I haven't finished the bio and faq pages, and I'm still in the process of moving the shoutbox to its own guestbook page.

Meanwhile, here are a few juicy biographical snippets about me...

I don't look like this...

...anymore, but it's a reasonable approximation.

(My hair is a good deal less New Romantic looking nowadays, for example)

I do still play the cello, though.

I make a mean pot of Texas chili.

I work as a database architect / programmer / web designer. It pays the bills.

On my own time, I take pictures, do smelly things in the dark room, write (poetry & plays, mostly), dance, make music, read, and do smelly (hopefully a good kind of smelly) things in the kitchen.

I'm also in the process of taking up kendo, which appeals to me precisely because of its absolute uselessness as a self-defense mechanism (who, after all, carries a bamboo stick everywhere they go?), and because the armor looks cool.

And I need the exercise, both mental and physical.

I'm planning to do improv comedy classes later in the summer, and go to a photo workshop at either the Maine Photographic Workshops or Santa Fe Workshops.

I like to throw parties with bizarre themes.

I subject my friends to strange movies.

I am a romantic and an idealist at heart, but I wear cynical armor because it looks cool and keeps world events from beating me to a pulp with a splintery bamboo stick.

The world is full of beauty and cruelty, both of which are fascinating when seen from a respectable distance, and both of which threaten to overwhelm me if I get too close.

Silly me, I get too close all the time anyway. I may never learn, and I consider that a good thing.

I was supposed to be getting a 3-month paid sabbatical leave this year. I was going to use it to travel through Europe, and maybe a little of North Africa. Unfortunately, it got cancelled. Quelle déception.

I'm seriously annoyed. All my travel guides will lapse into obsolescence by the time my next chance at this rolls around.

Anyway, at least I can live vicariously through others, which in this case is Annainthesky, who is going to Gotland in Sweden in August. Check out the lovely pictures from her last trip there and join me in envy.

I'm not sleeping well lately. It's not insomnia -- I am sleeping, at least.

Something is wrong when I am getting 8 hours of sleep at night and still find myself yawning at 8pm.

Maybe it's the trains. Maybe they're finally getting to me, although it hasn't been a problem for the past 13 months I've been living a stone's throw from a major railway intersection.

Maybe it's diet. I've been cutting back on beef because I finally decided it's not good for me if it gives me a phlegmy cough every time I eat it.

Whatever, I'm obviously not sleeping well. Or else I have some obscure lethargy disease.

Only time will tell.

An obscure lethargy disease would be really picturesque in a Victorian way, though.

All my unpublished poems could be discovered Emily Dickinson-style after I finally wasted away. Wouldn't that be lovely?