Writer's Block: City mouse or country mouse?

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I know exactly what sort of environment I would like best to live in, and it falls somewhere between these two.

Massive cities are too much for me; I am excited to be in a place like New York and Tokyo for about a week before I begin to feel exhausted by all the people and sensory stimulation. I like to be able to see the sky and trees from my workplace and visit a green space without having to share it with 100 other people chatting and taking up bench space.

However, I wouldn't want to live in a completely rural environment, either. I like having easy access to museums, shows, and restaurants with interesting and exotic cuisines. I would start to feel understimulated if I lived in a farmers' community where no one ever bothered to wear more than jeans and sweatshirts and you were considered to be dining high on the hog at Steak 'n Shake. (I love Steak 'n Shake, but if my only eating-out options are that and fast food . . . ?).

I'm more of a suburb girl, I guess. My hometown, Elkhart, was a decent size city to live in but not an ideal placement because it was a substantial drive any major city: "two" hours to Chicago (the toll road and skyway are always, always under construction, however, so it's usually more like three in blood-pressure-raising traffic) by car, three by train, and three or four hours to Indianapolis. Hagi, too, is irritatingly difficult to travel from; Shimonoseki isn't even "big" but it's nearest at two hours away (three by train), and the major metropolitan centers of Fukuoka and Hiroshima are each a four hours' trek unless you pay out the ass for shinkansen-- and then it's still like 2.5 hours because of the damn Yamaguchi bus. I'd probably enjoy living someplace like the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis where Brandy and Robert grew up, about an hour out from the city of St. Louis-- and accessible by subway. You know, a suburb to a city that is still considered its own community when it comes to schools, etc, but still serviced by city transportation, etc.

Ideally, I'd like to live on a lake in or near a suburb with schools and survival-necessary shopping (grocery store, a Target, maybe a mall) and close enough to a larger city to reasonably commute there and back in a day-- especially if I can do it by public transportation. It needn't be a major metropolitan city, but a city large enough to host concerts, quality theater productions, and an interesting array of museums and cultural events. As for the lake itself, I don't mind sharing the lake with 200 neighbors because the sense of space and view of the sky the water would give me a sense of seclusion and the illusion of grander space. And the lake is important. I like water, and probably because of my background I mesh with lakes better than oceans or rivers.

Writer's Block: City mouse or country mouse?

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I know exactly what sort of environment I would like best to live in, and it falls somewhere between these two.

Massive cities are too much for me; I am excited to be in a place like New York and Tokyo for about a week before I begin to feel exhausted by all the people and sensory stimulation. I like to be able to see the sky and trees from my workplace and visit a green space without having to share it with 100 other people chatting and taking up bench space.

However, I wouldn't want to live in a completely rural environment, either. I like having easy access to museums, shows, and restaurants with interesting and exotic cuisines. I would start to feel understimulated if I lived in a farmers' community where no one ever bothered to wear more than jeans and sweatshirts and you were considered to be dining high on the hog at Steak 'n Shake. (I love Steak 'n Shake, but if my only eating-out options are that and fast food . . . ?).

I'm more of a suburb girl, I guess. My hometown, Elkhart, was a decent size city to live in but not an ideal placement because it was a substantial drive any major city: "two" hours to Chicago (the toll road and skyway are always, always under construction, however, so it's usually more like three in blood-pressure-raising traffic) by car, three by train, and three or four hours to Indianapolis. Hagi, too, is irritatingly difficult to travel from; Shimonoseki isn't even "big" but it's nearest at two hours away (three by train), and the major metropolitan centers of Fukuoka and Hiroshima are each a four hours' trek unless you pay out the ass for shinkansen-- and then it's still like 2.5 hours because of the damn Yamaguchi bus. I'd probably enjoy living someplace like the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis where Brandy and Robert grew up, about an hour out from the city of St. Louis-- and accessible by subway. You know, a suburb to a city that is still considered its own community when it comes to schools, etc, but still serviced by city transportation, etc.

Ideally, I'd like to live on a lake in or near a suburb with schools and survival-necessary shopping (grocery store, a Target, maybe a mall) and close enough to a larger city to reasonably commute there and back in a day-- especially if I can do it by public transportation. It needn't be a major metropolitan city, but a city large enough to host concerts, quality theater productions, and an interesting array of museums and cultural events. As for the lake itself, I don't mind sharing the lake with 200 neighbors because the sense of space and view of the sky the water would give me a sense of seclusion and the illusion of grander space. And the lake is important. I like water, and probably because of my background I mesh with lakes better than oceans or rivers.