My life is a whirlwind; usually I just want someone to ride with me for a ways, but I'm not adverse to something more long-term.

I like being interactive. Rockband is fun, along with board games like Scrabble, chess, or Settlers of Catan, and I probably know more card games than you do (although I'm still getting the hang of poker).

Since about third grade, when I had to memorize something for class and dressed up in a nightgown to recite Shel Silverstein's version of "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep," I've thought poetry is rad. I dig Dorothy Parker, Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Judith Viorst, Sharon Olds, Pablo Neruda, Don Marquis and T.S. Eliot. The usual stuff. I write some and have performed featured readings as a poet, but I'd rather read or hear poetry than perform it. Which isn't to say that I'm not involved: I spent a year soliciting poetry and editing a chapbook for a beloved basement poetry venue up in Bellingham, and I just finished copy-editing another one. Did you know that "lunch box" isn't in most dictionaries? Check. I promise that you'll still be able to find "gullible," though.

Well-written words make my toes tingle.

I've had 50 billion jobs, including knife sales, life guarding, carpentry, being a webmaster, and directing traffic at a PGA golf tournament. I appreciate people who have made their own way in the world.

I am quite fond of MagicRobot, who I've been seeing since January 2009--we played chess on our first date! Meeting intriguing individuals is also something I dig. Maybe you. Why don't you find out? I'm mainly interested in meeting new friends and cautiously open to meeting potentially-tasty side dishes.

A special note for the gay stalk...er, visitors: teehee. You're cute, checking up on me like that. Feel free to ask questions about the lad, I don't promise to answer a thing.

These sort of things always make me feel hubristic.

I live in a cozy little house with five rad roommates. Can't imagine living by myself, it'd be too lonely. Two of my house mates are my little brother and sister, we're pretty dorky in love with each other and have a sibling tattoo to prove it.

Right now I've just finished a course on how to edit for the publishing industry; I'm still poking at what to do with it, since I'm stubborn about not leaving the west coast. The library claims my work life, but I'm not a librarian. I write live show reviews for a local music site. My closest friends go out stealth-stenciling with me. Happy hours are lovely, I co-host a group called TINSTAAFL that skips around town trying new places or hitting up old favorites. I like unusual art projects: one of my close friends just moved away, so to keep the ties that bind we'll be throwing dinner parties in our separate states for a year then compiling the stories & recipes into a cookbook.

One of the things I really love doing is traveling; this summer I visited a friend in Boston, last summer I couch-surfed in NYC, and I've been to most of the states west of Missouri. Now that my passport application is underway, I'm planning on going to Wales and Brazil. Really, I pretty much travel where I can crash for free :) For a relaxing vacation, I go camping or rent a beach house with friends--we're planning our fourth "Why don't we live in a beach house?" trip now.

Recommending books, making salads, dying hair and turning my ideas into actualities. One of the best events I threw was a quick-food cook-off, where you could only use a few ingredients and had to make/bake everything in 20 minutes or less.

What else? Hula-hooping and hide-and-seek. Telling once-upon-a-time stories that are true:
- Once I was found by a helicopter.
- Once I caused a car crash with a kiss.
- Once I fell out of a plane, crash-landed, and lived to tell about it.

Just don't ask me to mail anything. I still haven't sent postcards from two years ago.

I'm blunt and I have a pretty healthy ego; the power of those two combined translates into a lack of stage fright, and I'm not very easily embarrassed. Which sometimes embarrasses others. But really, I just think on my feet. This is not the same as the ability to think fast *smartly,* a fact which I am well aware of!

Right now I have dark brown and pink hair. Strangers generally compliment or make wisecracks about my socks on a weekly basis. But frankly, I wear awesome socks. So that's expected.

People frequently ask if I'm an Aries. They never suggest another sign. I don't put major stock in astrology, but I'm curious to see if it will turn out like alchemy--a pre-science that leads to great future discoveries.

There must be an aura of helpfulness, or something like that, hovering around me: almost every day I get asked for directions/bus routes/how find a good time in this city. You'd think the pink hair would be a deferring agent, but nope. Maybe people think about fluffy bunnies when they see pink?

I devour books like air and usually read six or seven at a time. My favorite nonfiction genre is popular science (books like Freakonomics, Stiff, and Proust was a Neuroscientist) while my fictional pleasures waver between fantasy and manga. When I'm feeling creative or depressed, I read cookbooks--they're like book nerd comfort food.

Right now I'm reading through Pratchett's latest novel on my bus ride home. Who knows if there will be another one (he has Alzheimer's), so I shall relish the reading v-e-r-y slowly.

If you've been wanting to read something good but haven't had the time, try Simon Rich: he's a young SNL skit writer who also writes humor essays that average about two pages each, about things like "What if those Choose Your Own Adventure books were set in real life?" and Dracula's Match.com profile.

Movies that I enjoy tend to be cult classics, anime, film noir, dark comedy, or action films. A few frivolous comedies sneak their way onto my screen; I throw sneakers at them but keep watching. About twice a year, I skulk into a chick flick with a femme friend and tell no one about it. The best movie I've seen recently was The Fall, but I won't tell you much about the plot. Just go see it. Films I'll watch over and over again include Gattaca, Bladerunner, Unbreakable, Aladdin (you have to let me sing, though), and pretty much any Bond movie because fire balls + bad puns = ♥.

Does anyone watch live television anymore? I like dead series I can get from the library or internet, such as Kino's Journey. It's about a girl who rides a talking motorcycle through all these different countries who've supposedly found solutions to the difficulties of life: yet from mind-reading to Darwinian citizenship to countries run by machines, nobody is right. The whole series can be summed up by the catchphrase, "the world is not beautiful, therefore it is." I've recently started watching Eureka and Baccano!. My friends & I just started on the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica, we've been getting together to watch TV shows and make dinner for about three years now. Lately we've been going to Taco Tuesday at the Tin Hat, though, because who can say no to tasty 69 cent tacos?

Most of the music I listen to is local or somewhere on the indie circuit; my current local favs include The Murder City Devils (did you see them in February? so good, but damn them for not playing Boom Swagger Boom!), Jason Webley, Boat, Hey Marseilles, Tennis Pro, Throw Me The Statue, Hazelwood Motel, Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band and The Tea Cozies. Some of the mainstream artists I play often are The Raconteurs, The Dresden Dolls, Modest Mouse and Mika; Two Gallant's "Steady Rollin'" can play on repeat for a pretty long time before I get sick of it.

Food-wise: my loyalty belongs to a select few restaurants that I've been going to for years, and I love trying new ones. My siblings and I have a weekly breakfast at Beth's Cafe. When there's time to make food, I lean towards veggies, pesto, fancy cheese and chicken--although I like meat, I don't cook much of it. I can usually take a recipe and modify it deliciously to my own whims, but there've been a few spectacular failures. Like the time I accidentally used vanilla soy milk in the mashed potatoes.

1. My library card
2. Pickles
3. Bittorrent
4. My siblings
5. Microbrews
6. Road trips

how everything is connected. Then, while you're distracted by my explanations of these interconnections, I'll tie your shoelaces together.

Honestly, I love a good debate. Not arguments, but hashing ideas out with someone who can take a stance and not be afraid to defend it; I have a lot of half-formed ideas floating around in my head and need to bounce them off of other people so they become well-rounded instead of one-sided. My favorite people aren't afraid to tell me when they think I'm wrong, but they also don't expect my mind to change.

At a show or out and about with my friends--there's always something going on. Sometimes I stay home and ignore the world because laundry doesn't do itself (much to my dismay). But before that, I have dinner with my parents. Whom I will never make you meet.

I'm still friends with most of my exes.

My room is usually in a state of chaos but my kitchen gets cleaned pretty often.

Even if you match me 100%, I'm not interested in meeting people almost twice my age. It's ageist. I'm sorry. You will eventually find your smitten kitten, just not here.

If you want me, amaze me. I like people who are passionate participants instead of laid-back observers, mainly because I get all these ideas and want someone to play along with them--then come up with a few of their own, too. Plus, people who are chasing their dreams are just super sexy.

When I say "Well-written words make my toes tingle," the opposite is true as well: bad writing makes my nose wrinkle. I probably won't respond to your message if you abbreviate everything and think punctuation is for sissy boys. I once threw a book across the room and refused to finish it because the last chapter contained no punctuation whatsoever. (You get mega bonus points if you know which book. If you enjoyed it, please explain why. One of my friends burned it page by page after she read it, and I keep it by my night stand as a cure for insomnia.)

- You like going to live shows--I'm usually looking for a show buddy.

- You have a creative streak or dramatic flair, but don't have any extraordinarily large drama llamas following you around. Everyone has small dramas, as do I, but I try to avoid bringing people into my life who manipulate and lie (either blatantly or by omission) to get their way with others.

- You think you can out-nerd me in one of my areas of interest, yet you have a decent social life. Cave dwellers need not apply unless you have a really good temporary reason, like being an astronaut or studying for finals!

- You're an insomniac. I don't sleep much, although I try to enforce a 2 a.m. bedtime on work nights. My best friends and favorite lovers are usually drawn from this crowd.

- You're pretty. I have a visual sweet tooth for high cheekbones, long lashes and pettable hair. However, keep in mind that intelligence > looks. I lose interest in people who don't talk pretty one day.