I'm an ex-Mormon. I'm a pescatarian*, and I try to eat mostly organic, locally grown foods, but I'm also cynical about everything, especially fads, including these. I work out every day, always with an iPod in my ear playing audio books interspersed with music. Actually I spend about 1/3 of each day with an audio book in my ear (mostly at work or at the gym). I play racquetball and basketball and want to find a partner for racquetball and tennis. I love food. "Religiously", I'd call myself an agnostic pantheist...for now...if you want an ultra-simplified term for my thoughts on the nature of existence.

Here are some tid bits about me:

I'm always reading around 8 books (as well as 3-12 audio books) at a time, including one I keep next to the toilet and from which I read a little each time I use the restroom. Right now it's The Poisonwood Bible (I just finished Anna Karenina; long classics are good candidates for my toilet books). I also keep a dictionary and a dictionary of word origins next to the toilet at all times.

I love routines.

I just got the greatest compliment the other day. A close friend of mine told me that she joined a "word of the day" program because of me. I love words. :]

Though I just took a blogthing quiz that told me I'm 50%/%50 (though I'd say I'm about 60%/40%) right-brained/left-brained, which make sense because I'd say my dad is about 90%/10% and my mom is about 30%/70%. I can't help my interest in blogthing quizzes, astrology, etc. They're interesting.

I play video games every now and then, mostly old school ones from my childhood or that time period. I could allow myself to really get into the newer ones (and I do every now and then for shorts bursts), but they're too addictive and time consuming for my tastes.

I recently started a blog, well several blogs now because I'm addicted to list-making: Click here to get to my profile.

*Most of the time.

Right now I mentor people to get their licenses to become insurance salespersons. It's just a job, but I get to work from home, which gives me time to do the things I actually care about/invest in my human capital. Eventually I want to become a professional writer. It's a time in my life for travel. I just uprooted myself from Dallas to Orlando (yes, I'm actually here now). From here I plan to move to NY next. That's right.

I'm a jack of many trades.

When you first meet me, I usually come off as a bit odd, but you quickly learn to love it. Several people have compared me to Dexter - I'm not sure how to take that.

Books: Back When we were Grownups; Cat's Cradle; well, pretty much all KV; Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe; Mormon America; Where the Girls Are; Watership Down; The Power of Now; She's Come Undone; Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them; To Kill a Mockingbird; Curious George goes to the Hospital; a lot of C.S. Lewis; Card's Ender series; all of David Sedaris' books; Skinny Bitch; Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman; Letter to a Christian Nation; You Are Here; The Thirteen American Arguments; Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs; Candy; A Million Little Pieces; Naked Economics...

Movies: Bobby; Me, You, and Everyone We Know; Girl, Interrupted; Adaptation; Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion; Memento; Strangers with Candy; How to Make and American Quilt; Closer; Little Miss Sunshine; V for Vendetta; Imagine Me & You; Love, Actually; The Family Stone; The Little Mermaid; Reign Over Me; Hamlet 2; Monster (but it's too disturbing too ever watch again); Mr. Holland's Opus; Control Room; I have just learned to appreciate Quentin Tarantino through Natural Born Killers, and now I think I need to go give his other movies another chance with my new mindset...update: turns out I really like Pulp Fiction now. Life is crazy.

TV Shows: Six Feet Under, Reno 911, Friends, ALIAS, The Office, Grey's Anatomy, South Park, Buffy, 30 Rock

Music: I'm always looking for more music. Feel free to make suggestions. Really good musicals (e.g. Les Miserables, Wicked, Into the Woods, Jekyll and Hyde), The Beatles, Björk, Coheed and Cambria, Damien Rice, Garth Brooks, Johnny Cash, Kanye West, Missy Higgins, Nina Simone, Rascal Flatts, Simon & Garfunkel, Third Eye Blind, TOOL, The Weepies

At various points in my life I have gained varying degrees of competency with the piano, handbells, the oboe, the recorder (hell yeah 4th grade!), and a whole bunch of percussive instruments. Having even a cursory understanding of something greatly expands my ability to appreciate it, so I find my eclecticism serves me well. To each his own, bitches.

Also, as much as I love music, I've recently come to discover that the only concerts I can really enjoy are the ones with seats (that people actually sit in...the whole time, yes), preferably ones that have been assigned either at purchase or admission. Odd as it may seem, I don't really end up enjoying the kind that would require me to spend about $35 on the 5 beers it would take to make me forget how badly my feet hurt, if I were actually willing to pay that much for Bud Light. Furthermore, people are assholes.

Food: Sushi, Tom Kha soup...mmm most soups, really. Anything with avocadi (I looked this up, and it is the hypercorrect spelling, as Wikipedia article puts it) involved. I love food. Oh and smoothies - I make an almond milk, fruit smoothie pretty much every day. I collect menus from every restaurant to which I go, and every time I order anything, I write my opinion on the menu. Soon I think I'm going to make a website through which I share this with the world.

These are the flavor words that "get me" right now, make me happy, make me drawn to their corresponding products, give me a little dopamine, you know:

Cilantro, chipotle, mango, papaya, any uncommon cheese, coconut milk, curry, pesto, more will come to me...

Alan Watts, Bobby Kennedy. John Lennon, Bill Hicks, Chuck Klosterman, George Carlin, Kurt Vonnegut, David Sedaris, wittingly choosing to ignore rules with which I don't agree

how to strike the best balance between my left and right hemispheres. Using the left one to try to shut the left one up is pretty difficult though...gotta listen to even more Eckhart Tolle obviously...hah.

Also:

psychology, neuroscience, music, women, history, philosophy, theology, religion, physics, metaphysics, nutrition, saving the human race...or not, film, ideas, language, etymology, linguistics literature, art, sociology, lesbianism, sexuality, feminism, drugs, the mind, the body, yin and yang, semantic technology, postmodernism, lists...

What gives me the most joy in life is probably finding words and terms that encapsulate immense amounts of meaning, realizing how more and more efficiently these things can be spoken about, and finding people who know how to use the words so that I can have these conversations with people other than myself.

Some things I've learned:

Telling the truth (you know, like, the actual truth) makes you way more interesting and better to know than always trying to present yourself in they way you want people to think of you when it isn't true.

Pretending you already know everything inhibits a lot of learning you could be doing.

enjoying the best thing available to me that night. Sometimes this means 30 Rock on instant Netflix of course.

I'm just going to take this opportunity to say how lame I think it is when people use this box (or any of the others, for that matter) to coyly allude to their sexual prowess.

Oh, I thought of something I might "admit". I realize this could turn a lot of lesbians off from me, but, at least thus far, I don't really like The Dresden Dolls, the musical Rent (well, at least not the movie version), I think Ani DiFranco is just okay...I feel like I'm missing a couple of people I should mention...

This isn't embarrassing, but I'm told it's weird: I have a strong and persistent desire to be able to cut open my entire body, explore it, massage it from the insides, cut parts, rip parts out, all the while feeling it from the inside while seeing it from above. Every time I'm getting a massage, all I can think it how it's not deep enough, can never be deep enough, until I can get inside...

Something I can't stand: women calling their husbands their "hubby".

you have something in common with me, preferably, and/or if you have a movie, book, or music suggestion, preferably a specific one. If you feel like stumbling was made for you and that TED.com was one of the most exciting things to happen to you lately.

I really want to meet people who just want to go out to eat at interesting, new, and/or delicious restaurants, people who want to try new beer and/or wine with me, people who want to talk about all sorts of things, people who want to go to a cafe with me and our laptops and write, occasionally chatting with each other about one things or another...that's what I want...

I have a lot of prejudices (as we all do). For instance, I will have a negative perception of you if you list Carnivale, Serenity/Firefly, or Twilight in your favorite tv shows/movies list. Or if you can't admit/realize that Butterfinger Crunches are just as important as free trade certified 85% cacao mango chili dark chocolate bars.

Some (most?) of the people online are a little bit insane. I've indicated on my profile I'm here for new friends, and this is not a clever ploy meant to make me seem more unattainable. Of course you never know what might develop, but I am not actively seeking a relationship or sex. Just so I'm not remiss in my duties (if you will) concerning your feelings, please know that my talking to you in no way necessarily implies any romantic interest in you. Also, my using an "internet dating site" doesn't mean I'm into over the top flirting and downright exclamations of love and adoration in the first conversation or any time before we've ever even met for that matter (again, I say some (most?) of you are insane. Try being a smidge withholding!).