CURRENT MISSION

Become not a couch surfer.....but a couch sailer......

ABOUT ME

Spent my formative years working in a Catholic bookstore, (still the most radical place I've ever been in), dismantling appliances, mixing household products and reading every book I could find. An obsession with taking notes on pond scum samples made me want to be a microbiologist, but I couldn't handle the florescent lighting in the lab, so I decided to try everything else. I still take out my microscope occasionally, but if I ever do become an 'actual' scientist, I want to be like the mother in A Wrinkle in Time, live on an organic farm, cook on my Bunsen Burner, have six kids, have a husband lost in outer space, et cetera. But that's if I ever became a scientist.....otherwise, my current affiliations are towards craft and sailing.

PHILOSOPHY

If you want to get anything done, you've got to at least try it yourself. Everyone has a story, and you can only begin to imagine it.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Well, my room mate and I are both on CS, offering our place to travelers, and in the past, I have lived in many other houses that have hosted travelers, with and without being on couchsurfing.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Well, my first official experience was staying near Cadiz for carnaval, and it was fabulous. The least likely people find themselves sharing spaces, and somehow becoming friends, that's all I can say. We had ten people staying in the house and there was, amazingly, enough space for us all! We dressed up, cooked food, explored the madness of carnaval, et cetera.

Interests

leather bookbinding, bike maintenance, sailing, organic farming, gray-water systems, scavenged construction, bagpipes, giant paper-mache sculpture and puppeteering, free homecooked meals, public Halloween theatrical spectacle, freak shows, community education, crew change guides, the writer's union (never shall die!) baristas...., Catholic history and politics, critical mass, orienteering, Renaissance Festivals, blizzards (the kind for snowshoes), uniforms, English grammar, linguistics, good boots, masquerade balls, Sugarbush, fire, The Twilight Zone New Year's Marathon, rummage sales, dumpsters, 80-year old friends, the Red Cross, pedagogy, kohl, antique cursive handwriting and nib pens, out of print books, saber-fencing, camping, the Great Lakes (and smoked chubs), cedar trees, Lodge, essential oils, co-ops, microscopes, scrabble, flat-patterning, compost, baroque, polyphonic and chant music (usually Catholic), photoshop, cellos, old maps, midwifery, brain-tanning, adventure stories, laboratories in glass towers, black cats, sled dogs, wild-ricing, WWII-era training manuals,goggles, appliances and fashion, pirate songs, quilting rulers, birds-eye maple, homemade clover beer, sauerkraut and hard cider, reading by candlelight, woodstoves, pre-1950's film, cigarette holders, live music, blackstrap molasses, dive bars, chance encounters, mustaches (usually they only look good on girls, sorry), small strong towns, booyah, wool shirts, sunflower seeds, venison, rattails, contra-dancing, accordions, etymology, local superstitions and legends, old dictionaries, 6-stranded braiding, plant identification, amber, stick and poke, mink oil, multitools, hand-forged knives, blacksmiths, wild grapes, abandoned barns, old farm implements (scythes! and sickles!) home-made hot tubs, sing along with Mitch records, eastern rite icons, Dorothy Day, improbably executive desks, cognac cigarillos, liquid watercolors, S.R. Harris, thick cream-colored paper, Rendezvous, glover's needles, really really long walks, good soup seam-rippers, abandoned places, old cemeteries, typewriters, fallen leaves, balaclavas, going incognito, lurking, problem-solving.

• cats
• dogs
• birds
• writing
• books
• singing
• fashion
• festivals
• dancing
• education
• dining
• cooking
• beer
• marathon
• politics
• reading
• music
• live music
• cycling
• camping
• sailing
• fencing
• cartography
• teaching
• etymology
• history
• science
• lakes

Music, Movies, and Books

See interests... In addition, though, I like local music, movies like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Lord of the Rings and City of Lost Children
Books: Shadow of the Wind, His Dark Materials, The Deluxe Transitive Vampire, Discipline and Punish, The Teaching Emotion, Winter's Tale, Soldier of the Great War, American Gods, Red State Rebels, The Name of the Rose

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, Mexico

Countries I’ve Lived In

Spain, United States