It's safe to say I'm the guy next door with an edge that most wouldn't suspect (a good kind of edge). I enjoy life and work hard. I need to take more time out to play hard as well. I just finished a four year project (whew) that I was hired to fix after they stalled out for 8 years so I see a change-a-coming... My life is usually in 7 year cycles so this is a new pattern: premature to say now but I'll see where I land.

I'm trying to be less cynical (it's a facade) so read on with an open mind--I'm not a snob, prude nor holier-than-though, I just write (type) faster than I think. I'm kinda intellectual but kinda trailer trash too. It's the southern boy in me...I'm trying to fit my square peg in the round hole (oops, badly timed pun but I'll leave it go).

Wow, that creates a lot of expectations and I am already too hard on myself. But I work for a university and have worked in academia for over 15 years--but I never completed my degree. Go figure. Cream rises to the top? meh. I tend to believe I am just determined and have the work ethic from my father and his family: hearty country stock that negotiated the depression and WWII and came out on top but we're also just good people. I strive to follow their example and hope to not disappoint their legacy. But that being said I am ultra liberal, my own person, but if my grandmother looked down at me on any day she would close her eyes and shake her head, but smile and not be surprised one bit--she'd blush but not be surprised. I don't know, I went back to school at Columbia because they were silly enough to accept me. I'm majoring in undergraduate sex and Middle Eastern Studies.... at the moment I am very overworked. I have been editing a neuroscience textbook for over four years and the project has just wrapped up and the book is on the shelves. I may no longer be needed after this is done--time to start the next edition?

Wow. I'm really good at being critical of myself and accepting of others. I also am really good at finding someone's g-spot? Or at least working for a very long time to find it. I am nothing if not determined (and only half kidding).

I'm a good cook, almost god-like (kidding I don't even know if I believe in God--Buddha saves?) I'm good at listening objectively but calling you out on your BS (and expect others to call me on mine). My friends call me Dolly Lama. I overlook fault but will tell you what it is and expect you to call me out on my own shit as well. I try to do right but can fall into that cynical rut that comes with being a New Yorker. I have only been here since '99 but it has become home. If I do leave it will be for Paris, the Middle East, China, or London. I love my family and the U.S. but don't know if I can live outside NYC except maybe DC or SF... maybe.

I'm good at relaxing, but can party with the best of them...just in moderation. I'm good at ignoring labels and stereotypes. I am an equal opportunity employer. A friend has said my taste is like the United Colors of Benetton. I am blind to race, age, and body type. Your brain should excite me and the rest is a bonus. 21-70, all races, incomes, body types. But baggage is only tolerated if you're self-aware and working on it. I'm not your mother, teacher, preacher, or therapist. I support your exploration of things you would rather not have known--but am NOT an enabler.

I don't really know. I get run into a lot on the street so maybe people don't really notice me! ;-)

I guess I've been told I have a good ass, good hair, nice lips, and that my brain is sexy. I don't know...I think I have a big penis but I really don't so how can I be objective about any of this? It works well. So what if I have this delusion? But why should I believe what others say or notice about me? ;-) IF thus far my sarcasm has turned you off just move to the next profile. I have no agenda and my picture is not fabulous but it isn't a glamour shot or professional head shot, I'm not flexing my biceps in a mirror at the gym, and the photo was NOT taken in the bathroom mirror. If that's what you're looking for you selected the wrong profile. Also, if you have any of the above in your profile I am likely to ignore your advances (but you're not messaging me anyway so we are all good)! Actually I'll likely check out your pretty pictures but I'm a realist--we are only a match if you're less superficial but compliant because, hey, it's a dating site and we all know how marketing and advertising works (Mad Men?)!

Books: This list, and the "music" and "food" lists, will be an ongoing work in progress because I inevitably think about this and then another book pops into mind that I cannot believe slipped my mind. It's also not meant to intimidate or be stuffy. I just like stuff a lot and sometimes lists like this make me remember them fondly and allow me to revisit that joy! . Recently published books that come to mind are: Bel Canto (Ann Patchett), White Teeth (Zadie Smith), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Michael Chabon), The Imperfectionists (Tom Rachman), Atonement (Ian McEwen), and anything by Cormac McCarthy (and everytime I read a synopsis for one of his books I thought, "meh" and then eventually picked them up and loved them). That leads me to just listing writers and there are a few that I find almost infallible: Salmam Rushdie, Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Haruki Murakami, J.K. Rowling (though I hate to admit it--my favorite was the Half Blood Prince), Jeanette Winterson (if you have not read Written on the Body then I will give you a copy), A.S. Byatt (Possession, among others, but the movie was cloying). That's just a few and doesn't include any of the standard classics. A more interesting question here would have been books that were highly regarded that we did not like! You might think these are great. I think they are overrated, whether because they are simply badly written (The Historian, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter), pretentious prattle (Absurdistan, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Everything is Illuminated), boring (Life of Pi), overrated due to serious subject matter (Lovely Bones), well written but uninteresting (Bee Season, Wickett’s Remedy), or fatally flawed due to oversimplification of a truly horrid situation (The Kite Runner). Now that's a conversation starter list! Oh, and I haven't read Freedom (Jonathan Franzen) yet. I need to pick it up for next month's reading enjoyment.

Movies: 12 Angry Men, Kiss Me Deadly, The Killing, The Big Lebowski, My Cousin Vinny, Tropic Thunder, The Blues Brothers...’Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration, don't fail me now,’ Best In Show, The Fountainhead, A Single Man (some days I feel like George and other days I feel like Charley, but in general I'm most like Kenny--just a little older), Notorious (no dream is too B.I.G.), Casino, Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, The Lion In Winter (hands down probably my #1 favorite but I just can't completely commit to anything being #1), Notorious (the one with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dog Day Afternoon, Soylent Green, Aliens, Donnie Darko, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Requiem For a Dream, Wall-E (yeah, yeah, I can't help it), Memento, Up (come ON Pixar is the shit), City of God, There Will Be Blood, Inception, Avatar (I didn't want to like it but I caved and saw it and yep, loved it), Kill Bill, Vol. 1, ALL The Lord of the Rings movies, 300, Mulholland Drive, The Dark Knight, 28 Days Later, American Gangster, Brokeback Mountain, Milk, Pan's Labyrinth.... OK, I'm done for now! But I like me some movies!

Shows: Um, I don't have a television anymore so if I want to see a television show I watch it on the computer...so I haven't really seen much lately. Am I missing anything? Let's curl up on your sofa and you can catch me up.

Music: This one gives me hives just considering committing to a "list" of favorites--and I like every genre that exists, even if on a limited basis (country or rap/hip-hop). There is always something that I find merit in musically or stylistically. I am probably a frustrated musician/singer/performer that never dedicated his time to it so that makes me admire the passion and dedication of anyone who has done so. I just cannot tackle this without boring the hell out of you (if I haven't already). So I will only leave one word here that cannot be ignored--Beethoven. Without a doubt Beethoven is musically the greatest to have ever set a note to a staff.

Food: Another list that would be exhaustive. I am a foodie (do not hate on me for that word I used it 30 years ago before the fucking food network was around), I love to cook, I'm pretty damn good at it, and I have said that I want to have my own "food show"--or quit my job and buy a food truck to spend my days on these city streets sharing my food with anyone that wants to throw me a few bucks for my efforts. I make mean tamales--although a Mexican girlfriend said her mother would call them "gay" tamales: I once made them with goat cheese and roasted chicken! But I can make them as traditional as your mamma.

I hate this question, so I’m going to tell you what is on my nightstand. I know, I know. Saucy, right?

* a lamp (the better to see you with my, dear)
* iPhone charging stand (seriously, for a full decade or three there was an alarm clock but I got rid of that and the fax machine)
* Plato's Phaedo ("if there is anything beautiful other than absolute beauty it is beautiful only insofar as it partakes of absolute beauty")
* my earphones (because I hate holding the phone when I'm talking while lying in bed--and not phone sex, ya perv, but um, okay, sure. I give good phone--I actually did it for a living back before the internet!
* a candle in a jar (not bought that way, just a jar with a lid and a candle that I've placed in it)
* Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior (nice contrast to Plato, huh?)
* a couple of art books and "Architects on Architects"
* one of my Canon 35mm film cameras. I have a digital camera too but live for b&w film, fixed lens, and natural light!

If you want to know what’s in my nightstand, you’ll have to work really hard for that information. ;-P And yeah, I know it's more than six but it's what's within reach and if I can't live without it then it needs to be close by if I'm close to death...

Well, more like wondering...wondering why guys half my age are quick to ask me to go fuck but guys my age won't go out with me because they are too busy trying to fuck the guys half my age that are trying to get me to fuck them? Hey, I'll own it. But it's getting old. Unless of course you have a good brain then I don't care how old you are... EEOC? Oh, and world peace.

...am trying to recover from the week (and sometimes preparing to work through the weekend as well). It may mean a drink or two with friends after work and then home to relax or just a drink or two by myself in a cool, dark corner watching people. I don't cook nearly as often as I used to due to my schedule so it is usually delivery night OR a favorite haunt. And during the regular semester I am most likely working on assignments or papers that are due during the coming week or reading to prepare for class. If I have the time I don't mind just curling up in bed with a good movie on the computer or with a book laying sweetly across my chest pretending that it is being read.

that this is the stupidest OKC question? However, being in a somewhat compliant mood (oddly) I will tell you...but only in person. This will be shared with you but you will have to earn this information. It's good I promise.

....you managed to read this far then I would say it would be repayment for the time that you just invested (wasted). I can make it worth your while.