I am a thoughtful, creative, musical, do-gooder type (if that is indeed a type). I have long-time friendships as well as brand new ones and I put effort into showing the people in my life that I care. I notice the little things and do my best to have a positive impact on the world.

Just in case you were thinking that I was some kind of modern day buddha or something, I will set the record straight that I definitely have moments where I look back at something I did and think to myself "wow, I was being a jerk" . . . but I trust that I have good intentions and it helps if you can laugh at yourself and be humbled from time to time. right? right.

I'm currently in grad school at SFSU. After one semester in a dismally dull program, I was able to change course and craft my own interdisciplinary studies major. This has made me very happy.

I have written 8 songs for a musical about the year 1963 and hopefully I will be able to work on it with some musical geniuses to help me create a fuller sound. By the way, if you are a musical genius and like some of the bands I mentioned below, maybe you should drop me a line.

I ride my bike around town and hang out in coffee shops a lot these days (to work on school stuff and occasional freelance consulting jobs).

About a year ago I decided that I was going to learn how to dance, and now I go out dancing with my housemate/friend a fair amount (another first) and sometimes dance to LCD soundsystem in my room.

Starting conversations with strangers, writing catchy melodies, making up songs, preparing fancy salads, spraypainting things gold, making powerpoint presentations, giving people massages to get rid of their headaches.

I've been told that I smile a lot (and conversely, I've also been told that I can be intimidating)

Music: Velvet Underground, Talking Heads (early CBGB's era), Leonard Cohen, Belle and Sebastian, some country (Patsy, Hank, and Johnny), The Clean, Pixies, American Analog Set, Smog, Elliot Smith, Stereolab, Syd Barrett, Thao, Tapes'n'tapes, Beirut, The Blow, MGMT, Mirah, Daniel Johnston, maus haus, Arthur and Yu, TV on the Radio, Spoon, Iron & Wine, Silver Jews, Ariel Pink, the National, m. ward, Bill Withers, Desmond Dekker, Andrew Bird, Jay Reatard, and on and on.

Art: Robert Rauschenberg, Joseph Cornell (swoon), Rothko, Margaret Killgallen, Yoko Ono, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Eliason (exhibit at the MOMA was crazy good), William Eggleston, Frida, graffiti and stencil art, my friends make cool stuff too.

Books: Murakami (Wind up Bird Chronicle), Brautigan (Revenge of the lawn), McCullers (Heart is a lonely hunter - the title alone is amazing), Salinger, Marjane Sartrapi (Persepolis), Chabon (Kavalier and Clay, Yiddish Policeman's), Raymond Carver (the cathedral), Zadie Smith (all of it), David Sedaris, and on and on.

Movies: I heart huckabees, harold and maude, waiting for guffman, cinema paradiso, lives of others, conversations with other women, it happened one night, pretty in pink, stranger than fiction, persepolis, breaking away, 70's action movies (Poseidon Adventure with Gene Hackman is effing awesome), hitchcock and capra . . . and then there are the documentaries: Rivers and Tides, the Cockettes, New York Doll, the Cruise, Planet B-Boy . . .

TV (super limited, usually not watched on TV): Project Runway, Arrested Development, Freaks and Geeks, the Office

. . . how everyone I know uses the term "hipster" in a derogatory way, even though they themselves usually fall somewhere on the hipster spectrum. It's kind of like how super homophobic gay-bashing dudes sometimes turn out to be gay. or maybe it's not. But anyway, I think that it's okay to be stylish and like obscure bands, as long as you're not an asshole about it. Hipsters with heart, that's what we are.

I also think about the following random hodge-podge of things: those awful Chevron greenwashing campaigns, ways to create messaging for good causes that has the desired impact, new art projects, how much time I spend procrastinating, and what songs I can add to the dance mix on my ipod.