Some of my favorite words:

Crepuscular. Schadenfreude. Verisimilitude. Palimpsest. Galactagogue. Erstwhile. Kerfuffle. Umbrellabird (along with other odd bird names, such as Bananaquit and Ovenbird—why yes, I did have a bird-themed page-a-day calendar). Taco Cat.

You’re likely to find me reading:

Long-form journalism at Longform.org. Books and articles about the human brain and the practice and history of medicine. New York magazine / The Cut / Vulture. Dystopian novels. The Washington Post. Entertainment Weekly. Nonfiction books about cheery topics like the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918 or a group of hikers who disappeared in the Russian Ural Mountains in 1959.

A few of my fun side projects:

• Movie posters + cats + puns = this.
• Art + cats = this.
• We Love Rochester invites people in my hometown to share what they like about living here. I’ve shared posts from 100+ contributors, but the blog is on hiatus for now.

My 15 minutes (or rather, few minutes) of fame: 

• My tweeted contribution to #RuinARealityShow in June 2014, part of Hashtag Wars on Comedy Central’s @Midnight, was deemed “one of the funniest” by StyleCaster. (I’m prouder of this than I should be.)
• A Change.org petition I created in 2015, which asked Apple to remove racist ringtones from the iTunes Store, garnered about 2,300 signatures. The San Francisco Chronicle interviewed me for a story — and Apple removed the ringtones soon after (which I choose to believe wasn’t a coincidence, but who knows). I even got mocked on San Diego talk radio, and how many people can say that?
• The abovementioned We Love Rochester blog has gotten some press mentions, and in 2016 it gave me the chance to talk about Rochester on local TV.
• I was included in The Rochesteriat’s blog post, “You Should be Following these 7 Creatives.”
• My name happens to appear in a 2009 amicus brief filed for a Supreme Court case. (The brief was filed by the Humane Society of the United States, where I once worked, and referred to an article I wrote in 2006.)