What question have you never been asked that you want to answer?

I have a great apartment.  Crappy, but great.  It's in a terrible part of the city, but it's the entire second floor of a commercial building.  My mother thought I'd be assaulted and raped every day, but I've not yet felt very threatened, even late at night.  Inside is sanctuary, if a bit sparse.  It's an open floor plan and has high ceilings, which means I essentially live in a giant brick box.  I bring my bike up one of those old-fashioned service elevators that I dreamed of ever since I saw Flashdance in the theaters, twice.  I have to bundle like an Inuit from late fall through spring, putting on more winter gear inside than out.  To turn on my computer, I have to unplug everything in my kitchen, but it's worth the slight hassle to have the freedom of the place, and the giant windows looking down on the street.

In high school, I was a dope.  I guess every teenager is a bit dopy simply because of the learning curve, but I look back and have complete and total awareness of my dopiness.  I lived in the suburbs and the sidewalks were rolled up by 9:00 pm.  I had terrible insomnia brought on by thinking about the miserable state of my love life, and about how I wanted to be taller and blonder and more fit, and about how I wanted to live an adventure like I saw in the movies.  I would crawl out of my little twin bed and sit on my dresser to look out the window.  I would crank the casements open and wrap myself in a comforter so the radiant baseboard heat would keep me warm.  I'd even take out the screens so I could look out clearly, just in case.  In case of what?

In case Jason from sixth period Government would finally have succumbed to his desire for me, found my address, and ridden his bike over at three in the morning to whisk me away.  I wanted to be ready.

In case Bill from third period Chemistry would ditch his weird obsession with my friend and instead walk the streets of our town, calling my name, and wishing as badly as I did that I would hear him.

In case Indiana Jones would ride up on a motorcycle and ask me to join him in the sidecar because he needed a companion on his next trip to Egypt.

God, was I a dope.

What's worse is that I'm still a dope.

Here I sit, the same goddamn comforter wrapped around me, in my ill-advised open window at three in the morning, wishing something would happen, someone would need me, I would have somewhere to go.