I am passionate and affectionate, and I am looking for the same. You will have no trouble knowing how I feel about you, and I hope I will have no trouble knowing how you feel about me. We will have true intimacy.

I love to laugh, and I don't mind crying. I seek a best friend, a true companion, and a lover. I expect you to bring out the best in me, make me grow, and I hope to do the same for you. If you can teach me something new, that's great. Make me a better guitarist and I will worship you. If I can teach you something new, I will feel like I have earned my keep. Can I teach you to climb? If we bring out the best in each other, we are the perfect couple.

Ok, in some warped effort to get my profile up to 90% and reveal more about myself, I am adding an editorial that I wrote back in 1995 for The Catholic Messenger in the Quad-Cities. It provides some account of my arrests, reveals quite a bit about my values, demonstrates something about my writing ability, and, hopefully, gets me to the magical 1,000 words I need to bump my profile up to 90% complete.

On Friday, August 11, the feast day of St. Clare, President Clinton moved the United States and the world one step closer to a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. He called the move "the right step as we continue pulling back from the nuclear precipice."

Five days earlier, on the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, I was arrested at the Nevada Test Site along with 183 other people of various faiths. We had gathered to send a message to the government that we will settle for nothing less than a total ban on nuclear testing, a first step to global nuclear disarmament. About 350 of us walked hand in hand toward a fence in the desert singing "We Shall Overcome" and those of us who crossed that arbitrary line upon the land were arrested for trespassing on federal land. It was the right step as we continue to insist that our government stop dragging us to the edge of the nuclear precipice.

I was in Nevada for the Nevada Desert Experience, a faith-based organization working to end nuclear weapons testing through a campaign of prayer, dialogue and nonviolent direct action. The organization works with groups worldwide calling for a comprehensive test ban treaty. I had been sent by the Sisters of St. Francis in Clinton and by Mount St. Clare College.

Two days later I stood on the rim of a crater a quarter of a mile across--the result of an underground nuclear blast at the Nevada Test Site. This was one of many such craters, one of which the Department of Energy was kind enough to actually drive our tour bus into. These craters are the end product of the work of some of our best scientists. The crater was a great gaping wound in the planet, the stigmata of a crucified Earth.

The crater filled me with horror. I was horrified by the destructive force of the weapon. I was mindful of the deaths of more than 150,000 Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I was also mindful of the unknown number of Americans who have died as a result of nuclear testing and experiments.

I was particularly mindful of June Stark Casey and Jerry Sears who had shared their stories with us just three days ago. Casey is a radiation victim who was exposed to the deliberate secret "Green Run" experiment conducted in 1949 at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, Wash. Sears is an atomic veteran deliberately exposed to numerous atomic bomb tests while serving in the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific. The U.S. government has waged war on its own citizens in the name of the common defense.

The crater also filled me with sadness. I was saddened by the waste of human genius, thrown away on the study of destruction. What emptiness must fill the soul of the man the fruits of whose labor are nothing more than a great yawning abyss? What could these people contribute to society were their talents devoted to constructive enterprise?

The waste of financial resources also saddened me. How many trillions of dollars have we thrown away on the creation of these weapons of indiscriminate destruction--designed with the knowledge that the vast majority of their victims will be innocent civilians? Our tour guide tells me that each nuclear test costs anywhere from $10 million to $200 million. How many of the world's hungry could have been fed? How many of the homeless sheltered?

On August 9, the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki , I was arrested again. With a heart made heavy by the image of that crater, I walked across that arbitrary line, hand-in-hand with Sister Rosemary Lynch, OSF, co-founder of the Pace e Bene Center, a Franciscan service in nonviolence. She smiled at me as we crossed, and the words of the late Martin Luther King, Jr. filled my heart: "Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of nuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality."

President Clinton is to be commended for his courage. He will meet much opposition from those who would have us constantly prepare for war at the expense of the welfare of our people. I hope the American people will rally behind their president on this issue. If we want peace, we must prepare for peace.

I am trying to make a difference. I am a university professor working hard to empower students and provide them with the necessary tools to be good citizens. I am an activist who has gone door to door for Clean Water Action, been arrested twice in non-violent anti-nuke protests, and built houses with Habitat for Humanity. I also volunteer with the Bellingham branch of The Mountaineers.

I am, by some accounts, an excellent teacher. I am a strong writer and an excellent conversationalist. I have also been told I give an outstanding massage.

People instantly notice my sense of humor.

My favorite books include Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Pope's Ramage novels, Wendell Berry's Complete Poems and his novels, Neruda's poetry, Rumi's poetry, and anything by Terry Tempest Williams or Diane Ackerman.

My musical tastes run wild. I mostly listen to folk, folk rock, and classic rock. Just to scratch the surface, I love Woodie Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, the Weavers, Jethro Tull, and Fairport Convention. I love Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Credence Clearwater Revival, and, of course, The Beatles. When I was in radio, I produced and hosted a jazz show until the owners decided they didn’t want to subsidize my musical interests. I frequently enjoy the blues, and occasionally I listen to bluegrass, country (mostly female vocalists), and hip hop (all songs of social protest). I frequently buy music that I hear on Democracy NOW! The Welfare Poets are one of my recently discovered favorites. Every now and then I pull something from my fairly well stocked collection of classical music, which is, for the most part, entirely free of opera.

Climbing. Skiing. Books. Coffee. Beer. Music.

I have been contemplating Courtney E. Martin's "Why Love Is Our Most Powerful, Lasting Form of Activism" (http://www.alternet.org/sex/47779/) for some time now, but I recently met someone special who has renewed and expanded my contemplations. I love the central point of this piece: "Who you love and how you love them is as much a statement about your social conscience -- perhaps even a far more accurate and moving statement -- as the letters you write to Congress or the votes you cast."

Having a pint with friends at The Green Frog or Boundary Bay. Heading to Squamish to climb for the weekend or Grouse Mountain to ski for the weekend. Thank goodness I have a Nexus pass.

Let's talk about this over a cup of coffee, a pint of beer, or a glass of wine.

you think we have enough in common to justify exchanging a few messages.