Step one: Looking inward.
* I was going to preface this with, “The most difficult part is not trying to write for an audience.” It may be the best place to start. I always write with an audience intended. I don’t always share, but even then I write to someone. I want to be read, I want to be seen.
* I love the spotlight. Not fame, just being the center of attention. One of the things I love about teaching dance is that I can be the center of that attention.
* On the other end of the spectrum, I’m naturally shy. One of the things I love about teaching dance is that it’s a safe place to be the center of attention, where I’m in control of the situation and as outgoing as I want without as much pressure.
* I prefer one on one conversation to any kind of group. I end up quiet and listening most of the time in group situations. Part of this is due to the emphasis on good manners in my upbringing. One of the ones that stuck with me has always been, “It’s not polite to interrupt.” Most people are so eager to get their words into a conversation that I rarely feel like there was an adequate pause to determine that the other person was done speaking.
* When I was acting in middle school our lighting guy complimented me for always standing in the light. I instinctually stand where I’m not shadowed.
* I am barely capable of being succinct. My closest friend says she starts to worry when my replies get short.
* I love vernacular swing and ballroom dancing, for a lot of reasons. I think I’ll tag some of my other points (dance) rather than list them all here.
* Etiquette is fascinating to me. I have a thick hardcover book of etiquette somewhere and used to read it for fun. Sometimes I’ll read online articles. One of my favorite quotations from The Notebooks of Lazarus Long by Heinlein is, “Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as “empty,” “meaningless,” or “dishonest,” and scorn to use them. No matter how “pure” their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.”
* Time Enough for Love and its intermissions republished individually as The Notebooks of Lazarus Long were extremely foundational when it comes to who I am.
* I try to be a gentleman. I don’t always succeed. Sometimes I like to say, in a more humble way, when someone thanks me for holding the door for them, “That’s what doors are for.”
* Humility is not my strong suit. In fact, on the VIA Character Strength survey (authentichappiness.org), it’s the last on my list of 24.
* People often think I am arrogant. While I can be extremely confident, arrogance suggests that my opinion of myself is undeserved. I have an extremely accurate sense of ability. I am honest to a fault and no less so in regards to what I am or am not capable of. I am, in fact, harder on myself than anyone else could ever be.
* Much of my life has been dark. I bear self-inflicted scars on my left shoulder from the period of my teen years during which a state of bored-depression lead to cutting. The location was chosen intentionally for its inability to cause lasting damage. It took me until the year I spent working toward a master’s degree to admit I had problems with depression.
* My bachelor’s degree was as much a work of perseverance as intelligence. I failed several classes for a variety of reasons, many of which were probably directly linked to my depression. My motivation is usually the first thing to go. However, what I failed to do right the first time, I did again and corrected the error in all possible cases.
* I am extremely intelligent and intuitive. I am smarter than I think I am. I am also not as smart as I think I am.
* It is difficult for me to connect what I know with what I feel. I carry a lot of the resulting stress in my body. I am constantly striving to balance the three.
* The ultimate goal in my life is to be a Renaissance Man. I have been accused of such, but I think it’s one of those goals that can’t actually be declared achieved until life is over. Most of the best goals are this kind, making life about the journey rather than the goal itself. Reach for the stars, you can’t hit what you don’t aim for.
* I am extremely passionate about Positive Psychology and methods in which in modern society we recognize each other as autonomous members of our community and put trust in that recognition in order to work together to build successful business, educations, individual lives, and societies. Positive psych is a field of study that studies human well-being, not something that encourages “positive thinking” or mistaken egg-shell treading around the self-esteem of our children.
* I have high standards in pretty much every aspect of my life. Socially, sometimes that means I’m pretty lonely. I’m ok with that. There are plenty of people out there who have surpassed my wildest imagination, both in friendship and romantically. I’m just looking for the one who fits both categories and doesn’t think what I have to offer is some kind of dream that won’t last.
* My heart often aches, but never breaks. I’ve watched (not literally) two women I loved to distraction choose to marry someone else. Loving someone doesn’t mean you have to have them. The heart is a thing of dimensions, and while time may shut the door on a heart I gave to this person or that, I don’t stop loving.
* I deserve the kind of love I give.
* That was really hard to say.
* The person I love most in the world is my dad. It’s very hard for me to express the extent of those feelings without coming to tears. When I say tears, I’m not talking about turning into a sobbing, blubbering mess. I mean water pouring unbidden down my face and pooling on the desk or ground. It may be difficult to talk through the constriction in my chest, but I am completely coherent in the moment. It’s hard to explain.
* I do something similar when people tell certain ghost stories. There’s no identifiable emotional element at all, it’s very peculiar.
* It irritates the fuck out of me that people frequently interpret a lot of the activities I enjoy as unmasculine. My love for dance is one of them, which if you think through, doesn’t take much to realize that I dance with women, putting myself in a role that is frequently considered old fashioned in any other aspect of our society. I lead. There’s room for give, take, and self-expression but I guide what happens in the dance. I move her.
* As far as Idaho is concerned, I’m “metro”. I swear I’m one of a handful of men in my small town who actually owns a pea coat. One wonderful old gentleman in Southern Idaho said when we described the definition of metro as a man ‘who dresses well and has good hygiene,’ “in my day we called that normal.”
* A former student once told me she thought I was born in the wrong era. She was wrong. I love living now, being here, doing the things I do. If they aren’t typical of a male in this era, I don’t have a problem with that. There’s a certain irony that things that defined a gentleman in the past are considered androgynous or feminine today.
* I like horseback riding, enjoyed fencing, love dancing, play guitar, write poetry and lyrics to original songs, fiction, and handwritten letters.
* Spring is coming and that means it’s time to start hunting craigslist for sailboats again. Hobie Cat here I come. Weekends on the lake, with a tent, Mira, and eventually someone to lay out across the tramp and enjoy the sun and wind with us. I took sailing lessons in middle school and raced J24 sailboats for a summer two years ago.
* As my mother proudly tells anyone who will listen, particularly women she knows I’m interested in, I never went through a phase during which I thought girls had cooties.
* I have always wanted to get married and have a family. At this point in my life, I’m still looking forward to the former and open minded about the latter. My parents have been married almost 40 years and I would love to follow that example.
* I like shopping with female friends or significant others. I have a highly tuned aesthetic sense for a straight male and an incredible imagination. When I see something on a mannequin or hanging on a rack I imagine how much I’d enjoy seeing it on someone I like looking at. If I’m shopping for myself, I know what I like, I’m in and out, like most men.
* Let’s juxtapose that with the image of me using a chainsaw, which I do frequently when helping my dad bring in wood for the winter. He goes through 6-7 cords or so a winter. I’ve spent my fair share of time greasy and working with construction equipment. I helped build our cabin and worked for two years in an industrial equipment rental yard.
* I don’t like smelling like a garage or having grease on my hands. But when the time comes, you do what needs to be done and buck up and handle it.
* Hunting is not my thing. If I don’t have a personal need to kill something with my own hands/tools, I won’t. Taking the lives of other living things is not my idea of fun. That being said, if it’s me or the deer, there’s going to be venison for dinner.
* Spectator sports aren’t something I enjoy watching. Playing can be fun. I’d rather read a book, play a game, go for a walk, ride a four-wheeler, hike up the river, play with Mira, go snowboarding, sailing, play guitar or sit and watch a fire burn while I drink hot chocolate or wine.
* Men should be imaginative, conscientious lovers who recognize that their partner’s pleasure is as much a part of the whole experience as their own. Not to mention the more excited she is the more fun it is for everyone. I am a good lover. Someone once told me I was a better lover than I am a dancer. Not sure about that, but it was nice of her.
* I have been with. . . enough lovers - 1. Sex without emotion seems fun in the moment, but almost always ends up empty. I can wait. I am in my third run of not having had sex for more than 9 months since I became sexually active at 16.
* I love reading. I read in excess of 80 books last year, though much of that was due to free time at work. I never regret a good book.
* When I was in 7th/8th grade I spent about a year roleplaying in an online chat room called The Graveyard. Everyone who visited imagined they were a character from a gothic horror/romance. I was, of course, a vampire. I was charming, infuriating, and relied on the strength of my imagination and wit. So basically I was me. With fangs. I probably spent more time interacting with those people than I did with anyone in my life in that time period. Moving to Idaho was hard on me.
* I’ve moved an average of once every two years of my life. That includes four states: Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho; four countries: Germany, the US, Belgium, and Japan; and a variety of in-town, in-state moves bouncing around between cities, dorms, apartments, etc.
* My favorite person in the world outside of my family, who I feel almost as strongly about as I do my dad, is my old dance partner. She was first a student, then an interest, then a friend, then my TA and dance partner. She helped me teach my class, paint my house when I sold it, listened when I needed her from another continent entirely, and is one of the most wonderful, loyal people I’ve ever met. She’s also reading this, and probably blushing. She looks good in red.
* I am not a morning person. The dogs and my 8-5 are trying to convince me otherwise, but I really, really like sleeping. If I could give up either eating or sleeping without ill effect, I would totally choose eating. How grouchy I am when woken up depends on how I’m woken. Mira woke me up this morning, but she was adorably cute and cuddly and just made me smile.
* I frequently have dreams with plot lines, characters, and full blown fantasy worlds. I usually am aware I’m dreaming while in the dream and take part both as an observer and player in them. The West Wind is the only story I’ve put down on paper that wasn’t inspired by a dream.
* Many of my dreams are so full of conflict that I’m not really certain I ever sleep as well as I should. It may be a contributing factor to why I like to sleep so much. Zombie apocalypses and being hunted by assassins both make their appearances. Post-apocalyptic mutants have their part too. Strangely, Zombieland and the Resident Evil movies are the only zombie movies I watch and RE 4 is the only game in the series I’ve ever made it more than 5 minutes into.
* That being said, I’ve only had 3 nightmares of note in my 30 years and a few more bad dreams that weren’t frightening.
* When I close my eyes, I see green and blue behind my eyelids. Supposedly most people see purple.
* I keep a tent, sleeping bag, tarp, and tool bag in the bag of my Escape at all times. One of the things I miss most about one of my past “relationships” was going camping in the middle of the week even if I have to get up earlier to make it home to shower and get ready. Mornings don’t bother me nearly as much when there’s a reason to be awake or something to get done.
* I’m rarely this or that. I am frequently both at once, or this in some things and that in others.
* One of the secrets of getting me to do anything is to nod and smile when I stubbornly refuse, then wait for me to get used to the idea. It may take a few hours, or a few days, but in most cases, I’m pretty amiable given time.
* Rules are meant to be broken. . . by people who know the rules, understand the consequences and the risks, and are seeking to speak in their own voice.
* An it harm none, do as you will.
* If you have faith that can move mountains, but not love, you are nothing.
* I am a humanist. To me, that means that morality is intrinsic.
* As a friend once put it, there’s no reason why God would create a universe and set laws of physics in that universe, then flaunt them. If you believe in an omniscient, eternal, omnipotent deity, it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that he/it/she put things in order the way scientists have proven them to be. What reason would a timeless entity have to be so impatient as to create a world in seven days and design everything so it seemed older? I don’t mind faith when it doesn’t refuse reason, and while I don’t go, I even kind of enjoy going to church and figuring out what message is being conveyed between the lines. It’s tragic that so many on both sides think that the two are polar opposites.
* I have a tattoo, both my ears pierced and slightly gauged, and I am planning on getting a second, large and quite involved tattoo across my shoulders and down my spine. It is both aesthetic and rife with meaning.
* I want to live and work in England, just for the experience.
* One of my dreams is to be a published writer. Since my ideas come from dreams anyway, they tend to be written in an almost cinematic way. So my ultimate writing goal is to write, publish, and have movies made from my books.
* I want to be in a band and play my original pieces. I had a kid tell me I should put my songs on youtube once, and a group of random strangers came up when I was playing behind the theatre during a Music Man show and tell me how good I was. That was cool.
* Every time I’ve been on stage in the past year and a half, people have told me that I stole the show. I took part in two plays, one musical, and a short film that was, admittedly, terribad, but hilariously so. Theatre is less something I enjoy and more something I just do and do well.
* My favorite literary character is probably Lestat from Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. He is unabashedly himself, always. Along with Sebastian from Cruel Intentions, he’s always been someone I wanted to be like. Note that it isn’t their lack of a moral compass I admire. An ex once bestowed on me the nickname “The Brat Prince” because I reminded her of Lestat.
* Twice in my life I went from having no clue how to do something to being magically awesome after not attempting it for years. Sadly, neither of those things are very useful. One is the skillful use of chopsticks and the other some bad ass foosball playing. Not that I play frequently, but I’ve lost twice in since I was 18. (I generally think this means I’m not playing the right people.) =)
* Speaking of twos, there are two poems I memorized unintentionally when I was younger. “The Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll is one. One of the most romantic poems I’ve ever heard is the other, from King’s Quest VI. . .
* I was a backstage technician for a magic show and ran a spotlight for an ice skating show when I was a junior in high school.
* I work to live, I’ll never live to work. I’d make a great rich person, because I’d use my imagination and impulses to bring smiles into the daily lives of people around me. I’m the kind of person who buys flowers for the bell ringer at a grocery store, a gas station rose for the unhappy acquaintance behind the counter at her gas station job, tips generously as long as I can afford to be generous.
* Materialism is not something I’m a big fan of. A guitar or two, my clothes, my computer and my books are the requirements for contentment. Vehicle is a necessity. Sailboat will be nice. Some art to make the room a little more pleasant. I prefer ephemeral, tangible experiences, more worth treasuring for their uniqueness and brevity.
* Diction is something I pay attention to, and I’m usually very aware of the possible interpretations of what I write. Sometimes this is fun. Sometimes it stresses me out.
* The stories I tell myself are often negative. It’s something I am trying actively to change. I worry about terrible things happening to people or things I love. . . sometimes I worry about coming home to one of the dogs flipping out on the other dogs and being injured. Things like that. These days, I am trying to catch myself and remind myself that those are good stories to tell.
* If you asked me to describe myself, I’d like to say I’m a realist. I’m really optimistic about some things and pessimistic and cynical about others. I have my head in the clouds and my feet on the ground and I’m aiming for the stars. The practical romantic.
* Zen is fairly important to me as a lifestyle, but not as a religion. I appreciate many of the concepts and need to find my copy of Zen Soup and sit down with it again. It’s wonderful to keep a beginner’s mind in all things, be compassionate, and let things be what they are. It’s also a challenge. A good one, I think.
* I always want to be a better me today than I was yesterday. There is always room for self-improvement and something to learn.
* Foreign languages are one of my favorite subjects to dabble in. I’m fluent in none but I’ve learned varying amounts of French, Japanese, German, Portuguese, Russian and the one I’m studying now, Spanish. Spanish poetry sounds awesome. Pablo Neruda. Inspiring.
* My top three character traits from that survey I mentioned a long time ago are Creativity, Love of Learning and Curiosity, and Appreciation for Beauty and Excellence.
* I have an incredible amount of self to explore.
*
* I was going to preface this with, “The most difficult part is not trying to write for an audience.” It may be the best place to start. I always write with an audience intended. I don’t always share, but even then I write to someone. I want to be read, I want to be seen.
* I love the spotlight. Not fame, just being the center of attention. One of the things I love about teaching dance is that I can be the center of that attention.
* On the other end of the spectrum, I’m naturally shy. One of the things I love about teaching dance is that it’s a safe place to be the center of attention, where I’m in control of the situation and as outgoing as I want without as much pressure.
* I prefer one on one conversation to any kind of group. I end up quiet and listening most of the time in group situations. Part of this is due to the emphasis on good manners in my upbringing. One of the ones that stuck with me has always been, “It’s not polite to interrupt.” Most people are so eager to get their words into a conversation that I rarely feel like there was an adequate pause to determine that the other person was done speaking.
* When I was acting in middle school our lighting guy complimented me for always standing in the light. I instinctually stand where I’m not shadowed.
* I am barely capable of being succinct. My closest friend says she starts to worry when my replies get short.
* I love vernacular swing and ballroom dancing, for a lot of reasons. I think I’ll tag some of my other points (dance) rather than list them all here.
* Etiquette is fascinating to me. I have a thick hardcover book of etiquette somewhere and used to read it for fun. Sometimes I’ll read online articles. One of my favorite quotations from The Notebooks of Lazarus Long by Heinlein is, “Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as “empty,” “meaningless,” or “dishonest,” and scorn to use them. No matter how “pure” their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.”
* Time Enough for Love and its intermissions republished individually as The Notebooks of Lazarus Long were extremely foundational when it comes to who I am.
* I try to be a gentleman. I don’t always succeed. Sometimes I like to say, in a more humble way, when someone thanks me for holding the door for them, “That’s what doors are for.”
* Humility is not my strong suit. In fact, on the VIA Character Strength survey (authentichappiness.org), it’s the last on my list of 24.
* People often think I am arrogant. While I can be extremely confident, arrogance suggests that my opinion of myself is undeserved. I have an extremely accurate sense of ability. I am honest to a fault and no less so in regards to what I am or am not capable of. I am, in fact, harder on myself than anyone else could ever be.
* Much of my life has been dark. I bear self-inflicted scars on my left shoulder from the period of my teen years during which a state of bored-depression lead to cutting. The location was chosen intentionally for its inability to cause lasting damage. It took me until the year I spent working toward a master’s degree to admit I had problems with depression.
* My bachelor’s degree was as much a work of perseverance as intelligence. I failed several classes for a variety of reasons, many of which were probably directly linked to my depression. My motivation is usually the first thing to go. However, what I failed to do right the first time, I did again and corrected the error in all possible cases.
* I am extremely intelligent and intuitive. I am smarter than I think I am. I am also not as smart as I think I am.
* It is difficult for me to connect what I know with what I feel. I carry a lot of the resulting stress in my body. I am constantly striving to balance the three.
* The ultimate goal in my life is to be a Renaissance Man. I have been accused of such, but I think it’s one of those goals that can’t actually be declared achieved until life is over. Most of the best goals are this kind, making life about the journey rather than the goal itself. Reach for the stars, you can’t hit what you don’t aim for.
* I am extremely passionate about Positive Psychology and methods in which in modern society we recognize each other as autonomous members of our community and put trust in that recognition in order to work together to build successful business, educations, individual lives, and societies. Positive psych is a field of study that studies human well-being, not something that encourages “positive thinking” or mistaken egg-shell treading around the self-esteem of our children.
* I have high standards in pretty much every aspect of my life. Socially, sometimes that means I’m pretty lonely. I’m ok with that. There are plenty of people out there who have surpassed my wildest imagination, both in friendship and romantically. I’m just looking for the one who fits both categories and doesn’t think what I have to offer is some kind of dream that won’t last.
* My heart often aches, but never breaks. I’ve watched (not literally) two women I loved to distraction choose to marry someone else. Loving someone doesn’t mean you have to have them. The heart is a thing of dimensions, and while time may shut the door on a heart I gave to this person or that, I don’t stop loving.
* I deserve the kind of love I give.
* That was really hard to say.
* The person I love most in the world is my dad. It’s very hard for me to express the extent of those feelings without coming to tears. When I say tears, I’m not talking about turning into a sobbing, blubbering mess. I mean water pouring unbidden down my face and pooling on the desk or ground. It may be difficult to talk through the constriction in my chest, but I am completely coherent in the moment. It’s hard to explain.
* I do something similar when people tell certain ghost stories. There’s no identifiable emotional element at all, it’s very peculiar.
* It irritates the fuck out of me that people frequently interpret a lot of the activities I enjoy as unmasculine. My love for dance is one of them, which if you think through, doesn’t take much to realize that I dance with women, putting myself in a role that is frequently considered old fashioned in any other aspect of our society. I lead. There’s room for give, take, and self-expression but I guide what happens in the dance. I move her.
* As far as Idaho is concerned, I’m “metro”. I swear I’m one of a handful of men in my small town who actually owns a pea coat. One wonderful old gentleman in Southern Idaho said when we described the definition of metro as a man ‘who dresses well and has good hygiene,’ “in my day we called that normal.”
* A former student once told me she thought I was born in the wrong era. She was wrong. I love living now, being here, doing the things I do. If they aren’t typical of a male in this era, I don’t have a problem with that. There’s a certain irony that things that defined a gentleman in the past are considered androgynous or feminine today.
* I like horseback riding, enjoyed fencing, love dancing, play guitar, write poetry and lyrics to original songs, fiction, and handwritten letters.
* Spring is coming and that means it’s time to start hunting craigslist for sailboats again. Hobie Cat here I come. Weekends on the lake, with a tent, Mira, and eventually someone to lay out across the tramp and enjoy the sun and wind with us. I took sailing lessons in middle school and raced J24 sailboats for a summer two years ago.
* As my mother proudly tells anyone who will listen, particularly women she knows I’m interested in, I never went through a phase during which I thought girls had cooties.
* I have always wanted to get married and have a family. At this point in my life, I’m still looking forward to the former and open minded about the latter. My parents have been married almost 40 years and I would love to follow that example.
* I like shopping with female friends or significant others. I have a highly tuned aesthetic sense for a straight male and an incredible imagination. When I see something on a mannequin or hanging on a rack I imagine how much I’d enjoy seeing it on someone I like looking at. If I’m shopping for myself, I know what I like, I’m in and out, like most men.
* Let’s juxtapose that with the image of me using a chainsaw, which I do frequently when helping my dad bring in wood for the winter. He goes through 6-7 cords or so a winter. I’ve spent my fair share of time greasy and working with construction equipment. I helped build our cabin and worked for two years in an industrial equipment rental yard.
* I don’t like smelling like a garage or having grease on my hands. But when the time comes, you do what needs to be done and buck up and handle it.
* Hunting is not my thing. If I don’t have a personal need to kill something with my own hands/tools, I won’t. Taking the lives of other living things is not my idea of fun. That being said, if it’s me or the deer, there’s going to be venison for dinner.
* Spectator sports aren’t something I enjoy watching. Playing can be fun. I’d rather read a book, play a game, go for a walk, ride a four-wheeler, hike up the river, play with Mira, go snowboarding, sailing, play guitar or sit and watch a fire burn while I drink hot chocolate or wine.
* Men should be imaginative, conscientious lovers who recognize that their partner’s pleasure is as much a part of the whole experience as their own. Not to mention the more excited she is the more fun it is for everyone. I am a good lover. Someone once told me I was a better lover than I am a dancer. Not sure about that, but it was nice of her.
* I have been with. . . enough lovers - 1. Sex without emotion seems fun in the moment, but almost always ends up empty. I can wait. I am in my third run of not having had sex for more than 9 months since I became sexually active at 16.
* I love reading. I read in excess of 80 books last year, though much of that was due to free time at work. I never regret a good book.
* When I was in 7th/8th grade I spent about a year roleplaying in an online chat room called The Graveyard. Everyone who visited imagined they were a character from a gothic horror/romance. I was, of course, a vampire. I was charming, infuriating, and relied on the strength of my imagination and wit. So basically I was me. With fangs. I probably spent more time interacting with those people than I did with anyone in my life in that time period. Moving to Idaho was hard on me.
* I’ve moved an average of once every two years of my life. That includes four states: Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho; four countries: Germany, the US, Belgium, and Japan; and a variety of in-town, in-state moves bouncing around between cities, dorms, apartments, etc.
* My favorite person in the world outside of my family, who I feel almost as strongly about as I do my dad, is my old dance partner. She was first a student, then an interest, then a friend, then my TA and dance partner. She helped me teach my class, paint my house when I sold it, listened when I needed her from another continent entirely, and is one of the most wonderful, loyal people I’ve ever met. She’s also reading this, and probably blushing. She looks good in red.
* I am not a morning person. The dogs and my 8-5 are trying to convince me otherwise, but I really, really like sleeping. If I could give up either eating or sleeping without ill effect, I would totally choose eating. How grouchy I am when woken up depends on how I’m woken. Mira woke me up this morning, but she was adorably cute and cuddly and just made me smile.
* I frequently have dreams with plot lines, characters, and full blown fantasy worlds. I usually am aware I’m dreaming while in the dream and take part both as an observer and player in them. The West Wind is the only story I’ve put down on paper that wasn’t inspired by a dream.
* Many of my dreams are so full of conflict that I’m not really certain I ever sleep as well as I should. It may be a contributing factor to why I like to sleep so much. Zombie apocalypses and being hunted by assassins both make their appearances. Post-apocalyptic mutants have their part too. Strangely, Zombieland and the Resident Evil movies are the only zombie movies I watch and RE 4 is the only game in the series I’ve ever made it more than 5 minutes into.
* That being said, I’ve only had 3 nightmares of note in my 30 years and a few more bad dreams that weren’t frightening.
* When I close my eyes, I see green and blue behind my eyelids. Supposedly most people see purple.
* I keep a tent, sleeping bag, tarp, and tool bag in the bag of my Escape at all times. One of the things I miss most about one of my past “relationships” was going camping in the middle of the week even if I have to get up earlier to make it home to shower and get ready. Mornings don’t bother me nearly as much when there’s a reason to be awake or something to get done.
* I’m rarely this or that. I am frequently both at once, or this in some things and that in others.
* One of the secrets of getting me to do anything is to nod and smile when I stubbornly refuse, then wait for me to get used to the idea. It may take a few hours, or a few days, but in most cases, I’m pretty amiable given time.
* Rules are meant to be broken. . . by people who know the rules, understand the consequences and the risks, and are seeking to speak in their own voice.
* An it harm none, do as you will.
* If you have faith that can move mountains, but not love, you are nothing.
* I am a humanist. To me, that means that morality is intrinsic.
* As a friend once put it, there’s no reason why God would create a universe and set laws of physics in that universe, then flaunt them. If you believe in an omniscient, eternal, omnipotent deity, it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that he/it/she put things in order the way scientists have proven them to be. What reason would a timeless entity have to be so impatient as to create a world in seven days and design everything so it seemed older? I don’t mind faith when it doesn’t refuse reason, and while I don’t go, I even kind of enjoy going to church and figuring out what message is being conveyed between the lines. It’s tragic that so many on both sides think that the two are polar opposites.
* I have a tattoo, both my ears pierced and slightly gauged, and I am planning on getting a second, large and quite involved tattoo across my shoulders and down my spine. It is both aesthetic and rife with meaning.
* I want to live and work in England, just for the experience.
* One of my dreams is to be a published writer. Since my ideas come from dreams anyway, they tend to be written in an almost cinematic way. So my ultimate writing goal is to write, publish, and have movies made from my books.
* I want to be in a band and play my original pieces. I had a kid tell me I should put my songs on youtube once, and a group of random strangers came up when I was playing behind the theatre during a Music Man show and tell me how good I was. That was cool.
* Every time I’ve been on stage in the past year and a half, people have told me that I stole the show. I took part in two plays, one musical, and a short film that was, admittedly, terribad, but hilariously so. Theatre is less something I enjoy and more something I just do and do well.
* My favorite literary character is probably Lestat from Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. He is unabashedly himself, always. Along with Sebastian from Cruel Intentions, he’s always been someone I wanted to be like. Note that it isn’t their lack of a moral compass I admire. An ex once bestowed on me the nickname “The Brat Prince” because I reminded her of Lestat.
* Twice in my life I went from having no clue how to do something to being magically awesome after not attempting it for years. Sadly, neither of those things are very useful. One is the skillful use of chopsticks and the other some bad ass foosball playing. Not that I play frequently, but I’ve lost twice in since I was 18. (I generally think this means I’m not playing the right people.) =)
* Speaking of twos, there are two poems I memorized unintentionally when I was younger. “The Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll is one. One of the most romantic poems I’ve ever heard is the other, from King’s Quest VI. . .
* I was a backstage technician for a magic show and ran a spotlight for an ice skating show when I was a junior in high school.
* I work to live, I’ll never live to work. I’d make a great rich person, because I’d use my imagination and impulses to bring smiles into the daily lives of people around me. I’m the kind of person who buys flowers for the bell ringer at a grocery store, a gas station rose for the unhappy acquaintance behind the counter at her gas station job, tips generously as long as I can afford to be generous.
* Materialism is not something I’m a big fan of. A guitar or two, my clothes, my computer and my books are the requirements for contentment. Vehicle is a necessity. Sailboat will be nice. Some art to make the room a little more pleasant. I prefer ephemeral, tangible experiences, more worth treasuring for their uniqueness and brevity.
* Diction is something I pay attention to, and I’m usually very aware of the possible interpretations of what I write. Sometimes this is fun. Sometimes it stresses me out.
* The stories I tell myself are often negative. It’s something I am trying actively to change. I worry about terrible things happening to people or things I love. . . sometimes I worry about coming home to one of the dogs flipping out on the other dogs and being injured. Things like that. These days, I am trying to catch myself and remind myself that those are good stories to tell.
* If you asked me to describe myself, I’d like to say I’m a realist. I’m really optimistic about some things and pessimistic and cynical about others. I have my head in the clouds and my feet on the ground and I’m aiming for the stars. The practical romantic.
* Zen is fairly important to me as a lifestyle, but not as a religion. I appreciate many of the concepts and need to find my copy of Zen Soup and sit down with it again. It’s wonderful to keep a beginner’s mind in all things, be compassionate, and let things be what they are. It’s also a challenge. A good one, I think.
* I always want to be a better me today than I was yesterday. There is always room for self-improvement and something to learn.
* Foreign languages are one of my favorite subjects to dabble in. I’m fluent in none but I’ve learned varying amounts of French, Japanese, German, Portuguese, Russian and the one I’m studying now, Spanish. Spanish poetry sounds awesome. Pablo Neruda. Inspiring.
* My top three character traits from that survey I mentioned a long time ago are Creativity, Love of Learning and Curiosity, and Appreciation for Beauty and Excellence.
* I have an incredible amount of self to explore.
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