ABOUT ME

I'm a courteous, professionally-focused 24-year old male who works at the EPA, takes graduate creative writing courses, and is involved in my church community in downtown DC.

I'm intellectually curious, have a light-hearted personality but am willing to have a deep conversation as well. Couch surfing is good for me, because I like meeting new people and lending a helping hand, as well as receiving one when I'm in need. (and hotels are just too expensive.)

Interests

I'm a poet, marathon-runner, bicyclist, science-major with a bent for soils/prairies/groundwater, and I like to draw with chalk pastels and water colors. All of these things tend to work together towards my strong prevailing interest: spending time outside or thinking about ecosystems, cosmology, etc. If I'm learning about the world, human or "natural" then I'm happy. I like reading my New Yorker's and watching PBS. Scrabble and Taboo are some of my favorite social games, but 6-on-6 volleyball with friends? Even better.

• writing
• marathon
• walking
• reading
• drawing
• surfing
• volleyball
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

Graceland (Paul Simon), Harmonium (Wallace Stevens), John Frusciante, Clapton, Elizabeth Johnson, Joan Acocella, Louis Menand, Buson, Issa, Johnathon Franzen

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

This seems very commercial and pathetic, but, at the Radiohead In Rainbows tour stop in St. Louis in 2009, they played Paranoid Android in the encore, and Johnny Greenwood's solo after the Rain Down bridge was accompanied by a suddenly psychedelic light screen. It was overwhelming.

My girlfriend of 4 years came back to DC to visit me with a newly-inked (fake) tattoo with my initials drawn dark and thickly on her upper arm. Love my girlfriend, but I was not ready for this seemingly irreversible display of affection without any forewarning. After letting me think the tattoo was real (for about 4 hours) she fessed up, mostly because of my pathetic philosophizing: "Have you ever felt that you're not really living your life?" I asked her. Those were some of the most vibrant hours of my life -- walking through a darkly-wooded valley with granite rocks along a stream, on a heavy April evening. When she finally confessed, I felt like a sickness had lifted. Really, though, I love my girlfriend.

Falling Water House by Frank Lloyd Wright in the fading afternoon light of an early day in January.

Countries I’ve Visited

United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States