hi! i live in oakland with a slew of nice people and several cats (two of which are mine).

my name is not cassandra.

i like cheese.

i am a bizarre mixture of conflicting traits. i think people would be easier to understand if their personalities developed in a linear manner, but that's just not the case: in a sense we're all cobbled together traits like platypusses (platypi? who knows). i've done lots of things, and like lots of things; and i'm a product of those experiences. i've been to fancy, brand name university and i've been to big state university. i've worked in an office and i've worked in a metal shop. i'm a jock and i'm a nerd. i'm a badass and a creampuff. for all the contradictions, you'll find i'm pretty easy to understand.

i'm a hair stylist. hair is fun. the technical aspects of my job are the easy part. talking to people all day is probably hard for anyone, more so if you're fairly shy. i do love what i do, and i'm happy i left the corporate world for the greener pastures of fashion. i also love watching movies, dicking around on the internet, and chilling with my cats. in the evenings, i climb indoor rocks, take aerials classes, and try to see the occasional live music.

i am also spending some time enjoying the following things:

a-line bobs, aerial arts, argentina, artichokes, apples, avocados, avogadro's number, beatnicks, beverages, bicycles, big dumb movies, boba tea, books, bouldering, breakfast, buffy the vampire slayer, burning man, cafe brasil, candies, cats, cheese, coffee, comfortable shoes, cooking, cormac mccarthy, cosmetology, coupling uk, curry, cutting hair, digital cameras, dessert, douglas coupland, drugs, 2.71, earrings, eating, ernest hemingway, ethical slutdom, flirting, foods on sticks, foods that are pickled, foods with fried eggs on top, fractals, geeks, gin, google, goth, graphic novels, haruki murakami, imdb.com, interobang, irc, job satisfaction, jonathan lethem, julie taymor, katie roiphe, lemurs, leo tolstoy, leucomelany, lists, lysol, manatees, math, michael chabon, michael pollan, mike patton, movies, music, my friends, naps, neil stephenson, nerds, ninjas, optical illusions, orphaned furniture, otters floating holding hands, pedro almodovar, perfection, pi, pie, pineapple, punk, questions, recycling, robots, rockets, rock climbing, rubbertree plants, sarcasm, scarves, shyness, sidekick, spike lee, surrealism, teaching, tipping, transformers, trapeze, transit, unabridged oed, vidal sassoon, west wing, wikipedia, woody allen, working only as much as i have to, xenophilia.

i'm good at making mechanical things work.

i'm good at my job.

i'm good at pub trivia.

i'm good at cooking.

i'm good at thinking of others.

-- and the corollary:

i'm not good at making emotionally motivated decisions.

i'm not good at relaxing.

i'm not good at driving in oakland (i used to get lost a lot, now i just harbor the sneaking suspicion that i am taking an inefficient route). see also: http://xkcd.com/85/

i am very tall and have brightly colored hair.

Editors

• Captain_Neato

books: anna karenina and war and peace by leo tolstoy, all the good douglas coupland (especially microserfs, girlfriend in a coma, and generation x), high fidelity, and other nick hornby, a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, anything by hemingway, prozac nation, the unabridged OED, rice and raise the red lantern by su tong, traveling with a salmon by umberto eco, as she climbed across the tablejonathan lethem.

movies: green dragon and three season by tony bui, the godfather, falling down, say anything, pretty in pink, anything by almodovar, pieces of april, ghost in the shell, sabrina (the old one, not the crappy new one), harold and kumar go to white castle, walker, alien(s), 12 monkeys, office space, most everything charlie kaufman has made, frida, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, full metal jacket, do the right thing, traffic, the royal tenenbaums, life is beautiful.

music: velvet underground, concrete blonde, the cure, eric clapton, death cab, postal service, bowie, curve, underworld, depeche mode, halou, vnv nation, my bloody valentine, counting crows, liz phair, miles davis, pixies, magnetic fields, nirvana, early radiohead, blur, the who, mike patton (in all his forms), juno reactor

foods: dill pickles, strawberries, goat cheese, dolmas, coffee, artichokes, salads that come in big bowls, tacos(especially those purchased off a truck), assorted starch and cheese combinations, curry!, breakfast foods, cafe brasil in santa cruz, salt and pepper tofu, kim chi.

scarves, yummy food, a comfy bed, really good toilet paper, shelter, and entertainment

ways in which i can climb rocks more efficiently, what my next meal should be, and the eventual zombie apocalypse.

while there is no typical friday night, possibilities include (but are not limited to) clubbing, enjoying some random athletic pursuit, working, at home watching a movie, at a party, or sound asleep.

here's a journal entry from a typical sunday night, because sunday is almost the same as friday if you really think about it:

at dinner, noah pointed out that a mobius strip, cut in half (or possibly thirds, he didn't know at the time) yields interlocking strips (mobii?). of course i had to try this at home. three mobius strips (mobii?) later, i've determined that cutting one in half yields a two twist mobius (which may or may not be a real mobius), while cutting in thirds (which requires only a single cut) yields a traditional mobius interlocked with a three-twister. so: this begs the question: do even and odd numbered twistings (possible band name?) behave the same way? is a two-twister a true mobius, as is ends up with a same-side pairing? my math-fu tells me that a mobius of two twists will behave like a normal ring of paper because of the same side pairing, while odd numbered twistings are the only ones that behave like a true mobuis. a byproduct of the one-cut-in-to-thirds mobius includes a three-twister, and the result of the halvsies mobius was a two-twister. i had to cut each in to thirds to determine if a two-twister (or even a three-twister) behaves mathematically as a mobius should.

i was wrong though. sort of. the two-twist, when cut once again in what was supposed to be thirds, yields a 1/3 piece and a 2/3 piece interlocked: behaving in some ways like a normal ring (separating, upon a single cut, because of the same-side pairing) but still interlocks, yielding two, interlocking, four-twisters. when the three-twister was cut in what was supposed to be thirds, it behaved in the same way as the two-twist subject, which was entirely unexpected seeing as there was no same-side pairing.

i would cut more with the four twist mobius i have on hand, but it's too thin to cut accurately. i may wake in the middle of the night with an intense urge to construct a 4-twister suitable for cutting, and possibly also a five-twister.

conclusions are as follows:

1. single twist mobius strips behave as expected. 2. more research is needed to determine if/how multiple twist strips differ from each other and if there is any odd/even pairing correlation. 3. i have too much time on my hands. 4. i am a big, giant geek. 5. the cats really like it when i put long, interlocking strips of paper on the floor

so yeah. that's my life.

Editors

• tashrif

i don't know about *private*, but here's some additional trivia:

i am gluten-intolerant and vegetarian, but i am definitely not the person who goes on and on about her byzantine dietary preferences. you can eat whatever you want, but i might not have a bite.

i think dead baby jokes are hilarious, though i love kids.

i really like pink, though most of my clothes are black.

i walk around the house in slippers with pictures of cupcakes on them.

my favorite animal is the lemur.

lionel richie is my least favorite recording artist *ever*.

coffee is my favorite ice cream flavor.

i am scared to stick my hand down any drain that has a garbage disposal, even if there's no way it could turn on.

i'll take a pickle over a chocolate bar every day of the week and twice on sunday.

i like to climb fake rocks. a lot. though i am not all that good at it. if you think you may have seen me at a local climbing gym, you're probably right.

i don't like cut flowers. they make me sad.

i like getting mail. mail is fun, and meeting new people is really the point of this endeavor, isn't it?

that said, i am not super-interested in making online-only friends, or in meeting people with whom i'll have little in common. i'm sure you're awesome, but if you live in nunavut or hate cats or only date catholics or whatever, i'm unlikely to get too attached.

orthogonally, if you are considering messaging me solely for purposes of booty, don't. casual sex is swell, but anonymous sex makes me wish i'd stayed home to watch law and order.

everyone else, message at will.

the end.