By David Himmel

• When I hear Chicagoans complain about how harsh and foul the sub-freezing and sub-zero weather is, I think of the city’s earliest settlers. I think of their toughness, their resolve to thrive without central or radiator heat, or hand warmers or hot water heaters. And I think that Chicago’s earliest settlers were goddamn idiots for not saying, “Fuck the fur trade and this livestock shit. I’m going out west and becoming a professional surfer.”

• As my father honestly and without malice said to me in an email discussion, “You are a miserable person,” I was reminded of an important — perhaps the most important — goal of parenthood: Get to know your children. Really get to know them and understand them. It’s what my dad did and we both turned out OK, even if one of us is a misanthrope.

• I will watch The Bodyguard anytime it’s available for me to watch.

• One day I might be famous. Maybe not Denzel Washington or Lee Harvey Oswald famous but famous enough that strangers will see me at a bar or sleeping in Wicker Park and say, “I think that guy is someone.” And when that day happens, there will be a lot of Dad Parenting Groups that will want me to join, and I won’t join because being in a Dad Parenting Group sounds like the worst possible fate for a person who is on the cusp of being someone.

• Do not judge a man by the size of his computer’s internal hard drive storage space. Please, do not judge me.

• Wait, wait, wait… Gianni Versace was gay?!