoy meeting new people and getting to know them. I value people who are different from me as much as those with whom I have things in common.

I often fantasize about moving back to Seattle, where I lived for several years, but I have some compelling reasons to stay in the Twin Cities now, so it's not likely to happen anytime soon.

I work for a corporate bank. Since my work is not particularly demanding, most of my attention lately has been on spending time with friends and family, meeting new people once in a while (sometimes even dating!), and leisure. I read, see movies, go hiking, travel... Sometimes I go through so many DVDs that I imagine NetFlix will send me some kind of an award, but after a while, I turn back to going outside to walk and read.

Choosing gifts for people, even people I don't know. People are always surprised at how good at this I am.

I'm not "really good", but I am at least an adequate cook. I took up cooking as a pastime last January, and I've improved greatly. Since I usually get recipes off the internet or from books, I feel a little odd about taking credit when things turn out well - all I really contributed was my ability to shop and follow instructions. But I'll take it.

I didn't know the answer to this (who does?), so I got a mirror to try to figure it out. Let's see...tall, unshaven, need a haircut, dashing good looks with a curmudgeonly scowl...hmm, I seem to be resembling Hugh Laurie as I advance into my late-late-late twenties.

Oh, wait, that's not a mirror; that's the TV. Didn't I used to own a mirror...? I give up. If anyone ever tells me the first thing they notice about me, OKCupid will be the first to know about it.

Some good books I've read recently are The Man Who Loved China, Gentlemen of the Road, Monkey: A Journey to the East, The Assault on Reason, The Places In Between, Undaunted Courage, The Rabbi's Cat, The Golden Compass (and the rest of that series), Finding George Orwell in Burma, Decline and Fall, and Alexander Hamilton: American by Brookhiser. I almost never read best-sellers, because I feel like enough people are reading them already. Those books don't need me. I like to read a book that maybe not so many people have read lately, that might be feeling a little under-appreciated.

I love all food, except raisins. And mayonnaise. Also sea urchin is gross. I particularly like Indian food, sushi, most other seafood, lasagna, hummus, kalamata olives. If you know someplace to get Moroccan food in MN, I'd love to hear about it.

My tastes in music are very particular, but also very diverse. I love lots of stuff, but most of all I like listening to new, interesting music that I haven't heard before. Lately I've been listening to Neko Case, Bud Powell, Woody Guthrie, Cream. This changes constantly.

Some other things I like: Raymond Chandler, Firefly/Serenity (any Joss Whedon), John Coltrane, Lawrence of Arabia, George Orwell, John Buchan, nearly anything by David Lynch or Terry Gilliam, The Pixies, Tina Fey, The Motorcycle Diaries (film), V for Vendetta (book and film), the old Mystery in Space with Adam Strange, HBO's Rome. The Daily Show. David Byrne's film, True Stories. Other things.

The best movie of all time that I can think of right now is Network.

1. NPR 2. email 3. a book to read 4. ummm... maybe a chair or something... I'm pretty adaptable.

Who discovered popcorn? I wish I could meet the person who saw his or her food suddenly, explosively turn inside out and decided to eat it anyway. I aspire to be that inquisitive and dauntless. When confronted with a problem, I try to ask myself "What would the discoverer of popcorn do?" Honestly, I don't even like popcorn, but it's the spirit of the thing.

I try to do different things as much as possible, but sometimes I'm at the laundromat. Sometimes at a bar. Sometimes at home.

Someone else's brilliant profile said here, "same thing we do every night, Pinky..." I wish I'd thought of that.

I'm increasingly self-conscious about this profile. I've rewritten this entire thing dozens of times. I feel like eventually, by process of elimination, I'll strike the magic formula that yields 100% positive results. Not there yet, but I'd settle for something a lot less than 100%.

Any reason is a good reason.