Issuing supreme power to you...one moment.

My self-summary Propose an edit

Myself is what I wear, I keep the spirit spare

- Roethke, Open House

I like the way libraries smell and I know more dead languages than live ones. I think buildings are sexy and cities are as gorgeous and complex as falling in love. I speak architecture fluently but with an accent that gives me away as not being native, simply enthralled. I play the fiddle and live for pubs that are holes-in-the-wall where the brogue is thicker than the Guiness and the music is as old as the devil and faster by far.

I'm an amateur photographer and like hanging out in skate parks taking pictures of kids who should be in school. I like hiking around. Stars are awesome.

I used to live in Chicago and I miss her.

I've just moved to Boston. I swear this city was designed by a genius in non-euclidean mathematics - the shortest distance between any two points has more curves than Marilyn Monroe. I am convinced that somewhere out there is a street you can't get to because all the roads leading to it are one way the wrong-way.

I have two degrees, one in Computer Science and the other in Egyptology, and I've used them both at the same time. The fact that Latin is a language option in OKC but Middle Egyptian and Coptic are not makes me irrationally annoyed. If I thought it could feed me, I'd be ankle deep in sand reading epic adventures off pyramid walls.

There you go. That's my nutshell.

What I'm doing with my life Propose an edit

There's this quote. I try to live it and mostly I fail, but I keep trying.

"It costs so much to be a full human being that there are few who have the love and courage to pay the price. One has to abandon altogether the search for security and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to embrace life like a lover. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying."

From the play, Courting Darkness, by M. Longley

I'm really good at Propose an edit

Doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons, being brave but stupid, falling in love, being a storehouse of utterly random scraps of information, telling stories and reading them with all the voices and making very bad puns.

My favorite books, movies, music, and food Propose an edit

Books: In Ani's words - I don't like my language watered down /I don't like my edges rounded off. I crave books like a diabetic craves Krispy Kreme donuts. I have read (and will read) absolutely anything by Tom Stoppard, Jonathan Safran Foer, Michael Chabon, Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut, J.D. Salinger, Tom Robbins, Salman Rushdie and Neil Gaiman. The three books that have most profoundly changed my life are Man's Search for Meaning, Eros: The Bittersweet, Zen and the Art and Franny and Zooey. If you haven't read them, stop and go get them now. I promise you, they are infinitely more profound than the rest of this profile.

I read a lot of poetry. Rilke, Roethke, E.E. Cummings, Billy Collins, Frost, Kahlil Gibran, are my favorites but I will absolutely devour anything else that vaguely resembles poetry without the least compunction.

Movies: Film noire, heists and con-men, Kurosawa and anything with Hepburn, Bacall, Bogart or Cary Grant. Also Adult Swim - Venture Bros., Cowboy Bebop, Witch Hunter Robin - that last one for the artwork not the utterly incoherent plotline.

Music: Janis Ian, Tegan and Sara, Dresden Dolls, Tracy Chapman, Ani DiFranco, Dar Williams, Poe, Tori Amos, The Decemberists, Morphine, Rage Against the Machine, NIN, MDFMK, Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Jesus and Mary Chain, Concrete Blonde, Mary's Danish, MC 900 ft. Jesus, Muddy Waters, Tom Waits, Terry Callier, The Shins, Pixies, The Police, Sting, The Wonder Stuff, Babes in Toyland, King Missile, Sonic Youth, L7, U2, Spoon, Audioslave, Wilco, Sileas, Kevin Burke, Donal Lunny, The Bothy Band, Steeleye Span, Solas, Silly Wizard, Sarah Vaughn, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, Debussy and Rimsky-K.

Food: Sushi, fried tofu, chicken vindaloo, portabello mushrooms, red wines, tawny ports, Boddington's in the summer, Guiness in the winter, neat scotch anytime, any place.

The six things I could never do without Propose an edit

My pen, my books, NPR, my really comfortable chucks, my writing table and someone to talk to.

I spend a lot of time thinking about Propose an edit

People; playing with words; the heat-death of the universe; whether there is a kingdom made entirely of all the socks I have lost in the dryer; and if the words 'forever' or 'never' can be used for what they truly mean and if they can, then what for?

On a typical Friday night I am Propose an edit

Out listening to live music and trying something dark and frothing in a tall glass; curled up at home with a book I won't put down till the am; practicing a fiddle reel and wondering if I'll ever be as good as the sixty year old tinkerer with arthritis that plucked it out of the air; hanging out with my friends and laughing; playing scrabble with the owner of a night-club, a Professor of Old English, a 50 year old female police officer and a fourteen year old child prodigy.

The most private thing I'm willing to admit here Propose an edit

I watched Labyrinth when I was ten and grew up wanting to marry Jennifer Connelly (on whom I still have a severe crush) but knowing that there is no way that I can compete with David Bowie’s crotch (which gets enough air time that it should be in the credits) or, for that matter, his hair.

I am also secretly in love with Anne Carson and my Medieval History prof. from college.

You should message me if Propose an edit

You feel like it would be a good idea..or you're not sure it's a good idea but you're curious anyway. Or because you like writing and want someone to write to and be written to by.

I don't bite. Not unless I'm asked nicely anyway.

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