Do you ever wonder what love is? How 'bout risk? That's a little something I don't do enough, but I'm trying to push myself more these days, for many reasons.

And since I'm on the subject of love, I might as well take a moment to link to the alt.polyamory FAQ, some ways to screw up any relationship, and the Loving More front page. And you can also read some thoughts of my own on polyamory.

Sex may not be love, but they get confused often enough. If you're gonna do it, be safe about it. The Rubbertree is a good place to buy condoms for much less than you can get them in a store ...

I have a love-hate relationship with words. They awe and frustrate me to no end. Words, in their subtle whispers and their angry shouts, printed black on the pages of a book, pixels burning in a screen, spoken aloud to someone or no one, reach into me and draw emotions out like magic. And sometimes I can make them do that, too, to myself or to others, and then I love them. Much of the time, though, I fight to make them work for me, and my speech feels clumsy for failing to capture the feeling behind the words I drop clatteringly into a conversation. And then I hate them. Leslie Marmon Silko has a beautiful way with words, though, and I thank the random quirks of chaos for poets like her, who can remind me why I love words so much, even on a day when I'm hating them.

And speaking of words, you can read some of my favorite combinations of them, if you want. Short combinations (one-liners) or long combinations (you can figure it out ;-)

I get moody sometimes, as we all do, but, so far, I've always managed to recover.

Here's a disappointingly unusual perspective on beauty. Yep, that's me. And I'm working on something. It's not fully worked out, yet, but I'm getting there. I'm no beauty in the conventional sense, but since when have I been swayed by convention? I'm coming to love my body, with it's heavy curves and dark crevices, its heat and its softness. It's not an all-the-time love, yet, but it will be.

Think much about the meaning of life? This poem by Roberto Juarroz largely says it for me -- captures my image of the power of friendship and love. 'Course, on the meaning of life, I've had a few thoughts of my own, too. And then there's always a somewhat harsher view.

A fellow religion major a few years ahead of me wrote some great poems; read a couple of my faves. Or check this piece by Magdalena Gomez which I like a lot, too.

Another interesting piece is this poem sent to me in a chain e-mail by a friend. I normally hate chain mail, but enjoyed this poem enough to hold on to it.

We all know that a tract is "a leaflet or pamphlet containing a declaration or an appeal, [usually] one put out by a religious or political group" (from the American Heritage Dictionary), so what would a non-tract be? (Don't follow this link if you are Judeo-Christian and/or believe in the Judeo-Christian god to exclusion of other ideas. This piece can be highly offensive to some; I don't mind offending, but I certainly don't want to force it upon you!) If you want to get yourself really confused or irritated (depending on how you feel about deconstruction and post-modernism) you can read my midterm paper for my junior seminar -- if you can decipher it, it'll tell you what I think people worship ...

If you're looking for something somewhat more political, here's a plea from Iran that I find heart-rending. Now might be a good time to see what Amnesty International is up to.

If you're agnostic or an atheist, or if you simply have doubts about religion and all that big stuff, The Secular Web is a fun place to visit.

I'm sorry to say that, for the most part, all the links to multiculturalism and related sources of information and/or resources have their focus on Australia or Canada. I can point you in the direction of The Williams Multicultural Center which is, obviously, the resource I use most, though the page is under serious construction. You can also check out The National Multicultural Institute about which I know nothing beyond the info provided on these pages.

This page, like life, is perpetually under construction. Sorry, I had to add something Religion-major-y.

But before I go, a couple of comments (excuses? explanations?):

I've heard varying opinions on what a web page should look like. Some people say a subtle or no background is best. Or that it should or shouldn't be too fancy. Or whatever. And that's fine and thank you if you have thoughts on my design, but I've never really been one to do the normal thing, so in essence my feeling is that if you're here, you probably know me and aren't going to shun me because of this wacky background. If, on the other hand, you don't know me and decide not to get to know me on the basis of anything on this page, that's fine. No skin off my back. I'm not trying to make a good impression or stun anyone with my brilliant skills as a graphic designer (see Seth Battis's page if that's what you're looking for). I'm just playing around with HTML and having a little fun while taking a break from real work.

Really, though, if you've ever seen my room, you know I'm not an entirely conventional decorator/designer and I don't plan to start now. The one exception is this: I'd like to know if you can't read text on any of my pages because it's a weird color or blends into the background. Or gets swallowed up by the background. Or anything like that. I don't mind offending someone's aesthetic sensibilities, but I'd like you to be able to read what I've written. And the question occurs to me: "Why am I defending myself on this?" And since I can't think of an answer, I'm done.

So that's it. E-mail me if you want. Here's my PGP Public Key if you're paranoid or secretive.