I'm a 46-year old teacher. I'm thoughtful, creative, tend toward optimistic, liberal and, well, I think I'm funny, but humor's a relative concept. Try me. I'm smart, but do very dumb things sometimes. I try to walk the tightrope of sensible and open-minded.

Things I love include but are not limited to: adventurous cooking and eating; movies (both hi- and low- brau: Milk and Doubt were favorites last year); unadulterated coffee; warm grey and chartruese; midcentury modern design; snow days when I get to catch the whole morning show on NPR; days when my knee allows me to run that 4th mile; my sister (affirming, because we're very similar); scrabble; watching 4th-graders do the "electric slide"; all kinds of music...old soul, delta blues, latin, euro-pop, disco, alt-country, rock,...I'll listen to anything at least once. Elaborating on the latter: a holiday gift tradition of mine for about 5 years running is to make CD mixes--this has become something of a fetish. I made about 10 this year and my favorite mix has a Wilco-to-Tahiti80 (europop) segue that I can't seem to stop listening to.

I bought an old house which took up all of my spare time last year. Making the space mine has been a lovely yet painstaking process, being aesthetically hyper-aware (both a blessing and a curse). I'm looking forward to house projects giving way to artmaking in the coming months. I am not a professional artist, but I hold a B.S. in Fine Art (unfortunate acronym) and love to experiment. My mom's a talented painter/collage-maker and we did some fun stuff together last year which has inspired a completely new direction in my own work. It's in its very primitive stages, but looks promising and exciting!

I'm not a huge fan of organized sports, but I find basketball gorgeous to watch sometimes. Athletically, I'm kind of a one trick pony: I run. I used to run and run and run and then run some more, but now I just run. I'd love to meet a tennis partner (who doesn't care that I don't know how to play, yet).

I'm looking for someone who likes to discover the nuances of people. While I'm open to lots of activities, whoever hangs with me should probably like going out to eat and/or cooking and not be bothered by extended conversations about food! I'd like to meet someone who enjoys looking at art, going to live shows, going running and/or hiking, and just spending quiet time at home... a someone who is kind, smart, possibly nerdy but never dowdy; who is an occasional smartass, but rarely, if ever, a cynic.

I think first dates should be very simple--going for a walk or sharing a cup of coffee...just being together to see if that's a nice feeling that's worth repeating.