Miss J profile picture

Miss J

I am here for Friends and Networking

About Me

I teach (and learn from) middle school kids about reading, writing, literature, and life. I am a huge bookworm, and I like to write. I sporadically make art (mostly paint/ pastel or intsallations involving tiny boxes). I like taking pictures of things that catch my eye. I am a kareoke legend in my own mind, and I am a dancing queen. I am also a hippie-nature-girl, and I love being outside. I adore traveling (especially road trips), meeting new people, and experiencing new points of view and sets of mind. I enjoy eating veggie and vegan food. I am in the habit of getting enraptured by art (mostly surrealism and old religious art), nature (mostly the desert and the mountains), and literature (mostly autobiographies and other things written in first person). I enjoy the tiny details of life. I love antiques, or anything with history. I deeply value my friendships. I love having late-night, philosophical, reflective conversations and theorizing about anything and everything. I am a chronic overthinker. I love making noise and I wish I could play piano better, or had the time to learn how to play drums. When I hear good music, I am like the girl with the red shoes, I can't stop dancing.

My Interests

Learning and teaching, reading, writing, making art, taking photos, dancing (bellydancing, Latin dancing, swing dancing, breakdancing, etc.) traveling, hiking, biking, thrifting, vintage clothing (esp. 40's and 50's) eating yummy Veggie and vegan food, good (visually or verbally rich) movies, working with middle schoolers, people-watching, anthropology, sociology, psychology and cultural studies, religion, history, quantum physics, human and animal rights, surrealism, philosophy, scrabble and other board games, singing (by myself and with other people), playing piano badly, art museums and galleries, philosophizing, overthinking, misadventuring, laughing

I'd like to meet:

Late-night philosophers, dance partners, backup singers, travel buddies, and passionate, interesting people in general to have fun and crazy (mis)adventures with.

Music:

Older Stuff Like: Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, Billy Holliday, Count Basie, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, The Beatles, The Beach Boys80's Stuff Like: Depeche Mode, Information Society, Pet Shop Boys, New Order, Electronic, The Cure, The Smiths, Psychadellic Furs, Dead or Alive, Madonna, Prince, Siouxsie, U2, REM90's stuff like: Stone Temple Pilots, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Hole, Weezer, B52's, The Pixies, PJ Harvey, The Breeders, Blur, Radiohead, Bjork, Juliana Hatfield, Liz Phair, Mazzy Star, The Verve, Oasis, Mono, Portishead, Eels, Beck, The Digable PlanetsNewer Stuff Like: Belle and Sebastian, Detroit Cobras, Le Tigre, Sigur Ros, April March, Postal Service, Franz Ferdinand, Queens of the Stone Age, The Rapture, Coldplay, The Faint, The Dandy Warhols, The Vines, Brazillian Girls, Annie, Tegan and Sarah Also: assorted Trance-y dance-y stuff, Turkish House, Baltimore Club, anything I can shake my ass to!

Movies:

Ghost World, What the Bleep?, Dark City, High Fidelity, Dazed and Confused, Spellbound, Jawbreaker, Hairspray, The Royal Tannenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited, Saved!, Amelie, The Good Girl, Garden State, Rize, Marie Antionette, everything by Tim Burton (because it is all visually stunning), assorted documentaries and eye candy (yummy scenery, cinematography, costumes, special effects....)

Television:

Here and there, I get my doses: Project Runway(for my love of design) Six Feet Under (for the goth in me) Sex in the City (for a dose of friviolousness), Northern Exposure (for spirituality) and the Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Robot Chicken, and Family Guy (for absurdisim).

Books:

The Poisonwood Bible, High Tide in Tucson, She's Come Undone, Cat's Eye, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Franny and Zooey, Slaugterhouse 5, Nervous Conditions, The Corner, Fast Food Nation, Nickel and Dimed, Kaftka's short stories, Lies My Teacher Told Me, Me Talk Pretty One Day, ee cummings collected poems, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Color Purple, The Virgin Suicides, The Wayward Bus, Ishmael, Confederacy of Dunces, Ironman, Ways of Seeing, The Lovely Bones, Small Wonder, Confessions of a Southern Daughter, Couldn't Keep it to Myself, Running with Scissiors, Hypocrite in a Poufy White Dress, Piece of Cake, Eat-Pray-Love, assorted confessional poets, writing with lots of vivid imagery, autobiograpies and memiors of various interesting people

Heroes:

PJ Harvey, Barbara Kingsolver, Arlen Barr, Chris in the Morning from Northern Exposure

My Blog

Goin back to Cali

10 things I love about San Diego: 1. Warm weather (80 degrees right now) 2. Awesome Mexican food (guacamole!) 3. Amazing beaches 4. Friendly and laid-back inhabitants 5. Close proximity to Tijuana (y...
Posted by Miss J on Mon, 24 Mar 2008 10:20:00 PST

Snow...

Breath is sharper, shorter - intakes are arctic blasts.  Eyes are squinting, not used to so much reflected light.  Movement is slower, impeded by the thickness of frozen things and cold.&nbs...
Posted by Miss J on Fri, 22 Feb 2008 05:39:00 PST

Wise Words

From Small Wonders: Essays by Barbara Kingsolver (one of my favorite writers and thinkers) -on the news media: "Still there is a thing in us that wants us to have a look- a curiosity that was useful t...
Posted by Miss J on Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:26:00 PST

Things I love right now...

1.  My new laptop and free wi-fi (courtesy of my neighbors) 2.  My Ipod (especially downloading new music on Itunes and obscure but entertaining podcasts) 3.  Working out again...which ...
Posted by Miss J on Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:01:00 PST

Best Thanksgiving Ever.

This Thanksgiving, instead of going through the usual tried- and -true tradition of visiting the houses of family and friends and stuffing myself on veggie delights, I decided to do my stuffing elsewh...
Posted by Miss J on Tue, 04 Dec 2007 05:19:00 PST

Gotta Keep on Movin on...

Dear Frederick, You and I have gotten to know each over the years very well.  It started slowly at first, with weekend visits here and there.  I was captivated by your historic charm, your n...
Posted by Miss J on Tue, 07 Aug 2007 04:20:00 PST

Happiness is... (my summer)

1. Sundress- barefoot- skinny- dipping weather 2. Getting to be the student, not the teacher (and getting to go for free!) 3. Not working for two glorious months, but still getting a paycheck 4. ...
Posted by Miss J on Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:28:00 PST

Dead Dogs Tell No Tales

Let me just say that the book I am reading now "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" is the most highly amusing and genius thing that I have read in months!  Yes - I know - I'm jum...
Posted by Miss J on Tue, 01 May 2007 04:03:00 PST

Hey now, I'm a Rockstar?!

I am really not one for video games, but I played the most fun one ever (besides of course, the all-time classic Tetris ) last weekend... Guitar Hero 2.  It is an amazing game because you totally...
Posted by Miss J on Mon, 30 Apr 2007 06:24:00 PST

To my favorite city...

Dear Baltimore, I know that we have not seen each other in awhile. i'm sorry it has been so long, but you know how things go. life gets busy, and it is hard to make time to visit. That being sai...
Posted by Miss J on Sun, 22 Apr 2007 06:06:00 PST