Hometown: Richland, Washington, headquarters of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. We made plutonium "buttons" for nuclear bombs during the Cold War, blissfully fulfilling our role in keeping America safe so you can enjoy make-out parties by the river, endless reruns of "The Andy Griffith Show" and art films such as "Austin Powers" and "Dumb and Dumber." Glad we could help keep the peace and advance the culture. Hanford is widely regarded as the most polluted place in the Western Hemisphere, or so I read in the papers.

Current residence: a condo in north Seattle since January 2001.

Career: Journalism, since 1983; at small-town weeklies in Washington and Minnesota until 1996; at the daily King County Journal based in Kent, Washington, since July 1996.

Marital status: Yes, since August 7, 1983. Children: no.

Religion: No. Mystical spiritual adventure: Yes.
The particulars: since early May 1972, a lapsed Roman Catholic;since 1989 a lapsed Protestant; since end of 1994 on an open-ended, open-minded spiritual journey, sometimes intense, definitely eye- and heart-opening; continuing to peel off years of psychological layers and barriers, but getting closer to the core of my soul and spirit. Involved with Religious Science (aka Science of Mind), a philosophy that resonated deeply with me the first time I stepped into the Center for Spiritual Living in north Seattle on April 7, 2002. I visited out of curiosity because a friend who inspired my spiritual adventure-seeking — and helped me uncork my bottled up creative and artistic powers — often mentioned it. Something clicked and I kept going back. CSL is my spiritual community and the "home base" of my for my metaphysical adventures.
My Cosmology: Statement of personal beliefs