I'm a published poet. I enjoy writing. I am in the middle of editing and proofing book two in a new series that will be out later in the year from my best friend. It'll be amazing. Want to know about it, just ask or check it out at www.iratequaker.com (anything posted by West is mine :D)! I spend a lot of time online talking to my great friends and just hanging out in second life. I've traveled all over Europe, but that's about it for traveling. I am in school, again, for a criminal justice degree to sit alongside my criminal psych. degree (certified genius too :D). All my friends describe me as amazing, but, I'll let you be the judge.

I'm brand new to the Chicago area, so, I just want to see what's out there, talk for a bit, and if something comes of it, then sweet, if not, that's great too.

I'm honest to a fault. My feeling is if you don't really want to know my opinion on something, don't ask, you may not be ready to hear the truth. I'm not hateful nor hurtful, just honest. I'm sincere, and an optimist. I love life and I love myself. I'm not conceited though, but, how can you love if you don't love who you are? I'm not full of myself, and I'm not God's gift to anything, I'm just me, and I love that.

I'm passionate about life, and when I feel, I feel deeply. Not a lot gets me down, but I can be hurt just like everyone else. So, please don't send emails placating me, asking me about me with no desire to really want to know. To me, that's fake, and I don't have a tolerance for fake people.

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Full self knowledge comes with knowing the things you know and knowing the things you do not know, thus striving for the never ending realization one can not know all things. Striving to do so, inherently allows oneself to determine one's own fate, and how one wants to be. Thus not being a sordid monster of sorts, but maybe a simplistic chrysalis that becomes a beautiful butterfly. Change is what brings about knowledge, and the opposite is true as well. I strive for perfection, and in knowing it will not be, I find peace, and therefore feel perfect.

Putting myself into words is not a problem. Defining me and my life for the world to see is easy task. My choices in this life are what bind me. I put myself on a pedestal, not because I am better than they, but to be at a higher vantage point where things are clear. For people to get close to me, takes a challenge, as I sit so high, those that achieve that plain are mightily worth my time. Yet, I have sight into one's soul to determine what type of person they are with a mere look, discernment, if you will. I watch people plain and simple. I do not sit so high that I do not allow myself the splendors of the world below, I just do not visit often, as it is not worth my time, but I deem it appropriate to know the goings on of the world below me, so if I ever falter and fall, I know what I will fall into. Always prepared for anything.

People are not interested in the shed skin of a snake, nor the left behind pupa of a butterfly aforementioned, as that is representative, most likely, of the bad, the past, or acknowledgment that change has occurred, and change for most is scary. Those who are fascinated and content with the "beauty" of what's been shed, do not look to what can be, but what was. Not living in the past, but not partaking of the future, perfectly content to idly be passed by. Writing is merely a jaunt into what one allows themselves to see inside their own head, the guarded thoughts they share, but not really, as what they share is not what they hide. This makes writing just that, no secrets shared, just simple thoughts of a world created on paper just for them, of characters that make people say "wow they must be deep" when reality spills they are not deep, they just hide what's real.

Randomness speaks to me of simplicity, no cares. Life comes with stresses and details we can not change, and what we can. Randomness determines nothing, therefore to be random, is to be not mundane daily. It is taking the time to determine what one wants, no matter what others think and always slow enough for your own pace.

hmm, let's find frogs and race them...or not. I don't know, you tell me. :)