I'm a Montana girl, born and raised, and am happy to be back out in the West after the last four years at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. I am a huge nerd, and proud of it! I geek out about really lame things like Renaissance painters and Dr. Who, and I love the smell of campfires in the woods more than almost any other smell on the planet. There's not a place on this globe that I wouldn't like to visit, and I consider "Livin' on a Prayer" to be one of the most poignant love songs ever written.

I am a 2011 Teach For America Corps Member, and I teach 10th Grade English and Honors English at Sierra High School in Colorado Springs (finally got my job... yay for not being unemployed!!!). I am thrilled to be back where I can ski and hike and raft and all the other fun things I love to do, so the weekends are going to be jam-packed! I am a writer, and that's probably the thing that sustains me above all else. I try to write something new everyday.

cooking, schmoozing important people, and memorizing random pieces of information, poems and song lyrics. I'm actually in Jeopardy's contestant pool for another six months!

my eyes, which I have been told are really, really blue. Also, the fact that I'm probably saying something awkward and/or sort of stupid-sarcastic-funny.

First of all, there's no way in hell I could choose a favorite book. Books are ridiculously awesome, and I sometimes just spend the afternoon in bookstores because it's calming to be surrounded by them. Some of those that have been particularly influential in my life/world view are:

*Harry Potter
*Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
*Boy's Life by Robert McCammon
*Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
*Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver
*Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
*Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open by Diane Seuss
*Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith
*Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
*His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
*The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
*Watchmen by Alan Moore

Movies are fan-freaking-tastic. Honestly, I am an incredibly visual person as well as being a writer, so the combination of a good script and stunning visuals can have me ranting for hours afterwards. I like to laugh, but I haven't seen a lot of comedies lately that have done the trick (sigh). I love superhero movies, although I don't really read comic books, and I think Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird might just be the coolest guy ever. Old movies, new movies, shitty movies, fantastic ones... if I've seen it, I'll be thrilled to discuss it with you!

I <3 nerdy British television shows. Fill in the blanks if you can.

Music is constantly in my world. I know the lyrics to an embarrassing number of songs of all genres (with the notable exception of that screaming metal nonsense). I sing all the time, and have been known to burst into song at strange moments if someone happens to inadvertently quote a song I know.

Podcasts like This American Life, RadioLab and Pop Culture Happy Hour are pretty great for long car rides and/or walking around town doing errands.

I try to be fearless about food. I like to cook it, and I'll give anything a chance once. I love cooking with other people-- I find it really helps me get to know more about them.

* My family
* My friends
* Books
* My iPod
* Travel
* Laughter

the song that's currently stuck in my head. There is always at least one. I daydream a lot about all the places I want to travel to... and all the places I'd like to explore further. I think about my friends and family all the time, and I will sometimes giggle at an inopportune moment when something reminds me of a random, funny memory. I think about the way the world works and why, and what, if anything, I can do to change the things that piss me off about it. When I'm reading a book I particularly like, that book and those characters are basically all I can think about, which makes living in the real world a little disconcerting. I think about the future, where words come from and how funny it is to watch cows try to run.

maybe at the neighborhood pub with some friends, laughing and nursing one or two beers over the course of an evening. Or I'm out at a show and a nice meal. Or in, cooking dinner and drinking wine. Maybe I'm camping (I hope so!) or on a ski weekend. It's very infrequent that I'm in the mood to go out and get drunk, or run around to a lot of different clubs/bars, but it has been known to happen once in a blue moon. It really depends on the weekend, and how the week previous has been!

I have an incredibly, embarrassingly dorky tattoo, and I love it.

... um... you like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain? I don't know...