CURRENT MISSION

To figure out how airplanes stay up!

ABOUT ME

Someone read my palm once and told me I was going to die a young, horrific death and love far too many men. No one seemed surprised by this.

*I*
-sing at the top of my lungs (badly) in the car.
-have beautiful HANDS.
-love video games and bad 80s movies.
-feel so lucky sometimes.
-adore refrigerator magnets and hate spiders.
-tellingly pronounce literally with only 3 syllables.
-set aside a small portion of every day for the whimsical and absurd.
-enjoy slapstick comedy and ribald humor while being a disgustingly hopeless romantic.
*and*
I think you should always be just a little bit hungry.

I'm an elevator talker, a chapstick junkie. I'm the person who carefully plans out itineraries only to toss them right out the window at the first sign of excitement. I run around like a lunatic a lot and usually end up falling on my head.

I've been an angel- sweet, sacrificing, hopeful, and pure. I've also been hard, vicious, bitter, and cruel. I've finally been able to strike a balance between wide-eyed innocent and pessimistic realist. Optimism is a choice. Remember that.

I believe good people have bad things happen to them for no good reason. I believe everyone's fighting a harder battle. I believe the best about everyone but don't hold anyone else to the same standards I hold myself.

I believe in possibility and impossibility, truth and contradiction; I believe in hard work and dumb luck, faith and rationality. Maybe one day I'll be disappointed with my duality.

...but I haven't been yet.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Goddammit. Well I'm *trying*. ;)

I've never actually *been* a host which I totally understand as I am probably the most intimidating person on the planet. Who isn't terrified of 100lb frizzy-haired, book-toting catladies? Perhaps it's all that working out I've been doing with my 3lb weights!

Anywho. Should that day ever come- in the spirit of the whole CS project, I do solemnly swear to open my home and heart to strangers like they're the best of friends. I promise to act decent- and not take off my pants the moment I walk in the door from work nor subject my guests to a long and detailed account of my current financial, religious, or relationship woes.

I will share my pillows and towels, toilet paper and electricity; I will provide sustenance and wine my guests with my horrible vintage while dining them with my culinary specialties which include (and are completely limited to) waffles and/or spaghetti.

I will provide excellent directions.

I swear to treat others with the utmost respect and pay attention to their flight times and bus schedules. I promise to share my stories... and I hope everyone else is pleasantly inclined to do the same.

I sincerely look forward to this.
Thank you, couchsurfing.
m pretty much the bomb. Yo.

Interests

**WHIMS**

Taking photos, literature, language, kissing handsome men- foreign *and* domestic...

Writing down stories, road trips with sunsets, coffee talks, and beaches...

Figuring out how things work, MAPS!, history, culture...

Pottery, growing things, urban hiking, and personal growth...

FOOD! I could talk for days about food. I recently became a vegetarian so I pine for meals I had long ago: fresh mussels with sangria in Montreal's old port, metal burgers from Kuma's in Chicago, and Mexican food near the border- Mexican food so hot, you feel like you're drenched in sex.

I'm also quite interested in people. But not the small-talky way. I generally accept people for who they are but sometimes just want to make sure they have a reason for being who they are. I'm a great observer of folks and while I have very little use for sympathy, my empathy is the stuff of legend.

Music, Movies, and Books

I wish people would write less and read more.

Today my favorite book is The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Most of the time it's Alice Walker's The Color Purple. I've always been a sucker for fantasy fiction series like The Wheel of Time and The Sword of Truth because they make me feel like a little kid again. When I was a little kid, my favorite books were adult mass market trash written by V.C. Andrews and Stephen King. I was pleasantly surprised by Scar Tissue. I thought Edward Jones's The Known World was horrible, but what do I know anyway?

At some point in time, all of these have been my favorite book:

-The Giver by Lois Lowry
-The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
-Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell
-Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
-The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey
-The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
-Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
-Lord of the Flies by William Golding
-Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
-The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
-The Princess Bride by William Goldman
-The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
-The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
-The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
-James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
-American Gods by Neil Gaiman
-Invisible Monster by Chuck Palahniuk
-The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
-Anthem by Ayn Rand
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Someone recently suggested the Dark Tower series and I hearted it. I have a lot of guilty pleasures- there's no accounting for my tastes.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Life is hard sometimes. I watched my mother kiss my father goodbye; she had been devoted to him for over 40 years. His cancer took him painfully and quick and for the last 3 months of his life, he didn't recognize her.

Life is really hard sometimes. When I was 25, my best friend Bobby was in a fatal car accident. He left behind a collection of cowboy hats, a modded xbox, and a dented Dodge Daytona. Also: two small children and a 22 year old wife who was eight months pregnant with their third child.

These two women are my heroes.

I've had the great fortune to see people LOVE when they could have been BITTER and HOPE when everything told them to be CYNICAL.

Someone very dear to me recently taught me how amazing that actually is.

Teach, Learn, Share

I grew up on a reservation. This means if the zombie apocalypse ever actually happens, you *totally* want me on your team.

I can:
Tan hides.
Hunt, trap, and fish.
Shoot straight and make my own bullets.
Harvest mahnomen.
Make soap, rope, and maple syrup.
Start a fire and find my way in the dark.

I *can't* parallel park or salsa dance. But really, come on- how handy are THOSE going to be during the ZA?

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, El Salvador, France, Spain, United Kingdom, Venezuela

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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