crosswordnerd

I'm a 26-year-old crossword puzzle editor living in Brooklyn! My husband and I moved here from little ol' Maryland in March of 2008 and I'm still adjusting to NYC (but loving it!). Actually he wasn't my husband then; we just got married in May of 2009, so I guess that makes us newlyweds? He's pretty awesome, so I'm a lucky girl.

I have one adorable cat named Jaide! We just adopted her in August from a rescue organization and she is just wonderful. She's an eight-year-old (but very active and frisky!) orange Maine Coon, who loves chasing around the laser pointer and headbutting us for cuddles.

This is how my cat thinks cuddling works. Awwww. :3

My three favorite bands are Placebo, Nine Inch Nails, and Collective Soul. Other bands I adore (in no particular order) are Head Automatica, the Faint, Muse, Fall Out Boy, k-os, Rufio, Stone Temple Pilots, Taking Back Sunday, They Might Be Giants, Gym Class Heroes, the New Amsterdams, Imogen Heap, Rammstein, Blur, Thievery Corporation, Gorillaz, and so on, and so on. I also like video game music, because I am a giant nerd.

I love memoirs and New Journalism, as well as select fiction. As for individual books, I enjoyed Mark Z. Danielewski's "House of Leaves," Marisha Pessl's "Special Topics in Calamity Physics," Joshua Ferris's "Then We Came to the End," Joan Didion's "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," Marc Weingarten's "The Gang That Wouldn't Write Straight," Sloane Crosley's "I Was Told There'd Be Cake," and oodles others.

"Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is one of my absolute favorites. I also like "The Fountain," "Snatch," "Love Actually," "American Beauty," "Princess Mononoke," "Tombstone," "The 40 Year Old Virgin," and plenty of others.

My biggest crafty hobby is crocheting. I also enjoy cross-stitching, and I do scrapbooking a little bit. Origami is fun too, though I'm not very advanced at it yet. I used to work at a craft store, though, so I've dabbled in almost everything!

One thing I wish I could do: draw! I'm also trying to teach myself to knit, but that's kind of slow going...I'll get there eventually!

Little Things I Like
- Stationery items (envies/pens/pencils/erasers/paper)
- Magnets
- Gum
- Bookmarks
- Stickers
- Lip balm
- Postcards (nature scenes or regional-themed are great!)
- Anything handmade

Food/Recipe Ingredients I Like
- Chocolate
- Pumpkin
- Vanilla
- Breads that don't require a bread machine
- Cupcakes
- Pizza
- Apples (and other fruit...yum!)
- Bacon!

Colors
- Green!
- Purple
- Blue
- Or, red/yellow/green/blue all together
- Black and white together

Random Stuff
- Crosswords and crossword-themed items
- Platypuses
- Video game-themed items (fave games include Persona 3 and 4, the Final Fantasy series, Chrono Trigger, Katamari Damacy, anything Mario or Luigi or 8 bit/16 bit)
- Slow cooker recipes
- Cats
- Silly/funky socks
- "Top Gear"
- "Firefly" (alas, canceled!)
- "Doctor Who" (especially the new series)
- Plushies
- Winter wear (scarves/hats/mittens)
- Cupcake-themed items
- Yarn (any kind! I like cheap acrylic yarn too...I'm pretty easy to please)
- Stars
- Penguins
- Ridiculously cute Japanese stuff (including Domo-kun!)
- Lush brand soaps/etc
- Vanilla-scented stuff and other scents that smell like food
- Invader Zim

There aren't a lot of things I dislike!

Food
- All seafood
- Mushrooms
- Sushi
- Fresh garlic (well, I love it, but it doesn't love ME! Garlic powder is okay though -- and I PROMISE I'm not a vampire ;)
- Tea (hot, iced, any kind)
- Coffee (unless it doesn't taste like coffee -- I love frappuccinos, cappuccinos, mochas, lattes)

Books: I don't typically enjoy reading books about politics or straight-up romance (novels with romance in them are cool, but I'm not crazy about most of the stuff in the romance section of the bookstore). Pretty much anything else goes, though.

Random Stuff
- Unicorns
- Fairies
- Vampires
- Other fantasy-type stuff (which is funny, because I enjoy fantasy books from time to time!)
- Disney stuff (usually)
- Dolls
- Religious/inspirational stuff (sorry, not my thing!)

That's about it, really!

Solving crosswords (you may have guessed!), playing video games, reading, writing poetry, playing Boggle or Scrabble, watching football (GO BALTIMORE RAVENS!), cooking, baking, other stuff I can't think of off the top of my head.