If you asked me to go to space and live on the moon or Mars or some distant planet, I would say yes. Like immediately. I love long subway rides and short mountain hikes, art I can't make sense of and literature that incenses me. I take pictures, mostly of people, and I write, mostly about places. Someone once told me that I have the mind of an editor but the heart of a poet — occasionally a troubling combination. I miss having science classes every day. I have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, though I feel like I still have a long way to go. I've lived and traveled abroad in Asia, and I plan to go back soon. I want to help save the world, and I think that journalism may be the best tool I have to do that. But really, I'd rather be Batman.

Graduated with a degree not in journalism but looking to be a journalist nonetheless. Doing some freelance writing/editing/reporting for magazines and blogs while I poke at working on my fiction. Working out the details of moving back to India and Nepal for a couples years. In the meantime I'm on the lookout for new friends, new adversaries, new sparring partners and new partners in crime.

This month I'm writing my first NaNoWriMo novel! A cyberpunk, high school, hard-boiled detective story!

Swapping text message poetry and Facebook status wisdom. Dueling with alliteration and with karate chops. Helping people through meltdowns. Coming up with band names.

I have a Howard Roark-like hero complex towards other people's prose: I feel compelled to save is, fix it, tweak it towards perfection. Send me your papers, your manuscripts, rough draft anything. I'll edit it; I won't be able to help myself.

I always win at hammocks.

Who can know what odd observations occur to others when at first making my acquaintance? My powers are many, but mind reader I'm not.

Hazard a guess: my height (six foot three). Second guess: my slim stature (quite slim). I come from a long line of tall, thin people. Third guess? There is a 75% chance that I will overdress for any given casual occasion. I secretly love doing this this.

Lupe Fiasco, Saul Williams, Sage Francis, Kid Cudi, Gym Class Heroes, early Kanye (okay, later Kanye too), mashups of early Jay-Z, Jean Grae, Eminem, Common (when he doesn't use similes), selected Talib Kwali, Atmosphere, Aesop Rock, classic Wu Tang and Biggie and Nas (if I'm in the right mood), MC Hawking (soft spot for science), Lady Gaga and Katy Perry (a bit guiltily), Lil Wayne (increasingly less guiltily). I enjoy indie rock and find it occasionally informs my fashion choices, but hip-hop will always have my soul.

Movies? I could start with the basics (Fight Club, Memento, Kill Bill, Brick), or dive right into the nerdiest of the pack (Serenity, Batman Begins, The Incredibles, Lord of the Rings). Every time I try to come back to this list, however, I worry that I've left out too many of the classics (Back to the Future, The Godfather parts I and II, Dr. Strangelove, Indiana Jones, Silverado), modern masterpieces (Hot Fuzz, 500 Days of Summer, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind), or odd personal obsessions (Ocean's Twelve, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Man On Fire, Speed Racer, the second half of Death Proof, Om Shanti Om). And then I delete the whole list out of embarrassment over a few socially unacceptable picks (I'm looking at you, Matrix sequels!).

Writers I want to be like: Neil Gaiman, Hunter S. Thompson, Neal Stephanson, Charles Stross, Warren Ellis, William Gibson, Michael Chabon, Eduardo Galeano, Kurt Vonnegut, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Saul Williams, Lawrence Wright, Paul Berman, Terry Pratchett, JK Rowling, Geoff Manaugh, Hakim Bey, Jerry Holkins.

I'll take hard-boiled detective anything.

Braided pairs in no particular order:

Beats / Rhymes
Dreams / Schemes
Contemplation / Imagination
Mad grins / Maniacal laughter
Kicks / Blocks
Hips / Lips

Politics. Comic books. Sex. Smart and/or catchy hip-hop lyrics. Outer space. Relationship successes and failures. Mysterious places. Imaginary cities made of vines or aqueducts or giant robots. Tasty, tasty food, perhaps tender chicken in a cardamom curry or some sort of sweet noodle dish. Yum. Uh, where was I? Oh yes: Outer space. Stained-glass windows. The Internet. The treatment of women in the Muslim world. Did I mention outer space?

For a while I wanted to get one of those little voice recorders so I could whip it out at parties and say "idea for a novel" or "idea for a reflection on the base cruelty of man." But then I remembered that Alan Alda's character did that in Crimes and Misdemeanors, and he was kind of a jerk. So I decided against it.