: About Me

The first thing you should know about me is that I'm old enough now to realize how dreadfully young that I am in comparison to...heck, my first car! (Which was a 1979 Ford Thunderbird. Never got to drive it, though. Long story.) The second thing you should know about me is that I'm young enough not to especially give a hoot. Basically, I'm a family man trapped inside a broke, ever-busy graduate student's life, and I'm loving every minute of it.

I've had an interesting time thus far, especially now as I embark on a two year NSF-funded fellowship at the University of Washington designed to train me in the art of "evolutionary modeling," which is a fancy way of saying that we do a lot of math and investigate how there are evolutionary implications in...well, pretty much everything, but mostly behavior. And by behavior, I especially mean that ever-elusive, ever-intractable thing ambiguously known as "culture." The projects my colleagues and I are working on include one investigating the linkage between monkey social structure and habitat destruction, and another about the emergence of social inequality in human societies. Oddly enough, I find it fascinating and recommend that you do, too!

So that's my day job. By night, I'm a crime fighter. No, just kidding (I wish). But I do enjoy keeping myself in good shape, I'm a big fan of the martial arts (particularly when they actually work as a form of defense), and I absolute LOVE to sing (and don't sound half-bad either) and write (again, not half bad...right?). My specialties are poetry, songs, short stories, and informative science articles with an evolutionary and anthropological bent. In the coming months, I'll be working on starting a self-publishing outfit specializing in children's books, starting with a book I originally wrote for the son of a very good friend. So, the third thing you should know about me is that, as a writer, I am extremely versatile.

My passion is ...

...singing to myself on the way to campus, my family, my fitness, my finances, global sustainability, social entrepeneurship, and putting pen to page.

I know too much about ...

....knowing too little.

My parents always told me ...

...the way you treat your mother is the way you're going to treat your wife!

My childhood ambition ...

...to be the first Egyptologist to win an Oscar (still working on that; sort of difficult because I'm not an Egyptologist).

My favorite memory ...

...is of roasting marshmallows in Auntie Alice's fireplace, listening to Mel Brooks and Bill Cosby records. Those were the days!

Why I write ...

I write to inform and to stay informed, to inspire and to stay inspired.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

Blink (Malcolm Gladwell); Personal Finance for Dummies (Eric Tyson); and music I want to practice singing for my lovely Malyse.

My first job ...

...was as a go-for/jackhammer operator/demolisher for an apartment remodeling firm. Boy, did I get yoked!

My best moment ...

...is when Malyse and I found out we were in love. Finding out I was awarded a two-year fellowship to graduate school wasn't so bad either!

My inspiration ...

...lies in the confusing, amusing, often tragic world, which is increasingly at my fingertips, but more so the world that is trudged beneath my feet.

Creative Writing > Short Stories Short stories: Science fiction

15 of 270

The Antelope Falls with the Arrow He was the last to read. Before, when printed letters filed passed his eyes like terracettes from a car window, there were the words of an old neophyte from Mission Dolores who was, like him, the last of a kind. Although he thought he'd never committed them to memory, he whispered those words to himself now as the stranger cast him a non-glance: "I am very old...my people were once around me like the sands of the shore...many...many. They have all passed away. They have died like the grass...they have gone to the mountains. I do not complain, the antelope ...

More..

• Helium Charter Member