CURRENT MISSION

Grad school!

ABOUT ME

My life experience and work experience are like splattered paint. After college, I joined the Peace Corps. I went to Guinea, West Africa, and taught English in two different villages. After that, I hiked the entire Appalachian Trail. I then worked as a bookseller, game store manager, and baker, all the while freelancing both articles and puzzles on the side. I hiked around the outline of the state of Texas and wrote a syndicated column about the experience.

After a 10-month hiatus in Corpus Christi, Texas, I biked with my cat and dog to Arivaca, Arizona, where I am currently housesitting for a nice couple.

PHILOSOPHY

Get out there, and do it.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I have now couchsurfed about ten times. Every time, I've met some really great people. I've stayed with a teacher, a forester, a retiree, a farmer, a techie, an Air Force pilot. It's been a blast.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Each time I've couchsurfed, I've met people in entirely unique circumstances. I am grateful to my first hosts, two ladies in Orange, Texas, who took a chance on me during my Texas walk. This opened the doors to several more positive experiences.

Interests

I like to do so many things but often forget about the spectrum of my interests in the pursuit of one.

When I write, for example, I'm usually lost for hours on the computer. I've been writing columns to for a year to fund my trip around Texas. Before that, I freelanced columns and articles to newspapers in Montana.

I love biking and try to incorporate into my daily schedule. It's really hard for me to justify going for a ride if I'm not going anywhere. The further the destination, the better.

I wrote about reading above, but it's worth mentioning again. I love picking up a book that I've already read in a bookstore and getting just a pinch of it, to feel for a brief moment the wonder of the book.

Baking is the best thing in the world. I got a baking job at Sweetgrass Bakery in Helena, Montana, then a part-time job at a French bakery in Corpus Christi, Texas. I'd baked before, but now I've taken it to a new level. My favorites are danish and croissants.

I love gaming but don't get much of a chance for variety. I like playing chess with the fellows at Cafe Calypso, and I'm always up for checkers and backgammon. But I know over 200 games! If you need a rec, you come to me.

Finally, I love walking. Love, love, love it. I've hiked the Appalachian Trail and now the outline of Texas. A mountain is a glorious thing, as is the beach. I found my dog Raisin in Fabens, Texas, and we have traveled over 1000 miles together. She wasn't a huge fan of 20-mile days but is now a walk-aholic.

• cats
• dogs
• writing
• books
• baking
• walking
• chess
• reading
• cars
• puzzles
• painting
• cycling
• teaching
• freelancing
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

I love movies, though I'm not up-to-date. Old stand-bys are The Princess Bride, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Godfather, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Babe, The Matrix, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Casablanca, Stand By Me, As Good As It Gets, Notting Hill. Newer ones include Inception and The Social Network. Documentaries are great too. I've really enjoyed When We Were Kings, Murderball, Spellbound, and The King of Kong.

I enjoy reading so much. No definite pattern here, at least, none that I can discern. I enjoy good writing and return often to books I've fallen into. Notable ones from the last year are Friday Night Lights, The Worst Hard Time, Tales of Old-Time Texas, The Captured, Lonesome Dove (yes, all Texas-related).

Before that, the list is a bit more diverse: Catch-22, To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye, Lolita, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (George Saunders actually came to Corpus!), Rabbit is Rich, The Tale of Despereaux, Bud Not Buddy, Holes, The Trumpet of the Swan. Non-fiction: Black Like Me, The Freedom Writers' Diary, The Devil's Highway, In Cold Blood. I'm currently reading a history of mazes and books on backgammon strategy.

I'm really digging Jake FM in Corpus. Anybody else into this station? They play everything!

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I was on a bike trip in Guinea, West Africa, and hadn't intended on biking more than 15 to 20 miles. I wasn't yet used to the roads in my community and took a wrong turn. I ended up biking 60 miles in the completely opposite direction, but it was the most beautiful ride, absent of cars. I caught the countryside in a spurt of green growth, and though I rode this stretch two more times, I never saw it again like this, so green and so fresh.

Teach, Learn, Share

On my way to my first couchsurfing experience, I spoke with a guy in the apartment complex I was entering. He asked me to tell him one secret, any secret, that I had learned in my life. This is what I told him:

"When you're writing anything, if you don't react, your audience won't react. Write to make yourself cry or laugh or get excited. Open yourself up to your emotions while you write, and your audience will feel the same way."

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