Big news and changes in my life!
This Saturday is probably my last night working for New Wave City. Sniff sniff.
After a stint that seems like forever (I think I've been doing this for like 12 years?) I'm finally retiring form my longest-running job


And with that, I guess my move down to suburban hell is complete.
And?
I fucking hate it here.
We moved down here to be closer to work and stuff, and we got our big house in the burbs and the isolation that comes with it. We can walk to... strip malls. Or a Target, which is just a strip mall under one roof with one checkout. Oh! we can walk over to "downtown" Sunnyvale and have our choice of mediocre restaurants, and then walk home, and lock ourselves back into our suburban castle.

The friends that used to never see us because we lived to far away now never see us because they are too busy, or too tired, or, too whatever. It's just not what people do here, I guess. We go to work and we come home, and we sit in our castles and hope to gawd no one knocks on the door while we wait for tomorrow so we can go back to work.

There is nothing with character or culture, no amazing breakfast place that college students can afford, any natural beauty must have been wiped out ages ago. If you ask to meet someone for coffee, they'll squirm and tell you they are too busy. Smalltalk beyond "hello" is worse than sparechanging someone in SF. The closest museum is a tiny lace museum (which is nice but limited in interest) There are kids in the street, because, as we've been forcefully told, "this is a family neighborhood," but where do they go when they get to be 20? Not here!

When I was younger, my mother used to say that adults don't have friends. When I was living in the City, I felt bad for here because I was an adult and I had lots of friends. We would meet for coffee, go to the museum, go for a ride, meet up at the bar, invite each other over to watch movies. Now I understand. She lived in a place like I live now, and she was right. This American Dream includes only your nuclear family unit, everyone has to go back to their own box.

I fucking hate it here.