I can make even Peoria or Ypsilanti a fun place to be (ask my friends), and I try to be a good person.

I want to be an urban planner and a real estate developer. I just got out of the urban planning program here, and am now on my job search. It's both freeing and intimidating - freeing because it opens all kinds of possibilities, intimidating because getting quality jobs seems to require running a guantlet.

I want to reach a state where I am free to enjoy the world but not hindered by being caught up in the associated frustrations, "in but not of", if that makes any sense. This is a larger-scale version of why travel appeals to me: I get to see a place with a beginner's mind, so I can get more out of a given amount of time than I easily can (yet) in a more familiar place. It seems being in that tangential state constantly could get lonely, though, without someone else of like mind with whom to share it.

I am brilliant, wry, and eccentric.

I'm searching for my first post-grad school job, travelling as the opportunity arises, and enjoying not having papers due every couple of weeks.

Standardized tests, talking people down from emotional situations, coming up with shocking but funny one-liners. Eating healthy, when I have money. Spending money. A selection of sexual activities. Overusing parenthetical statements.

Taking a whole jumbled pile of information and figuring out what to do next with it. Seeing things others overlook. Connecting the dots. Editing.

Sleeping for more than twelve hours at a go. Not sleeping at all. Worrying. Lying, but I hate doing that.

Give me a recipe for a baked good and I can make it work. My independent experiments, however, tend to the gooey side. I think it's my aversion to baking powder.

Intelligence, quirkiness, introversion, brazenness. When I had contacts, my eyes. I should probably go back to contacts.

The things people *don't* notice about me until they know me well:

If I have a friend in need, I'll drop all my concerns to listen. I despise namecalling (and commensurately value those who can argue maturely). I refuse to take advantage of a friend when he or she is vulnerable. I will not mince words with someone I'm close to, even at risk of offending that person gravely. I think Eisenhower was our greatest president...not so keen on the recent Republicans, though ::shudder::. Though I'd thoroughly enjoy the perks, I think I really would use absolute power to try to benefit humanity rather than (just) amuse myself.

Books) Ecclesiastes, Goedel Escher Bach, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, The Evolution of God, and anything nonfiction, especially on urban planning, written in a decently interesting and legitimately thoughtful way. Kevin Lynch's "Good City Form" is a classic if you're into that kind of thing.

Where did movies go? Oh, well. Things that make you think...Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Serenity, the one with the guy from the Brazilian slums...City of God, that's it...The Matrix trilogy in its less action-y parts, 500 Days of Summer, The Dark Knight (even though there wasn't nearly enough Two Face).

Music) My particular favorite area is alternative with female vocalists, and Garbage stands at the top of this category. Shirley Manson's voice is acoustic sex. I include The Smashing Pumpkins in the same group by special dispensation (sorry, Billy). That said, my tastes are pretty broad so long as the artist is talented.

Food) If I knew nothing of cholesterol, I'd be predominantly dairy-tarian. This would be supplemented with Mexican and American traditional cuisine.
As it stands, I'll eat anything (without its eyes still attached) reasonably healthful that I don't have to cook, and anything reasonably unhealthful that doesn't taste too manufactured and doesn't have trans fats. Trans fats are Nemesis to me. Which means: Snickers bars are my Kryptonite.

a) Good health

b) Modern hygiene

c) Big cities

d) Restaurants and/or frozen food so I never strictly HAVE to cook

e) Hope that my fellow Americans will start taking beauty (NOT cosmetics/unwise cultural norms)/aesthetics seriously someday

f) Regular intervals of relative quiet.

Philosophy, religion, politics, sex, drugs, aesthetics, intellectual integrity (admitting when one's wrong and being open-minded) and cities. The worse a topic is for polite conversation, the more important it probably is. How awkward it would be if I never landed a decent job despite spending eight years at a good school. In Michigan, this situation is very plausible...and it's not too much less so in Illinois, the other state I've lived in.

I spend *very little time* thinking about:

Sports, unless they're on a TV screen in my line of sight. The Lesser Antilles. Well, except now that I put them in my profile, I think a lot about how I don't think about the Lesser Antilles, which I guess means I think about them a lot. So that is retroactively a lie.

Plotting my weekend travel. Subsequently sleeping. I assume this heading is also intended to be a space where I indicate whether I'm extroverted and sociable (e.g., whether my typical Friday night is drinking and parties). I enjoy the occasional party and the occasional night of mild drunkenness, but my schedule is erratic enough that these are not necessarily on Fridays. I much prefer spending a lot of time with a few close friends, and just Fridays would seem too little.

I find it difficult to trust strict vegetarians.

Well, I only have one hard and fast rule about this. You must be able to consider yourself at least marginally nice/kind. I have had to deal with too many people with serious anger issues in my time.

Other than that: You think I sound interesting or you want to talk about any of the things mentioned above. You want to, but are shy or can't think of anything witty to say. You have, like me, an ambition to bring a Golden Age to humankind, or at least the Great Lakes region.

Relatively high matches by this site's sorting magic (above 75%)are preferred - I do think there's something to it. Oh, and I'm ridiculously shy at first, so please do message me if you're interested...I'll open up pretty quickly if I'm interested back.