[If you're looking for resumé-y stuff, you'll want to go over here. For the quirky stuff, you're in the right place!]

My mortar and pestle is my favorite toy. Since some kind of forever I’ve been a mixer upper of things. I love making herbed chimichurris (love. that. word!), pestos and concoctions of all sorts. A few months ago a fire alarm went off in my building: at 3 a.m. I grabbed my iBookG4, my journal, my stuffed bear and my mortar and pestle. There you go.

My favorite thing to do with the hard stuff of life is get curious. Because, the spirit of curiosity rocks the socks off of anything forced. Besides, the forced stuff usually backfires or comes back to bite you in the ass at inopportune moments like 3 a.m. when you’d rather be, oh, sleeping. (Not anyone I know. Oh no).

With curiosity in my pocket I can go pretty much anywhere and find at least one thing to love. And where there’s one, there’s usually two.

I am a lover of word and world. Pablo Neruda, Mary Oliver, Rilke, Rumi, T.S. Eliot, Billy Collins—yes, all poets—are some of my favorite people ever. It excites me no end that there are a thousand and one poets I’ve not yet read, and books I’ve not yet opened.

I know a thing or two about mixed up emotions. Ooof! For the sake of brevity let’s just say: it’s not for nothing I do what I do.

I think that if everyone in the world felt at home in their own skin we would fight a whole lot less. Massage therapy is one of the first things I discovered that really helped me get to know and feel at home in my self and in my body. (Again: not for nothing I do what I do).

I’ve got a girl-crush on Ana Sortun. She’s my independent business woman creative genius hero. I’m even dedicating a potion to her (not yet released). I get inspired sitting and eating at Sofra Cafe. And for my birthday I want someone to take me to Oleana. (Um, TUT? Universe? Please make note.)

Speaking of crushes, I adore Leonard Cohen. The man writes a mean lyric. Oh my. He says it like it is and he says it so beautifully. If ever I had to pick one human being for a space capsule thingie to be sent to a planet place where aliens don’t know thing one about this being human and matters of the heart? I’d pick Leonard Cohen. And then I’d offer to go along to keep him company.

Writing letters is one of my favorite things to do. In 2009 I did this thing called A Month of Living Curiously. People signed up to get letters from me–no kidding! … letters about how to meet the hard stuff of life with curiosity. (Sign up here if you want updates on new happenings with that).

I love my morning tea. Yorkshire Gold, to be exact. My sister sent me a box of 160 bags for Christmas. So I’m set for, oh, 2 months. Gotta love addictions.

Speaking of, I can get addicted to anything that I like. I keep having to grind the matter of That up in the mortar and pestle of life. My hardest addiction ever was related to food. I was bulimic in my adolescence and early adult years. Food. Oh the joy, oh the tears. And one of my greatest teachers.

Roadtrips rock. Something about the open road, big sky, new places and people… JOY!

So what don’t I so much love?

Tight. Not a fan. Tight shoes, tight hearts, tight tights. Know what I mean? ‘Cause it always rolls down to your knees. Or explodes. Either way, it’s hard to feel free and tight at the same time.

Fox News. Yeah, not so much. At all. The tight thing again… I’m pretty much not a fan of anything that tries to scare me into doing or believing anything. Ugh, huge turnoff.

Too many choices. Craaaazy-making! Too many choices are like a freaking hamster wheel for my mind, which I’d rather use for the good stuff, like writing letters, and poems, and stories. And mixing shit up!