Hi, I'm Alexka. I'm a mom, an author, lover of soil and history. I have a Ph.D. in archaeology and spent decades as a professor, consultant and international public speaker. You can read all my credentials in detail here. I am also a professional photographer, Chinese brush painter, and now am starting a writer's blog. I don't do anything half-assed. What ties it all together? I think of myself first and foremost as a creative. Archaeology (and the way I teach and write about it), photography, painting, and personal writing are all, at base, ways for me to create, and to find, capture and share beauty with people who might have overlooked it. It's not even much of a choice. I am compelled to do it.

No doubt you have heard the old adage "if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen." Well, I recently began to think of the energetic space I curate around me - for the most part, unintentionally - as "Chan's Peking Kitchen." It's some people's favorite take-out joint, while others just can't handle the heat. It is where I experiment and push boundaries and "cook up" some of my best stuff, though, and my feeling has always been that if you have the guts to stick around, you might just get some tasty and authentic fare before you go.

Thomas Edison said "There is a better way of doing it. Find it." I love this! So crisp and direct. So deeply rooted in the idea that it is up to us - each of us - to be the answer that we seek. For the last several years, and who knows, maybe my whole life, I have been on a relentless, and dare I say fearless, search for beauty. Why fearless? Because I don't just look for beauty in all the usual places, where it is easy to find; I look for it in necessity, difficulty and sorrow as well. And here is what I have found: there is beauty in ease and in hardship. Can you find it? It takes courage to try.  

While I am always searching for, and often finding, beauty and meaning in unusual places, this is not a blog about "finding your bliss" and uselessly floating there (although I have come to know the importance of this at certain times). Would you really want it to be? If so, then maybe this isn't the place for you, because the adventures I take require active engagement in the world, and in yourself. Unplugging and pretending the world isn't on fire or that you don't have a part in helping to douse it doesn't figure in much here. But come with me if you are up for some adventure and a challenge - to find "a better way of doing it." It's often the crooked trails and treacherous terrain that lead to the most amazing views.  If some of what I write makes you slightly uncomfortable, then good! As I am almost always slightly uncomfortable myself, you will be in good company.

I've been "cooking" in this manner on Facebook for years, but I have created this blog as a dedicated space to hash out ideas that tickle, challenge and scintillate me. It will be a place for me to experiment with writing and storytelling; to examine beauty from every angle; and to carve out meaning from the void. Ultimately, however, it should also be a place to share and create a community of like-minded adventurers.

Come, ye verbal jousters! Come, ye button-pushers! Come, eye-twinklers, travelers and perennial askers of "Why?" Come one and come all. No one gets off scot-free here. Not even, and perhaps especially not, me. Come on in, I say. The heat in the kitchen is fine.

alexka | a-'lesh-ka|

PROPER NOUN referring to me: an archaeologist, photographer, author, writer, speaker, Chinese brush painter, wife, and mother to two boys. Compulsive cover-to-cover reader of The Atlantic.

ORIGIN an alternative diminutive for Alexandra, given to me by my parents at birth. My husband says it "improves my brand." Maybe it's true.