I am conscious. I am amazed. I am an introvert. I crave real moments with others. I study life because that is how I choose to get past its absurdity. I live for moments of clarity and awareness, into which I sometimes emerge following extensive bouts in a hazy paradise of confusion.

Thenewnumbersix and I are in a loving open relationship, and I'd like to form other caring friendships and relationships in my life. Right now I'm still deciding for myself what I'm looking for in others, but primarily it is mutually beneficial, honest communication and a shared vision. I match better with people who are extroverted, because I tend to be an introvert.

I am living with an awareness of the impact my thoughts and actions have on the world, and trying to correlate infinite desires with each moment's desire.

I just finished my undergrad degree in architecture and now I'm going to be taking some time off from formal education, with a more-than-likely continuation next year. Right now I'm half-heartedly looking for a job while trying to use my free time well while I still have it - volunteering, going to lectures, running, spending time with friends and attempting to write again.

I'd like to call myself a writer, but that would entail actually writing things.

I'd like to be involved in work that heals people and peoples' relationship with our planet, although the temptation to remain a critic is very strong. There's just so much to criticize.

As much as I love the city I also love getting away from it and ideally I'd be able to teleport to a cabin in the woods where I could be by myself.

Recently I'm trying to find joy in the things I do.

VERBING THE NOUN

-Trying new things
-Not finishing things
-Daydreaming
-Procrastinating
-Making lists
-Writing (I think, when I actually do it)
-Philosophizing
-People-watching
-Walking places
-Cycling around
-Sitting in cafés
-Making crafts
-Making tea
-Giving you advice
-Lying in the sun
-Reading books

My two favourite novels are Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides and House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I also enjoy Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro. Recently I've been reading a tome of Rumi and A Wrinkle in Time. Also architectural theory and history. I'm one of those people who always has a few half-finished books on the go. I love it when people recommend books but I usually get around to reading them a year and a half later.

Some favourite movies: Three Colours Trilogy, Ghost World, The Virgin Suicides, Secretary, Waking Life, Spirited Away, The Matrix, Exils, Y tu mamá también, Fire Earth & Water by Deepa Mehta.

Music is variable but sometimes a well-timed tune will set my spirit ablaze. I like music with wild women wailing or poetic phrases or fantastic beats. Or all of the above. I'm a fan of Tricky, Poe, Beth Orton, Gotan Project, Aretha Franklin, Tori Amos, Martina Topley-Bird, Massive Attack, Beck, Moby, The White Stripes, Led Zeppelin, Natalie Merchant, Keren Ann, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Leonard Cohen, Tracy Chapman, Heather Nova, & Lizzie West. A guilty pleasure is Peaches. I also like western classical music, folk/dance music from various parts of the globe and hearing new and strange sounds.

I like good, fresh, whole foods. I like to cook, particularly vegetarian dishes, and I'm looking to get more cooking in during the fall with yummy local flavour. I like Ethiopian restaurants and sushi and farmers' markets. I like going out for food, but I'm doing so less often these days. I'm a pesco-vegetarian which means people are always asking me whether I eat this or that, and worry about whether I'll have anything to eat.

I'll leave this one blank, and you can imagine any six either very typical, or perhaps unusual objects, or even a witty diatribe against the nature of this market-research-disguised-as-profile-question.

Questioning things, and you should, too.

My relationships.
Whether there is the possibility of inventing idealistic relationship models and striving to achieve those ideals, or whether that is a futile task and I'm better off just consciously engaging with each person I know to the extent we are meant to. Polyamory and bisexuality play into this a great deal, but I'm not sure whether either of these formalized terms (or others) will really aid me too much in my journeys.

How I relate to the world.
What impact my life has on others (if any) and how far I can stretch my will to affect reality. Whether it is better to act in each moment with awareness, or set goals that may never be achieved but will provide me with guidance in how I should behave.

Solitude.
Being alone. Whether this is better or worse than being with others. Whether life is meaningless outside relations to others.

Control.
Who influences my life (personally, politically)? Is it ethical to exercise control over others, and if so, under what circumstances, and to what extent?

Subversion.
Work in the system or outside the system?

Enlightenment.
What this really means and whether I really need to practice detachment to achieve it. Or whether detachment is the exercise of rejecting the human condition in order to feel enlightened, whilst knowing nothing of the world's suchness.

Urban space.
The city as the essential human artifact and the perception, phenomenology, and psychology of urban space. How cities get built, and the power dynamics involved. Informal, illegitimate human settlements as compared to formal and legal ones and the basis for regulating how people inhabit land. Boundaries and borders.

Ideas.
The way ideas (in the sense of non-manifest imaginings or theories) influence and alter perceptions and values in ways that affect the world.

Sex.
Kink, gender, constructions of gender, bisexuality, non-monogamy, repression, neuroticism, dominance and submission, making out, sluts, bruising, what it means, feminism, fetishism, ownership of bodies, losing control, dressing up.

Thenewnumber6

Editors

• Thenewnumber6

...becoming stranger, although this activity is not limited to Friday nights.

I'm not as serious as I probably seem. Though I am fairly shy.

Also, I like really ridiculous people. I secretly wish I was more ridiculous.

you decide to.