Well, it's only a few more days until I leave for vacation, and fuck me, I can't wait! If nothing else just to get out of this god-forsaken place I live.
Speaking of, since my daughter graduated last month, I no longer have strings attached to Arkansas. Which means I am free to roam the country. I can live wherever I want. I don't even have to live in the US. I could move to Micronesia or something.
But I need a little help with planning my move and that's where all of you come in. I need you guys to tell me how it is where you live and if it sounds good to me, who knows? I could be your new neighbor! Wouldn't that be fun? Alright, I promise not to move in next door to any of you, but across town wouldn't be so bad, would it?
So, how about it? Where should I live and why?
Take Care,
Babs
I'm sure we all love our own part of the country.
ReplyDeleteBut here in mid upper central California you don't need to deal with the overcrowded overpriced madness that is the San Francisco Bay Area yet can visit it any time you like. You don't need to live in snow but can go skiing whenever you have a spare hour for the drive. You don't need to own a boat but are bound to meet people who do, and can go skiing whenever you can pitch in the gas money. The weather and soil are conducive to much gardening. Whether you like neo-hippies or Mormons, we got more than enough, and immigrants of every possible stripe, and farmers and city people an' everthang. If you like the ocean you can pretend we don't have some of the world's best mountains, and if you like mountains you can pretend we don't have some of the world's best coastline. And in between, tucked away here and there, you can find little teeny towns probably almost as weird as the ones in Arkansas, cept the people in em have usually actually been somewhere else once or twice. (Click 'location' on my blog and zoom out to see where I'm comin' from.)
Congrats on the prodigal graduation!
I need you guys to tell me how it is where you live.
ReplyDeleteWhat do I look like, the fucking Convention and Visitors Bureau? Where I live sucks. It would probably suck a little bit less if you were my next-door neighbor, but, unless you could bring an entire world of culture, AND open at least five or six decent restaurants, AND figure out a way to get the scent of stupid out of the air, then you probably wouldn't like it.
In case you were wondering, I'm not affiliated with the local Chamber of Commerce.
oh! you need to look at small town South Dakota! we have cows and sheep and chickens and goofy fundamentalist christian types. the temperature can swing from “sweaty” to “cold enough to freeze the nuts off a gang plow” in just a few hours. and if you like a good blow, the wind is always doin it. fact is there isnt much between here and the artic circle but a couple of shelter belts and barbed wire fences... but the people are nice and you can explore things such as lefsa and ludafish…
ReplyDeleteWell, you know what it's like where I live. It's probably both good and bad as a place to live because of family... but then maybe not.
ReplyDeleteReasons to live in northern Virginia:
ReplyDelete1. You're close to Washington DC and lots of really cool historical sites, most of which you can enjoy for free (well, you pay with your taxes, so you might as well go downtown and put your money to work for you).
2. You live within a short drive of some great beaches to the south and east, and some beautiful mountains to the west. Virginia is a beautiful state with varied geography.
3. Family and friends will visit frequently so that they can visit all the shit I mentioned in #1.
4. Northern Virginia is cosmopolitan and barely southern. It's quite different culturally from the rest of the state. Not that southern is bad, but I'm more at home with less-southern (yeah, I'm an eastern snob).
5. Lots of really great cultural events.
Reasons not to live in northern Virginia:
1. The cost of living is really high.
2. Traffic is hell. Seriously.
3. It's tough finding a McDonald's where the staff speaks English.
You absolutely should move to Melbourne. The Australian one.
ReplyDeleteThe best reasons are:
1. I live here, which alone makes it a desirable destination.
2. It's not located in America.
3. We don't have George Bush (although if all goes well you won't soon either)
4. We have a pretty low percentage of fundies per capita, but we still have all the ones in the US to laugh at = all the fun without the proximity.
5. Melbourne night life and day life are fantastic, we have amazing parks, some of the best cafes and shopping in the world, only a teency amount of traffic compared to other capital cities in the world... I could go on forever.
6. Most Aussies think US accents are cool. And vice-versa. It's a win-win situation.
7. When you do something stupid, you can blame it on being American. It's like a get out of jail free card.
8. I live here. Did I mention that already?
If you came to Vancouver Canada, we'd show you lots of dudes pushing shopping carts.
ReplyDeleteand funny smelling air, but I promise to keep my shoes one if you move here.
I've visited the pacific northwest and love it except for the rain. Some areas seem very left leaning.
ReplyDeleteI live in and love the Hampton Roads area in Virginia. Churches are active here but not all up in your face. (As opposed to Charlotte, NC where THE greeting is "What church do you go to?")
I lived in upstate NY previously and visited New England a lot and would never go back to either. I hate to speak badly about such a beautiful area, but I think the winters put everyone in a perpetually bad mood (including me). I just don't want to be that kind of person again.
You can come buy our house and live in Seattle...we're thinking about moving somewhere else. got any ideas?
ReplyDeleteWhile I love the idea of having another rational human being to bounce ideas off of here in Fundietonfieldvilleview, there are too many fundies here mucking things up and just generally making frustration and irritation for those of us not wired that way. However, Kansas City is probably the most underestimated city in the country. They have a large and thriving arts community and they don't drive like the assholes in Dallas. If they didn't get so much yucky weather there in the winter, I might move there.
ReplyDeleteI, in good faith, couldn't tell anybody to move to Detroit right now. Our economy is for shit with our official unemployment rate a good 3 percentage points above the national average - and we all know it's not counting everybody, i.e., the people who have been jobless for more than 2-3 years (or whatever the # is).
ReplyDeleteThe mayor has made my fair city a laughingstock with his ego and arrogance, to say nothing of his penis, which he couldn't keep in his pants.
On the other hand, I'm here, and there is quite the cultural scene here, and I'd be more than happy to help you settle in. Did I mention I'm here?
Well Norther DE ain't too bad. It's like a suburb of Philly only with better roads than any suburb of Philly that's in PA or NJ. Now of course Philly itself is fun, but you're 2 hours away from NYC or DC. Not too shabby.
ReplyDeleteCost of living here is probably way higher than AK, of course you can say that about anywhere, right? ;)
Yikes. What an assignment. I can't recommend any of my homes. They've all been in the Greater Toronto Area - about which nothing whatsoever is great. Oh - except for living in the Caledon Hills for two years with my folks which was very nice as long as you could somehow suppress the fact that every single bastard for miles around is white, rich and conservative from creeping the holy living hell out of you.
ReplyDeleteI recommend Montreal because, A: Everyone is so nice. B: You can dine or dance at any hour of the night. and C: It's so much more fun interacting with merchants when you only know a little French and they only know a little English and you get to play charades every day. Which is why they'll always think you're a tourist. Which is why everone seems so nice...
Better yet -- Florida! Live on a goddam sailboat and twiddle around the inter-coastal waterway! And you can visit me once I'm living in Ybor City!
Move to Wilkes-Barre, PA. Why?
ReplyDelete1. Cheap. You can buy a house for $50k, spend $30k to fix it up, and then sell it for $60k.
2. Weather: far enough north to have cold winter; far enough south to have hot, humid summers; close enough to the coast to risk hurricanes, tropical storms and nor'easters; and far enough inland to get lake effect snows.
3. Politics: Stuck in the 1950s, and, because there was no reassessment for 40-odd years, the county and city are in serious debt; there's also lots of corruption and nepotism.
4. Schools: Actually, pretty good -- the city has three high schools, each with graduating classes in the 80 to 120 range. But your daughter graduated, so . . .
5. Landscape: River valley with frequent flooding; lots of mountains and hills to eat up your gas while driving; lots of red maples (allergies).
6. Restaurants: Old Forge Pizza (rectangular, thick crust, topped with suger and tomato sauce and American cheese), pierogis, hodogs (the local pronunciation of hot dog), and pretty darn good barbecue is the local scene; there are also lots of chain restaurants.
7. Religion: Heavily Catholic, though the evangelicals are making inroads.
8. Health: High incidence of respiratory disease and cancer (except skin cancer (lower than average) because the sun don't shine here); good hospitals; lots of old folks homes and corpse houses (the local name for a funeral home).
9. Alcohol: more bars in more places. Seriously, locals use bars as landmarks when giving direcions.
10. Why am I here? Oh. Yeah. That job thingie.
Did I convince you?
Hi Babs. I read and love Flumadiddle a lot and hope you're staying sane. You'd like it here in Lexington, the bluegrass part of central Kentucky. Has nice weather, beautiful scenery, and a vibrant university-town intellectual life. Nice balance between small-city convenience and small-town people knowing you in your neighborhood. And there are enough progressives to balance out the nutbar religious rightwingers all places have. (Cincinnati is 80 miles north and seems to attract the nuttiest religious of the area.) The hillbilly Kentucky of pop culture legend begins about 40 miles to the east; this is an oasis of literacy. Minuses: Everybody here is nuts about UK basketball (you have to really work to find people who don't care). Government is as stupid as most, on a local, regional and state level. Except for the two big cities (Louisville and Lexington) it's a red state with red necks. To survive you have to be literate and in one of these two cities. Lexington's traffic is probably a little worse than most cities its size. But I came here 20 years ago and have learned to like it okay. And it has enough in common with Arkansas (I lived in North Little Rock for a while) that the culture shock wouldn't be too bad. Think about it. I hope you're doing well.
ReplyDeleteBabs - are you still on the road? Did you get swallowed up by a pot hole? Pull over at a truck stop, go online and let us know what's happening, lady.
ReplyDeleteHeckuva vacation you're on, Babs! I hope you're having fun.
ReplyDeleteSomeone found this and I felt the need to share - since you had thought about it a few months back.
http://www.thewvsr.com/tapeworms.htm
Oh, Kathleen, that ad is disgusting! I guess it's good that they affirm the cleanliness of the tape worms. As if such a thing should need affirmation! Gag me!
ReplyDelete