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Day 870 – Birthdays!

Today is my wife’s birthday. I don’t think this is the first time we’ve been apart on her birthday, but i can’t recall a specific year where we might have been. She’ll remember.

It’s also the birthday of a guy in my office who, keeping it short, has dual personalities. Mild-mannered fund-raising office-guy by day, piano-playing slow-jazz-singing guy by night. Or i guess i should “by evening” since folks go to bed early out here.

My wife visits Boise this friday. I’ve got all of two things for her to unwrap, but after, like, twenty-two birthdays it’s a bit hard to keep outdoing the last one. Still, it’s all good… it’s all good.

I just watched yet another movie that moves me to declare that i will never, willingly, live in LA. While i completely love San Francisco and would move there in a heartbeat were i able to afford it i have little good to say about LA. Sure if i were stinkin’ rich and in some part of “the biz” i’d probably have all kinds of fun there. I’d even be happy to work for Media Temple if they had any use for a wishy-washy mac guy. MT is located in Culver City which is one of the bright spots of LA. It’s a bright spot because the wind comes in off the ocean and cools everything down. It could be 105 in “the valley” but it would be 85 in Culver City.

But it’s important to know what you don’t want in this life. LA is one of those things. Iowa is another. Idaho will be added to the list before too long. There are many, many places i’d rather not live. Where would i like to live? Astoria, Oregon remains at or near the top of the list. There’s just something about that place that feels like home. No idea why.

I’ll go back to Brooklyn someday, so i suppose it’s fair to say i’d like to live there. Seattle might have been nice in the ’70’s but it’s basically a colder, wetter version of LA now.

Boise isn’t a bad place to live. It’s incredibly easy to live here. So easy, in fact, one forgets that life should have at least a few obstacles to keep us from getting too complacent. In Boise it’s easy to think there is no Iraq war, that the economy is fine, that the future of our culture and our planet is rosey and provided we keep going to the mall and buying stuff everything will work out fine. Even though so many of the soldiers killed in Iraq actually came from Idaho there is a certain un-reality about “the war.” They put up flags downtown for each death. There are so many they’re nearly running out of the space allotted, but still there is some kind of a disconnect. At least there is for me and the few people i know willing to say more than “what a shame” when the topic comes up.

Would it be different in New York City? Probably not, but at least there i suspect there would be more of an immediacy regarding the war and its effects. The disastrous policies of the current administration have a more direct impact in New York via the stock market, the banking industry, the federal reserve and assorted other white-collar businesses. Also people there are, in general, much more engaged with current events. There people tend to share a feeling of relevance; that New York matters on the world stage even if they, as individuals, do not. Living in New York, by design, requires you to believe in something greater than yourself.

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