Here's what makes me smile: ocean salt on my skin, the sunday nyt in my lap, the slope of the Four Seas floor, and a fine, fat bucket of buttered movie popcorn. I've got a sweet streak, but when it comes to popcorn, not so much- I'll buy you your own bucket before I share. As for hobbies, I am a big fan of letting go, getting lost, and finding my way in some foreign place- could be the neighborhood next door, could be a country 10 hours of flying away.

Other stuff I like: writing the story of someone else's life, drinking pints in a pub with friends, watching my dog shimmy her back in the grass, listening to my mom and grandma talk politics, and smiling sly on the other end of some good late night banter.

I've been lucky. I've lived in a bunch of great cities, and now I'm back home, happily people watching on the T. Hoping to find someone to show me his version of the city. Someone with a sense of humor and sweetness, with some mischief mixed in- someone who lives light, cares a lot, likes to smile, knows what he wants and tries to find it, at least some of the time.

I'm a former newspaper reporter who still writes that way on the side. Love finding stories in the lives of everyday people, and did it for several years in Seattle. I gave up the job to come back East, but I'll never give up the habit.

Someday, when pigs fly, and the news industry rebounds, I hope to make it my career again. Meantime, I'm working and learning as an editor at a start-up Web site.

Taking the bait, tripping over nothing, giving advice, getting excited when people are nice, teasing people I like, saying what I mean, and talking to strangers- unless we're on a date, and then all bets are off. I'm also really good at baking potatoes.

I smile a lot. And I make fun of myself. Sometimes it's endearing. Sometimes it's irritating. I could do it a little less, and we'd all be fine.

I'm all over the map with music, but lately: The Lonely Forest, Andrew Bird, Etta James, Okkervil River, The Heavy, The Kinks, Phosphorescent. Movies, too many to name. I like Hud as much as Terms of Endearment, if that's any indication. As for books: Beloved, Herzog, Stories of John Cheever, Emperor of the Air, Sometimes A Great Notion.