beckra

In my "day job," which is also often a "night job," I teach Latin, Greek, and Classics at a small college.

Here are some things I enjoy:

• abstract images
• adaptations of myths & fairy tales
• art history
• birds (especially bluebirds)
• book-binding
• children's & YA literature
• cloud-watching
• etymology
• found poems, altered text, and other experiments with words
• hedgehogs
• mail-art
• moths and butterflies
• novels
• octopuses
• pamphlets & zines
• photography
• post-cards
• sunsets
• trees
• typography
• walking
• water
• wildflowers

My favorite authors include Anthony Trollope, Wilkie Collins, and Jane Austen. I also like to read children's & YA literature, historical romances, and retellings of myths and fairytales.

I have some favorite periodicals too: The New York Times Book Review and Artforum.

I like to learn different (simple) book-making techniques and to design pamphlets.

I enjoy putting together abstract collages.

I take a lot of photos, particularly of the sky, light on water, shadows, growing things along my walking route, and random things people have dropped in parking lots and on pavements.

Do cooking and baking count as crafts? I like to try new (vegetarian) recipes, and I sometimes tinker with cookie recipes to mix flavors and spices.

Brian Eno's Music for Airports is my go-to. For a few years it was pretty much the only album I listened to.

A more recent favorite album is Max Davies' Inventions for Broken and Prepared Guitar.

Long-standing favorites are The Man Who Came to Dinner, The Women (1939 version), Stranger Than Fiction, Being Julia.

I signed up with Swap-Bot in spring 2007, and I've appreciated how this site makes it possible to connect with people across miles and share bits of our lives and creativity. I'm grateful for the people whose paths I've crossed and for the new things I've tried and learned through this site and swaps.

I hesitate to list any particular dislikes, but here's one: I'd prefer not to receive any images related to hunting, fishing, or eating meat.

This probably goes without saying, but please let me know if you haven't received something from me when you should have--I haven't dropped the ball so far, and I'd like a chance to re-send if something got lost in the mail. And I promise to rate my partners in a timely way, too.