Now back to my regularly scheduled program...
A native-born Chicagoan, I was torn from my city of choice at five years of age to spend my formative years in rural-developing Northern Virginia. The following seventeen years or so were spent picking up a slight southern lilt, practicing chivalry, and sweating for nine months a year in the oppressive humidity that strangles the region.
My sole respite during those hot years were my yearly summer trips to my Irish family in Donegal -- saving me from the sweltering sauna of August and a slow Virginian summer. Much of my heart was crafted there during many a “brilliant session†and heartfelt bonding with family and friends. Sometimes, the details of those sessions will fade, but the Irish accent will return from time-to-time.
In my twenty first year, I liberated myself from the chains of southern bondage and headed west. Back to my beloved city and petite ocean. Forward, onto a culturally rich midwestern-metropolitan existence. A city with initiative that is both friendly and easily navigable. Built on a grid; where most everything that needs to be paved has been graded and finished long before I ever came to be. Once again, Chicago became my home.
Recently, I've shot out of relative obscurity to a high-profile, jet-setting lifestyle where I mingle with interesting people over cocktails, rub elbows with those in seats of power (the finger on the button/red phone sort), and get up every day knowing that all I'm trying to do is to make a little bit of good come out of this crazy mixed up world.
Somehow, I've maintained my modesty, humility, and humor through it all.
Most of you will find my door open, when it's not, assume I'm somewhere exotic.
(To those of you who now think I'm a raging egomaniac, the above is just a bit of pomp, get over it.)
