I'm another overeducated mid-20s not-quite-yet burnout who's dedicated her life to avoiding standard 9-5 gigs. I get to enjoy all the middle class anxiety without the early mornings.

Somehow, I've negotiated a life whereby I rarely spend a night at home alone, but I frequently have the time for needlework and baking. It suits me. Now, if I can just get around to the exploding model cars, I'll feel I've really got things laid out right.

I like renting movies, going to the pool, having a few cocktails, cooking, and crafting. I also like road trips, the desert, frosting, playing children's board games, and building collections of small, special objects. I also enjoy thinking up collections I will not pursue, such as bronzed baby shoes. The reason I will not pursue this is that bronzed baby shoes show up in literally every antique and junk shop, and so I'd get started, and then one day, I'd wake up and realize that the most lasting symbol of my life's work was the collection of hundreds of bronzed baby shoes occupying every surface in my house. And, really, that's a realization I'd rather never have.

I'm a graduate student. Hot damn!

So, at present, I teach part time, and I research as much as possible, and I freelance as a writer when I can. That sounds much less financially viable than it is. I pay my bills, swear.

My work mostly revolves around technology, American history and culture, and the holy trinity of race, class, and gender. I've crossed the line into dissertation territory, so I'm working pretty intensely on a cultural studies project about the golden age of arcade culture.

hostessing, cocktailing, reading, building sandwiches, picking on perfectly good movies, grammar, laughing, making shortbread

My blue eyes and my big mouth.

a) White Jazz, The Rules of Attraction, The Virgin Suicides, My Life in Heavy Metal, A Fan's Notes, Rent Girl, the Gay Place, My Cocaine Museum

b) Night of the Living Dead, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Piano, Pillow Talk, Velvet Goldmine, The Dreamers, Breathless, Crash (the Cronenberg one, not that embarrassing debacle), Pulp Fiction, Rear Window, High Fidelity, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Carrie

c) Neko Case, Lou Reed, the Drive-by Truckers, Yo La Tengo, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Elvis Costello, Joan Jett, Willie Nelson, Le Tigre, Liz Phair, James, Kinky Friedman, Hot Hot Heat, Nada Surf, The Sea and Cake, Viet Nam, Scout Niblett, Abigail Washburn, Susan Alcorn

d) birthday cake, salsa, southern-fried tofu, tomato and mozzarella sandwiches

eyeglasses, highlighters, chewy candy, cardigan sweaters, books, AK47 kit. Kidding. Partially.

potentially ill-advised projects, what I'm supposed to be doing instead.

Is there any answer to this question that won't make me sound like a slave to routine or some total pretentious douche?

the spirit moves you. Or, if you have beautiful scars, interesting stories, or would be willing to help sort out important issues, like what unicorns would eat for breakfast.