ABOUT ME

I am, as they say, a huge dork. I will discuss Scott Lynch novels, Cosmos, Bioware video games, or D&D on a whim.

I have something of a fluid demeanor, and can adapt to most social environs pretty readily. I really love allowing a specific person or setting to highlight or amplify my expression and personality in unique ways.
By this, I suppose I mean that I really value openness to new experiences and how I may come to know myself in new, intimate ways by being available to enhancements, intrigues, and challenges of diverse people and experiences.

I avoid employing concepts such as good and evil, as every person's values, development, and behavior is conditional, emerging from the interaction and transaction of the person-in-environment.
Who we are in a given moment is the product of both cumulative and immediate biological, psychological, social, and perhaps spiritual systems that interact and integrate to comprise the vessel of our consciousness; our lenses of being.

Also, I am not always this lofty.
I just look good in writing.

The architecture of my personality contains plenty of crofts, alcoves, grottoes and dens were dwell entities of dark humor, eroticism, child-like euphoria, melancholia, and plenty of silliness.

PHILOSOPHY

"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself."

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've only couchsurfed once so far and it was phenomenal. The couple we stayed with actually went adventuring around Paris with us, guiding our local experience. We cooked together, bonded over our common joys and concerns, and expanded our awareness by indulging each other's culture.

An experience like no other in my wide and varied travels.

Interests

Relationships...exploring our capacities for sharing and intimacy. We have so many ingrained values about what valid friendships, partnerships, and intimacy look like, and I want to acknowledge that. Then I want to break it down as much as possible. I believe in the significance of years-long friendships, long nights with strangers, and a passing smile on a sidewalk, and I celebrate them all as valuable occasions of connection.

Identity...sexual, gender, relational, social....how much can we consciously determine? How much do we actually posture at individuality from underneath the heavy cloak of culture?

Cooking...with and for people. It's really quite intimate. Food is the great equalizer; a bonding agent no matter your differences.

Languages...they're not just word-tools, they are maps of one's experience of culture. It is my goal to become proficient in at least one more during my life.

Perhaps I'll make my impression as the most well-meaning earnest fool you will meet.
I am a graduate student of Social Work, which to me means that I challenge myself daily with believing in humanity, despite much evidence that we are our own barriers to the health and progress of our species and are poised to destroy ourselves and the world we share with many others.

I am fascinated with the Cosmos. I tear-up at the sound of Carl Sagan's voice.

Travel is to me less of a luxury and more of a personal obligation. Exposure is the surest ignition of growth.
There is already so much of the world, so many sights, books, & art, so many beautiful folks... so many exquisite experiences that I will never have because I am such a brief, small creature.
But I can try. And within each attempt, I come to know the breadth of existence, my own capacity for wonder, and just how curious we humans can be.

• arts
• culture
• writing
• books
• architecture
• environment
• dining
• cooking
• video games
• traveling
• rock climbing
• cartography
• languages
• social work

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

-Climbing Ben Nevis in the Highlands of Scotland.

-Riding a gondola up Mt. Pilatus in Lucerne

-Couchsurfing with Parisians who showed me a warmer, more charming experience than I could have imagined.

-Bathed in a hollowed-out tree in the middle of a forest

-Bicycled through the postcard reality of the Tuscan countryside

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Spain, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States