Yoga, garlic, sushi, goat cheese, meat. Green beans. Steamed kale. Pho. Lots of tomatoes. Learning Vietnamese. Knitting. Teaching people stuff, flameworking, ceramics (mostly wheel-thrown), reading all weekend, training for 5Ks, writng in my journal, choreographing, directing, singing a capella and for kids, summer camp, expanding the ol' grey matter, keeping my heart open and my life lessons coming.
Ignazio Oliva, Ira Glass, Adrian Brody, Rachel Weisz, Sarah Silverman, Haroun and his Sea of Stories... Also: people who can give me reccomendations on and insights into cool independant schools to which I can apply. I want to teach in an open minded and experiential school. Waldorf, Montessori, hippie boarding school? Ideally, I would be the arts/crafts teacher with a side of house mother or group dynamics specialist. It doesn't have to pay well, as long as it gives me time to be myself, be physically active and in natural light, and enjoy life.
Ben Folds Five from the mid-nineties. Jazz, funk, and Musical Theatre; early American shapenote and spirituals and banjo and fiddle music; traditional and contemporary contra/celtic; classic rock and pop from before my time like the Beatles, the Who, Led Zeppelin; positive hip hop a la Spearhead, Jurassic Five, Del, De La Soul, Tribe; silly folk like TMBG and Moxy Fruvous; women with gorgeous voices and multiple harmonies... basically anything I can sing along to. I also have a soft spot for beautiful sad indie pop like Hem, Feist, Iron and Wine, Neutral Milk Hotel, the Magnetic Fields. Nick Drake. Current favorite band is the Ditty Bops.
Thank You For Smoking, Stealing Beauty, Billy Elliot, Harold and Maude, Amelie, Shaun Of The Dead, Deathtrap, The Princess Bride, Bubble Boy, Back to the Future, Donnie Darko, Clue, Newsies, most any film version of a musical, most any Shakespeare adaptation, Songcatcher, Brokedown Palace, ok now I'm just looking at my DVDs.
Lost, Carnivale, Mr. Show, Home Movies, Arrested Development, Buffy, My So-Called Life, The Wonder Years, Family Guy, um... and I was raised on the Simpsons.
Can't list favorites because there are so many. Ok, I'll try. The Time Traveller's Wife. Self, by Yann Martel. Kavalier & Clay. Conversations With God. Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Skinny Legs and All. FOUND magazine. Reading is my default mode and if given the chance, I will do it all day long.
girls with curves. boys with eyeliner. people who are brave yet humble. people who learn from their mistakes. people who speak vietnamese. people who give freely even when they feel like they are the ones in need. Travelers and gentle touchers.