I have been vaccinated for covid six times. My most recent vaccination was in July 2024.

I still wear N95 face masks when in indoor, public places. And I try to avoid crowded, indoor places. That said, I won’t decline invites to such places.

I value freedom and equality, community and independence, diversity, respect, love, and making the world a better place for everyone.

I believe human needs are human rights.

I’m a Jewish atheist anarcho-communist, feminist and anti-racist. Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you!
https://davidgraeber.org/articles/are-you-an-anarchist-the-answer-maysurprise-you/

I like reading and playing ukulele and piano

I am a ukulele busker, playing ukulele on sidewalks for money

I love trees and mountains. I hate deserts.

I do not drink alcohol and I do not do any drugs. I don’t mind if you do though. I’m also not into clubbing, loud parties, and staying up late at night.

[writing in progress]

I was born and raised in the Maryland suburbs between DC and Baltimore, and swam competitively.

I went to five different colleges and universities but four of the five I was only there for one semester.

I graduated with an Associate’s degree from a tiny college where you have to have ADHD or a learning disability to attend. I have both. I studied mostly psychology and education

I still want to finish my bachelors in anthropology but I’m still waiting…

I’ve been traveling since 2014, working as I travel

I used a free trip to Israel called Taglit-Birthright Israel to start my travels in 2014. Read about my thoughts on Birthright here:
https://michaelbrocenos.blogspot.com/2014/11/exposing-taglit-birthright-israel-as.html?m=1

I spent three years abroad, I’ve been to thirty countries, mostly in Europe.

Chronologically:
Winter 2014-15: 3.5 months in Israel, two weeks in the West Bank
Spring 2015: three months in Greece
Summer 2015: Balkans
Italy, France, Spain through winter 2015-16
Spring 2016: Puerto Rico
Summer 2016: volunteering at The Jungle refugee camp in France, see my essays about that here:
https://michaelbrocenos.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-jungle-refugee-camp-in-calais.html?m=1
Fall 2016: campaigning for Hilary Clinton and other Democrats in North Carolina (lesser of two evils, plus they gave me free food and housing when I had little money. But if I had the money I would’ve gone to Standing Rock instead)
2017 was spent mostly in Berlin, Germany
Winter 2017-18: Hawai’i
Spring 2018: California, Maryland, the state of Georgia
Summer 2018: Boston, Massachusetts
Fall 2018: Puerto Rico again, plus visits to family in Maryland
January 2019: volunteering with refugees in Tijuana, Mexico
Feb-March: LA and Las Vegas
March 2019 to March 2020: San Francisco Bay Area. For the first and only time in my life I worked full time as a paraeducator aka a teacher’s aide in special education at a public middle school in SF
March 2020 to April 2021: caretaking for an 80 year old gay nudist on Kaua’i after working as an in home informal hospice care worker for his husband of 50 years. Ask for more info
Summer 2021 through Summer 2022: Portland, Oregon
Fall 2022: Joshua Tree, California
Spring 2023: Portland, Oregon
Summer 2023 June 2024: Atlanta, Georgia

I miss Europe a lot. I think about returning every day. Quality of life is so much better over there. But I tell myself I’m staying in the USA out of responsibility to fight fascism in the belly of the beast.

Since 2017 I’ve mostly been staying about a year in one place.

The longest time I spent in one place was Portland, Oregon, for a year and a half.

I’ve been trying to stop traveling since 2017

I am socially and emotionally exhausted. It’s hurts to say goodbye again and again. I’ve lost my sense of wonder, I’ve grown tired.

I am desperate to find a home and community.

Various reasons prevent me from finding a home and community…

Ideally I want to live on a social commune/housing cooperative/intentional community that does not use any electronic screens!

I hate electric screens and what they do to people

Well, I more so blame white supremacist capitalist patriarchy

Note: I don’t know why but I get a lot of random friend requests and messages on here from people all over the world.

While I am flattered, I’m not interested in talking unless we have met or will soon meet in person.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Connection, community, and caring for others

Interests

• lgbt rights
• piano
• hiking
• mountains
• social justice
• feminism
• queer
• environmentalism
• gay rights
• gayfriendly
• climate justice
• anti-racism
• black lives matter
• queerfeminism
• trans rights
• sex positive

Music, Movies, and Books

I like your music, your movies and your books

I love reading and wish I could spend as much time as possible reading. Yet sadly I haven’t read nearly as much as I’d like to

Noam Chomsky’s politics are at the top of my bookshelf. David Graeber. The Origin of Capitalism by Ellen Meiksins Wood. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Feminist Theory: from Margin to Center by bell hooks. The Trial by Kafka. Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, Calvin and Hobbes, Animorphs. Watership Down, The Giving Tree, A Wrinkle in Time, The Little Prince, Skippy Dies, The Book Thief, Holes, Stargirl. A Brief History of Time. The Simon and Schuster Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Creatures... yet there's soooo many more books out there that I will probably love more than the ones I've read before, thousands of titles yet to be discovered, so why should I think these are my favorite?

I don’t watch movies or tv. I may make an exception only for social purposes and if it’s something of historical and cultural significance, surrealism, Modern art, or foreign.

I’d only watch electronic screens with people, never alone. I’d literally rather watch grass grow, nurture my mental health and my ability to do nothing.

I have an extremely severe internet addiction characterized as a visual electronic media addiction and typified as the heroin known as reddit. I'm not anti-technology, it’s capitalism that’s the root cause of the addiction I’m trying to avoid. Ideally my community would also not use anything with electronic screens. In fact, I'd love to live in a communal no-visual-electronic-media house. But I don’t want to tell you what to do.

I love playing piano and I supported myself while traveling by singing and playing ukulele in city centers as a busker. Yet while I love all kinds of music, listening to music doesn't mean as much to me as it does for most other people. Listening to music is often way too distracting for my ADHD brain to focus. Ideally I’d like to live somewhere where I can easily get total silence whenever I want. I also really, really do not want to get tinnitus, so I avoid loud music, clubs and concerts.

That said, I like indie and folk. I like Regina Spektor, The Jezabels, Amanda Palmer, Björk, Phoenix, Bright Eyes. But when asked usually I say, “I like other people’s music.” I like learning about what other people listen to and I don’t like being a DJ, I’m uncomfortable with that much power.

I love live music but don’t go to shows as much as I’d like. I prefer soft, intimate, participatory live music without amplifiers. I prefer bad street musicians over amplified pop -- it's the people that matter.

Food: I have some disordered eating habits. I have difficulty controlling myself around junk food, so I prefer to avoid it completely. Harm reduction doesn’t work for me, sorry not sorry.

I like to go to bed early

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I have a lot:

I swam competitively for twelve years, I got up to probably top 100 in my state.

I graduated from a college where you have to have a learning disability or ADHD to attend

I climbed a tree outside my college cafeteria and stayed there for hours

I backpacked in the pantanal, a remote, Brazilian forest.

I almost got killed by the israeli military when I was in a political demonstration with Palestinians in the village of Bil'in in the West Bank. An Israeli tear gas canister almost hit my head, which would’ve cracked my skull.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bil'in

I hitchhiked across Europe from Greece to England and all over, busking in city centers with my ukulele for money

I volunteered at a refugee camp in France for a month

I wrote this song for Bernie Sanders:
https://youtu.be/WK0VlA8osgs

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach you:

Swimming. I swam competitively for twelve years and I was a swim team coach and swim lesson instructor for three years
Ukulele basics
Ashkenazi Jewish culture
What it is like having a Greek Orthodox Dad and an Ashkenazi Jewish Mom
All about anarchism and leftist history and politics

What I Can Share with Hosts

My stories and views

I’m not great at cooking but I help. I can make you pancakes for breakfast.

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Macedonia, Mexico, Netherlands, Palestine, Puerto Rico, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, United States