i’ll be happy to add: Cincinnati, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Dallas, L.A., Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Lexington, Memphis, Birmingham, Peterborough, Orlando, Syracuse, Denver, Portage la Prairie, Indianapolis, Kansas City or Albuquerque.

your turn. *sly grin*

seriously though, i understand where you’re coming from. because you’re no longer at “the beginning”, you reach this point where you start seriously thinking about the places where you want to spend the rest of your life, and ideally, you want your first pick. it’s something that my girlfriend and i have been discussing (with limited success so far, unfortunately) over the last couple of months.

for me, i know that no matter where i live, i’m not going to feel settled so long as i’m tethered to this country, no matter which fave American city i may be living. until i have citizenship under Canada’s domain, i’m simply not going to feel landed, spiritually settled or even safely secure here.

as far as the kudos from my client, i was hoping to hear that a glowing, radiant endorsement is just as good — if not better — than some award or commendation which too often makes unhumble people even more so (Prima Donna Syndrome, such an untreatable disease) and doesn’t get to the bottom of whether the fusion which made that winning concept possible occurred under smooth, amicable pretenses or not.

to me, it’d seem like the relationship would be far more important in the long run, award or no.

And there are plenty worse places to wind up than Chicago too (hello Cleveland, Detroit, Boise, Kenosha . . . stop me when you’ve had enough :P). I’m just tired of being here and rather biased because of it. That doesn’t mean you or someone else wouldn’t be able to thrive and do well here, it just means this town’s not worth the commitment of putting down long-term roots for me.