ABOUT ME

I love stories. I spend an indecent amount of time at work looking up stories and life questions and words - my favorite internet stumbling is finding Dear Sugar, who advises a struggling author to forget her doubts just write like a motherf*cker. That we may all be whatever we are with that much dedication.

After working in the healthcare industry for 3 years, my story right now involves being mid-twenties, newly out, with an insistent traveling itch. I have traveled across the Middle East alone and with friends and would love to start adventuring again. I love beer and cheesy Arabic pop music and anything strange or queer or colorful.

At the moment I have a fig tree growing in my window that I am so proud of. I usually kill plants from 50 paces, and feel horrible about it, so its continued presence makes me feel happy and awed at the strength of this baby tree.

Guilty pleasures include True Blood, googling pictures of Bruce Vilanch, and a daily scone.

Interests

Interests: Spoken word - Andrea Gibson, Buddy Walker, Lauren Zuniga, Joanna Hoffman. Public health. Harm reduction, riotous gardens, people who speak into their songs. Baking, especially scones. Daring myself to travel. I have a shirt that says, "this is what a feminist looks like" upside-down, which is helpful in case I forget. Still working out what it all means for me. Looking at something and not looking away. Showerbeer.

• writing
• beer
• baking
• working out
• traveling
• music
• spoken word

Music, Movies, and Books

movies- I see about one a year :) Pariah, Reservoir Dogs, Hurt Locker
music - Robyn (on repeat, with platforms), Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Adele. Jazzy people - Christian Scott, Ambrose Akinmusire, Hiromi, Roy Hargrove. Black Keys. Poetic people - Andrea Gibson and Buddy Wakefield.
books - How to Be Alone -actually, Franzen. All of it. Waiting. trashy mystery novels, not-trashy mystery novels. Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, Too Much Happiness & Five Points, Herman Hesse, Delusions of Gender. Ray Bradbury (RIP). J.M. Coetzee. Arabesques (Anthony Shammas). Edward Gorey.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Amazing moment #1: Seeing the pyramids when I was six. I felt a sense of reverse vertigo (if that makes sense?) and felt completely enveloped by their size. I spent the next 15 years plotting my return and chose Middle Eastern studies so I could spend a semester in Egypt. Going back, I was nervous that I wouldn't feel much in their presence but I experienced just as much silence and organ-rearranging respect the second time around.

Amazing moment #2: Last night my roommate and I battled it out for most horrible collection of music (she won, with Bette Midler)(...I knew all the words). Anyway, afterwards she decided to play her favorite song and chose Sam Cooke's A Change Gonna Come. It was the first time I'd heard it and it just took me out of myself...epic and tiny and grindingly hopeful. I felt something change inside me when I heard it and those moments come when I least expect them...

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Peru, Syrian Arab Republic

Countries I’ve Lived In

Egypt