Meet (Patio) Seth.
He's a recent graduate from Tel Aviv University (you know, in Israel) with a degree in Public Policy and a double minor in long-boarding and vagabonding. Between schooling and world traveling, Seth's been using his green thumb and spending a few weekends in Chicago before he embarks on another journey. He's headed out west to Colorado on a fellowship handling public affairs at an alternative high school. Oddly enough, I met Seth two weeks ago while friends Katie and Emily were also visiting...
"Do you know that there is a half-naked man asleep on your patio," says Katie, full of sass and already on her second cup of coffee as she cracked opened my bedroom door.
"No, what?" I reply as I rolled over on my (air) mattress.
As the sun beamed into the screened in patio, Katie, Emily and I peered out the kitchen window and saw our newly found patio denizen. Shirtless and decked in board shorts with his hands trying to shield his face from the 8 a.m. sun, Patio Seth held onto slumber on a thrifted Persian rug next to a empty box of Wheat Thins from the night before.
Emily: "He looks hot. I mean, like it's gotta be hot out there."
Katie: "Yeah, there is no way that is comfortable, sleeping on that floor. Why isn't he on the couch right next to him?"
Me: "I'm not sure. I wonder who he is."
Luke, my other roommate, from out of nowhere: "Oh yeah, Seth stayed the night last night. He's one of my buddies from college. He just got back from Tel Aviv. I guess he slept on the patio."
Luke trails off and reaches for breakfast. He continues nonchalantly, "Naw, he's cool."
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ON PERSONAL STYLE: "The west coast influence of long-boarding inspires my style with the bright colors, and much of the same comes from my time in Tel Aviv. My clothes are generally brighter and lighter than most of my Midwest friends' style."
ON PERSONAL STYLE: "The west coast influence of long-boarding inspires my style with the bright colors, and much of the same comes from my time in Tel Aviv. My clothes are generally brighter and lighter than most of my Midwest friends' style."
Seth grew up in a small town an hour or so outside of Chicago with a handful of siblings. While you and I spent our summers putzing around internships and lifeguarding at pools, Seth spent his summers being dropped out of helicopters to extinguish forest fires. See:
"Helicopters would give us lifts to fires and we'd tackle the beast. It was the perfect: daily doses of adrenaline and making my wallet thicker. It doesn't get much better."
He's already checked off long boarding and world traveling from his list. With blue-collar roots and homeschooling under his belt, Seth saved his pennies from forest fire money and set sail for the other side of the continent.
"I picked up long boarding after I came home from traveling in Asia for a year. My younger brother taught me when I was 24. We'd be done drinking and hit the roads, skating for an hour or two at a time. I felt like a kid again."
On Seth W.: The "Henley" jean by Baldwin Denim; denim button down shirt by Topman; thrifted denim jacket by Wrangler; engraved silver bracelet from a jeweler in Katmandu, Nepal; skate shoes from Castro in Tel Aviv.
If you just said to me "Jeans, denim shirt and denim jacket." I would have thought "three-piece Canadian tuxedo." But this guy makes it work. What gives? Did someone cross the streams?
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