ABOUT ME

Given the average attention span, here I am, TEEN magazine style:

LIFE STORY IN FACTOIDS

Born: August 27
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Current Town: Kirkland, WA (near Seattle)
Schools: UCLA (BA Art History), UNC Chapel Hill (Masters in Library / Info Science), Charles U. in Prague (semester abroad)
Personality Type: INTP
Cats: Miloš and Pasha (admire)
Prior Jobs: Disneyland hostess, SAT tutor, journalist, instructional designer, editor
Life Goals: be a volunteer animal-assisted therapist, live in Eastern Europe for a few years, learn another language fluently, publish something great, stick to regular meditation program, live without regrets; visit Turkey, Greece, Croatian islands, Iraq, Transylvania, Northern France, Thaliand and Russia
Volunteering: Purrfect Pals cat shelter, EarthShare Washington, Habitat for Humanity, CalPIRG
Magazines: Utne Reader, YES!, Raw Vision, Parabola, Tricycle, Shambala Sun
Food: vegetarian, Indian, Thai, Greek, Persian, Afghan, Italian, Mexican, Lebanese
Countries I've Visited: France, England, Italy, Serbia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania, Croatia, Austria, Mexico, Canada, Slovenia
Religion: Unitarian Church attending Pagan sympathizing Buddhist
Astrology: Virgo, but no thanks
Activities: pillowfighting, reading, writing, making jewelry and knitting on a loom, playing music, boating, meditation, learning foreign languages (Czech, Russian, French, Spanish, whatever), lectures, art galleries
Pet Peeves: homophobes, fundamentalists, uber-Republicans (sorry), bugs, alarm clocks, heat, acne, cynicism

ARTS

Rock:	Neutral Milk Hotel, R.E.M., Flaming Lips, Komeda, Smiths, Trash Can Sinatras, Magnetic Fields, Mercury Rev, Neko Case, Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, Smiths, Oingo Boingo, Radiohead, Mountain Goats, Stereolab, Yo La Tengo, James, Meat Beat Manifesto, Loop Guru, Orb, Orbital, Art of Noise, Radiohead, Wonder Stuff, XTC
Oldies:	Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Fats Waller, Bix Biederbecke, Sidney Bechet, Original Dixieland Jazz Group, Golden Gate Quartet, Glenn Miller, Ray Charles, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Frank Sinatra
Foreign:	Kocani Orkestar (Macedonia), Bulgari (Bulgaria, surprisingly), Romanyi Rota (Hungary / Gypsy), Taraf de Haidouks (Romania), Gothart (Czech), Edith Piaf (France), Jean Sablon (France), Yves Montand (France), Goran Bregovic (Serbia), Fanfare Ciocarlia (Romania), Tito Puente (Cuba), Perez Prado (Cuba), Slobodan Saljevic Orkestar (Serbia). I love Sufi (Egypt and Turkey) music, gypsy brass (Serbia) and 1930s French
Record Labels	Fono (Hungary), Asphalt Tango (Balkans), Nettwerk (foreign), Smithsonian Folkways, Yazoo, Merge, Matador, Mammoth, Caroline
Instruments I play:	piano, guitar, accordion, singing saw, recorder
Languages in which I can say BAGPIPE:	Eleven. French - cornmuse, Romanian - cimpoi, German - dudelsak, Hungary - dudy, Czech - duda, Balkans - gajda, Spain - Gaita, Greece - Tsambuna, Swedish - säckpipa, Turkish - tulum, English - duh.
Art and Artists:	Surrealism, Dada, Expressionism, Russian Constructivism, Northern Renaissance, classical. Marc Chagall, Vassily Kandinsky, Renee Magritte, Vincent Van Gogh, Rembrandt Van Rijn, Gustav Klimt, Max Ernst, Egon Schiele, Georgi and Vladmir Stenberg, Alexander Rodchenko
Outsider Artists:	Facteur Cheval, Vollis Simpson, Adolf Wolfli, Friedrich Schroeder-Sonnenstern, Howard Finster, Dr. Evermor
Authors:	Kurt Vonnegut, Rainer Maria Rilke, Tom Robbins, J.K. Rowling, T.S. Eliot, John Updike, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Joseph Campbell, Carl Sagan, Brian Greene, Leonard Shlain, Margaret Atwood, Noah Levine