Issuing supreme power to you...one moment.

My self-summary Propose an edit

Overall I'm a very playful person. I absolutely love banter and debates and analyzing things in general. I'm pretty intensely interested in the people and situations around me, but I tend to step back and observe rather than interact which seems to lead some people to mistakingly think I'm aloof.

While labels are bad and all that, I identify pretty strongly with being a textbook INTP. The descriptions are... scary.

What I'm doing with my life Propose an edit

I've recently begun a year of service with AmeriCorps VISTA. I'm working for a nonprofit in Baltimore which provides services to families in the area pursuing economic self-sufficiency. I deliberately went out of my comfort zone by moving to a new city where I didn't know anyone and by choosing to work with an extremely small organization in need of restructuring. I think I'm definitely going to grow as a person- I just hope I'm able to make a tangible difference in this world of ours.

I'm trying to make this a proactive time in my life. I've been in quite a rut and it's time to push through and get on with my life. I guess right now I'm struggling to become an 'adult'. Degree, career, maybe a white-picket fence and a dog to take hiking. All that jazz.

I'm really good at Propose an edit

Banter! I'm apparently also really good at making sarcastic/joking remarks sound like everything else I say, so... If you think I'm making fun of you, it's light-hearted and it means I like you. Glad that's out of the way.

I used to play trumpet semi-professionally and I'm picking that up again.

It would seem that I'm really good at the whole cooking thing.

The first thing(s) people usually notice about me Propose an edit

I have no idea.

My favorite books, movies, music, and food Propose an edit

I'm a little bit of a used book fanatic, so I tend to read whatever happens to look interesting- I doubt I actually go somewhere to buy a specific book more than a few times a year.I'm open to pretty much every style and genre so long as it's well-written and meaningful. I have to be careful with existentialism, though: too much of it makes me all weird.

Off the top of my head, some favorite books throughout the years have been: Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates (Tom Robbins), Snow Crash (Neil Stephenson), Running with Scissors (Augusten Burroughs),Ishmael (Daniel Quinn), American Gods (Neil Gaiman), The Club Dumas (Arturo Pérez-Reverte. The book The Ninth Gate was based on) ,The World According to Garp (John Irving) and On The Road. I know there are many many more, but I cant' really think of what. I'm up for pretty much anything by John Irving, I really love old German authors (Goethe, Hesse, all the fun stuff), I like philosophy that's thinly veiled as fiction (Daniel Quinn, Camus, etc.). I'll pretty much read anything so long as it's well written and somewhat meaningful.

I'm pretty much the same way with movies, except I can't stand action movies. Hot Fuzz being the one and only exception. I watch a lot of documentaries and indy comedies, with lots of other stuff thrown in. Random list of movies I've been infatuated with at some point: Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Donnie Darko, Igby Goes Down, anything by Kevin Smith, anything Coen Brothers, Amelie, The House of Yes, The House of Fools, Goodbye Lenin, Run Lola Run,Schultze Gets the Blue... I'm drawing a blank, but I love myself a good movie.

I don't really listen to music (gasp!). I'm really attracted to musicality, regardless of genre. I pretty much have NPR on all the time, but I actually kind of prefer the talk shows over the music. Phil Ochs is probably my favorite singer/songwriter, and besides that...

Currently on my mp3 player:
Alice Cooper, Anti-Flag, The Beatles, Bettye LaVette, Bill Hicks, Billie Holiday, Hedwig and the Angry Inch soundtrack, Keller Williams, Keller and the Keels, Mushroomhead, Parliment, Phil Ochs, Prozzak, Queen, The Ramones, Sam Bush, They Might Be Giants, Tom Waits, Toots and the Maytals, Wynton Marsalis.
I know that does help :) I'm weird.

I love food. While I'm not as involved as I should be, I'm really into the slow food movement. Basically if you use fresh, local, in-season ingredients, the only thing you have to do is not mess it up. That being said, I love almost all cuisines and look forward to special occasions when I can bang out a five course meal for friends and family. Day to day though, I try to stay as local and sustainable as possible.
Especially now that I live alone... I've pretty much been sticking to brown rice and beans and veggies with some assorted grains thrown in. Oh, and sriracha! Pretty boring.

The six things I could never do without Propose an edit

1) Food
2) Water
3) Shelter
4) Access to health care
Everything past this is just icing on the cake, right? A news source and a sense of accomplishment are always good.

I spend a lot of time thinking about Propose an edit

How to be a better person. What I need to be healthier/happier/more productive. Where all the cruelty and ignorance in the world comes from and why people aren't smarter. Why I'm not meditating. Whether spirituality is in fact an important part of the human experience. Why no one notices that the brand spanking new ideas behind cognitive therapy are exactly the same as buddhist psychology. Why so many people are so willing to put so many crazy chemicals in and on their body every day when there are natural products that work as well if not better. Why no one who uses the aforementioned products seems to care that most international health and beauty companies have multiple formulas because the stuff they sell us is illegal in most other developed countries. Who decided that all new housing must be brown/tan/yellow, why everyone else went along with it and how many freaking shades can there be? Why is it 'weird' to walk a few miles to do errands, but acceptable to drive around and then go to the gym to walk a few miles? Why don't we have runoff elections? Why on Earth do silly campaign tactics actually work and who are all these people who buy into them?

I'm a little ADDtastic, what I'm thinking about tends to change.. well.. constantly.

On a typical Friday night I am Propose an edit

Wondering how to be social in this wicked little town?

The most private thing I'm willing to admit here Propose an edit

Off-key music and bad grammar make me physically cringe. I know it's uncouth but I can't help it.

You should message me if Propose an edit

If you're bored and want to start a conversation with someone who probably wants to talk to you but is too shy. Or.. well.. almost any other reason. It would make me feel special.

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