I'm a native Chicagoan who has lived away from here since high school and returned recently for work. I'm still in the phase of making new friends in a new(ish) city. I work in education and alternatively love it and hate it, which seems pretty normal for the profession.

I'm ambivalent about living here -- I like my job and the affordable apartments (compared to NYC) but I still miss the East coast and living abroad, and am thinking of moving again sometime in the future. At the same time, I'm looking to settle down in a relationship, if not in a geographic location.

I have a wide array of interests -- reading, movies, theatre, running, the New York Times, travel. I want to run a marathon on all seven continents, and I have four done so far...

Helping kids get through high school and college

Excel. It's sad, but true. I teach everyone I work with Excel tricks.
Scramble with Friends (aka Boggle).
Backrubs.
Crockpot cooking.

I'm tall.
Despite years of negative reinforcement, I still can't help dropping puns into the conversation at inconvenient times.

I like to read, and usually have a couple of books going at any one time, one nonfiction and one fiction. I tend to like nonfiction history, sociology, economics, etc such as Guns, Germs and Steel or Freakonomics. For fiction, I like the occasional trashy thriller (Richard North Patterson), contemporary novels (Tom Perotta, Jeffrey Eugenides), and fantasy (I did love Harry Potter).

I haven't been to the movies much lately, and TV watching is very sporadic, and usually several seasons behind the times on Netflix. For example, right now I'm watching Jericho, which was cancelled several years back!

Friends
Books
Running
Travel
Meaningful work
Reese's peanut butter cups.

Work, and how to manage this crazy project I'm in charge of. Also, a time when I will be able to work less, and housing. I've become a Zillow addict.

The idea of leaving Chicago at some point in the future doesn't freak you out.
Olive Garden is not your idea of ethnic food.
You always have an answer to the question, "So what are you reading now?"
You want to talk and find out more...that's why we're here, isn't it?