howling mine

the best minds of my generation are running out of places to live. we're mad, starving, hysterical, naked, and dragging ourselves through a very constricting set of cities to reside in.

the four cities that people flock to: new york, san francisco, chicago, los angeles. that's it. there are a few second tier cities that people live in such as san diego, boston, or washington dc, but hardly anyone moves to one of these secondary cities without a scholastic or family-related reason. barring actually being from the midwest or the south, nobody chooses to live there. i mean, i've heard good things about austin but really, why go there?

in all the continental united states there are only four cities that are desireable to move to. usually, one of these options are already eliminated due to lack of individual desire (for me, chicago). one of these cities you've already tried out (new york), and that leaves, at most, two options for future expansion. that's like being presented with chicken or beef when you're really looking for a salad.

taking a look around the globe, you can expand your horizons to target a few more destinations that might be appealing to twenty-somethings. asia is our largest continent and oh so mysteriously oriental. china, japan, or hong kong are all interesting, and potentially exciting, places to live for a few years. plus employment is not a problem as there are always people in these countries eager to learn english from soul searching college graduates.

europe is similarly populated with amazing places like london, paris, barcelona, amsterdam, athens, florence, vienna, and frankfurt. but moving to europe is a pretty difficult trick to successfully pull off. most residents there know english better than we do, so you'd have to go with some sort of marketable skill -- or on study abroad. and the cost of living in most european countries ain't exactly cheap. europe is mostly a romantic's pipe dream destination.

for the record, nobody goes to africa. unless you are there on a vaguely defined humanitarian mission; or to adopt -- or really brave and adventurous i guess. i'm not sure why nobody goes to south or central america but it probably has something to do with the heat, the third world conditions, or the murderous soccer crazies; or some combination of all the above. maybe argentina is a sleeper place to live? i guess i'll never know.

now, australia would be nice (where lynn is heading), but australia is pretty damn far away and while there would hardly be a language barrier, there's not a huge difference there except for the killer accents, the more talented movie stars, and the animals on display. i'd assume they have shit like squirrels, ducks, gold fish, deer, mountain lions, and donkeys at the zoo; things not commonly found in the southern hemisphere. they wouldn't even have wombats, dingoes, or koalas at australian zoos since they're as common as cats and dogs are in the rest of the world. australia can also be prohibitively expensive. and if vegemite is any indication, the food sucks too. anything australia can do, southern california can do better.

so where does that leave us? it leaves us facing the fact that we're destined to live in either new york or san francisco/los angeles for the rest of our young adult lives, until we slough off our need for "excitement" and move into one of the secondary cities to raise children, till the soil, and take the long cyanide bubble bath into old-agedness.

exciting.