ABOUT ME

I'm energetic and adventurous but also laid back. I seek out new experiences and enjoy getting to know new people and places. I am a pretty abstract thinker but I'm good at practical tasks and am clean and organized. I get very excited about things like a really good stout or a hilarious phrase. I'm always looking for details worth remembering in my environment and experience. I enjoy bizarre encounters and the type of humor that is awkward at first. I'm pretty unpredictable but very reliable as a friend.

Interests

I love languages, books, old architecture in cities, movies, food and wine, agriculture and traveling. I enjoy cooking, wandering, acoustic music, drawing, painting and collaging, visiting farms and wineries, gardening, reading novels and engaging in conversations that range from very eccentric to completely practical. I write stories and poetry. I used to dance salsa and swing but am totally out of practice.

• books
• poetry
• performing arts
• architecture
• fashion
• dancing
• environment
• dining
• cooking
• wine
• meditation
• flying
• gardening
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• painting
• drawing
• music
• agriculture
• languages
• mountains

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Awestruck moment #1: I was in a park near my house when the a tiny owl perched on the finger of a branch with a sinister hand launched itself into the air and went into a dive straight towards me. It swooped less than an inch from my face and then returned in a flutter back to its spindly post. I had no idea that owls could be so small or that they could demonstrate such strange determination. I felt I had just received some crucial information about the nature of reality from the little creature.

Awestruck moment # 2: In rural Argentina I worked with a group of gauchos on a ranch for several months. I watched them perform a range of rural tasks and rituals with complete fluency. I was impressed but not awestruck by their macho stunts like eating entire heads of raw garlic or holding burning embers in their hands until extinguished; but I was truly astonished by their capacity to move herds of goats in intricate patterns across hillsides with a series of whistles and a genius canine partner. I was amazed that they could pop the testicles off of young cows with their razor sharp knives and drop them in a sack to save for soup without flinching, laughing all the while at jokes that I never understood, merely stating their actions and resulting in no discernable punchline.

Awestruck moment # 3: I learned to lucid dream from a guru in Guatemala. I don't know if I believe in all of the alternate realms of reality that she claims we are capable of visiting through dream meditation, but it sure is a lovely concept. While I was at her lakeside pyramid of spiritual refinement (or tourist trap for ridiculous hippies), I cannot deny that became awake in a particular dream. I was playing dodgeball in gym class in high-school and I could one of the red orbs which began to glow and sort of merged with my hand like something from an animae cartoon. The ball was a bright orange star that had swallowed my hand and upper arm in it's glow. I don't know if it began to fly and dragged me along or it gave me the power to fly and I did so of my own free will, but once my feet were off of the ground I was completely conscious. Everything was as vivid and real as it is in non-dreams. I recognized many of my classmates from school below me, looking up, the red balls lying all over the ground around them. I could hear lots of their thoughts, some of my friends were proud of me for flying, others were jealous. A girl I had dated was embarrassed by the spectacle I was causing. But there were no words. I chose to fly out the large window above the bleachers which opened when I approached. Outside, I was in Guatemala. The window had served as a sort of inter-spatial portal from Portland to Lago Atitlan, where I actually was while dreaming this. The mountains around the lake had glowing auras of pink and yellow energy, radiating up towards the sky. They looked like pictures I'd seen of and aurora borealis. I flew with my star-arm to the hostel where I was staying. I remember the thatched roof and the hammocks in the courtyard. I felt the real warmth of the night. When I got to the bed where I was sleeping I saw myself. I hovered above myself like ghosts who leave people's bodies in cheesy movies. And in that same cartoonish fashion, I lay my astral body down and merged with my physical body. I opened my eyes, feeling awestruck.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States