Looking for friends (thoughtful & open-minded people) in the Bay Area for walks and conversation. I'm single, straight, white, & male, to give the rundown of official categories.

I am not a hedonistic type. I tend to be bookish and austere. I don't own a car. I avoid coffee shops at all costs. (What is coffee?)

I like the poem "Coffee Shop" by Thom Gunn, though. I try to write poems and would like to get some published some day.

I'm interested in birds and birdsong, in ambiguity and beauty.

Jesus Christ, but the swallows. Flying at twilight.

Random tidbit: One of my preferred recent Pixar movies is Inside Out, chiefly because of the character Sadness, a rare reminder in mainstream culture that wisdom and empathy may be won from suffering and depression.

The idea I'm getting at here is that suffering/sadness/depression may be tied, at some deep level, to our humanity. I'm not trying to celebrate depression, but I'm saying we live in a culture that constantly repudiates sadness, and I think that's a mistake….

I'm a complicated person, but I try to get along with others. I'm a quiet person, but I enjoy talking too.

I used to be very withdrawn. Nowadays, I'm actually quite open, capable of being quite candid and transparent.

Sometimes, I'm too unguarded. What is it that Stephen Dedalus said about his preferred weapons of self-defense: "Silence, exile, and cunning"?

I live in San Francisco: a.k.a. Tech-Bro Central: a.k.a. a clinical experiment in ratcheting up economic inequality to extreme levels. Yes, there are some picturesque views and quaint nooks and crannies. Yes, it sucks.

I work as a substitute teacher in the public schools. As I've been doing this for years, I may be a bit tougher than I appear. Or maybe just a massive, unreformable masochist? :p

Send me a message if you think we might 'vibe.' Include some cursory introductory information. I reserve the right to ignore without qualms any messages which include no meaningful reference to anything written here.

(If your message includes no introductory matter and no reference, I'll be thinking to myself when I read it: "What are you and why are you speaking to me?")

Peace.