My name is Richie and I always say please and thank you. I work retail selling shoes to people while going to graduate school part-time and I often show respect to others whether they deserve it or not. I'm a big fan of high-fives and I always smile at little children. I like listening to people talk and always try to hear them out, even if I think they're crazy. I like reading and have written a couple of short stories and poems that are forever in workshop-limbo. Speaking of, I enjoy my own poetic reality as I perceive it and I try to see the layers in everything. I like words and I think they are funny little things with too much power. I also think everything is pretty damn silly but everyone is always so serious about stuff. I'm not sure I know what I'm doing with my life but it keeps moving forward so I'm hoping everything turns out swell. I'm just doing "it", and hopefully all's well that ends well. Monkeys typing Shakespeare, right?

This "self"-summary is full of "I"s for a reason.

Started graduate school in January at UNT where I will be working on getting my Masters of Library Science degree online. I'm taking it slow and steady since I rushed my way through my undergrad years and I also have to focus on "the real world" stuff.

People are often confused and/or incredulous that "Library Science" exists, but it is an actual field of study. Librarians are more than just old ladies wearing glasses telling people to be quiet. It is a profession seeking to organize knowledge in a manner relative to technological progress. "Keepers of knowledge" and "information mercenaries" are whimsical descriptions. Everything that is recorded is an information object that can be organized in a coherent and hopefully intuitive system.

I have a Bachelor's degree in Religious Studies which I never fully utilized or planned around. However, one of the last courses I took was on Papyrology and Palaeography, which introduced me to the world of Digital Image Archiving. Essentially, in this age we live in, important artifacts/documents are finding themselves archived in high resolution images on easily searchable well-organized databases.

The course of study I will be pursuing during my education in the Library Science program is that of Digital Imaging. I hope to make my Bachelor's degree relevant again by finding myself working in Rare Books Archiving.

Word games and being nice to people. I'm also good at keeping up with conversation, and just being someone easy to speak to. I'm very nonjudgmental and honestly care less about the mistakes you make. I like to make people feel like they won't or can't be wrong around me. I'm a good person to share stories with and tell secrets to, because I will never breach a promise to keep a secret.

My idea of heaven is that when you die, people will have nothing bad to say about you and share their stories of how awesome you were because you were an overall nice guy. Sure, they'll feel a little emptier that you're gone, but paradoxically, if you've done your job right, and you've lived your life well, you'll leave them feeling as if that emptiness is caused only by the hole you filled in their life.

I'm also really good at having bizarre dreams and remembering them.

I don't take myself very seriously. And I'm very serious about that. I'm not sure which they usually notice though.

Of course, by not taking myself very seriously I mean that in a non-dramatic sense. I can be clumsy, inarticulate, rambling, goofy, and overall generally awkward. But I don't care, because I don't have to. I embrace the fool and the foolish.

Literature:
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe; Siddartha by Herman Hesse; Transmission by Hari Kunzru; Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid; The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid; The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje; The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo; Journey to the West, or Monkey by Wu Cheng'en; The Stranger by Albert Camus; Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk; The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson; The Maltese Falcon by Dashiel Hammett; Donkey Gospel by Tony Hoagland (Poetry), The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith

Movies:
The Coen Bros, Tarantino, Wes Anderson, Charlie Kaufmann, Zombies, Anything Over-the-Top, Documentaries, World War II Flicks, Simon Pegg

Television:
Lost, The Office (US), Parks and Recreation, Community, Arrested Development, Firefly, Party Down, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Workaholics, South Park, Futurama, Archer, Adventure Time, Regular Show

Music:
The Beta Band, Air, Radical Face, Electric President, Tunng, Die Antwoord, This Will Destroy You, Youth Lagoon, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Feist, Cake, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, The Flaming Lips, Queen, Kid Cudi, Busdriver, Hank Williams III; Classic Rock, Folk Music, Electronic Music, Classical Music, World Music; (Guilty Pleasures): Journey/Kansas/Foreigner and Adele

Food:
I will literally eat anything (in a figurative sense, of course). Even if I initially think, "I probably won't like this." F that, I'm trying it. Especially if it's spicy in any way. My favorite drink is root beer.

Hot Sauce

Root Beer

Bedroom Slippers

Inside Jokes

Metaphors

Being able to look Up

"Am I thinking, or am I talking to myself?"

The above is at times a legitimate concern. Though a very light one. I wish I could say it was my biggest problem, but I, like many in my peer group, am a student in Debt (with a capital D).

I wonder how much I would write if this section were titled: "I spend a lot of time over-analyzing (the following things):".

But I do that because it's fun. Life is a jungle gym made out of intangible bars. You gotta work your way around a lot of crazy things sometimes, and often times you find yourself sitting there wondering if you should climb up from the inside, or start on the outside and come in diagonally.

at work closing, which means I'm cleaning up the mess that people make when they refuse my help in trying to locate the shoes they're looking for. But it's okay, I'm not mad, this is what I signed up for.

Ya know, apparently.

My favorite color is purple. It's not really that private, but it's something I can admit here, I don't see why not.

you're a little bit on the silly side. Don't be so serious. Or do, I'm game.

if you're fast, thorough, and sharp as a tack. also, if you have the right allocations.