My first girlfriend was in pre-school. She and I, holding hands, approached our teacher and said, "Miss Carol, we want to be alone." Miss Carol accommodated us by situating us on stools in the kitchen, where we talked at length about what superheroes we wanted to be when we grew up.

In kindergarten, another girl decided she had a crush on me, and would chase me around the playground at recess. One afternoon, she sneaked up behind me and kissed me on the cheek. I fell right off the jungle gym, tore my pants, got a face full of dirt and had the wind knocked out of me.

To this day, I'm looking for the girl with whom we can be superheroes, but I am always and forever falling off of jungle gyms.

I am a card-carrying existentialist (if they distributed cards for such a thing), idealistic, principled, yet surprisingly relaxed.

I love hanging out, and by that I mean just conversing for ungodly amounts of time. Give me a good wine bar or dive bar with good company and conversation any day over a club or meet-market. Conversation is an exercise in self-control at times, because if it's a topic I care about, there's no shutting me up. I can opine like a sum'bitch.

Mostly, though, I just want to laugh. I find myself laughing at the smallest things I notice, at the common and the absurd (often simultaneously), and at myself. If laughter is the best medicine, I will live forever.

I'm a sucker for a good storyteller. The difference between the interesting and the banal is all in the presentation.

Enjoying every minute of it.

I have a small business that allows me to be creative (writing), and also to meet some of the most amazing people. It's mostly a labor of love, so I also have a day job that is merely a means to an end.

As if filling out a profile wasn't already an act of shameless self-promotion, this section seems especially self-congratulatory. Let's just say that I'm really good at avoiding the question.

I'm tall, talkative and opinionated.

I haven't owned a TV in fifteen years out of sheer principle. My bookshelves are sagging under the weight of philosophy, classics, poetry and children's books (and Tom Robbins, which defies classification), yet I spend most of my reading time these days with The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and online political commentary. Get me talking about Salinger, and I will prattle on until your ears bleed.

My musical tastes are largely influenced by Tom Waits. (If you hate him, move along.) I've been getting into southern rock lately, too. And, of course, I could never do without jazz.

I could survive thirty days in the desert without water, but I could not last a day without coffee.

I love wine, whiskey and ale, and people to drink it with.

Buddies, books, and booze. Humor, hubris, and humility. (It's national alliteration week, isn't it?) None of these things are mutually exclusive, though they may appear to be on the surface.

The damnedest things.

Fridays aren't much different than any other night of the week. You can find me hanging out in public with friends new and old.

I hate the word "morsel." I just do.

This Cat Empire lyric resonates with you: "I will die with a twinkle in my eye; because I sang songs, spun stories, loved, laughed and drank wine."