Rainy profile picture

Rainy

audentes fortuna iuvat

About Me


First and foremost, I am a hedonist and a nerd. I'm kinda redneck (hmm... not politically) and macho: I'm a firefighter & first responder, I like guns, chainsaws, motorcycles and proving my physical ability. But I also love wearing skirts and heels, so I guess I'm not that macho. I have the soul of an outlaw and traveler. Equal parts warrior and diplomat, like my ancestors. I love sipping a Highland single malt Scotch whiskey (and I'm a snob about it). Independent. Loyal. Bookworm and crossword puzzle junkie. I'm an urban road-warrior half-breed-Native punk-outlaw-goth-redneck... with an epicurean streak. I like the mountains and wilderness, and I like the city. Equally comfortable chopping wood, wearing a corset to the opera, researching in a library, or walking the halls of the United Nations. I like to create stuff. I fear little or nothing. I like to educate myself on everything worth knowing, which is everything, no? Libraries and book-geeks make me weak in the knees. I value people with the bravery to live their dreams. I value volunteerism as well, and encourage everyone to work for your community

My Interests

epiphytes, yeah i said epiphytes!, chromatophores, cephalopods, photophores, Octopoda , FIRE, nanotechnology, traveling, reading, the NY Times crossword puzzle, scotch, indigenous peoples, culture, motorcycles, berlin, NPR, This American Life , Texas hold 'em, beer, fast cars, music, politics, minimalism, thinking, boots, gardening, chainsaws, int'l law, law, human rights, art, Croatia, Hajduk Split, architecture, soccer, mountain climbing, Haudenosaunee, my Smith & Wesson, Ruger revolvers, tattoos, snowboarding, zen, corsets, latex, opera, punk, hardware stores, nature, goth, blues, jazz, museums, galleries, walks, hiking, bicycles, individuality, the Yuba , Brooklyn, deutsch, Republica Dominicana, snorkeling, scuba, tea, anti-fashion, zac posen, learning, orchids, going to school , being a loner, David Cross

I'd like to meet:

Fellow nerds. Intellectuals. Indigenous peoples/ pueblos indigenas/ first nations. People with varied life experiences who know sumthin' 'bout sumthin'. Brown eyes. Skins/ndns. Warriors. Kanien:keha'ka/ Mohawks. Haudenosaunee. People who are dissatisfied with the way things are. Architects, engineers, painters, creators. Other outlaws. People who smile like long lost friends when they see me. Revolutionaries. Rednecks. Old beatniks. Thinkers. Bikers. Scrabble players. Black Panthers. Pilots.

Music:

Pixies, P.J. Harvey, Crakow Klezmer, Paul Brill, Gogol Bordello, Zounds, A.P.P.L.E., Johnny Cash, Two Gallants, Tricky, Neko Case, Elliot Smith, Hammerlock, Garmarna, Chat Noir Chat Blanc, Die fantastischen Vier, Current 93, Ladytron, Crisis, flamenco, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Taraif Haiduks, Anti-Sect, Nausea, Massive Attack, Crass, old UK punk, ska, Beethoven, Puccini, Mozart, Zounds, Dirt, The Mob, Flux of Pink Indians, Buddy Guy, Nina Hagen, Bauhaus, Ravi Shankar, Django Reinhart (& Stefi Grappelli), Buddha Bar, Luxt, Skinny Puppy, Umm Kulthum, Miles Davis, Nick Cave, Neurosis, KMFDM, Switchblade Symphony, Social Distortion, Madness, Fugazi, Maria Callas, Pablo Casals, Skatellites, Yo Yo Ma, Hindustani classical music, Dead Can Dance, Goran Bregovic, Kronos Quartet, Bhangra, David Bowie, Peter Schilling, Warsaw Village Band, Tiger Lillies, Gorillaz, Alex Battles and the Whisky Rebellion!, Fehlfarben, Kraftwerk, Siouxsie, Vermillion Lies

Movies:

Wings of Desire, The Bandit Queen, Secretary, Dersu Uzala, Hero, Once Were Warriors, M, Metropolis, House of Flying Daggers, Winged Migration, The Whale Rider, Chat Noir Chat Blanc, City of Lost Children, Down by Law, Paris Texas, Rabbit-Proof Fence, La Femme Nikita, City of God, Latcho Drom, Baraka, nature documentaries, movies by Jim Jarmusch, Ingmar Bergman, Wim Wenders, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa (fave is probably Seven Samurai), Hitchcock, Pedro Almodóvar, Zhang Yimou, and most recently Matthew Barney.

Television:

Nature shows.

Books:

a good dictionary, history and non-fiction and Russian literature!, sailing books, God's Middle Finger, Too Loud a Solitude, The God of Small Things, Crime and Punishment, The Sailor From Gibraltor, Pearls Arms & Hashish, The Trouble With Testosterone and anything else by Robtert Sapolsky, London Fields, A Brave New World, Demian, 1984, We, Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, Where the Wild Things Are, The Idiot, The Master and Margarita, http://smartypants.diaryland.com/ , Black's Law Dictionary, Zola, Rilke, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nietzche, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Zamyatin, Bulgakov, Nabokov, Chehkov, Murakami, Voltaire, Moscow to the End of the Line by Venedikt Erofeev, Faust (versions by Mann, Goethe, Marlowe, "English Faust Book"), James Baldwin, Edward Said, Li Po, Under a Cruel Star - by Heda Margolius Kovaly, just to name a few...

Heroes:

Diogenes, mata hari, momo (read this book!), my grandmother, annie oakley, amelia earhart, joshua slocum, tristan jones, henri de monfried, arundhati roy, malcolm x, voltairine de clerye, ghandi, herman hesse, ang san suu kyi, emma goldman, john brown, my momma, nina hagen, edward gorey, edvard munch, nikola tesla, john muir, henry david thoreau, zapatistas, dalai lama, leon shenandoah, toussaint l'ouverture , emiliano zapata, francisco "pancho" villa, mililani trask, john trudell

My Blog

"9-1-what the?" aka "Owloween!"

Wow, this is turning out to be a strange Halloween... and it's only 11 a.m.!Story: It was a quiet week at the Fire Department, not a whole lot going on. There was a little excitement when I did my nor...
Posted by Rainy on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:42:00 PST

firefighter chick

Been fighting fire and picking up the injured/ sick/ dying. I'm tired, muscles sore, grumpy, lonely. My house smells like smoke even though I washed all my gear. Smoke and dirt are embedded in my pore...
Posted by Rainy on Mon, 08 Sep 2008 08:40:00 PST

ComicCon, etc.

I just got back from my first ever comic convention - the San Diego ComicCon. I sold many books, witnessed many comic book nerds, ate lots of good food, enjoyed the ocean air. The ComicCon presents a ...
Posted by Rainy on Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:57:00 PST

Mums the word + SCOTLAND

MUMThere's this strange thing happening in my life right now: I'm not allowed to talk about anything. Seriously, there are all these legal and moral and practical reasons that I can't tell anyone anyt...
Posted by Rainy on Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:30:00 PST

Texas, yall!!

Kate and I took off on a two-week road adventure to Texas, and it was amazing! The Southwestern United States is pretty glorious in the spring. Our first stop was Joshua Tree National Park, and all th...
Posted by Rainy on Fri, 16 May 2008 05:43:00 PST

Redneck lessons

My Redneck/ Country Livin’ lessons are proceeding well. Maybe you don’t believe it, but country life is growing on me! I mean, chainsaws, guns, drinking beer... this is fun stuff y’a...
Posted by Rainy on Wed, 12 Mar 2008 01:47:00 PST

old year, new year and plans

It's hard to find words at this point, because things are going swimmingly, and I don't have any firm plans for the future, and I always feel reluctant to divulge too much information before my plans ...
Posted by Rainy on Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:20:00 PST

A sense of place

A sense of place.I left home when I was 15, and although I didn't make it far at the time (my new home was 45 minutes from my old one), it was a dramatic departure from the family home that had been m...
Posted by Rainy on Wed, 26 Sep 2007 03:33:00 PST

whereabouts

Well, I'm in this Art Brut video (filmed in Berlin earlier this year), but even when I'm in the scene, you can't see that it's me. Plus, I think it's a terrible video (sorry guys). Good concept (based...
Posted by Rainy on Tue, 04 Sep 2007 03:06:00 PST

nostalgic tide

Sitting in my office working, when suddenly a wave comes crashing down on me: I'm somewhere else, far away. The smell of my grandparents' kitchen, baking with my grandmother, is all around me. Gingers...
Posted by Rainy on Fri, 27 Jul 2007 01:18:00 PST