So I've been in Seattle for a year now, but between the time demands of grad school/teaching, and the largely coupled social surroundings I find myself in, I haven't managed to do much dating. So I figured I'd update this profile, and we'll see what happens....

I guess you could say I'm curious - I'm always up for an adventure, and unfortunately partake of far too little of the goings-on of Seattle. I *do* manage to partake of walks and parks to break up the school-work and clear my mind for writing. I'm a hobbyist musician, which is to say I love to make music whenever and however I can, though again time issues can be constraining - but I'll manage to practice on the acoustic a couple times a week, last year I sang in the U Choir one quarter, and I've been sitting in on synth for a friend's band. I condone random impulses, interesting compulsions, and general serendipity.

Is this the sort of thing that's supposed to be in a profile? Maybe I should re-start in a little less stream-of-consciousness mode.

I grew up in California (so I'm super easy-going, like all good Californians), went to college in Western Mass, did some grad school in Belfast, Northern Ireland, worked in New York City for two years, and now I'm in the MFA Creative Writing (Poetry) program at the UW. (I think that would be an appropriate segue to the below.)

I think I've done pretty well pursuing an adventurous life so far for someone from a pretty normal middle-class background - I've worked as everything from a pizza delivery driver to the cataloguer of Seamus Heaney's Beowulf manuscript, volunteered as a farm hand in Ireland, spent about a couple years living in Britain, and climbed to the top of Egypt's Mount Sinai at sunrise and Chile's Torres del Paine at sunset.

I'm in the middle of my MFA degree currently, so I'm always working hard on the writing and reading, when I don't have to be grading or lesson-planning as part of my teaching duties. The eventual career path will probably be more teaching, but the short-term steps from here to there are open to what may come.

Being interested in just about anything, from the small to the strange to the everyday; not being bothered by much; helping people; recommending books and/or music; remembering obscure, detailed bits of information; getting really excited about things like grammar, aesthetic discussions, books (both their contents and as aesthetic objects themselves), philosophy, and fine analytic distinctions in general; being an intellectual but not thinking myself superior; the linguistic/verbal/musical/performing arts; appreciating the visual arts; making something delicious out of whatever random food items are available; puns.

My height, and often the size of my feet (a foot, hence the stupid username). After that, I'm not sure... these days could be my unkempt, longish hair (haven't bothered having it cut in a year or so).

Oh boy.

Books - Poets: Rae Armantrout, W.H. Auden, Linda Bierds, Elizabeth Bishop, e.e. cummings, Emily Dickinson, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, James Galvin, Jack Gilbert, Jorie Graham, Seamus Heaney, Richard Kenney, Philip Larkin, Louis MacNeice, Paul Muldoon, Pablo Neruda, Frank O'Hara, Theodore Roethke, Wallace Stevens, Arthur Sze, Richard Wilbur, Greg Williamson, W. B. Yeats

Fiction: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Cat's Cradle, A Clockwork Orange, Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, Gilead, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, If On a Winter's Night a Traveler..., Lolita, Love in the Time of Cholera, The Time Traveler's Wife, Three Bedrooms in Manhattan, Chekhov's Short Stories

Movies - Amelie, Arsenic and Old Lace, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Fiddler on the Roof, High Fidelity, Il Postino, Let the Right One In, Lost in Translation, My Fair Lady, Lost in Translation, Secretary, Stranger than Fiction

Music - Adem, Air, Arcade Fire, Architecture in Helsinki, Bon Iver, Broken Social Scene, Death Cab for Cutie, Decemberists, Feist, Final Fantasy, Iron & Wine, James Blackshaw, Joanna Newsom, LCD Soundsystem, Mirah, Mountain Goats, Postal Service, Regina Spektor, Rilo Kiley, Smashing Pumpkins, Snow Patrol, Stars, Sufjan Stevens, The Tallest Man on Earth

Food - Um, food itself? I love all kinds, homemade no-recipe randomness, homemade gourmet, good restaurants, good cheap food, good street food. Yay for food!

Writing, books, musical instruments / my voice, music, food, nature.

Poetry / art / philosophy / life in general ... food ... where to travel to next. I imagine I should put something more specific, but if you're around I'd be sure to discuss whatever it is with you, I tend to be quite keen on collaborative musing.

Varies quarter by quarter depending on what the work-load is like, but hopefully this year there should be more time for going out and maybe even dates?

I have a shirt that says "Feelings Are Boring / Kissing Is Awesome" - but I wear it ironically.

You're looking for someone easy-going, enthusiastic, and fun, or specifically looking for a creative, intellectual, nice guy , who in turn is looking for a creative, intellectual, fun girl who'll wow him with her talent, smarts, spontaneity, and sense of adventure.