Right now I'm just interested in meeting interesting, kind, thought provoking people and getting to know them better. Good conversation with thoughtful people can often lead to really beautiful relationships and as I bust my rear teaching this fall I can think of few greater pleasures when I'm not in the classroom.

As my interests show, I love the arts in all forms, great movies (Casablanca, 2001, The Godfather, Cary Grant classics and Singing in the Rain are my favorites), great books (Speaker for the Dead and Ondaatje's English Patient to name two that grabbed me), great music (little bits of everything including a passion for fifties and sixties era tunes, as well as the groups I grew up with: Saint Etienne, New Order, R.E.M., and today Frenck Kicks, Mandalay, Matt Ward, and Tahiti 80 were in my rotation), great television (The Wire, Deadwood, John from Cincinnati on HBO, comedies like Seinfeld, the Simpsons, Blackadder and scrubs). Beyond the indoors, I love the outdoors too: sports, hiking, travel etc. And at home in the quiet moments I enjoy cooking, a glass of wine (to a degree, I can tell good from bad, but not great from good) or Port, a great book, and of course good conversation. When it comes down to it, all of this really is just a collection of things and activities that grab me and probably don't define me particularly well beyond giving a basic overview of things that touch me or interest me when I'm alone or in good company.

Put simply, melodies can break my heart, or toughen me up, I love the sublime and complex, as well as pure simplicity, I love to laugh, and am always trying to find the humor in anything (a family trait)and everything), and the beauty in the small things as Thoreau used to imply. I love to teach and work with kids and have been doing so for several years both in the inner city as well as in the suburbs and rural communities and have found it to be a life changing experience and an amazing profession and calling to have.

And in the end, sometimes I'm just a silly dork for lack of a better word.