I'm 39, 6'8", geeky, built like a brick wall, and shave my head regularly. I haven't done anything with theater in the recent past, although a few years back I did "A Christmas Cactus" at the Renton Civic Theater, and prior to that I played the Executioner in SD Opera's production of Turandot. I like too many things to list here, and dislike very few. If you like doing something, I'll like doing it with you. Personal favorites include indoor rock climbing, hiking, singing, reading, and letting friends bend my ear and cry on my shoulder (or doing the same to them).

I'm only working one job right now (but looking for moonlighting work as a programmer), raising three wonderful children (two daughters and a son), and focusing on improving my physical health. I NO LONGER have a broken spine, following surgery last November, and am now working to lose my remaining 72 pounds of unnecessary weight. If you're looking for a workout buddy, let me know!

I'm actively working to simplify my life, solve problems rather than avoid them, and create a stable and secure environment for myself and my family. I'm hoping to start dating a little more as the constraints on my time get easier. I'm in no great hurry, though, as my romantic life is almost absurdly happy right now.

I have a wife (mewho), a whatnot (keefulsqueeful), a 16-year-old daughter, a 5-year-old daughter, a 2-year-old son, another girlfriend (gramina), several other girlfriends for whom I do not at present have links, and two very cute cats. I'm polyamorous (as you might have guessed), vaguely bisexual, and sex-positive. And I'm deeply, vastly interested in loving people (or, as my wife points out, in loving people).

I am giant, adorable, and brilliant

Learning to relax. Measuring by telomerase levels and telomere length, people who perceive themselves as chronically stressed are 17 years older than people who do not. So I've decided to perceive myself as lucky and safe and powerful and happy, rather than as chronically stressed. It's a nice change.

I'm also learning to drive more slowly and carefully. It fits well with the whole "learn to relax" motif. And will probably save me another 17 years in the long run.

My current health goals: sleep normal hours, exercise regularly, and eat healthy (or, as my whatnot insists, "healthful") food. My long-term health goals: 15% body fat and lots of muscles. My medium-term health goal is "220 by 12/20/2012: Thin by the End of the World[tm]". Whee! Watch me go!

I used to be mostly vegan, but have had to give that up at least temporarily due to the need to lose a great deal of weight very quickly (110 lbs and counting). I found that I wasn't able to get as much protein as I needed without also getting so many carbs that I couldn't lose weight. I don't know what I'm going to do about this long-term. I am violently opposed to, and yet currently complicit in, the unspeakable suffering visited on farm animals by our "factory farming" agriculture. I was able to maintain my weight quite well on a vegan-plus-certified-humane-eggs diet, while improving my general health, so once I have lost my excess weight (175 pounds total) I may be able to switch back.

Even when I was mostly vegan, it was because of moral objections to the ways we treat animals, not because of moral objections to the abstract concept of raising animals for consumption. I am (at this point) comfortable eating cruelty-free animal products -- it's just exceptionally hard to find them in our society, and they're more expensive than my budget currently permits. If my mythical Rich Uncle handed me a million dollars, I'd go back to eating cruelty-free meat in a heartbeat, and gladly give up the variety of flavors available via mainstream agribusiness in order to know that I wasn't paying for animals to be tortured.

The above is subject to change. I periodically contemplate raising an animal myself, and then eating it, and I'm not sure that's something I could do. Moral honesty forces me to acknowledge that, if I couldn't do it myself, it's wrong to pay someone else to do it -- so if I conclude that I couldn't do that myself, I'll have to give up cruelty-free meat as well. On the other hand, I'd be perfectly happy to raise chickens and eat their eggs, so humanely raised and harvested eggs are probably on my menu to stay, even if I become otherwise fully vegan. I'd say the same about dairy products, except that I have yet to find a single source willing to certify that any dairy products are cruelty-free. Which may say something about market pressures or something about the intrinsic nature of dairy farming -- I don't actually know.

Language. Programming. Massage. Listening. Sex. Finger-picking. Cooking. Writing extemporaneous parodies ("insta-filking"). Doing embarrassing things in public. Kaizen. Raising smart, sane kids. Learning. Improvising mechanical fixes ("MacGyvering"). Troubleshooting. Guitar Hero. Acquiring and teaching mental and emotional tools for healthy living. Making you feel like the center of my universe.

I'm moderately good at a lot of other things, but these are what I specialize in.

I'm tall. I talk much too fast. I have big hands. I'm really fucking tall. I shave my head. I use big words (Eschew sesquipedalian verbiage when diminutive alternatives suffice!) Did I mention I'm tall?

The first thing people notice about my personality is often that they feel anomalously comfortable telling me things. I've had people interrupt themselves in the middle of a story to look at me in bemusement, say "I can't believe I'm telling you this!", and go right back to finishing the story. This makes me inordinately happy.

Favorites? I am enthusiasm! Give me them all!

Lois McMaster Bujold. C.S. Lewis. e e cummings Isaac Asimov. Isaiah. Ursula K. LeGuin.

Memento. The Incredibles. Johnny Depp. Star Wars 4, 5, and 6. Harrison Ford.

Barenaked Ladies. Edie Brickell. Suzanne Vega. Ozzy Osbourne. Ani DiFranco. Chess. Sondheim. Phil Ochs. Verdi. The Bloodhound Gang. Billy Joel. Tears for Fears. Jonathan Coulton. Elliott Smith. Leonard Cohen. Amanda Palmer/The Dresden Dolls. Mendelssohn's "Elijah".

Without guilt: anything with sauteed garlic and onions, mushrooms, fresh vegetables, mangos, amaranth, barley, homemade bread. With guilt: steak, butter, cheese (especially Rosenborg Blue). No longer eaten: anything with sugar in it, especially if it contains both sugar and fat.

Depends entirely on the partner, but usually kneeling between her legs with my weight forward on my hands. Or on my back, with her lying close against me, my hands rubbing her back. With the women it works with, her lying on her stomach with me straddling her hips. Lying between her legs, my mouth on her pussy; my hands holding hers, or stroking her stomach, or cradling her hips.

Hawaii. Yosemite. Pine woods. Creeks and rivers. Pocket-sized islands. My garden. Seattle!

Blue jeans. Black t-shirts, with or without words and pictures. Combat boots or sneakers. Bright pink t-shirts with Mickey Mouse on them, and jeans. Black sweaters. A dark gray suit with a white shirt and a red silk tie with tiny bunnies all over it.

Stupid necessities list: oxygen, potable water, essential nutrients, appropriate warmth, bearable levels of external stimuli, my own thoughts.

Interesting "central needs" list: hugs, my children, intimate friendships, lovemaking, useful work, health.

I'm reminded of a prayer from one of Ursula K. LeGuin's stories: "Health and good work, courage, patience, peace, to [person]." Repeat for everyone you care about, and then for your enemies.

That's what I could never do without. Health and good work, courage, patience, and peace.

The previous question here was "If you could trade bodies with someone, who would it be?" My answer was:

George W. Bush. Because there's very little harm he could do in my body, but I could do a great deal of good in his body.

I'm not sure I could resist the temptation to have hot gay sex on the White House lawn, however. That would be a tough one.

But what do I spend a lot of time thinking about? Lately, about children, my life goals and emotional needs, permanence, dependence vs. inter-dependence vs. independence, and security.

At work, finishing up my 40 hours; then, on a date or vegging out at home with the computer.

On a typical night, lately, I've been going on dates or curling up at home with one of my lovers. Or spending time with friends I haven't seen in a while, or going to see the Nutcracker, or doing a couple of extra hours of work, or...

I guess I don't really have a typical night. Used to be that my typical night looked like "play a lot of World of Warcraft until I can finally fall asleep at 4:00 am." But now that I can fall asleep at more sensible hours between 10:00 pm and 2:00 am (preferably toward the beginning of that range), I end up doing a lot more with my evenings.

If you want to know private things about me from a couple of years ago, read my LiveJournal (http://meowse.livejournal.com/). I haven't been update it lately, though, at all -- so if you want to know private things about me now, message me or talk with me. I'll answer basically anything, and you'll never offend me by asking.

Private? Hmmm. Oh, man. I have to say, after years of masturbation without lube, I'm totally enjoying using lube now. It requires entirely different paces and motions, but it's really nice.

But private? That's a tough one. It's so easy to fall into, "I'll say something about sex, and then everyone will see what a devilishly self-revelatory fellow I am," but honestly my sex life is one of the least private things about me.

It's difficult, because honestly, I'll answer pretty much any question anyone asks me. I can't think of anything I keep private, at the moment--and certainly not anything that would entertain and amuse the average reader.

Hah! Got it! If there's something private you'd like to see answered here--send me an email asking, and I will edit this to include the answer to your question (anonymously, so have no fear of asking).

I had the above request up for a long time (over a year), and not one person had asked me a private question. For quite a while, the most private thing I was willing to admit here was that I was miffed that nobody cared about my secrets.

But in the past couple of months, five people have asked me private questions, and I'm answering them and posting them here as I go.

Question 5(ish): "What do you not want to tell me?"

Oh, what a wonderfully incisive question! It's a variant of the question I worked out myself for similar situations: "What question would you least like me to ask you?" So, of course, I had to answer this one first.

The true answer is, "There are many things that I don't want to tell you." Which might seem odd, given my commitment to honesty and transparency--but I have that commitment precisely *because* there are so many things that I would really rather lie about, or just not say.

Things I don't want to tell you. Hmmm.

1. I feel fat, almost all of the time, and it sometimes makes me very self-conscious in bed with a new lover.
   
2. I'm far more affected by appearance than I'm comfortable with when it comes to evaluating people on OkCupid--I can actually observe my perception of people's profiles skew when I look at their pictures.
   
3. I second-guess, third-guess, and fourth-guess all of my internal mental strategies--including this one. I haven't yet decided if this keeps me from deceiving myself, or just wastes a lot of time on endless mental nattering.
   
4. I'm deeply, profoundly afraid of giving up the things I want in pursuit of being the person I want to be.
   
5. I'm really feeling lonely tonight.

You feel fascinated, intrigued, or curious. Even if you feel a little intimidated (I have that effect on some people, unfortunately).

You want a friend. You think I'm cute. You think I'm silly. You're cute. You're silly.

Just message me. I don't bite (unless you ask), and I'm not hard to please (insert gratuitous pun here)--I'll be thrilled to get your letter, and I'll hug you all over the place when I answer it.