Monday, May 25, 2009

Snarky Liberal

I've spent the morning, thus far, drinking seriously strong black coffee and looking through a catalog sent to me by Gilbert Realty in Mountain Home, Arkansas. There are dozens of listings for homes on acreage, from just over one to 40 or more, that look very attractive...and they are inexpensive. Of course, photos don't always show the warts. And I'm not sure I want to live in the Ozarks because next time I move someplace, I want it to be a place where there are more people whose political perspectives I can more easily tolerate...people who are, at least, liberal and tolerant of lifestyles dissimilar to theirs. Maybe I don't know the political climate in the Ozarks, but I bet I do. And it's probably is just as offensive and right-wing and unyieldingly intolerant as Dallas ever hopes to be.

So, just because housing is cheap, the Ozarks probably aren't for me.

I read quite some time ago that Arcata, California is quite a liberal place and is a college town (home to Humboldt State University), to boot. Unfortunately, I think I read in the same place that Arcata is a very expensive place to live, better-suited to über-rich liberals (whose embrace of the underclass is likely to be intellectual) than to liberals who came by their liberalism through more experiential means. Now, that was the statement of someone who just stereotyped the entire population of a town and a "class" of people...not very liberal of me at all, was it? And that was after I stereotyped the entire population of a region of the country. I need to chill.

A blogger friend is in the process of moving to the coast (I think she's planning on living on or near the coast, anyway) of Nova Scotia. That has some appeal to me; very low population density but who knows which way the people lean, politically. Or there's always the nice place I once found advertised in Chile; it was my dream house, sitting on the side of a mountain view views of the Pacific and a large volcanic lake. Of course, if I seriously considered that place, I'd probably have to make snide comments about earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the need to learn to speak fluent Spanish.

4 comments:

YourFireAnt said...

I like that you are a dreamer. Keep it up. See you in a few weeks.

FA

Me, You, or Ellie said...

Arcata's a great town -- that whole region is lovely. Lots of national forest, redwoods, cool peeps, and great weather.

I think *I* need to move there...

Ellie

Springer Kneeblood said...

I'm a wild dreamer! And I look forward to seeing you, FA!

Ellie, you're more likely than I to move there...if you do, can I come visit?

bev said...

Interesting. I was *just* reading a post entitled, "How to decide where to live" on another blog. The writer mentions that it's good to live close to water (check!). Also that places with good public schools are usually good places to live -- when the schools are crappy, there's a reason for it. Here's a link to the post if you're interested in reading more:
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/05/21/how-to-decide-where-to-live-2/
Anyhow.. let's see. Regarding Nova Scotia, I've found the people there to be fairly friendly. The area where I'm looking at property is pretty liberal -- a fairly high population of artists, writers, etc.. One thing that I wanted to find was a place where people care about nature and the environment. That's definitely the case in many areas of the province. I think each person has to figure out their priorities for what it is that constitutes a good place to live. Mine would be a bit different than those of others. I'd be looking for a place with good hiking trails and lakes and rivers for canoeing. Plenty of creative people. The natural world should be pretty healthy. The weather should appeal to me for at least a couple of seasons of the year.
Arcata seems nice -- but I think they get quite a bit of fog there -- maybe more rain than other areas along the coast. It seems to be a very liberal town. I know a couple of people who live (or have lived) there and they like(d) it.