I don't know why people crave final answers and certainty. Nobody wants to go into a physical space and stay there for their entire life. They want to move around and see different things. So why don't they feel that way about mental spaces?

I'm always curious and I arrange my life to have plenty of free time to think and write about all kinds of stuff, from mainstream politics and science to the far fringes. Religiously, I act like a Taoist and think like a Fortean: the universe merges off into infinite weirdness. I think that objective truth is a mental construct of limited usefulness, and that reality itself has the structure of a dream. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, I often wonder whose dream it is, and whether they are enjoying it.

I'm youthful because I still remember what it was like to be a kid. A friend once told me that I look at the world as if I've never seen it before... but I never have seen it before! Life is like a bird flying through a house, and I feel like I only flew in here a moment ago and I'm still trying to figure it out.

I love cooking, especially pies and fermented food. I do kombucha and lots of sprouting, and when I'm settled in a kitchen the countertops are cluttered with ingredients and projects. I enjoy physical messiness, as long as it reduces labor and enhances use value, and when it doesn't, for example with dishes, I like to clean things instantly. I love making filthy things somewhat clean, but no further.

I'm not good at body language, not socially dominant, and I seem to have negative seduction skills. But I came out normal on the Autism spectrum test. I can be witty, cry at movies, and be physically affectionate after I'm comfortable with someone.

Ideally I'm looking for a tree-climbing, bug-eating, tangle-haired dork who likes sex in the morning and wants to live off-grid. But I'm open to anyone who is easy to get along with and appreciates me as a partner. There are different kinds of love and I think the best kind develops over time. Most important is synergy: whatever good paths we would walk if we were single, we walk them more easily together.

I think industrial civilization is in permanent slow collapse, so I'm learning useful skills and buying tools, and I have ten acres north of Spokane where I'm very slowly learning to grow an orchard and build a cabin. Also I have a website (ranprieur.com) with a few thousand readers, and loads of stuff you can read to know me better. In a pinch I could make money from it, but I try to stay outside the money economy as much as possible.

Politically I'm pretty much an anarchist, which is like a libertarian who can see that accumulations of private wealth are even scarier than government. I dodge rent by housesitting and traveling, but I don't drain anyone financially -- in fact I'll support you, because the more you hang out with me, the less money you'll spend! Although I have a truck, I consider it a sign of weakness, and I'd rather arrange my life to not need one.

I can bake pies and cakes with no recipe, lube all the bearings on your bicycle, clean the moldy stuff from your fridge, edit your dissertation, and have trippy philosophy conversations without drugs.

In winter, that I'm wearing an ungodly number of layers with the collars and sleeves messed up. In summer, that I'm barefoot.

Books: I love postapocalypse fiction and sci-fi about the messy distant future. Lately I've read lots of Philip Reeve, and I've always loved Gene Wolfe, Philip K. Dick, and Roger Zelazny. In non-ficton, I read permaculture and homesteading reference books.

Movies: Brazil, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Wages of Fear, The Conversation, The Third Man, Man Bites Dog, Ms.45, Point Break, Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia, Meet the Feebles, Desperate Living, Safe, Hard Boiled, Metropolitan, Serenity, Repo Man, The President's Analyst.

Music: Hawkwind, Gordon Lightfoot, Beat Happening, Camper Van Beethoven, R.E.M., Godspeed You Black Emperor, Neutral Milk Hotel, Galaxie 500, The Muffs, Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, Queen, early Genesis, Big Star, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, The Ramones.

Food: gravy, meat drippings, pie, raw dandelion flowers, sprouted wheat, sourdough. Ethiopian food is perfect: it's on sourdough bread, spicy, greasy, and you eat it with your hands!

Alone time, plenty of sleep, the internet unless nobody has it, wild or grass-fed meat, human company in moderation, and openings to explore.

...everything. But especially about how the world got this way, what better worlds are possible, and what weirder worlds might actually happen.

...oblivious to what day of the week it is, since I don't have a fixed schedule. I'm probably alternating between reading/writing stuff online and making/eating food.

When I'm going to sleep, I like to count up to 100 some things I would do if I had omnipotent power. I rarely make it past 20.

You dream of riding horses on the ruined freeways. You can beat me at Scrabble. You're an extreme N in Myers-Briggs. You would like to go for a leisurely bike ride, or help me build a cordwood hut, or you want an extra person for your game night. If you're not local, go ahead and message if you might visit or invite me to visit you. I go to Seattle a couple times a year and in the winter I can go anywhere.