Things I Love About A City

I’m not talking about a little small place of 60,000 like I live in.  I’m talking about a city.  Tall buildings, tough parking options, paid parking, no parking, noise, congestion, people, a real university, public transit that you can actually use, and stuff like that is what I’m talking about.

Here’s what I love about a city:

• When I go there I am usually alone.  No kids, no responsibilities other than myself.  It is difficult to not want to move there on that basis alone.
• When I go there I usually stay in a hotel and that means no housework.  Yet another reason to want to move there.
• People watching is over the top outrageous.  There is always something strange, bizarre or out of the ordinary to see and then to write about.
• You have to park your car and walk.  It is best if you just don’t have a car, but parking and walking around is the bomb.
• It’s busy in a city.  People are heading places and doing stuff.  It seems really important.
• The options of fun places to eat and drink are greater and different than I would usually have access to.
• For just a little bit, I can feel like I’m unburdened by the responsibilities I have for everyone else and imagine what life would have been like had I just stayed single when I was in my 20’s and live in the SF Bay Area and was making a load of money with no overhead.  Damn, I missed that one big.
• There’s stuff to see.  Weird stuff, strange stuff, beautiful stuff.  Even if you can’t buy it, you can appreciate it.
• I can do what I want, when I want, where I want with whomever I want and I don’t have anyone at the last minute screwing up my plans by saying, “Oh, yeah, mom, I forgot to tell you…I have rehearsal tonight, in 20 minutes and I won’t be done till ten.”  (And you couldn’t tell me that before I had those two glasses of wine?)
• I can have those two glasses of wine without interruptions.
• I can buy clothes and take them home and wear them and no one will recognize them from the hometown store display in the mall that they saw last week.
• I have more than one small mall to choose from.
• I can buy clothes, shoes, a purse and probably no one back home will have the exact one.  I hate when that happens.
• I can meet a million new people and never talk to them again or I can if I want.
• I can get up early in the morning and go for a walk around the many blocks. 
• I love the early morning sounds of the traffic as rush hour starts up.
• I love having the bathroom all to myself.  Though I love my daughter, she crowds me in my 2′ x 2′ bathroom back home when we are both trying to get ready in the morning.  Never mind that she has access to a much larger more spacious main bathroom for her very own use.  It’s a bonding thing I guess.  The city gives me a break from that noise.
• Mostly, it is just different than what I deal with on a day to day basis which is the small town mentality of people who have no idea or desire to deal with other people.  People are a given in the city…and while there are jerks everywhere, people in the city seem more accepting of this fact than people who are used to having their own 5,000 sq. ft. on 20 acres and no one to bother them…ever.
• Okay, and there’s also the absence of all the routines that I feel I am so lousy at:  dinner hour and clean up and laundry.
• Being here makes me feel like…hmmm…maybe after all I could travel the world on my own.  I am so getting my passport this year.  In fact, this month.
• The fact that I am here at all, using my own transportation is an absolute miracle.  Go back and read some of my earlier posts here or on my other blog at Welcome To CABsPlace (check my sidebar for the link, I’m rushing this post, sorry) for a review of the entire nightmare that was my last summer.

It’s stupid, I know.  I don’t get out much and that’s absolutely tragic but just being here gives me the opportunity to step away from the noise and pace that is my life, disappear into some different noises and a different (surprisingly slower, can you believe it?) pace and take stock of where I’ve been recently, where I am now, and which of those paths down the crossroads I want to commit to.  And it’s just really, really fun!

Okay, more later…this   important conference is awaiting my important arrival.  Gads!