As a reader and a Chicago-lover, I really don’t mind a long train ride, because I can make some serious progress on a book. And I love to snack on some Chicago street food and a Mexican soda or somesuch while I wander the city.

Yesterday I had to go down to McCormick Place to pickup my packet for the Hot Chocolate 15K. On the way out of the house I knew I was going to be hungry, so I filled a little snack-sized ziploc with a new sunflower-based nugget snack we had picked up at Target. I had a few on the way to the train and they were pretty salty, so I popped into our neighborhood liquor/convenience store to grab a soda. I saw in the cooler that they had a lemonade coconut water I’ve been liking lately, and it had a screw-on cap, so it’d be easy to stop in my bag, so I got one of those.

On the train, I found a spot in the hobo corner and dove into the great book I’m ready right now, with pauses for sunflower snacks and coconut water. And realized, iPad mini in hand, that while this was precisely and exactly the thing I had been looking forward to doing on a Saturday afternoon, it was also not the Fuzzy of 15 years ago with a tattered paperback, grease-stained bag of french fries, and lime Jarritos. This was something of a grown-up, healthy version of myself. And this is not to say that I never eat french fries nor drink Sidral Mundet anymore, but it’s not a terrible thing to find a version of myself that might be a little more sustainable.