I thought I had a secret identity.

We were drunk because it was a party. We left because the party was over. It was cold out.

I had come to the “corner cottage” at about 3pm, and the party wasn’t starting until 9pm. I came in at 3pm when it was 60 degrees, which means I was wearing a t-shirt. When I left at 9pm it was Minnesota out again. I took a hoodie I found hanging on the hooks leading outside.

We were drunk because it was a party.

At home I took several pictures of myself in my new hoodie with my roommate’s camera posing mostly like a bad-ass. You have to pose as a bad-ass when you wear a hoodie. I continued to pose like a bad-ass for about three years – emphasis on the “posing.”

On the front of the gray hoodie were three characters (one letter, one number, one symbol) in plastic green. H. 2. $. I called myself H2$, pronounced H-Two-Money, and I thought this alias was clever and original in its lack of originality. It’s less original than I thought.

H2$ is the “cool,” “quirky,” “interesting” way to say you were in the musical “How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.” Whomever this hoodie used to belong to was a musical theater geek who played the role of “Bud Trump” (it says that on the sleeve). He was not a bad-ass.

Except when I wore it, I was a bad-ass.

I lost it recently and I thought about crying, but I didn’t because I knew I could still be a bad-ass because I’ve starred in a musical!