CURRENT MISSION

Put my good where it will do the most !

ABOUT ME

The short version: photographer/writer/feminist/plant hugger/introvert/queer/vegetarian/pun-maker who reads everything

The long version: My greatest curiosity is the human narrative -- the stories we tell ourselves, the homes we create, leave, create again, our notions and fissures, what we make of them. What we make ourselves to be and what we leave out. A nomad and a homebody in equal measures, much of my art, research, and headspace is devoted to concepts of home, place, and belonging, and how to cultivate these things wherever I am.

PHILOSOPHY

"Someday, the light will shine like a sun through my skin & they will say, What have you done with your life? & though there are many moments I think I will remember, in the end, I will be proud to say, I was one of us." -- Brian Andreas

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

My home is a safe space -- for all types, tongues, stories, orientations, outlooks, and raison d'etres. And if I'm the one a'wandering, I'm still a safe space.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Hosted:
a Russian soul-searcher and antique repairer with god on her wrists; a reproductive freedom fighter who met Danny DeVito on an airplane; the best "Hotel California" karaoke singer I've yet to hear; a Spanish wine-bearing soulsister, a touring band of indie popsters (there was jag and harmonizing and mac n' cheese pizza); a rainbow-haired Lady Godiva who loved us so much she's now stayed with us twice (and counting I hope!); a couple a decade older than myself who asked me the same life questions I hoped they'd answer for me; two rascally childhood best friends; a wedding photographer who arrived with a case of PBR; a boy with my childhood Fisher Price wagon tattooed on his arm (that red one with the yellow roof, anyone?) -- he renewed a faith I didn't realize needed it; a wanderer who wrote me from Vegas: "I hope you are faring well yourself, in the sea of the interesting;" two Slovenian students who bought a vintage VW bus in Franconia, a djembe drummer who went to Burning Man and was bequeathed a motor home; the third mustache ranger; a "Baru"-driving documentarist and two hysterical tagalongs; a charismatic Aussie on an 18-month tour of the world; a superstar bowler and his Kiwi, who met picking fruit; a boy who wishes for an America where you can love whoever you want and nobody would think anything about it; a man who lost his car in Vegas while working the Kerry campaign; a zombie zookeeper and his cohorts; a group of wanderers – one looking for a wife, one drawing the world, one who made music with coffee cups, and one looking for a new home; a Ukrainian couple and a Mexican couple with excellent taste in maple syrup; an Parisian electronic musician playing at the Minneapolis SPARK Festival; an Australian snowboarder who broke his back, but will hit the slopes again next season; a Baltimore man who, if given the opportunity to be anywhere in the whole world, wanted to be right where he was; a west coast bicycle tour guide searching for the perfect swingset; a DJ/laser tag enthusiast/biology grad student I feel like I’ve known my whole life; an L.A. native who danced with me all night and did my dishes the next morning; two gals from Rochester just looking for a fun night in the big city; the best scrambled egg chef in the whole, wide world; an emo band touring the U.S.; three guys who knew more movie lines than anyone I’ve ever met; a troupe of 5 artists on a photobooth tour of the Midwest, who crafted an impromptu ukulele tune about surfing my couch

Interests

gardens, watching rainstorms from the front porch, eating ice cream next to the cows that made the milk, biking with no hands, bonfires, poems by Pablo Neruda, Warsan Shire, Hafiz, finding the Big Dipper at night, whiskey, (parenthesis), menswear, the word "plethora," feathers in my cap, remembering my dreams, the Minneapolis skyline, children's stories, Hyde Park (the London one), dirt under my fingernails

• arts
• writing
• books
• poetry
• festivals
• dancing
• cooking
• recipes
• wine
• cheese
• coffee
• vegetarian
• board games
• traveling
• drawing
• music
• electronic music
• indie pop
• karaoke
• cycling
• fishing
• surfing
• snowboarding
• bowling
• biology
• tourism

Music, Movies, and Books

Music:
"There are some mornings when the sky looks like a road
There are some dragons who were built to have and hold
And some machines are dropped from great heights lovingly
And some great bellies ache with many bumblebees
(and they sting so terribly)"

Stuff with lyrics like that.

Movies:
Harold and Maude, Big Fish, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Wendy and Lucy, Electric Children, Frances Ha, Never Let Me Go, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Books:
Notes from No Man's Land, The Empathy Exams, The Faraway Nearby, Sometimes a Great Notion, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Autobiography of Red, Henry and June, House of Incest, Tropic of Cancer, The History of Love, Everything Is Illuminated, The Phantom Tollbooth, Where The Wild Things Are, Peter Pan and Wendy, The Awakening

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Helped fight a peat fire in Northern Minnesota. I searched for smoke, ran a gigantic fire hose, operated a bulldozer, a backhoe, and a dilapidated 2.5-ton Army cargo truck from 1952, and had ash freckles for days.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach you how to ID all the trees anywhere as long as they're native to Minnesota, how to cook sweet potato tacos (my one and only culinary specialty), where to forage for figs in Baltimore City, how to bind a handmade journal, and how to drive a Bobcat if you have one.

I've shared dance floors and bottles of port and floor space and Groupons and recipes and board games and dreams and life questions and book lists and travel tips and late-night pizza and foreign phrases and adventures and misadventures and so so many songs, giggles, stories with someone I barely knew, and s/he shared back. New friends all over the world? I say absolutely.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belize, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Czech Republic, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Laos, Latvia, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Scotland, Slovenia, Spain, Thailand, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

United Kingdom, United States

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