From age 10 to age (let's say) 17 I kept a secret hundred dollar bill on me at all times. For whatever. Maybe soccer practice would take a turn for the worse and I'd need to bribe a guard. At once both over- and very, very under-prepared.

New-ish to the Chi and still trying to find my sea legs.

No, Financial Aid Application, I do not have 'overseas assets.' I am sitting on a lawn chair indoors.

impractical things (in the parents-ask-you-what-you're-doing-with-your-life sense): self-congratulation, mental math, drawing still life, looking things up, trailing off, sighing demonstrably when newscasters misuse the word 'literally', becoming infuriated over David Brooks op-eds, treading water indefinitely

other end of burrito is clearly open and leaking onto his shirt

BOOKS:
Histories of things, like Chicago, the Russian novel, millenarianism, the English working class, debt. Novels and plays that catch my eye at Ravenswood Used Books. Rilke, Larkin, Blake, Neruda on the CTA.

PAINTERS:
Josef Herman, Ilya Repin, Jules Breton, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, James Tissot, Mark Rothko, Marc Chagall

MOVIES & SHOWS:
fallen out of the habit of regular TV and movie watching--but if I need a list! Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, the Office, the Daily Show (in spite of no longer being as funny as it once was; I think one of us may be waxing, the other waning), and that show's smarter, funnier fraternal twin the Colbert Report, I watch DemocracyNOW! online (+++social justice); The Simpsons got shitty after--y'know what--it's still good. fuck off; but TV comedy really peaked with the second season of Chappelle's Show

MUSIC:
- Summer1
- Summer2
- Summer3
- Summer4
- Summer5
- Summer6

pretty ecumenical, but there are a few genres I dislike almost categorically. such as: "Walmart Country"; that schlocky, "Adult Contemporary" stuff they sell at Starbucks; those drone-y, scream-y things whose names read like Halloween edition MadLibs; and the flaccid, teen-depressive likes of Iron and Wine, The Postal Service, Owl City, etc. (Treacle Wave).

FOOD:
no hard lines here; always up for new things, restaurants, etc., but I generally put healthy-ish stuff in my fridge

-the internet (while all the other kids are outside laughing and playing stick-and-hoop)

-music (filling up hard drives, going to shows)

-bar trivia (I have a long story about how we "won" Team Trivia nationals last year, but "didn't")

-books (in case sudden disaster leaves the world without normal bricks? always a boyscout.)

-my friends (or their paid surrogates)

-dictionaries/encyclopedias (mind the gaps)

The local news is going on about Chicago's drug dealers fanning out into the suburbs and getting all of our promising young football players and academic decathletes hooked on heroin, and I'm like, talk about a commute.

going for a run, showering, making myself a few drinks (sometimes objectively good stuff, more often shitty things rural high school kids pour into their eyes, or stupid novelty liquors I saw Amber Rose advertise on TV) and jamming out to whatever music has my attention for the week, before leaving in search of friends, live music, bars that don't pat you down

omg this whole time i've been calling her urethra franklin

you want to drink, go to shows, visit museums, hit up the Windy City Soul Club, and take long walks through city parks

you've got something a tad more original to say than, "hey", "how's it going?", "cram me full of dick", or "hi :)"