Hi, my name is Alison and I am in my late 40s. I live with my husband, David, on the top floor of a 3-story tenement walk-up building in East Harlem in NYC. He is a fantastic artist of portraits, landscapes, cityscapes and flowers. One of my favorite activities when we travel is to sit behind him reading when he paints and look up from time to time to see a stroke of paint, a misty image, into a full-blown recognizable picture. The smell of oil paint makes me happy.
I love working but I am easily bored so I do best when I am juggling many projects and running my own businesses. Currently, I work for an advertising firm doing freelance proofreading. I've been freelancing now for over 10 years, legal, publishing, medical advertising and, for the last 4 years, advertising. When I am in a job for too long, I start to feel caged, like I might just die. Being in a J O B feels like the least safe action in the world to me. Especially right now in NYC with Wall Street firms collapsing right down the street.
I enjoy visiting with family and friends, travel in the US and internationally, reading, art, daily meditation, learning new things, singing, sailing, skiing, Maine. I believe, one of the values from my childhood, in giving back of time and money so I tutor and lead a book group for the East Harlem School at Exodus House (EHS - 8 years) and have worked on 135th Street in Harlem with Habitat for Humanity. I give what I can, depending on my means, to EHS, Global Action Project, Accion International, Heifer Project, the Nature Conservancy and the Island Institute.
Oh yeah, "Who am I this time?" comes from a Kurt Vonnegut story in Welcome to the Monkey House about the roles we play as individuals and in community.
