CURRENT MISSION

to boldly go where no me has gone before

ABOUT ME

I am new to traveling. Before now the only vacations I have been on were to visit family in the midwest. I've been flying since infancy but began to develop an increasing irrational fear starting in late high school, peaking mid college-years, and plateauing to a semi-manageable condition about a year or so ago. The last trip I took I only needed chardonnay and a Unisom tablet to keep me relaxed.

I have just booked a trip to San Francisco and Seattle, the furthest I have ever been away from home. It is suprising to me that instead of the usual dread and trepidation I feel when a trip is approaching all I can feel right now is excitement. I am almost giddy when I look at the sky and see an airplane. "That's gonna be me in a few weeks! YES!" I think. I don't really know what happened to change this. It could be that several very dear friends have decided to move their lives to the west coast and I am so eager to see them again that anticipation of an amazing 10 days eclipses the nervousness I experience when thinking about turbulence and potential panic attacks.

PHILOSOPHY

My personal outlook is heavily influenced by having been raised in a mahayana buddhist household that strongly upholds the teachings of Nichiren Daishonin- based around chanting the phrase Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo. My mother and I are part of a lay buddhist organization called SGI that to me has been more about world peace and group discussions with homemade sushi rolls than religion. Basically I am a cheerful and sincere person.

Interests

I like a lot of stuff. My main dreams and passions are related to sustainable community development. Urban gardens, building community space, parks, all wild life, spending as much time in wetlands and on lakes as possible. My job allows me to do quite a bit of this as I work mainly with lakes and water quality as an environmental scientist. I consider myself extremely lucky.

I like reading. Fiction, non-fiction, books, poetry, essays, short stories, articles, anything. For non-fiction I really like topics having to do with gender studies, feminism, and queer theory as well as science stuff that blows my mind. In fiction I'm trying to read more lady-authored things since my normal go-to style has been middle aged men writing in the U.S. in the 50's.

I like watching movies. I rent about 2 movies a week from the local library. Lately I've been into movies from the 50's and earlier, mostly comedies, but I like everything. Unless, you know, it sucks.

I do a fair bit of yoga and I've started learning to run. I also have a cat and she is the light of my life.

• cats
• writing
• books
• poetry
• womens rights
• yoga
• running
• flying
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• gender studies
• religion
• science
• parks
• lakes

Music, Movies, and Books

I wrote about books and movies already. I guess I could make a list of what I've read and seen lately. I'll do that:

books from the past 6 months or so:
margaret atwood- cat's eye
william gaddis- the recognitions and agape agape
louise fitzhugh- the long secret
virginia woolf- the voyage out and mrs. dalloway
anchee min- wild ginger

movies I've super duper liked in the past little bit:
the general starring buster keaton
black narcissus
susperia
the african queen
marx bros. a day at the races
philadelphia story
it happened one night
mrs. miniver
bridesmaids

I like too much music to really list and I'd feel embarrassed writing about what specific genres I like so I'm going to say very broadly that I like pop music, dance music, and R&B. Think about Prince and James Brown. Also maybe think about Wire and Half Japanese. Toss in Fleetwood Mac and Bruce Springsteen. Nikki Minaj. Usher.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I've seen a ghost orchid. It is an endangered and very rare epiphyte with a small population near the everglades. I was doing an epiphyte study in this area for a summer job I had in college and was able to see one in bloom. It was very tiny, no more than an inch long, and very white. It was amazing to me that something I had read so much about could be right there within my reach, and wild.