Full name: Litza S.
Age: 24
Location: New York
Occupation: I'm the Information & Technology Manager for the National Center for Children in Poverty. Doesn't that sound grown-up?
Hobbies:
--Movies. Right now: taking a class on Weimar Cinema and undertaking a self-education in Bollywood.
--Sexuality. Reading a lot of research on sexual psychology and sex education.
--Making stuff. Farfetched websites, Nintendo in needlepoint, crocheted monstrosities, and the like.
--Boys. What can I say, I'm having a second adolescence.

1: the heavy part
Ideally, what will your life look like on New Year’s Day 2004?
By then I should be in a new place, probably living in Queens with friends who are moving up here (it's time for the solitary-living phase of my life to end.) I'd like to be established in a neighborhood bar by then; maybe that's where I'll be on New Year's. It might be nice to wake up next to a sweetheart that morning, but that's not something one can plan for. Maybe instead I'll be waking up with some hot part-time lover, which wouldn't be half bad either. I'd like to think that I'll have completed some grad-school applications by then, and be looking ahead to my next career phase.

Sex, eh?
You mean personally or professionally? Since you didn't ask this of anyone else, I'll assume professionally. Hell, sex is important, and it's hard to figure out, and our society doesn't do a very good job of helping us be healthy sexual beings. I'd like to make a living by talking to people about sex. Possibly as an educator, but maybe as a sex therapist. Maybe working with sexual deviants of some kind, probably sex offenders. My utopian visions include every person on earth getting to express their sexual impulses productively and enjoyably, and I'll do what I can to help that come to pass. Humans are blessed with an absurd level of creativity, and this is certainly reflected in our sexual behavior. But there can be a fine line between creativity and pathology, and we need to give serious thought to where we draw that line and how we help the people that cross it. I think I could do that.

Have your early-to-mid ‘20s been like you imagined?
I think that if my 14-year-old self were to encounter my 24-year-old self, she'd be quite satisfied. I probably imagined that I'd pursue more schooling and become an academic, but I think that the former me would be suitably thrilled at my self-indulgent New York City life. Then again, the former me would also be quite surprised; after all, at that age I was a defiant lesbian, and I've strayed from that path rather dramatically. Maybe the gay activist of my past would frown on me, though she'd be pleased to see that I turned out to be a credentialed geek, anyway. I always used to aspire to becoming a member of the Digital Queers.

Which was the best year, for you, of the aforementioned early-to-mid ‘20s?
This is hard to evaluate, because I feel like the more I experience, the more I raise the bar for future experiences. I can look back on earlier years, in high school for instance, and realize that I was severely unhappy and dissatisfied and didn't quite know it at the time. But since I didn't know what it would feel like to be happy and fulfilled, it wasn't particularly bothersome. I've lived through some truly exhilarating periods, and so every ensuing bad patch gets harder to bear.

Nothing beats falling in love, and so the first year that I knew J. (I was 20) was the year that life felt fullest. But being in love is an intoxicated state; it feels almost unreal in retrospect. The year that we broke each other's hearts and I struck off on my own (age 23) was a triumphant year in terms of making things happen -- I had two tumultuous love affairs, I traveled to Morocco, Belize, and Mexico, I developed a political consciousness, and I moved to New York, where I lived by myself and earned a living for the first time.

How long has HHH been happening, and why?
When I decided that I wanted to get a job as a programmer after graduating from college, I decided that I needed to have some sample work. It also felt like a necessary step in joining the internet culture; it's nice to have a parallel identity that I have complete control of, since it's generally tidier than my flesh-and-blood incarnation.

Where'd that name come from, anyway?
Ah, Hungry Hungry Hippocampus. At the time I created the site I was participating in a lot of brain experiments, so neurology must have been on my mind. Since the website was to serve as a sort of auxiliary brain -- a place to store things that I thought I might otherwise forget -- it seemed appropriate to name it after the organ that helps translate short-term memories into long-term memories. The reference to the favorite childhood game was fortuitous.

2: the not-heavy part
Describe a good night out on the town...
A friend or two that I know really well, combined with one or two who are new to me; getting to see something new, either a place or a cultural event; indulgence in alcohol and cigarettes; wandering from place to congenial place until we lose track of where we've been; not having the subway take too long on the way back...

And a good night in the apartment, describe that, too.
If I'm alone, I want to be utterly absorbed in a project. I like taking a weekend now and then to just hole up and create something. I forget that time is passing, and it can be transcendent.

It's also nice to stay in with someone I'm nuts about, cook dinner, have some wine, talk a lot. If this someone is a romantic partner of some sort, we'll head for a roll in the hay. If not, maybe we stay up and talk and smoke.

Current favorite ethnic food and, if possible, dish.
Ubol's Kitchen in Astoria (where you can enjoy Thai food while watching vintage British karaoke videos) makes a dynamite Massaman curry. They put avocado in it, and cashews. My test kitchens are working on replicating it. And then there's the mofongo, a Dominican specialty and one of the few perks of living in Washington Heights: a gigantic gumdrop of mashed up chicken and fried plantains, smothered with rich red sauce.

What have you been listening to?
I graze. Mostly WFMU, at work. Also Johnny Cash, Chitlin Fooks, Os Mutantes, Magnetic Fields, Stereo Nation, and Bollywood movie soundtracks. I have a huge weakness for bootleg mashups, like The Strokes vs. Christina Aguilera and Eminem remixed with ragtime piano. (Now THAT's pop nirvana!)

Was hast you been been reading?
Psychopathia Sexualis; How to Read a Film; Flowers in the Attic; The Pocket Guide to Bollywood; Willa Cather novels.

What have you been watching on TV?
Nothing new, just the vulgar display of military pornography on CNN and other networks.

Seen any movies lately? What did you think?
The cream of the crop: Lawrence of Arabia, Chinatown, and On the Waterfront (I'm discovering that there's a reason these things are called classics). As for new films, I liked Talk to Her quite a bit. Devdas is the most opulent, mouthwatering movie I have ever seen (it was India's submission to the 2002 Academy Awards, too bad it didn't get noticed).

3: the cocktail party
So you’re having a cocktail party: list five A-list guests, other than Jesus, me and your friends...
--Nicholson Baker. If he talks anything like he writes, we'll never get bored. On the other hand, we might not fit a word in edgewise.
--Susie Bright. Though that would mean that Jesus can't come, because it would create too much tension.
--Stephin Merritt, obviously.
--Noel Coward, because I'd like to see him go at it with Stephin.
--The teacher from high school that I had a crush on.

What drinks will you serve?
--Caipirinhas and sweet iced tea. Stephin will have his Courvoisier. And I suppose I'll provide Noel with sidecars or gin fizzes or something he'd be familiar with.

What will be in the stereo?
--I'd really like to get one of the DVD compilations of Bollywood hits and play that. It would provide startling background visuals, too. Manu Chao or some Os Mutantes. Something in another language, anyway. It's less distracting if everyone's talking.

Conversation topics will include...
Everyone likes to talk about sex, especially this crowd. I'd like to hear what Noel Coward has to say about the afterlife; I'm sure he'll have some pithy observations about the folks he's met there.

How will the evening end?
This would be my chance to seduce the high school teacher, I should think. And if he's not having any of that, I'll try to bed Susie Bright. Everyone else can ride the A train home together.