Meet Me in St. Louis

There is an interesting thread going on over on the slowtalk message board. It’s a thread about moving – not to other countries (for once), but to other places here in the U.S.

It’s no secret to anyone how much I love Ocean Beach. It’s been three years, and I still love it. I love the ocean, I love the vibe, and I love the funkiness of this little beach town.

There is one huge problem. I can’t buy a house here. I’m sorry, but I am not going to pay just under a million bucks for a half-rotting beach cottage. I’m not only not gonna pay it, I CAN’T pay it. Mostly because I don’t have any money.

One thing that we sometimes forget here in Ripoffville, is that there are lots of other places to live where you can actually afford to buy a nice, big house. Then you can paint the walls purple if you want, something you could never do in a rental (though when I was eight my mom painted the trim in my room in our rented house purple, just to make me happy.)

As I get older this whole idea of buying a home presses on my brain more and more. Do I really want to be an old lady still renting? What if the world doesn’t really blow up like I think it will? What if it KEEPS GOING? Then I’ll be up it without a paddle.

So, I guess what I am trying to say is, eventually I will move, just so I can buy a house.

There are a few things that are very important to me – having live music venues around (now I have to drive up to L.A. all the time for that, which really sucks, and is expensive, plus there are a lot of L.A. people there); having wine around, like decent wine shops, and a bar or two with good wine, otherwise I’ll be spending too much time at home; having like-minded people around, even if it’s only three or four; hmmm… what else? I guess a Whole Foods type place. And someplace, anyplace, that I can sit by a body of water.

The cool thing is I can pretty much take my job anywhere.

I’m thinking Austin might be cool, just because of the music scene. St. Louis also appeals to me, and so do the Carolinas because I can live by the ocean there. I am telling you, when you start to think about this stuff, it starts to get crazy, because all the wanderlust in me starts coming out. It’s unstoppable.

For now, it is just talking to myself. But it is an intriguing dialog…