CURRENT MISSION

To hitchhike and bum around Missouri with a friend for a week this summer. Our goal is freedom, fun, memories, and adventure.

ABOUT ME

Aliases: Jonathan, JBJ, Johannah

I like adventures when I'm lucky enough to discover them. They're harder to embark as you get older as responsibilities and commitments increase. I love exploration in all its forms: I like hitch hiking, regular hiking, seeing new places or old places with a fresh light, abandoned buildings and untouched landscapes.

Most of all I like exploring people and their ideas: the weird, the queer, the challenging, the lonesome, the old, and the people that go way back. Though I often fail to live it consistently, I think relationships are the most important part of life. I'd trade everything for a couple fantastic friendships. I'd like to live in a commune, temporarily or permanently, both for relationships and to work towards large goals as a group. I have three very good friends but to have relationship, however small, with every person in my life - that is true bliss. After a commune, I'd most like to live in a very small town or small college campus.

I'm not very spiritual any more, but I am very religious. I like reading prayers, fasting, incense, and reading the Bible with pomp. I like the Anglican and Eastern Orthodox traditions as they best fit my theology and practice. I live in the conviction that I should be as God, as did Jesus, which makes life very challenging indeed. I could go on forever about religion, so it's best just to ask me.

I'm a vegetarian and will go back to being a vegan when I get my own kitchen again. I kinda like politics except for all the politicians involved. I'm not a Democrat or Republic and I fall somewhere between socialism and capitalism. I like cats and most animals but I hate dogs. I'm too weak and uncoordinated to like sports but I like moving, especially biking. Some people call me a hippie but I don't like drugs or sex (of course!). I often feel too insecure about my tastes to talk about music with music geeks, but I like most things. I love NPR.

My gender is somewhere in the vast sphere of transgender genderqueer where I express both masculine and feminine, but not too much of either. Some of my attributes are feminine and some are masculine and I embrace whatever is true to myself with occasionally weeding out the parts that are sinful or that I just don't like.

I'm an organizational and strategy freak and so I want a career in libraries. For the same reasons I like computers and programming, though I don't push myself very far any more. I use Macs and Linux. I spend half my day at the IT department for the Salvation Army. I don't read much fiction any more. I'm afraid I'm getting boring.

I'm a strong believer in myth. I feel I should have been born several thousand years ago when they valued tradition, stories, subjectivity, vllage, God(s) and a lot of the primitive things the Enlightenment did away with. It's seems bizarre, but I understand a lot of my life through primitive means.

PHILOSOPHY

I'm super big on living simply. Possessions and all the things that above-poverty-level money brings - services, opportunities, traveling, "freedom" are just distractions, not real happiness. The less money distracts, the more Real Life you can appreciate.

Life is relationship. All in all, that's all that matters. And this coming from an introvert!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Just looking for warm and dry places to sleep at night. And wanting to hear about what makes your town special.

I'm afraid I've always been an awful host and I'm not in a position to give up any sleeping space. One day, tho.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

None per se. While hitch hiking before I couched with some nice strangers who just happened to pick me and a friend up during a rainstorm.

Interests

• animals
• cats
• dogs
• folklore
• beauty
• vegetarian
• vegan
• politics
• reading
• traveling
• music
• cycling
• hiking
• sports
• divinity
• religion
• hitchhiking

Music, Movies, and Books

Things that make me feel and think deeply. In my case, that ends up being folk, indie rock, dramas, myth, and a lot of nonfiction.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Hitchhiking thru Illinois. We were struck with the scoping beauty around us in both nature in people. Strangers were so much more kind and generous than we gave them credit for. Adventures awaited us everyone, waiting for us to find them.

Teach, Learn, Share

Traveling can be free from money. That's why I love this place.