User Profile

These are a few of my favorite things ...
* My many "furries" ... two ferrets, two dogs, two finches, one rabbit, and ... errrr .... my hubby ... well he has a full beard so he counts as furry!
* Reading, especially Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance (which are often one and the same ... e.g. the Crimson City series, Dresden Files series, Anita Blake series)
* Travel ... mostly day trips and long weekend treks due to financial limitations ... though two, week-long road trips took my husband and I to Canada (once to Toronto and once to Quebec City, both times with much sight-seeing along the way), and I did thumb around Britain on a two month walk-about after highschool many years ago ... would love to travel just about anywhere and figure that Mexico is next on our list since we can still drive there. It will be nice to finally visit a country where English isn't the primary language ... though one could argue that I grew up in just such a country -- Miami (tee-hee).
* Spicy, Exotic or Weird Foods ... we dine out a lot and are always up for new, weird, wacky foods to try. While we do live in a smallish city in a relatively un-worldly part of the country (Bible Belt, Deep South), we are blessed to live on the fringe of Asheville, an oasis of culture and wonderous weirdness -- thus making the job of finding the wild foods we crave much easier than if we lived in any other county for hours around. Our favorite restaurant is Salsa's ... where gastric genius Hector Diaz whips up seasonal fruits and veggies (many we'd never heard of) with free-range meats or tofu along with glorious spices and smoked-habinero sauce on the table for brave souls like us. We'd like to petition the Pope to name Hector the Patron Saint of Cuisine.
* "Lost" and "Heros" fan ... best "thinking person's" television programs!!!
* Socialist Libertarianism - I've long been a strong believer in and liver of paradoxes. Paradoxes are where I find the greatest truth ... the unexplainable but gut-knowable truth. And yes, I consider myself a Socialibertarian and would love to start a new political party based on the belief that basic things like healthcare, education, and water service should be socialized to afford everyone the same foundational opportunities; based on the belief that the environment belongs to everyone (the air over your backyard and my backyard know no boundaries, the water that runs off your backyard and my backyard know no boundaries, etc) and is therefore not "proprietary" and no one has a "right" to harm it; on the belief that all victimless crimes should be stricken from the law books, that we have far too many laws that attempt to micromanage our actions and now even our thoughts (e.g. hate crime legislation ... is a bullet to the head delivered by a lunatic really that much better than a bullet to the head delivered by a racist?) and attempt to shift blame to third parties instead of the truly responsible (the bartender for serving the drunk driver, the gun manufacturer for the armed robbery, your mommy for your bad behavior, etc.), we need to get back to basics -- murder=bad, stealing=bad, assault=bad, rape=bad, drugs-to-kids=bad ... and we don't care WHY you did it, damn it! (not the devilish influence a Maralyn Manson song, nor your irrational hatred for homosexuals brought on by the father who molested you ... you did it, end of story), and why should anyone give a hoot about what CONSENTING ADULTS choose to do to THEMSLEVES (drugs, prostitution, assisted suicide, etc.); and who ever came up with marriage as a state-sanctioned thing anyway?! isn't marriage one of two things ... it can be a legal contract (in which case it shouldn't matter who or how many sign on since our laws allow for contracts between any number of people of any number of genders) or it can be a religious service (which, in the interest of keeping church and state separate, shouldn't be acknowledged legally) ... i.e. keep the contract/law-driven aspects of marriage totally separate from the religious aspects and you solve the legal dilemma over gay marriage, polyamory, etc. Ok. well, I probably should stop the political rant here or start a whole other journal to address it.
* Religions ... last but not least of my interests is learning about all different kinds of spiritual beliefs/practices. I pretty much have my own core beliefs and look for aspects of other beliefs that coincide, enhance or compliment my own. If memory serves (and it often doesn’t), a book called Daughters of Copperwoman said that the Native Americans who lived around Washington state (or was it Vancouver, Canada?) believed that the core of all religions were so similar because they all contained a portion of the original story, the original “truth,” which had been fragmented … sort of like a "Tower of Babel" of philosophy/belief … that we’d all started out on the same page but that the page was torn into tiny bits and scattered the world over. Each religion had one of those bits, thinking that they each had the whole sum. So, not only truth can be found in each religion, but a piece of a larger puzzle lies in each religion’s truth. I try, with my limited/fallible/human brain/heart/soul to fathom the true bits of each religion I come across and see if I can get a bigger picture from assembling the pieces. I know the picture I’m assembling out of the bits has some pieces in the wrong place and some pieces that don’t belong, but just because I both know I’m wrong and that I’ll never be totally right or totally complete in my assemblage, doesn’t mean I don’t feel compelled to try just the same. There's the old adage that says that it’s the journey that’s important, not the destination. But, I’d say the destination IS important, otherwise why bother journeying; but the destination’s importance DOES make the journey worthwhile, even if the destination’s never reached.
*Pronoiac Philosophy - My mother suggested I read Pronoia: The Antidote for Paranoia by Rob Brezsny and mentioned that the author was the same writer who did the Freewill Astrology columns. That perked up my ears because I had long loved that column ... it didn't try to tell people what to do or what not to do the way horoscopes normally do, but rather gave good advice that could apply to anyone of any birth sign, all in a positive-upbeat and often entertaining way. After flipping through my mother's copy of Pronoia, I was sure I just had to have my own copy and ordered it that same day. I am SO glad I did! At this point (april 2006) I'm just a baby pronoiac ... just getting started. It's a refreshing and joyful way to look at life and the universe -- it all, everything is out to help you be the best you. Said like that in a sentence, it sounds preposterous. But, really, read the book, you'll see!!

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