Thoughts From Suburbia

As a kid growing up in the middle of nowhere, I've often wished to live in the city. There is sometimes an overwhelming feeling that everyone else lives somewhere cool and I just got the short end of the geographical stick.

So when I was preparing to make a trip down to the Bay Area, even though I'd been warned that this particular place was boring, cookie-cutter suburbia, to tell you the truth I couldn't quite believe it. Because it's the Bay! Everything there is city! I mean, someone talks about that being boring in the same way that people anywhere talk about their hometown, right?

Nope. Not in this case. This was essentially a couple strip malls and chunks of residential areas plopped in the middle of farmland and given a name.

I used to think that if my hometown got a Wal-Mart or some other cool store suddenly everything would be more interesting, but as I looked out at a sea of chain stores I realized that there still wasn't anything to do. Lots of things to consume, but not a whole lot of activities to do with someone else.

We still found things to do in there somewhere - watching the new X-Men, buying foreign candy at World Market, and visiting a couple tabletop gaming stores (which was probably my favorite simply because of the ridiculously stereotypical responses one of the guys had; he had this stunned look on his face and I could almost hear him thinking "a girl? In here? A girl? WHAT?! DOES NOT COMPUTE!" and I had to turn away a couple times to keep from cracking up).

But most of the rest of our weekend was spent inside, reading, painting, and playing games. I wasn't too worried about that, since that's not far off from my normal routine (man I need to get out more...), but I'd venture it's safe to say that I won't be planning on moving to the suburbs anytime soon.

I realize I've been harping on relationships and people in my blogs a lot recently, so I apologize for being a broken record at this point, but...

I've been thinking about how what I'm looking for in a place to settle down isn't just an urban classification, but also having places around that encourage sitting down and spending time there. Places where you can sit and read a good book, or catch up with a friend, or people watch, and not feel bad for taking up a spot for another customer.

A place where there are things to do and people to meet, not just stuff to buy.