Eight years in Northern California now- so it's time to stop posing as a transplant. Isn't it? Maybe the cultural distinctions between NoCal and SoCal are insurmountable and one always will feel like an expatriate. Or maybe I am just alone in my longing for L.A. I do love the lack of traffic though. Anyway- the bio: I used to be a programmer for a living and a poet for a life; my life is still poetry but my living comes from other, less financially rewarding but still enough to pay the bills, work. In the past I've also had some experience social servicing, book selling, gas pumping, beer tapping, and substance abuse counseling. Somewhere in there I also waited on a few thousand tables... I am a talented cook with an extensive appetite for food, along a voracious hunger for film and music and selective but diverse interest in novels, philosophy, history and board games. I am revisiting an indulgence in the films of Wong Kar-wai, the novels of Helen Oyetemi are in rotation on my night stand,and i just wrapped up sea four of Louie. I love prime aged beef but also know how to throw down with some luxurious vegetarian casseroles and I am mastering the fine art of a Point Reyes blue cheese souffle. Also digging on the piano of Horace Tapscott, the poetry of Cesar Vallejo, and the pictures of Nan Goldin.