I'm a grad student, writer, jack-of-all-trades, good boy, sometime lefty activist, and general ne'er-do-well. My style tends to be low-key, thoughtful, and perhaps slightly ambling, all of which I sometimes blame on being a displaced Midwesterner. I have a sharper side, but you might have to know me for a while to see it. I like emotional communication and am pretty good at it, but I'm not what you would call "touchy-feely."

I like the checkbox of "laughing about it" for religion, especially if laughter is taken to mean not carelessness but the fact that laughter wards off tears. Surely God has a sense of humor, if the platypus or human neuroses are any indication. I'm an offbeat Christian. I may tend to get along better with atheists and Jews than other Christians. I don't have bumper stickers on my car, but if I did, I would get one of those ones that says "the religious right is neither." And maybe a whole bunch of those little metal fish. The Icthus one and the Darwin one and the one of Calvin peeing on a fish ... wait, I'm confusing my bumper adornments.

I moved back to Oakland last fall, but I still I go down to Santa Cruz several days a week.

I'm a graduate student in the humanities and a teacher of undergraduates. Staying involved in political / activist work is important to me; I've been involved in my teaching assistants' union for the last several years, and I'm currently involved in organizing against the effects of statewide budget cuts. Over the next couple of years, I'll be writing my dissertation, teaching, applying for lots of fellowships and going to conferences, and working to get and stay healthy.

Writing. Active listening. Analysis. Tilting with windmills. Expropriating the rich (what I lack in experience I make up for in enthusiasm). Going there. Baking (though no, I didn't bake the bread in the picture!).

Aren't you sharp as a tack - you some kind of lawyer or something? Somebody important or something?

I read a lot. It's kind of my job to read. In a nutshell, I read a lot of philosophy, "theory," and leftist propaganda. When it starts to get uncomfortable, I crawl out of the nutshell and read something else for a while. Recently, for work: Kant, Hegel, feminist and critical race theory critiques of Kant and Hegel, contemporary political economy (David Harvey, Ellen Wood). Recently, for pleasure: A Clockwork Orange, The God of Small Things, Woman on the Edge of Time, Fontamara.

Netflix has revolutionized my ability to find movies I enjoy that are a little off the beaten path. A few new faves: Yojimbo, A Fistful of Dollars, Let the Right One In. A few long-time faves: The Apostle, Dirty Pretty Things, Chicken Run, Dogma, Ghost Dog, Eternal Sunshine, Time Out. I'm kind of a sucker for sci-fi / fantasy epics, too (Star Wars, Mad Max, Lord of the Rings, Night Watch).

Music: political hiphop (The Coup, KRS-One, Immortal Technique), classical music (Schubert string quartets, Philip Glass, Bach Inventions), folky country / rock (Richard Buckner, Steve Earle, Neko Case, Richard Thompson), some blues and some funk and some country. I also have a soft spot for schlocky, heart-rendering, anthemic ballads. When I get hooked on a pop song, I like to collect covers of different versions of the same song, in part so that I can listen to the song 15 times in a row without listening to the exact same song.

Food: Now that I'm back in Oakland, I'm excited about some sorts of food I missed in Santa Cruz: Ethiopian, Korean, Vietnamese, taco trucks, soul food & barbecue. I like to cook and bake; when I cook it ranges from healthy to hearty, leafy spinach salads to a fried chicken feast. I'm convinced that you can tell a lot about a place from its street food.

... getting together some kind of low-key activity with a few friends: a movie, game night, a trip to the neighborhood bar, making dinner together.

I'm a socialist. That's not very private, but it feels like "coming out" to admit it sometimes. Hopefully I'm not one of the annoyingly sectarian or deadly dull kind.