Green Bamboo

Hey matees! 'Tis a grand day for a blog, with thunderstorms a-thunderin' and such.

I know that I have been delinquent in my postings. For those of you, like me, who often have nothing better to do than troll around the internet looking for interesting new blog updates by your friends, I apologize.

But for the rest of ye, walk the plank and take a salty bath! Arrrgh!

I titled this post about Bamboo for no other reason than I did not have anything more interesting to put. So I looked up, saw the light and then saw my green bamboo. Ouila. Now we have a cool post title.

I don't feel like pontificating today, but I notice that every day I wake up with many of the same questions: Where am I going? Where do I want to live, What do I want to be doing in five years? etc., etc. Sometimes it feels more like blah, blah, blah.

The irony is that now that I have a family of my own, I feel priced out of the area in which I live. I realize that while I am living with my in-laws, sooner or later it's going to be decision time. It's kind a like standing on a high dive, plotting your jump into the water. Do I do the triple lindy, or should I strive for seemingly safer leaps into calmer waters?

I am on board with the fact that I missed the sweet spot in the housing market, but now that it's time to be a-settling down, it kind of feels like scanning the horizon and wishing for yesterday's sunset. That's no longer the sillouette of a 110,000 home you see, but a 235,000 home. Pricy, but that's reality.

Now that I am in the country and the experience of savouring city-life stands at my back, I wonder where the next step forward is going to lead us. The city is nice, but I enjoy the pace of country life too.

Clare and I visited quaint Staunton, Va. not that long ago, and we were like, "Sweet! Staunton!" The nifty little town shows some signs of life, but homes are also expensive there. What is more, no friends, no family, no history or connection is there for me or Clare to be overly attracted to the place, notwithstanding our aesthetic or crunchy-con beliefs.

As I discern what our future holds, I find myself gaping at Northern Virginia--Western Prince William County to Arlington to Fredericksburg--and say WTF. Well-built 1930s and 40s bungalos have been overtaken by suburban sprawl and Carl D. Silver. The only planning that has been done, generally, has been for profit. That's why by the year 2020, our traffic problems are going to be worse than L.A.

Do I really want to live here and risk my life driving with the other commute-battered, bleary-eyed buffoons on I-95?

The grass is greener on the other side, but with each passing day the other side is looking better. The towns that are farther away from D.C are usually nicer than the ones closer in, but after a certain mile marker, the people start to look scary and toothless, and the brotha' in D.C. starts to seem very cultured.

Until he draws his knife, that is.

Some questions are easy, but for me, the one about where to live for the long term is not. I feel the need to be swinging a hammer in the hot sun under blue skies and building myself a home, but alas, sometimes it's not that simple.

Or maybe it is, and I just don't see it yet.

Over and out.

--Nick