CURRENT MISSION

to bend space and time and travel through the fifth dimension...uh, to live really, that's my mission

ABOUT ME

I can pull off normal when I have to. But it requires strenuous effort and leaves me exhausted, so I try to avoid such situations.

I smile a lot.

I used to have this idea that I must be an alien because I just didn't understand, much less fit in, with the human beings around me. Though it turns out I am indeed a human being myself (at least all the evidence available would seem to support this theory), people still fascinate me. What motivates them, the decisions they make, how and why they make them, and these questions continue to absorb my attention (distracting me from whatever else I'm probably supposed to be doing).

I have a tendency to overanalyze, which disrupts my ability to be present. I have found meditating to be very helpful in overcoming this. It has enabled me both to be with things as they are and also to strive actively to become a more joyful, compassionate, patient, and generally balanced person.

My sense of humor tends to be ironic, but I'm not cynical. Hope I never will be.

I do better in small groups of people than at large parties. I like getting into conversations that go all night long. I have been told on more than one occasion that I'm intense. I guess that says something about me.

PHILOSOPHY

"Thinking you know something creates the perfect barrier against learning." - Frank Herbert

The more I have experienced, the more I have learned not to take anything, especially not my construct of reality, for granted. I succeed, if I'm lucky, maybe one hundredth of a percent of the time.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Every single one of the following CouchSurfers has added dimension and enriched my life by being a part of it, even if only for one night. Though my own experience with surfing has been limited to large weekend excursions, hosting has been more rewarding than I ever would have guessed. Each of these journeyers has only brought me joy, and hopefully even a bit of wisdom:

Matt from Toronto, Canada
Mihyun from Seoul, Korea
Alexandra from Paris, France
George from "good question"
Justen from Tampa, Florida
Christina from Toronto, Canada
Anne from Copenhagen, Denmark
Carolin from Berlin, Germany
Julia from Berlin, Germany
Dan from Bel Air, Maryland
Liga from Riga, Latvia
Helen from Meath, Ireland
Xander from London, England
Ana from Munich, Germany
Merijn from Utrecht, Holland
Katrin from Munich, Germany
Stephanie from Seattle, Washington
Nadiéjda & Pamela from Paris, France
Andrea from Bogotá, Colombia
Valerie from Santa Fe

Interests

Hanging out with friends, hanging out with strangers, synchronicity, playing the piano, walking around New York, walking around Chapel Hill, Bolin Creek, reading, meditating, Greek mythology, language, crossword puzzles, making bags, writing, film-making, the art of storytelling - why we tell a particular story and how to tell it most effectively. I want to becoming a better and more frequent cook. And I love singing.

• arts
• writing
• singing
• cooking
• walking
• partying
• clothing
• reading
• traveling
• puzzles
• piano
• surfing

Music, Movies, and Books

A sample of the movies, music, and books I have enjoyed over the course of my life include:

Movies: Breakfast at Tiffany's (and pretty much anything with Audrey Hepburn), Richard Linklater movies, Annie Hall, Bull Durham, Casablanca, I Heart Huckabees, Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola version), Garden State, Groundhog Day, The Addams Family, Happy Endings, Donnie Darko, Southland Tales, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Princess Bride, Labyrinth, Gattaca, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Nightmare Before Christmas

Music: The Beatles, David Bowie, Green Day, MIKA, Muse, Peter, Paul & Mary, Phish, Pink Floyd, Regina Spektor, Rilo Kiley, The Rolling Stones, Rufus Wainwright, Stephen Sondheim, Sublime, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, U2, Weezer, The Who, also a fan of several broadway musical soundtracks -- Guys & Dolls spring to mind, and to be perfectly honest, there may be some songs from Disney's Beauty & the Beast popping up on my playlists as well.

Books: Good Omens, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Dandelion Wine, Tender Is The Night, A Wrinkle in Time, The Phantom Tollbooth, Siddhartha, To the Lighthouse, Middlemarch, Crossing to Safety, The Idiot, Metropolis, A Scanner Darkly, The Historian, The Shadow of the Wind, Slow River, Brave New World

Internet: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

TV: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Farscape, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Dollhouse, Scrubs, Veronica Mars, 30 Rock, Lost, Important Things with Demetri Martin, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I was walking to the subway from a Brooklyn meetup with a couple other CSers when we happened to look up at the sky. The clouds were the wispy kind, and out of them emerged this great cloaked figure, like a Dementor. All of a sudden the moon (almost full) slipped out from behind the clouds. It was truly shocking in its brightness against the black sky. Just as quickly, the clouds forming the cloaked figure overtook the moon, masking it once again from sight. It looked as if the Dementor had swallowed the moon whole. It was terrible and beautiful.

Teach, Learn, Share

I could probably show you how to spend hundreds of hours hand-sewing a single bag from old clothes.

Countries I’ve Visited

Greece, Israel, Italy, Turkey, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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