jkap

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butch jewish dyke
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married to @kadybat

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i'm leaving town tomorrow to run a Vibe Check on the metro area i'm most likely moving to once my lease is up (being in florida, even if tallahassee specifically is still Fine, remains a ticking time bomb) and maaaaaan i'm really hoping it goes well because i have staked kind of a lot on this being The Place.

i have a lot of very complicated feelings about moving again. i don't want to! i moved back to tallahassee to be close to my family, because i'd hoped i could make a home here. at the time, this was not a bad decision and it was not at all evident exactly How Quickly shit would escalate. i'm mad about needing to move cross country again (from a practical, logistical, and financial standpoint), i'm mad about getting forced out of my home, i'm mad that my rent is about to go up by A Lot for a much smaller living space.

my goal is that i never have to do this again. trying to pick a locale that's Unlikely To Turn To Shit, that i can afford and think i can bear to live in (i hate living in cities, which complicates Fucking Everything) is complicated and awful and stressful and i'm just mad i have to do this.

ANYWAY. if you see me in the boston area this weekend, you can come say hi but don't be weird about it. thanks


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in reply to @jkap's post:

feel this super hard. the main reason i'm desperately searching for a job is so that we can uproot ourselves again to head halfway across the country towards seattle, something none of us really want to do. it's miserable and awful that we all gotta consider this. much love to ya.

i lived in minneapolis for a while and actually really liked it, but i've got a decent amount of friends in the boston area and fewer in the mpls area at this point (i was young, dumb, and full of Bridge Burning energy when i lived there) but it's a beautiful city if you can deal with the cold

i hope it goes well!!!! my dad lived in Boston in the 2000s and it really left an impact on me; i've been thinking about moving back that way but no idea how it is now. fingers crossed for you!!!

I'm really hoping the Redacted area works well for you. I think it's very quaint and pleasant and a lot of people I know who got priced out of our homes in Boston ended up moving there and really loving it. It has a really good indie music scene and lots of access to nature and quiet. And you like autumnal shit you'll adore it.

Speaking from experience (TX to MA), it sure is nice to live in a state where the government isn't literally trying to kill me on a regular basis. (If you want to hear about my experience in western MA, happy to chat. My wife also loathes city living and turns out being in an area with three different college towns is a really good compromise in a number of directions.)

So the area generally known as the Pioneer Valley (basically the Connecticut River Valley north of Springfield/Holyoke) is where we live - we're in Belchertown, which is on the eastern edge of the area and has blessedly lower property values than the actual college towns. Northampton is a nice town, contains Smith College, and is unbelievably queer. Amherst is smaller, has a UMass campus, and is also very queer as well as super hippie. We're 20ish minutes from either, which is FINE, especially because 20 minutes means 20 minutes on pleasant winding two-lane 40mph roads, not 20 minutes in traffic.

The high college density means the restaurant scene around here is legit Very Good, basically every service we want is within a normal drive, and we're ~2 hours from Boston and ~3.5 (depending on method) from NYC, which is fun for vacation/seeing friends/Cultural Events. Tons of trails, lots of local farms with coops and farmstands, lots of bookstores and coffee shops. I like it a lot.

Downsides include a local monopoly on internet service (varies somewhat by specific town - I think it was Greenfield that finally won their various lawsuits and now has a city-run ISP) and Comcast is... Comcast. And it's super white, moreso when you get outside the college towns, with all that implies, although in Yankee flavor which is definitely different than Southern flavor.

I am personally a Small City creature ideally but I married a feral wood elf who goes mad at the sound of leafblowers and this is a perfect compromise for us. (And besides, the small city I loved was Austin circa 2003 and, alas, the world has moved on.)

Happy to answer specific questions!