Current mission: stay curious, accept self/others for weird bullshit, keep an occasional finger on the pulse of stuff that brings life/hope/health, figure out my boundaries, not get too caught up in narratives (even the ones I like), get to know my own anxieties. Work through what "home" means.

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For most of the past decade until covid I was a hitchhiking/volunteer/writer bum, somehow now more involved in community organizing, informal education, slightly radicalizing (hopefully humanistically) activism, dialogue facilitation, academic/practical research and peacebuilding. Documenting people's stories is a thing that still lights me up. I work with conflicts these days, either North American polarized social conflicts (like liberal and conservative shit) and Ukraine/Russia. Dance fiend on my good days. Starting to realizing I have a lot less energy than I think. An avid (if casual) cyclist, freelance writer, spiritual seeker, habitual dabbler, aspiring scholar and occasional pilgrim.

When I'm feeling resources, I like helping organize workshops, exhibitions, festivals and whatnot.

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"All of us are in the gutter - some of us are looking at the stars."

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

At first it was for free couches and lovely, life-changing encounters. The last part is literal - most of the work I do and the communities that help keep me going were folks I met in my early years of CS. I've gotten out of practice the past few years (once a community's built up, it's easy to lean on that rather than meet new people?), but thinking about coming back to CS to see if there's still more to uncover here. I'm much less open/flexible than I was, but also interested to see what sparks might still be found.

Interests

Bit of a list: reading, writing, biking, (hitch/)hiking, spirituality, consciousness, dialogue, windy places, literature, festivals, physics, conflict, swing dance, narratives, longform podcasts, camping, event planning, theory, peacebuilding, perception, informal educations, all-nighters (when there's space for it), chapbooks, disco, workshops, spontaneity, poetry, cell biology, postmodernity, the problem of suffering, activism, taking bad photos, climbing stuff, running water

• writing
• poetry
• dancing
• politics
• freelancing
• religion
• hitchhiking
• dialogue
• bicycles
• collectives
• cultural theory
• hard conversations
• liminality
• informal education
• not starting work until one really really has to

Music, Movies, and Books

Music I'm Listening To: Arthur Russell, The Mountain Goats, Robyn, Sophie, Radiohead, Sufjan Stevens, Matthew Good, Perfume Genius, Nina Simone, Sigur Ros, Four Tet, David Crowder, Burial, Jon Foreman, Arcade Fire, Wintersleep, KC Accidental, Lana del Rey, Leonard Cohen, Beyonce, Jonsi, Jon Hopkins, Bon Iver, M83, Broken Social Scene, Sunset Rubdown, mewithoutYou, Neutral Milk Hotel, Woodpigeon, Bob Dylan, Japandroids, Wilco, Eddie Vedder, Hot Chip, Crystal Castles, Elvis, Stars, Johnny Cash, Disco, Soul, Alternative, Experimental, Minimal, Shitty Dance Music (if the occasion demands it)

Recent stuff I've watched that I've liked: Flee, Licorice Pizza, The Favourite, Her, White Lotus, Andor, The Farewell, Nomadland, Everything Everywhere at Once, The Boys, Knight of Cups, The Midnight Gospel, Fleabag.

Watchables that meant a lot at one point in time: The Fountain, Twin Peaks, Synechdoche New York, The Americans, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Moral Orel, 2001 - A Space Odyssey, Сталкер, Fight Club, Lord of the Rings, Babel, Winter's Bone, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Pan's Labyrinth, Once, Donnie Darko, Lost in Translation, Memento, Children of Men, Into the Wild, The Tree of Life, Apocalypse Now, The Thin Red Line, The Seventh Seal, American History X, Snow Cake, Adaptation, American Beauty, I Tonya, Jesus Christ Superstar, Mulholland Drive, The Babadook, Arrested Development, WR: Mysteries of the Organism, Shortbus, Tri, The Feather Gatherers

Authors I've orbited: Alice Munro, Jorge Luis Borges, David Foster Wallace, G.K. Chesterton, Ben Lerner, Thomas Pynchon, T.H. White, Paul Auster, Robertson Davies, Antoine de St-Exubury, J.R.R. Tolkien, Thomas Merton, Douglas Adams, Italo Calvino, Catherine Doherty, Franz Kafka, C.S. Lewis, Salman Rushdie, Shane Claibourne, Fyodor Dostoyevski, Alden Nowlan, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, bpnichol, Mikhail Bulgakov, Suzanne Buffam, Henri Nouwen, Jean Vanier, Jose Saramago, Orson Scott Card, Michael Ondaatje, Oscar Wilde

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Switched gears when I've needed to.

Teach, Learn, Share

Not sure what I can teach or share, but generally looking to explore a bit more about the fishbowls we call home.

What I Can Share with Hosts

In the old CS profile there was a space for "Types of People I Enjoy" that didn't carry over to these new profiles, and I think that list kinda answers this question. I especially treasure and get into shenanigans with people who:

a) have and on occasion will dance in fountains/open bodies of water in varying amounts of clothing

b) won't use words like "progressive," "liberal" and "freedom" in highly confusing and contradictory ways

c) are unafraid of humane conversations about religion or politics

d) have been likely to making split-second decisions that end up changing everything

e) know that sometimes you need to say "no" to say "yes" and mean it

f) who say "yes" even when they have work in the morning

g) can forgive without pretending like nothing ever happened

h) hitchhike

i) hitchhike with a mission

j) can put Jesus and the Tao together in the same sentence without spontaneously combusting

k) who roll their eyes at words liked "open-minded"

l) appreciate high art while needing to watch/read/listen to something trashy once in a while

m) hit the dance floor when they hit the dance floor

n) know the difference between going outside your comfort zone and just having a really, really big comfort zone

o) who, even after a series of long, hard-won victories, still realise it's all still just a game

p) who feel no shame doing the chicken-dance at weddings

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan

Countries I’ve Lived In

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Georgia, Iceland, Kyrgyzstan, Norway, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Tajikistan, Ukraine

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