I like to share adventures, wandering down side streets, exploring new places, sometimes just getting lost. I love discussion when it clicks--being playful, sarcastic, ironic; and I often talk to strangers. I enjoy listening to a wide range of music, from blues to country, goth to classical, and I often like just a couple of songs from an artist. My parents own an art gallery, so I can't escape an interest in the visual arts. I particularly enjoy painting and film--Sargent, Lucien Freud, Gustav Caillebotte; Amelie, Little Miss Sunshine, I Heart Huckabees, Sweet and Lowdown, Napoleon Dynamite, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Requiem for a Dream, Adventures of Baron Munchausen--and I am increasingly interested in literature (about time, for a writer:) )—William Faulkner particularly. My life passion is studying and sharing history and trying to understand it, especially the details of daily life in different eras. I have been studying the Civil War for some time, and am often captivated by little things like idioms, diet, popular jokes, etc. I write historical fiction, and my writing is all about the experience of war—how combat affects people, how battles transform the lives of people whose homes become battlefields.

Other stuff… I like Mac computers (no viruses!), I have a crazy tendency to collect books on things that interest me; I really relate to Erasmus: “When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.” I like to cook, and have recently been exploring homemade soups: Thai Hot and Sour and different kinds based on Japanese Dashi. I have a clean canteen, and I try my best to think of the environment, bringing a bevy of bags to the supermarket, recycling when I can, using public transit, walking wherever possible. I love learning about/seeing animals, and go to zoos wherever I visit. I have a special fondness for cats, otters, octopi, puffins, flying fox, wildebeest, komodo dragons, sea horses, killer whales, okapi, tapirs, rhinos… I have recently rediscovered gardening (I used to garden with my mother when I was a kid), and have been growing vegetables and herbs in containers on my fire escape and looking forward to when I can actually work some real soil! I hate Ailanthus Altissima trees and will rant about them for as long as you want to hear: they don’t even make for good firewood!

I have begun to move from beer to wine, but I still like playing with mixology. I am a big Tetris fan and can play pretty much indefinitely without losing. I always play when I’m talking on the phone. I play tournament chess when I can, but it has a tendency to get in the way of my work, so sometimes I go into pseudo retirement. When I have the chance, I order unusual ice cream flavors: chai tea, cake batter, moose tracks, grasshopper pie. I like to travel, though writing my first book has limited my opportunities until now. I walk all the time, frequently many miles a day, and have found that Boston is so small you can pretty much get wherever you’re going on foot. I used to walk from Brighton to Arlington Heights occasionally… now I mostly just trek all over Cambridge and Somerville, and sometimes ride my bike (though I prefer riding on the Minuteman Bike Trail).

I believe heartily in Ambrose Bierce's observation that learning is the faculty that allows us to recognize mistakes when we make them again, so I try not to go head over heels with things in life, but just let them develop. In relationships, I like to share thoughts and feelings, humor, stories... I am not worried about finding something perfect, but hope to find some overlap, share in eccentricity, and enjoy another person’s company. Spontaneity is great, and novelty is what life is all about. I think it’s important to feel that friends and romantic partners have new things to bring to your life, new things to share that broaden your horizons, and I almost invariably find that a measure of playfulness is central to attraction.

I work as a writer of historical fiction. My first novel has a full draft completed, and I'm in the editing stages and (deep breath), hopefully will be agent hunting come the fall!

I am literally one of the best tetris players in the world, and sadly I have the high scores to prove it. When I take an interest in something--exotic fruits, obscure mammals--I become immersed and devour information. I've mastered vegetarian chili and still working on perfecting my Thai curries.

I have been told a few times this month that my earring makes me look like a pirate. (shrug and chuckle there.)

Faulkner looms large and Flannery O'Connor's stuff tickles me. In music... Leo Kottke, Leonard Cohen (esp. the Future), Gordon Lightfoot, Delbert McClinton, Clint Black, Norah Jones, Chris Thomas King, Clint Black, Danny Elfman, I like some Eminem and some Manson, Garbage, Josh White, Tony Joe White, Natalie Cole, and I love love love Mozart's 25th Symphony! For food; Dragonfruit, Thai Chicken Coconut soup and Hot and Sour, Chili, Key Lime Pie, Pork Tenderloin with apricots, Granola, Plum Pudding... I could go on.

1. Reading material of some sort, esp. access to history books 2. A good friend with whom I can really talk

... I'm sure I could stop there and survive.

3. Wikipedia
4. Rich, dark, black coffee
5. My leather coat (a second skin I've had since I was thirteen)
6. Expanses of nature: greenery, woods or mountains or the seashore--someplace real and vibrant and living that feels distinctly of the earth.

Aphids in the garden; whether hobnails would bite through the soles of 19th century shoes; how many rural farmhouses in the 1860s had both sitting rooms and dining rooms versus just sitting rooms; what kinds of conditions I would have to create in my apartment to grow a dragonfruit tree... You know, all the usual stuff ;-P.

I'm not a creature of routine. Some nights I cook a several-course, themed dinner or go for a nice long walk and try to avoid mosquitos. Sometimes it's a good night for an ice cream. Sometimes I feel a blast of mental wind and I ride it and go back to work for the night. Sometimes my roommate and I sit up for a rowdy round of scrabble or boggle.

you are considering messaging me.