Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.

Lawyer, scientist, musician, dogcatcher.

I live a monastic life and spend most of the year in the library. When summer breaks, I usually work with environmental non-profits or political campaigns. In what precious free time I preserve, I cook, bike, drink, read, garden, and generally pursue good times.

Making breakfast, calculating risks, remaining calm, truing wheels, playing pretend, dinner parties, charts and graphs, eating, concerts for kittens, calling sail progressions, high stakes guessing, listening, daydreaming, witty responses, celestial navigation, and forgetting names.

In the early spring I'm prematurely wearing shorts when it's still cold out. In the summer I'm still wearing black socks. Autumn means argyle. And throughout the winter my poofy hair cannot be tamed.

The Federalist Papers, The Iliad, Catch 22, On the Road, Life on the Mississippi, The Book of Five Rings, A Pattern Language, Dune, The Silmarillion, The Joy of Cooking, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Heat of Darkness, The Sun Also Rises, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, Ficciones, A Wizard of Earthsea, White Noise

Citizen Kane, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Pi, Ran, The Godfather, Jurassic Park, Amelie, Delicatessen, Pan's Labyrinth, Science of Sleep, The Life Aquatic, the Darjeeling Limited, Children of Men, National Treasure

//Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Ravel, Debussy, Stockhausen, Varese, Stravinsky, Ligeti, Xenakis, Kagel, Cage, Lucier, Feldman, Rattle, Bernstein, Gould, Stern, Casals, Drouet
//The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Band, The Pixies, Rage Against the Machine, Neutral Milk Hotel, The White Stripes, Deerhoof, Regina Spektor, Marnie Stern, Broadcast, Thao Nguyen, Hella, the Arcade Fire
//Led Belly, Hampton, Davis, Coltrane, Gordon, Jackson, Mingus, Monk, Bill Evans, Pastorius, Blanchard, Mehldau, Medeski, Martin, and Wood, Blackalicious, Lupe Fiasco, Lauren Hill
//Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Zap Mama, Laura Veirs, Laura Gibson, CocoRosie, Joanna Newsom, Andrew Bird

flour, eggs, butter, milk, eggplant, mozzarella, Gruyere, cheddar, Gorgonzola, green tea, chocolate, olive oil, spinach, bananas, avocados, tomatoes, mango, honey, pasta, potatoes, bagels, scones, pancakes, crepes, horseradish, habaneros, wasabi, tuna, salmon, roast beef, brownies, whiskey, etc.

H, O, N, C, Na, Cl, K, etc.

Steel bicycles, water, partisan bickering, agriculture in America / buying land, Justice Douglas Dissenting, new music, and the world of futures.

...cooking pizza with the housemates and slipping into a home-brew tinged food coma.

As a young man I unabashedly sought global domination.

...you've read this far;
...you just happen to have extra cheesecloth;
...you are connected to farmers, farms, or farm/garden/raise animals/make food products yourself;
...you need a percussionist;
...you brew beer or have lab experience with S. cerevisiae.