I’m a 36-year-old Federal government regulatory compliance bureaucrat in Washington, DC with too much imagination for his job. I spend much of my time wondering what it means to be an ethical bureaucrat, and where decisions and free will intermix. I offset the left-brain demands of my job by letting my right brain take over my computer at night. Soaking up new knowledge keeps me happy even if it doesn’t let me sit still. In the rest of my spare time Russian history, neuroscience, literature, squirrel social dynamics, data analysis, and behavioral psychology make my brain fire on all neurons. I like to write stories that put a twist on the self, with characters confronted with a wrinkle in their views of their own identities. My story “Passing Through Terminals†was published recently in Issue 19 of Alliterati Magazine: http://issuu.com/alliteratimagazine/docs/issue_19_final_pdf_version_572c1394cf2dca/3?e=3872341/34415754