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A disclaimer, if you couldn't tell from the length of my profile: I'm hopelessly verbose. I don't think I'm smarter than those who aren't, but at the same time, I'm in no hurry to change my patterns of speech or writing.

I'm a student at Reed College. I'm a religion major, and I work at the nuclear reactor there. Yes, the nuclear reactor. It's where I plan to go when the zombies attack. I'm also the Reed Pope (name: Erowid-Bruce Campbell the First). I was elected to be the ecclesiastical overlord of communism, atheism and free love. Ask to see my hat. When I'm not in Portland, I usually live in Silver Spring, Maryland. I'm a pretty damn stereotypical Reedie, if that means anything to you. If it doesn't: I'm bright, weird, very politically left-wing, do a fair amount of drugs (though I tend to stay away from the hard ones, as the idea of being addicted to things really frightens me), and am generally more stressed out than is strictly necessary. And a vegetarian. Oh yeah, and I can talk about myself endlessly. I'm definitely at least one third mad, and I like to talk to myself when no one is around. My door has tinsel on it, and I have the most amazing plush shark that you will ever have the privilege of meeting. I find passion and rational doubt very difficult to reconcile, and tend to vacillate from extremes of one to extremes of the other. I think joie de vivre is an important and intensely appealing quality, and find myself most interested in and attracted to those who possess it. I try to love life, but this is often harder than it sounds.

I'm emotional in all the best and worst ways, but I'm often afraid to show it (said fear falls on the 'worst' side of the spectrum). I reject the distinction between intellect and emotion. I analyze my emotions into the ground, and get really worked up about topics that are rather abstract and academic. I have trouble extending this passion into the world outside my head, and if at any given moment I feel pained, it's likely because of this. People confuse the hell out of me, which is probably why I like them so much. I'm also rather whimsical. This trait has been known to get me in trouble from time to time, but mostly I just get raised eyebrows and rolled eyes.

I fire dance a bit. I'm still not that great compared to some of my friends, but I'm good enough to burn without causing myself any serious harm, and to look fairly good, as evinced in both cases by my picture. I spin poi, and I want to learn whip.

Going to college. Studying religion. Wishing I had free time, but not really wishing all that hard (if nothing else, I can't recall having been bored in the last half-year). Thinking about what I'm going to do with my life. Alternating between intellectual engagement, sensory and emotional joy, and occasional obnoxious and infantile spates of self-loathing.

Taking Saint Augustine as the model for my love life and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch as the model for my relationship to school and hobbies. This may be backasswards.

Talking, and I do it a lot. Listening as well. I love to talk about (and to) myself. I also love to listen to others talk about themselves, and offer the occasional insightful comment or question. I won a pancake-eating contest...well, not so recently anymore, but I still have the pig helmet to prove it. The egg-beater horns are in rather bad shape, I'm afraid. I have an exceptionally good memory. This is probably the talent that gets the most attention. I'm really good at remembering names and faces, and I always seem to be the one citing page numbers and footnotes in class. I find myself serving as a surrogate memory of sorts for a few of my good friends.

I know a hawk from a handsaw under virtually all weather conditions.

That I use "Deviant(s)" as a term of endearment.

That I'm not entirely here. Where I am, I'm not sure. Perhaps my mind is floating free in the ether, or something in a similar vein and no less obnoxiously Neoplatonic. Perhaps I'm just mad.

You might notice me wearing an assortment of odd headgear. The most recent additions to my collection are a giant furry blue-white pimp hat, and a sparkly jester's cap. I have a pope hat and a black leather cowboy hat, both of which I wear pretty frequently these days. There's also the pig-helmet, which as I mentioned above I won in a pancake eating contest, and a crab-shaped piece of Maryland tourist kitsch headgear, a soviet general's hat, a wizard's cap, and probably another one or two that I'm not remembering.

I often do weird, over the top stuff. I'm kind of an attention whore like that, plus I figure someone has to do it. On a related note, I'm always the one who seems to break the awkward silences in class and casual conversation. I go between calm and excited very quickly. I like to sing, and do so frequently. I have also been known to gesticulate on occasion.

(Books)Conspiracy fiction. Good consipiracy fiction. Not The Da Vinci Code. Think more along the lines of Foucault's Pendulum, Illuminatus!, and The Crying of Lot 49. Good science fiction and fantasy by people like Mieville, Gaiman, and Orson Scott Card. Fiction with lots of commentary on religion, like The Screwtape Letters, His Dark Materials, and various things by Kahlil Gibran. Dystopias-I've read and enjoyed the classic ones, but haven't gotten much further. Works of philosophy and religious theory are cool too, but please don't bring up Eliade unless you want to give me apoplexy. I like comics a lot, but not most superhero comics. Transmetropolitan is amazing, as is Lolita and everything Umberto Eco and Ken Kesey ever wrote.

(Movies)Epics like Lawrence of Arabia, Seven Samurai, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings. Movies about heroin, especially Trainspotting. Spaghetti Westerns, especially if they have Clint Eastwood in them. Zombie movies, especially 28 Days Later and Wild Zero (the latter: the greatest Japanese Rock 'n Roll zombie movie ever made). I mostly go for dramas, but there are some pretty good comedies too, and it has been said that my life is essentially one drawn-out Big Lebowski reference. (Video Games) Xenogears, Xenosaga, Planescape: Torment, Starcraft, the Civilization series. I mostly play these things for the stories.

(Music)A whole bunch of things; I like some genres more than others, but I like something in pretty much all of them. If I have a focus, it's probably the more eclectic side of classic rock, though I'm pretty fond of Celtic Punk and anything epic (especially O Fortuna). I'm not snobby about music, and tend to have a low tolerance for those who are.

My tastes in food are pretty boring. I'm a vegetarian, but not for ethical reasons, and I tend to eat bland food. A large part of my diet these days is comprised of protein bars. Also, Fuji apples and anything with hummus, both of which are like unto small, highly appetizing gods.

People. Both in the sense of close friends, and the random crowds of semi-acquaintances that filter in and out of my life. I go a little weird when I'm not around people for a while. Well, a little weirder. I really like and need human contact and affection.

Books. Light of my life, fire of my loins (papercuts have never been more terrifying), my sin, my soul. Including but not limited to the one I just paraphrased. For better or worse, they kinda own my life.

Hope, specifically hope for my own happiness in this world, as I don't believe in an afterlife, reincarnation, etc. Better to make a heaven of this world, as it's all we get.

The rest I can mostly go without if such becomes necessary. Anyway, I know that's not six, but six is an arbitrary number, and I'm choosing to ignore it.

Many things. I spend a lot of time in my own head. And other people's heads, if you will. As far as more academic topics go, I tend to think about philosophy and sociology a lot, but logic, history and theology are all popular topics for me as well. I also spend a lot of time thinking about my personal life and those of my friends. The number of women on this site who list their breasts as the first thing people notice about them, and what this may mean (don't tell me this doesn't mean anything; everything means something to someone). And the difference between a duck.

I think a lot about video games as an art form, and the relevance of Ignatius of Loyola and Elvis Costello to my life. I used to do a lot of grandiose speculating on the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, but these days I try to keep my topics a bit narrower, if only because it's so hard to come to any interesting or original conclusions about the bigger things. Still, I can't help but come up with the occasional General Theory of Everything, and "Head in the clouds, body in a bucket" fits me pretty well as far as descriptions go.

Doing things in places with people at times!

Partying, usually. I'm a social butterfly like that, and I go crazy if I don't get my people fix. If I'm not at a party, I'm probably taking it easy, hanging out with my flatmate or various other friends. Or perhaps I'm sitting in my room, grinning manically, gesturing messianically, and listening to 'O Fortuna,' 'Promised Plan,' 'Tribute,' 'The Kilburn High Road,' or the like, (because most music just isn't apocalyptic enough). Heaven help me, I might even be doing schoolwork, or practicing my poi.

I'm something of a trendy bisexual. It's as if I'm one of those women who kiss other women at parties to get men's attention, only the genders are reversed (trendy bisexuality is a phenomenon that needs to get more play among men). Okay, and some guys kiss really well. Okay, I'm in a state of perpetual confusion about my sexuality, but I don't mind, because I'm okay with being straight or bi (and generally identify as heteroflexible). I would be okay with identifying gay, too, except for the fact that it would involve denying my attraction to women. I don't really do long-term relationships with men, but I won't say no to fooling around, given the right circumstances and guy. Anyway, it's not like I'm looking for a long-term relationship with anyone at this point. I also love that the vast majority of Reed students don't judge one based on one's sexuality.

Once, when I was in middle school, I awoke from a dream crying out "Oh Marmalade Tea, your lips are so juicy!" I've never been entirely certain what to make of this.

I get really lonely sometimes, and much as I've cultivated self-confidence in the last few years, I seldom think of myself as good enough for the people around me. If I recall correctly, I think the former (the loneliness, that is) was why I got this account in the first place. Granted, it's grown like a cancer since then, but that was the original purpose.

If you're going to be in the DC area in late December/early January and want to entertain me and introduce me to your friends. I'll be back there visiting my family, and I know almost no-one there at this point.

Something I say here really catches your interest. You think everything is important all the time, and find life and the world really effing interesting. If some tidbit among this collection of tidbits feels meaningful to you.

You want at my hot, hot mind, my hot, hot body, or possibly some combination of the two. You think I'm a veritable latter-day James Bond with an order of Plasocristotle on the side. Stop laughing. It could happen.

I'm open to mind-to-mind contact over the internet (or mind-to-social sphere-to-mind), meeting on platonic or amorous grounds in person, and pretty much everything in between. I like meeting and talking to people, and I'm open to conversation on lots of different topics, many but not all of which I've mentioned on here.