last night I had a complicated dream about places

[mistersmearcase]

And this week we're talking about Providence. Which is another slightly out of left field choice (as all things will be, since the three towns we feel strongly enough about to have discussed much seem to have features one or both of us can't get past) and not somewhere I've ever had strong feelings about. I don't know what its sense of place is, like how LA has old Hollywood and New York has every literary thing ever and SF has some people did some drugs there once.

Providence I don't know. But it's close enough to Boston we could maintain active friendships with Boston friends and close enough to NYC I could have a sort of friendship with New York friends and easily spend weekends to go to theater and opera. The big selling point is: it's cheap and near stuff. The question is whether it's worth moving somewhere that has no strong draw of its own.

One thing I think would be nice about living there is New York could be magical again the way it stopped being, for me, about two years before I left. As a comment on here reminded me, it's nice to miss places. It would be a pain and a half to get to Austin, but no worse than from here.

So anyway.

I'm listening to more podcasts. Sewers of Paris seems to be hit or miss. I listened today to a long interview with a guy I am two degrees from in all kinds of ways, about being gay and Mormon, mostly. I should figure out some other ones. BBC In Our Time is great but maybe too much for the morning. You Must Remember This was perfect but I listened to about a trillion episodes of it. Maybe there's a theater one.

Gave up on The Magicians tv show because it's occasionally gory and I hate the characters, but stumbled upon the first book at a used bookstore and it's significantly more fun.

Knitted a hat for a friend with cancer but it turned out HUGE because I secretly never take gauge so hat: Take II.

I'm not sure how I feel about the LJ revival. Here is a gross admission: I mix up some of the new people I added because there are no faces and I added maybe too many people at once.

Comments

[abrichar.livejournal.com]

The LJ revival inspired me to write for about three days but it's inspired me to read LJ every now. It hit exactly as my (work) life went utterly bananas and it feels like there are only so many ways to say "everything's still insane" especially to an audience of mostly strangers who don't have the context of knowing there's actually more to me than my career. I've gotta say it's really nice to have this group of folks with three dimensional worlds who are willing to let me peek into it, especially as a mostly quiet lurker.

I moved out to Portland in 2000 with no association other than one friend. And I'm not a particularly gregarious person. It's kinda cool to get to make a place one's own. I love the idea that Providence is close to two place you already have a sense of place with. Seems like that takes some of the heft and loneliness out of it.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

It really takes a fair amount of the heft and loneliness out, but as I know from moving here, and from moving to NYC some 13 years ago, there's that couple of years at first where you may have a lot of "I have no-one to see" nights. They're easier now, in a couple, but they're something I'd like to have at most one more set of.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I visited Providence once for work. I thought it a good place.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

I seems nice, and people seem to like it. It just doesn't have that intrigue some towns do, maybe, like NYC or New Orleans.

[ironed_orchid]

Providence has H.P. Lovecraft, but I don't know if that counts in it's favour ;-)

It's really hard to tell the size of hats when they're still on the needles.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

I started the hat over one size down, "overgrown child" or something instead of "small adult" (ok I'm probably making those up.) Hats are quick if you sit down and do them. The next 5" are garter so the only thing to slow me down is switching k/p at the stitch marker and the fact that I purl in a weird, not very fast way that isn't quite continental or English.

[herself_nyc]

I mix them up also.

Providence has physical attractions, it has the sea, and as you said, it's easily accessible to Boston and New York. Brown U is there so I suspect that will provide some concerts and performances worth attending. I could think of worse places to live.

Podcasts: I subscribe to nearly 100 of them. I'd also try BBC Arts & Ideas — they do in-depth interviews with artists of all fields and have a different way about it than on American shows like Fresh Air. Highly recommend.

Others you should check out:
Criminal
Memory Palace
Leonard Lopate Show
Slate's line up of podcasts

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I think my boyfriend listens to Criminal.

The sea is good. I don't know accessible it feels there. In NYC I felt like I could easily enough sit on the A train for an hour and see the ocean. Here we go at most once a year though it's geographically not far.

[trillian42.livejournal.com]

"I mix up some of the new people I added because there are no faces and I added maybe too many people at once."

Ditto.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me I am not helping since my main userpic is not my face!

[villagecharm.livejournal.com]

I love Providence. I tried desperately to get the AP to move me there when I worked for them. It's a small town in many ways, but has an aura of mobster grit combined with bohemian collegey stuff (Brown is there, along with RISD, and my God, do they love the Talking Heads), plus the city's Georgian architecture remained remarkably undamaged by the passage of time. You can take the train to Boston, though, so it's gentrifying pretty rapidly; the old mob stronghold of Federal Hill is full of gluten-free bakeries and really good record stores now.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

This is very reassuring! Especially the record stores.

My main thing about a city that is 100% abstract and probably imaginary is: is it easy or hard to meet interesting people there? (In NYC it felt very easy. In Oakland it feels quite difficult. Doubtless this is based on some very objective thing about these places.)

[alphaloria.livejournal.com]

I am still getting some of my new adds all mixed up. On a couple of occasions I've been tempted to just post, damn I have no idea who the fuck any of you are.

But I'm muddling through and starting to get to know everyone.