Really good sandwiches, disability, the body and personhood, keeping my feet warm, the reasons for things, Walter Payton, assuring equal access to quality education, the big red octopus at the Shedd, trying not to smoke, blaming the patriarchy, daydreaming about meeting JD Salinger, writing crank letters to the editor (really, writing anything at all) the endless search for the perfect cardigan, systems, parentheses and the em dash (the aside, the footnote, the diversion from the path in general), very late nights that turn to very early mornings, things that are radical (both in the surfer-speak and the political senses), the city of Chicago (Richard M. Daley, Mayor), the moral supriority of a smash-mouth running game and an aggressive, ball-hawking defence, and anything that'll keep my fidgety hands busy
The little girl on the plane / Who turned her doll's head around / To look at me
Wes Anderson, Peter Greenaway, David Lynch, Paul Verhoeven, David Fincher, the Thin Man movies, "The Appartment", "May", "Brick", "Heavenly Creatures", "Casablanca", "Kicking and Screaming" (no, not the little-girls-playing-soccer one, the liberal-arts-graduates-paralyzed-with-fear-of-the-real-world one), any kind of horror movie, any time, anywhere
Pro-football and infomercials, whatever Andrew tells me is good
TS Elliot, JD Salinger, Raymond Carver, Jonathen Franzen, Jonathan Safran Foer, Marjane Satrapi, Gloria Naylor, James Baldwin, Joeseph Heller, Yann Martel and non-fiction of several types
I like my heroes to be super- but conflicted and brooding. That or Jane Addams