(This is very much just the first part of a first draft of a work in progress. Actually, that pretty much describes my life in general...)

I am a second-career attorney, but I try very hard not to let that define me. Recently, as I have done other times, I sent around an email to the other lawyers in my firm asking for a referral for a friend to someone practicing a type of law we don't cover. Commenting on the details of my request, another associate said to me, "It is becoming clear to me that you hang out with a different crowd than I do." He was almost certainly right and I was glad to hear it!

Before I gave it up in 2003, I was a Professor of Computer Science for ten years. (yeah, tenure and everything.) So you will still often find me channeling my inner geek.

I miss having my summers off!

And some days I really do miss being a teacher. And that probably sort of informs a lot of my relationships now.

Now, a quick note on the religion question (since I had to debate whether to put atheist or jew on the profile):

I am an atheist. I have been for as long as I can remember, though it is possible I harbored some belief as a small child. (I do know that there was a period of my childhood that I believed in Rudolph, even though I never believed in Santa. Figure that one out!)

I am also Jewish, and have what these days qualifies as a pretty extensive Jewish education. I am at least third in a line of religiously-educated atheist Jews, going back at least as far as my grandfather in Russia. I saw to it that my daughter received a Jewish education, though I would probably be pretty horrified if she grew up religious. I identify pretty strongly with being Jewish, though only occasionally with the majority of the Jewish community, and I have dated (and married) non-jews almost exclusively. I believe strongly in the existence of Israel, but hate almost everything the country does. You sort it out.

I am also a Burner. I have been attending Burning Man since 2002 and see no reason to stop yet, as it brings something new into my life every year. (Update: with great regret it looks like work will keep me from going to the Burn this year.) You don't have to be a burner, or even be interested in becoming one. But I hope you can at least understand what it does for me. The couple of times I have dated women who were actively hostile to the event and the community, it just made things tiresome.

(Note that I am not a glitter and fairy wings Burner. Though I do enjoy costuming on occasion, these day you are as likely to find me on the playa in shorts and t-shirt as costume. My experience of the playa is very much tied up in the people and the remarkable art and ideas they bring to the desert with them.)

making grilled cheese sandwiches (and things only technically identifiable as grilled cheese sandwiches). I know it is an audacious claim, but I have independent verification: I am a two-time Grilled Cheese Invitational champion!

Actually I am a pretty good cook in general. Aside from computers it has been my main hobby/interest for most of my life.

In a related note, I am notorious for my ability to pick great little restaurants --small ethnic places in particular-- by sight and some little-understood second sight.

As can be seen above, I am also well-skilled in the use of more obscure punctuation marks, such as hyphens, em-dashes, slashes, semi-colons and colons. (Though not demonstrated above, I am also pretty damn good with an ellipsis.)

Ok, it's not exactly the first thing, but pretty soon you will notice that I have inherited from my mother a near-obsessive habit of punning and other wordplay. You will likely be groaning a lot, and may eventually want to hit me with a baseball bat.

Unless of course you like that sort of thing...

This will take time to fill in....

For now just say that my taste in all four is very broad. (Ok, books, probably not quite as broad as the other three. Sometimes I am a little intellectually lazy.)

How to fill in the other boxes in this profile...