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April 15, 2018
in Chicago Life, food

My sister gave me a choice for what to gift me for my birthday: cash, a gift card, or a ticket to join her on a Chicago pizza tour with Chicago Pizza Tours. While my debt-ridden bank account always appreciates money and my Starbucks card can always use that reload, a pizza tour sounded like fun. Plus, with stops at four different restaurants across an afternoon, it was free lunch. And probably dinner too. My birthday was back in January, but we decided to hold off on going until the spring, when the weather would be nicer. Of course, spring in...

March 7, 2018
in Cats, Chicago Life

I avoided dating before I left home to travel the world. I was afraid that I'd meet someone and that he would interrupt my plans. Because I had a plan. And I knew what I wanted for the future. And I didn't want anything to get in the way. It's been seven years since I left. Three and a half since I returned. And I still avoid anything that could possibly be considered a "commitment." Anything that might get in the way of any of my future plans. Because I have plans. Or, at least, ideas. I still think, often, of traveling...

December 28, 2017
in Chicago Life

This was the year that I quit. I quit everything. I quit guitar lessons. I quit salsa dancing. I quit my softball team. I quit relationships. I quit blogging. I guess that quit might be too a strong word. Stopped might be better. I stopped going. I stopped caring. I stopped showing up. I didn't purposely leave any of those things. I didn't yell, "I QUIT!" and storm off in a huff. There were no calculated decisions. No pros and cons lists. I just didn't have the energy to keep going. With anything. And so, I stopped. I spent most of the...

January 5, 2017
in Chicago Life

December is always busy. Between normal life, wrapping up things for the year, wrapping gifts, Christmas shopping, parties, events, and all those extra things to do around the holidays, it's just a busy month. It was a fun month, though, and I spent a lot of time with friends and co-workers. Here are some of the things I did in December...

January 2, 2017
in Chicago Life, New Year's

I can remember where I was this time last year. How empty everything still felt. I remember the nights I'd stayed up until 3am just because I knew going to sleep meant I had to wake up the next day and start all over again. I remember those other nights when I had so little to give that I'd come home from work, eat dinner, and go straight to sleep. I felt like I had no control over my life. I felt overwhelmed. I felt like there was no time. I felt like there was nothing for me. For the past year...

December 29, 2016
in Chicago Life, New Year's

I tend, like most of us do, to sit down on January 1, full of hope for the new year, and write out a list of resolutions: things I want to do, things I want to accomplish, in the next 365 days. I tend, like most of us do, to completely forget about that list by February 1. I'm pretty sure that I hadn't looked at my 2016 New Year's resolutions since I wrote them down in January. I may have vaguely recalled what was on my list for the first month or two of the year. But if you asked me,...

December 26, 2016
in Chicago Life

It's hard to want to look back on a year that was so terrible for so many reasons. There were shootings, terrorist attacks, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes. There was an election that was painful to watch and even more painful to accept. There were celebrity deaths that left the world a little emptier: David Bowie, Prince, Gene Wilder, Leonard Cohen, George Michael. The list goes on. One thing after another piled up, weighed on us, reduced us to tears. It was hard for me to want to look back on 2016, but, all the same, I went through all my blog posts from...

November 30, 2016
in Chicago Life

The other day I was cooking dinner, a lentil curry, and the hot blend of the cumin, coriander, turmeric, and cayenne was filling my apartment. I lit some Nag Champa incense and, together, the fragrance of burnt perfume mixed with spice made the whole place smell like India. If you don't remember, or weren't around, I can pretty much sum up my three month India experience in one word: miserable. India was one country that lived up to every television stereotype: dirt, garbage, crowds, cows. It was a tough country and, often, it got the best of me. There were the intense stares by...

November 21, 2016
in 40×40 List, Chicago Life, Life List

I've been on this kick lately to do the things I always say I'm going to do. You know those things. Maybe you were watching an improv show once and thought to yourself, "this is so much fun, I wish I could be up there." Or maybe you passed by that swanky but impossible-to-get-into restaurant and thought, "I keep meaning to try to make reservations." Or, maybe, you were lusting over Pinterest boards on Brazil thinking, "someday I will take a vacation there." Those things. We're always making these mental lists. Lists of things we want to do in life. Lists of those things we...

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© Choosing Figs / Val Bromann
2006 –
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