CURRENT MISSION

To love life even more...if it's possible!

ABOUT ME

PLEASE NOTE: I will be in India traveling and working from 25 January through 8 March. So, sorry...no couch available during that time.

If you are a first-time visitor to India, a single woman traveling alone to the Subcontinent and in need of any advice, please feel free to hit me up. I greatly enjoy helping out other women who are coming here to visit for the first time!

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I'm a free-spirited global gypsy (not a hippiechick but a former gothbabe) yet I'm down-to-earth enough to make sure the bills get paid...sometimes even on time! ;)

I can't describe myself in this box. In fact, I don't even think "inside" or "outside the box"...I think *round* LOL. I'm a lot of fun, and I love talking to people with knowledge, experience, creativity, good stories, etc. You may be on a trip across the world or just the US, a wild and zany artist, or just someone who lives to travel and wants to see it all. Hey, we only get one free ticket on this crazy amusement ride called Planet Earth, from what I've divined so far. So why not see all and do all? Or at least as much as you can?

PHILOSOPHY

It's far better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't.

How to live a wonderful life:
-Always do your best.
-Always do the right thing.
-Always let the people you love know how much you care about them.

The three most important things in life are 1. to be kind, 2. to be kind, and 3. to be kind.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Bring yourself, your mind, and your opinions, and come hang out in gorgeous New Mexico with me. This state actually has more mountains than any other one in the whole USA...did you know that? Yep. And they're very beautiful too.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

From my youth in Austin sleeping on friends' couches at age 15, to crashing all over England in the 1990s when I lived there, to staying with friends in India in 2006 and 2007. I also just let a group of RoadDogs stay with me in my house for three months. Sorry, I'm not doing that again, even though they cooked and cleaned and earned their keep, hehe.

Interests

I want to learn everything...some things I'm obsessed with right now are, as always, reading. Dancing -- I've studied Bharatanatyam (Hindu temple dance for the past 6 years, and no, it has *nothing whatsoever* to do with belly dancing. In fact we eat belly dancers for breakfast ;) I've also studied two other styles of dance for a total of 26 years of my life --and I'm 32 :) Sculpting with light. Flying monkeys and getting them popular again, hehe. Fighting against the technology that is getting to be an onslaught of rampant consumerism. Making mosaics. Going up to Dixon, NM and mucking around on my friend's small organic farm. Being glad that I didn't "upgrade" my TV. Learning to tattoo.

• performing arts
• design
• dancing
• ballet dancing
• belly dancing
• breakfast
• flying
• technology
• reading
• tv
• traveling
• hinduism
• boxing
• dialects
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: Rasa, Autechre, MIDIval Punditz, State of Bengal, Asian Dub Foundation, Nitin Sawhney, Talvin Singh/Anokha, Devics, the Raveonettes, Dead Can Dance, The Gun Club (RIP, Jeffrey Lee), Jill Tracy, Calexico, Alchemical Burn, Coil, Jane's Addiction, Crash Worship, Download, Rasputina, Siouxsie, the Creatures, Love and Rockets, Bauhaus, old Cure, dot dot dot...

Books: (I'm picking my top few here, so this is hard) Shantaram, The Road, A Rebours (by JK Huysmans), Once Was Bombay, Foucault's Pendulum, Shalimar the Clown, Paradoxia, Turn off Your Mind, Perfume, Infinite Variety: The Life & Legend of the Marchesa Casati, The Death of Vishnu, Snake, Sarah, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, Swimming Underground, Journey to the End of the Night, A Fine Balance, Jitterbug Perfume, and anything else that falls into my hands.

Film: V for Vendetta, Lord of War, A Clockwork Orange, Fight Club, Holysmoke, Quills, for some reason Point Break, lol, a lot of Bollywood Films, and tons more

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I lugged $40k of BDSM equipment to India and set up the first professional dungeon there *ever* in 2006. At the time I was a single 29 year old woman doing this alone in a city where I knew _no one_. And I *loved* it!

I also graduated Valedictorian from a private high school in Texas, and Willie Nelson was at the commencement ceremony because he had a relative in my graduating class, and he complimented me on my speech afterwards :) But the anecdote above this one was much more fun!!

Teach, Learn, Share

I've enjoyed having many jobs and hobbies in my life, and I would love to share them and teach them to anyone who's interested. I studied French for six years, I know a goodly amount of Dutch, I am learning Hindi, and I know a lot of Sanskrit chants, and some Tamil and Kannada (local dialects specific to various Indian states.) I've studied Bharatanatyam (Hindu temple dance) for five years, and it is SO difficult and intricate of a dance form, it makes ballet look like _walking_. Here's a good link to a performance of this dance form on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prQOdTmF8u0

I have a BA degree in computer graphics, and I build websites and design print ads. All of this I would love to share. And I'd really like to learn car engine repair, and more about welding.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Oman, Qatar, Switzerland, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

India, United Kingdom, United States