I love black coffee, oil paints (although, admittedly, it's been a while), and dive bars. I'm tall. I have the bad habit of spending too much time in my head. I also tend to procrastinate.

Spending time in a darkroom with the smell of fixer and a safelight will never cease to make me happy.

I enjoy exaggerated contrast. My favorite color is red and gardenias are my favorite flower. I love to drive. I obsess. A lot. I sing along to songs I hear, but only if I know the words. I love Indian food.

I enjoy some genres of mathematics and I think biology is beautiful. My selective memory amuses me. I chew on my lips when I'm nervous, which happens fairly frequently. I have trouble letting things go. I'm part French, but I am half Brazilian.

I am not squeamish, easily startled, or easily offended.

I love rain and snow, and I'll readily wear earmuffs or a silly hat. I can tie cherry stems into knots with my teeth and tongue, but I cannot whistle. I enjoy seeing movies in theaters; sometimes, I like going alone. I miss Galway where I lived for six months several years ago.

I love to learn, especially about human psychology. I have a high center of gravity. A lot of the time I don't know what to say.

I am nonsense, cerebral, and contrast

I've just arrived in Richmond. Trying out life as a scientist.

I very much enjoy this city so far, but I'd love to start shaking this sense of novelty in favor of comfortable familiarity.

On any given day, I can be found:

Petting kittens.
Thinking about neurons.
Using passive voice.
Artfully procrastinating.
Drinking good beer (in moderation, of course).
Making lists (such as this).
Stealthily avoiding.
(Over)using adverbs.
Waiting patiently.
Talking nonsense.
Tapping my toes, shaking my hips.
Knitting never-ending scarves (that is to say, knitting very slowly).
Pining for the Byronic heroes.
Speaking in hyperbole.
Blushing profusely at the slightest provocation.
Baking pies for people.
Elaborately wrapping gifts.
Obsessively planning.

Listening. Remembering. Noticing.

I'm tall. I'm relatively pale. My nose turns up slightly. My cheekbones are high. I'm most often wearing glasses nowadays.

My mouth, however, seems to draw the most attention: I know this sounds lascivious (and believe me, when strangers bring up my mouth, it often is). I'll certainly blush.

Playing favorites is so hard—I won’t even try to be comprehensive. Today, I'll take these:

1. Ada or Ardor, The Brutal Language of Love, Catch-22, The Corrections, East of Eden, Middlesex, No One Belongs Here More Than You, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Phantom Tollbooth, Written on the Body Wuthering Heights, and everything Roald Dahl and Kurt Vonnegut have ever written.

2. The Antlers, Beach House, David Bowie, Lykke Li, Macklemore, Neutral Milk Hotel, Radiohead, Rilo Kiley, Elliott Smith, The Smiths, St. Vincent, Trust

3. Boogie Nights, City of God, Dogtooth, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Fall, Hard Candy, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Punch-Drunk Love, Rachel Getting Married, Sex, Lies, & Videotape, Shame, Wet Hot American Summer

4. Breaking Bad, Friday Night Lights, Girls, Happy Endings, Homeland, Louie, Mad Men, Six Feet Under, The Wire

5. Specifically: Amy’s Organics cream of tomato soup, roasted brussel sprouts, French onion soup, green beans, Comte, sparkling water (not technically a food, but I consume a lot of it), homemade popcorn, chocolate covered marzipan. Generally: French, Indian, Thai.

1) coffee 2) sunblock 3) eyeliner 4) toothbrush/floss 5) bra 6) good people

Coffee is a given, I feel. I mostly drink it black. I am very much afraid of sun damage and skin cancer and combat said problems with daily use of sunblock. I am rarely, if ever, without black eyeliner (never mascara). Oral hygiene is essential. Good support is also essential and I am almost always wearing a bra. And, really, everyone needs good people.

I like to plan things. Lately, I've been systematically planning the rest of my career via many more years of school. And by lately I mean always.

Currently, I spend most of my time with minutiae--I've become rather apt at keeping everything in order in my head.

Neurons. Implementation and dissemination. How to best outsmart my cats.

Out. Or in. Depends on how my week has gone.
This year it seems much more likely that I spend Friday nights exhausted and waiting for sleep.
I can certainly be entertaining on Saturdays.

I can tie cherry stems into knots with my tongue. That really isn't very private, especially because I've already mentioned it.

Also--surely, I'm not as serious as I seem.

You don't mind that when I speak, it can come out sounding pretentious despite the best intentions (sometimes I have difficulty with the colloquial). The thesaurus in my head often defaults to five dollar words when one dollar would do just fine.

You might want to share words and a pitcher of beer in a worn booth towards the back of a wood-paneled bar.

Ultimately, if you feel so inclined.