**Please read my entire profile before requesting a couch**

ABOUT ME

I recently moved back to Missouri after spending a year+ in Washington state as an Americorps Volunteer. I'd been on CS for a while at that point, but it was really during that time I really started taking advantage of this site to meet new people in the area and find hosts to make traveling the PNW more affordable. Now that I'm in a more permanent living situation and actually able to host, I want to give back and offer some of that generosity I found time and again.

I like to fill my time reading and writing, also being with friends. I'm a minimalist, easy-going, sometimes soft-spoken type, and constantly questioning the status quo. I'm hard into issues on environmentalism, human rights, the arts, travel, and thinking up alternative means to living outside the traditional 9 to 5 job.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I'm on CS to make deeper connections while traveling, and more recently now to give back and host. I love to meet new people and share philosophies, stories, skills, trinkets, beers, and floor space.

I like to host cool people who are doing cool things. I'm very into the arts and hope that you are too.

Please consider these things when contacting me for a place to stay. I'll probably be "out of town" if you aren't able to:

-provide any profile info, photos, or references. ie, you just signed up for CS last minute before taking off on your around the US road trip.

-send a longer, personalized message in your request. If it seems like a simple copy and paste type job, don't expect a place to stay.

-invest anytime to hang out or share your experiences with the house. If you are just rolling through for a concert and need a place to crash with your five friends then leave whenever you wake up the next morning, please find somewhere else to stay.

Interests

I can get excited about nearly anything, so long as who ever I'm talking to has passion in their voice. Being in nature is always a thing; I enjoy biking, hiking, backpacking, yoga, and climbing for starters. During those quieter moments, it can be just as great to stay in and cook a vegetarian meal from scratch, or cozy up and take in a book or movie. And for any other sort of down time, I'm typically dancing to music at the house or going out searching for cheap IPA's at dive bars, a coffee house serving yirgacheffe, or a thrift store with good deals.

Music, Movies, and Books

Music, movies, and books, along with anything else from the humanities are a so valuable to me. Careful getting on the subject, because I will spend an entire afternoon on the topic... And deep into the night... And over breakfast the next morning... And, well, yeah, up until you close the car door and drive off.

I enjoy a lot of music, the highest on my list right now are Sufjan Stevens, Modest Mouse, Father John Misty, Grizzly Bear, Sylvan Esso, Animal Collective, Deadman's Bones, The Decemberists, Bat for Lashes, St Vincent, Yeasayer, Phantogram, Perfume Genius, Tame Impala, and James Blake. It's a list that's always changing and yes, I will take recommendations from you.

I will obsessively watch all Wes Anderson's films on repeat. Same goes for anything with Audrey Hepburn in it (Casa Blanca, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Roman Holiday...), everything directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the Cohen Brothers, Spiike Jonze, or Tarantino. My favorite films of all time are Dr Strangelove or How I Learned to Love the Bomb, Casa Blanca, Strangers on a Train, South by Southwest, Lost in Translation, Adaptation, Annie Hall, and The Royal Tenenbaums. Do yourself a huge favor and see these if you haven't yet!

As far as books go, I'm an avid reader. I really enjoy Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller, Fyodor Dostoevsky, William Burroughs, Gary Snyder, Laurence Ferlinghetti, Hermann Hesse, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Pablo Neruda, Murakami, Tom Robbins, Charles Bukowski, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman. Some of my favorite books of all time have been Dharma Bums, House of Leaves, The Alchemist, Damien, Norwegian Wood, The Post Office, Tropic of Cancer, The Rosy Crucifixion, The Count of Monte Christo, and Catch-22.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I'm currently working on an art series of homo-erotic short stories and existential crises postcards with participating friends. Writing these intimate and personal feelings and tiny stories out that are still considered taboo to some and that are supposed to be kept away from the public's eye. I like the contrasting nature of something so intimate and the open accessibility of a postcard as it travels the networks of postal worker hands it is passed through before reaching its intended audience.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can show you have to crochet a hat, solve the Rubik's cube, proofread your academic papers, cook a vegetarian meal, play the G-chord on a guitar, slackline, and bike without using handlebars.

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, El Salvador, Guatemala

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States