CURRENT MISSION

promoting the general welfare and rockin' in the free world ;)

ABOUT ME

When I was three years old, I had a wooden horse with wheels that my grandparents had given me to make up for the fact that I couldn't ride the real horses. One day, my aunt watched as I rode my horse off the front steps, hitting my head and splitting my lip open. She swears I was yelling, "Whoa, horsey! WHOA, HORSEY!" as I careened over the edge, but that my little legs were still pedaling forward as fast as they could go.

I think that's still pretty much my approach to life.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I live in an intentional society/housing cooperative named Whitehall Co-op. We are the oldest residential co-op in Texas [that is still operational], and just celebrated our 60th birthday! Part of being a co-oper is being willing to open your home and share it with a variety of people. We have visitors from all over the world, and we love the new energy that guests bring to the house. And if the guests are also co-opers from other places, so much the better! Anything that promotes cooperative living and values!

Interests

Co-ops, progressive politics, the Middle East, Arabic, many other things. :)

• horses
• make up
• politics

Music, Movies, and Books

It's rare that I do not have a book in hand. Authors I enjoy: Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, JK Rowling, George RR Martin, Charles Bukowski, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, Alice Walker, Philip K Dick, Cormac McCarthy, Graham Greene, Nick Hornsby, Salman Rushdie, Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Susanna Clark, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, et al. Just finished reading Asne Seierstad's A Hundred & One Days: A Baghdad Journal. Fascinating! Currently reading Drinking the Sea at Gaza by Amira Hass.

I also loooooove good poetry (and have an implacable hatred of bad poetry). Mahmoud Darwish can always move me, as can Rumi. Also love Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, Amiri Baraka, Edna St Vincent Millay, and (oddly) Bukowski.

As far as films are concerned, lately I've been on a documentary kick (if you haven't seen Control Room yet, you MUST), but I also love such films as "Brick," "No Country for Old Men," "Oh Brother Where Art Thou," "The Big Lebowski," "The Seventh Seal," "Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels," "Snatch," "Tombstone," "Goodbye, Lenin," "The Edukators," "The Widow of St Pierre," "Girl on the Bridge," "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead," "A Fish Called Wanda," "Bottle Rockets," "The Royal Tennebaums," "Little Miss Sunshine," "Strangers on a Train," "Rope," "To Catch a Thief," "Vertigo," "Rear Window," "North by Northwest," "Dial M for Murder," "My Man Godfrey," and many others. I love films -- dramas, comedies, documentaries, I love them all!

Music that I love (in no particular order: Talib Kweli, Common, Black Star, Mos Def, Dead Prez, the Coup, Atmosphere, Black Thought, Ghostland Observatory, bassnectar, Smashing Pumpkins, Fair to Midland, Ratatat, Massive Attack, Air, Portishead, Elliott Smith, Jeff Buckley, Leonard Cohen, Mazzy Star, Hail Social, Yo La Tengo, the Mary Onettes, Crystal Castles, Moving Units, MGMT, The Black Keys, Al Green, Bill Withers, The White Stripes (only Get Behind Me Satan - era), Papas Fritas, Regina Spektor, Cocteau Twins, the Cure, Depeche Mode, the Smiths, the Fixx, Tricky, many others that I will add as I think of them.

Countries I’ve Visited

United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States