ughh

Moving to an entirely new area (a different state/country) is always so crazy.  No matter what, you have to give up some of your old comforts.  Moving from a place like San Francisco to, oh, pretty much everywhere, you’re going to lose out on something.  I’m starting to realize that I will be missing out on:

• Groupon, and all of those big community-find kind of websites that are so mega-popular here.  Yes, Groupon Anchorage does exist.  It’s also a ghost town.  siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh
• 2 day shipping from my Amazon Prime account.  In fact, lots of internet shopping will be gayed due to high shipping costs or sellers that don’t ship to AK at all.  I’m not a big ‘shopper’-type, but I do *ALL* of my shopping online so that is going to suck regardless.  My life is about to become a little bit more brick-and-mortar.  (though Amazon does offer free standard shipping up there to Prime customers, which mollifies me somewhat)
• The produce section is going to be complete ass up there compared to what we have here.  Pretty much anywhere I’ve been in the US (and Europe) had a crap produce section compared to the West Coast, and at higher prices.  I still remember how totally shit I was by the fact that nobody knew what an avocado was in Italy.
• I can probably forget about some of the fruity hippie groceries I’ve come to love in general.  Fresh raw jersey cow milk?  God that stuff is delicious.  I never could stand the idea of drinking milk before I discovered it.  Alas.  </3
• Live music.  No band I like will ever play in Alaska; I may as well just cross that one off the list entirely.

etc etc etc.  Just a thousand little things.  Anytime you uproot yourself you lose lots of little comfort things, and then find new ones.  And then, of you’re like me, you uproot yourself again.

San Francisco is a great place.  Of everywhere I’ve spent time in the world, it’s my favorite place overall.  Great weather, zillions of options for everything, a solid tech market, great food for days and days.  The downside being that it’s so extremely expensive that anywhere I live will be in a somewhat questionable area with some ghetto aspects.  Anchorage is fucking expensive, but it’s pansy compared to here, AND it’s too cold outside for the ghetto element to hang outside of my house screaming at each other for no apparent reason year-round.  I wonder if people still loiter outside of liquor stores?  Sounds like a pretty miserable proposition in the snow.  The idea of people being frozen into some semblance of civility appeals to me.  I can’t even describe how much of my life is consumed by the desire for people outside to just shut the fuck up.

There’s plenty of stuff I’m looking forward to, though.  Like:

• Cold weather.  YES.  I hate the heat.  HATE IT.  Gimme snow and wind.
• Open space.  There’s some of that around here, but you have to travel awhile to get to anything impressive other than the coastline.  I’m looking forward to spending a lot of time outdoors.  With nature.  In my dyed hair and black eyeliner because fuck you.
• Seafood.  The seafood up there is seriously bombtastic.
• Stuff that goes with a lot of open space, like being able to drive out somewhere and not see or hear anything created by humans.  Snowmobiles.  And taking up hunting – especially the idea of bowhunting.  James does that stuff, and I’m super interested in it.  For edibles, of course…sport-hunting is for faggots.
• The concept of having sex on a regular basis.  Okay, so this might not be specific to Alaska, but still.  Applies.

I wonder what the job market up there is like for someone like me?  Total crap, I bet.  Well, here’s to the next adventure. At least booze is universal.