Let me sweep a couple stereotypes from the board: Why do I sweep? I lived in a farm town for 18 years. I knew little of cities before living in one. What I was fed as a lowly member of the non-city livin' general public was a chunk of stereotypes. Stereotypes that I fought until they were proven right. These were not proven: Yeah, my neighborhood is pretty central in Chicago. Now I'm not saying all inner cities are like this; I merely take this time to comment on the observations I make in my everyday life.

What does my day consist of? Well, you can check the day logs for a taste. Otherwise, I ride the CTA bus through Cabrini Green (the world's biggest failure of a housing project ever) to work. I work at an Internet company in a Mexican/Polish area, which is fairly clean and quite bustly. I ride the bus back home, which isn't safe at night, but it's not a shooting gallery. Peoples' cars are broken into. The "gunshots" I heard back in July after I moved in turned out to be fireworks. I am paranoid when I walk at night. I do not venture west near Cabrini. I go through two heavy gates and two locked doors to get to my apartment. I avoid my dumpster out of fear of weird trash nomads. The population of my neighborhood is diverse.

I could go on about where I live for days. I will spare you that. Let me just note that I like it here. I like it a lot. My house feels very secure. I fear not the renegades of Cabrini when I'm home. I like the inner city. I will now call it home.

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