I have a cynic's eye for irony, a poet's ventricles coupled to a critic's aorta, a selectively thick skin, a robust stomach and a pancreas of gold. I have gone diving in the Caymans, green-skinned in Austin, silent in wonder, and not quite to the dogs. I have a sharp wit which is unfortunately not displayed to full advantage when composing short autobiographical sketches.

I like reading imaginative literature, making machines work, sketching and sculpting, slow dancing, and cackling over human obduracy with select friends. I don't like smoky bars, TV chatter, psychics, grim fanatics, and those who would trade freedom for false security, or trade upon the public's tendency to do the same.

Longtime readers of this profile will have noticed that I sometimes identify as bi, and sometimes as straight. This changes every couple of years, according to my prevailing mood. I'm inserting this sentence here for the record.

I am skeptical, confusticated, and pythonesque

A former wallflower and dilettante, I am rearranging things to better effect. Having spent much time with creativity unshackled from the log of unified vision, I now labor to produce things that I will be pleased to have done twenty years from now. My first halting steps towards this goal are being presented at: http://www.pageatatime.com/

As of September 2010, I have lost over 60 pounds on the Hacker Diet and I will not stop until I am at a healthy weight.

I am self employed. I run a computer business with my partner, friend and lover, Hamachi.

Handiwork (repairs, drawing, sculpture, backrubs, etc.)

Writing (I write sonnets for people I'm wooing and nonsense verse for my inner shoggoth, and I compose puzzles for people I respect).

I have a facility for picking up on patterns in speech, song and art, and replicating them. Parody delights me.

I'm tall, and I tend to be quiet, which can scare some people. It doesn't mean that I'm rude or that I lack interest in you. As with an old battery, the current of my attention is sometimes blunted by the resistance of my inner music.

a) A few among many: Silverlock, by John Meyers Meyers; Imaginary Magnitude by Stanislaw Lem; In Search Of Wonder by Damon Knight; Devil's Day by James Blish; Cugel's Saga by Jack Vance; the Poictesme books by James Branch Cabell. (It's pronounced Pwah-tem, BTW. I blame France.)

b) Memento. I was thoroughly engrossed; I felt as if the movie had ended before it began.

c,d) Musical food [candy whistles and the like].

Books, friends, intimacy, honesty, tolerance, and Internet.

Art, science, philosophy, rhetoric, and sex.

Online. If you want me to go to a party, you'll have to tickle me until I get up. As an introvert, I find many social gatherings obnoxious unless I can take people in small groups. I appreciate calm and quiet, in the main.

In the past, I've fallen in love way too quickly. My heart is now covered with a thick fibrous layer of scar tissue, but it still keeps jumping out the window. Thank you, Hamachi, for catching it this time around.

If you love literature, are playful and quick to laugh (even at yourself), and aren't entirely ruled by your feelings, I think we could be good friends.

You should also message me if you have visited http://www.jja.org and either liked what you saw or wish to demand an explanation.

If you like riddles and puzzles, let me know and I'll send you a few that I have composed. Here's an easy one:

From the bones of the earth comes a new thing; its face is a window, its mouth a door; it has many teeth that touch your fingertips, and by it you may know me without meeting me.

And here's an atypical sequence puzzle:

What number is next: 1, 3, 3, 5, 9, ...?

There is more than one appropriate answer. A hint: the answer relates to the difference between power and importance.