Lily Was the Valley

I live in China (and have since 2003: Chongqing, Beijing, Xi'an, Xining) with my wife of twenty years and our burgeoning number of kids. I speak fluent (whatever that means) Mandarin and precious little Norwegian, Spanish, Thai, or French anymore because of it. I enjoy relaxing, reading, cooking (sometimes), journaling, pondering, and (over?)-analyzing, and I deeply miss golf, owning a motorcycle, and long road trips. I wildly prefer editing to creating, have been known to floor my children with my coloring skills (yes, crayons), and hope I get the chance to visit twenty more countries. I like mountains, shorelines, forests, and thunderheads, and can't seem to get enough blue sky, clean air, or stargazing. I get my kicks from witty humor, learning, and overusing parentheses. I love my family, my wife the most, and Jesus more. I have worked as a behavioral-disorder school TA and a YMCA after-school program head teacher in Chicago; as an ESL teacher in Taipei; as a middle/high school English/math teacher, real estate investor, and youth director in Texas; as a grad student in New York; and as a technical consultant, accountant, and general manager of a coffee shop and language center in China. I enjoyed it all, in a passionless sort of way, as it wasn't half the glamorous life it may sound like. I am currently toiling under the weight of a doctoral-program impasse resulting from an inflexible, underage advisor unlikely to grant the Candy Landoctorate that has already more than been earned. I have spoken publicly wherever I've gone, but then, really doesn't everyone? For years I hoped to eventually stumble on what I was born to do, and then I wrote my first book. It was the most fun I've ever had.