How to Read a Town

felt macarons from Little Fluff Stuff

How to read a town, how to research a city, how to figure out where to live-- it all depends on what language you're speaking.  For me, I speak walk-able, bike-able, old architecture, crafting community.  And affordable, but I'll maybe have to learn a new dialect.  Looking at a new town when you've never been to it is hard.  I have no idea what people did before the internet (guess I should ask my mom).  I'm going to share some of the tips I've figured out about judging a town's compatibility.

1. Meetup.com-  Meet-up is a good place to start.  Smaller areas probably won't have a lot of entries, but a large city should yield up a group for just about anything (Southbay Goth Meet-up, LARPers, Raw food and board games night).  Pick your keywords and see what you find.  Now, I'm not sure how wide-spread meetup is, and it may be used more by some age groups than others.  Or maybe you don't even care about age groups.  Check it out.

Knitted cowl from Nisey Knits

2. Since this is at least 40% a craft blog, I chose to do some scouting through Etsy.com. Using their Shop Local search, I found sellers from the area we're looking at.  Then, I sent a handful of friendly notes asking about the availability of craft supplies and whether there was much of a crafting community.  I got answers back almost immediately about stores to go to and offers of help once I get there.  That was probably the most positive thing that's happened so far.  I'd like to thank Little Fluff Stuff (pictured above), maukDesigns, Nisey Knits, and La Plume Ethere for helping me feel at home before it's even my home. I even got an invitation to knit with someone!

3.  Google Street View: I can never use this feature without thinking HOLY SHIT IT'S THE FUTURE.  I've used this to check out my childhood home (they cut down my damn tree!) and find bike-able roads.  Now, I can snail my way through entire neighborhoods.  Looking at things from above always make them look weird and clinical, but street view is nice. The absence of deciduous trees in California makes me sad, but using this I could see that there are plenty of leaves out there.  Through a freak occurrence, J wasn't able to rent a car for his trip, but he could use the street view maps to check out the sidewalks.


View Larger Map

4.  City-data.com- Discussions from their forum often come to the top of my searches when thinking about moving/trailing.  It's a large enough website that you can almost always find someone moving from/to where you're going.  The design leaves much to be desired, but it is chock-full of facts. You won't laugh (you might cry, looking at housing prices) but you'll get some of the big answers.  This doesn't particularly give you the feel of a place, but gives more precise information about demographics/employment/industry than any Wikipedia article.

5.  WalkScore.com lets you know how much your city respects pedestrians and cyclists, which isn't important to everyone but it is to me.  And since it's hooked into Google Maps, you also get a list of cool places, by category, near the address.  For me, if all that pops up under coffee is Starbucks, I've hit a dud.

I hope this helps someone.  When J applied for jobs in Portland, I had more of an idea of what to expect. I'd been there and its reputation preceded it.  This part of California, though, boggled my mind.  And when you're feeling boggled, it's easy to focus on the bad stuff.

Start your trailers!

image from mormon mommy wars

I'm an hour away from driving J out to the airport.  Lots of talking, googling and reassuring has happened since my last explosive post, and I have to admit I reacted harshly.  The place we work isn't necessarily the place we live in California, where all the towns are close together and public transit exists.  So, I am not freaking out anymore*.

He'll fly into California today, interview tomorrow, and come back on Thursday after I get off work.  I took a vacation day today, mostly so I could be completely calm before and after he leaves.  It's been a lovely morning-- we slept in, had breakfast over the Daily Show and went to the farmers market.

Statistics often come from thin air, but I've read several places that moving ranks in the top three for most stressful events in a couple's life.  We're responding to the beginning of this process by getting closer.  I'm sure our friends think we're being jerks to disappear before we've even begun to move, but it's how we're coping. Staying in, reading, remembering why we chose to be together.

But listen to me-- it's just an interview.  I don't need to sell all my winter clothes just yet.

*Still hate palm trees.

Not one of those posts!

If anyone has been wondering why I haven't written in a week, it's because J has had two interviews with the same company in the past two weeks and things are moving.  But he doesn't want me to write about that stuff as much, because it felt bad the last time he didn't get a job, and the whole internet knew about it. I understand that.  Unfortunately what he's doing is pretty necessary for this blog to move along, so I've been feeling a little... clogged.  This is go time, the time I really need to write about this so the community I've been trying to build can help me along.

The prospect of moving is exciting, and FUCKING HORRIFYING.  Yes, I would like to move before the Fall semester starts (the busiest/worst/best part of my work year) but now I'm looking around my town saying, "Damn, I like it here", and researching towns where the jobs and thinking, "Damn, I like it here*".  I do like it here.

Powerless, that's what it feels like.  About to go somewhere where I don't know anyone and my only friend will always be gone and really tired when he comes home and it may be a suburb, and maybe I'll end up having kids only because there's nothing else for me there.  I've burst into tears four times today, and I swear I'm trying to find something positive.  I feel even more awful that I'm not jumping up and down.  I am happy about the opportunity, just not so jazzed about where it is.

He's flying to California for an interview next week.  If things go smoothly, we could be out of here by August.

*Here being here, now. Not there.

One Interview Down

J looked utterly frazzled when I got home.  He had stuffed his brain for weeks, and now it had all spilled out.  He looked simultaneously at peace and completely nuts.

The interview went well, he knew he'd made mistakes but seemed pretty optimistic.  We should know something in the next week, but until then J's got to work on this dissertation and put in more applications.  I don't mean to keep saying this because I don't believe in him, but I really do believe that even getting this far is a real accomplishment.  Like really big.  Just like when I wrote that every rejection letter is at least a step forward, this is the same. Plus, Google is huge and everyone wants to work there.  If you've made it this far up the interview process, you're already a good fit, now it's culling applicants down to a manageable number.  If you get culled, you can rest assured it's just numbers or they didn't like your handshake.

As for me, I told my boss about J's graduation, which she definitely saw coming (she knew he was a PhD student when I interviewed).  Well, it's been four years since his Master's graduation, so here we are.  It was scary telling her, but Human Resources had my back and it was decided that not telling was a lie of omission. Why is it scary? Because it's pretty obvious that when he gets his big ol' degree, he's going to look for a big ol' job.  And, statistically speaking, there more jobs outside of Arkansas than in.  My boss immediately made that connection (or had been waiting to voice it) and I handled it gracefully.  Seriously, it is a weird situation when you're not the one who is looking for a job.  But I feel like telling her about his graduation is like handing in my [X]-week's notice for a job I'm not even applying for.  I am afraid I'll be treated like I've given my notice already, and in some offices that isn't a pleasant place to be.

This is one of those situations where not having control makes things rather sticky.  I told her last week, but so far things are good.

The first one is always the hardest

My man.

J has his technical interview with Google today. We both slept somewhat badly last night due to crazy wind outside and both of us getting a phone call between 3 and 4am.  I got up and made him coffee and made sure he woke up.  The call isn't until 2:30, but I am biting my nails til then.  I'm looking forward to coming home and finding a less stressed husband.  As for me, the weather seemed like a good omen this morning, window, cool and a little wet.  I am trying to remain as positive as I can.  No matter what comes of this, it's an accomplishment.

Ask a question, it's not illegal

It's a PC.

I wandered through the past two days in a whine-and-cheese malaise, but I seem to be finally coming out of it.  Crazy thing happened yesterday.  I came home from work to find J looking very crumpled.  He got a form email from a Google person he hadn't heard from before, saying they appreciated his application, but blah blah blah.  WTF, mate?  My first instinct was, "This is a mistake."  Since I make them all the time, I figure a huge company with thousands of applicants probably does too.

Seriously, a totally crumpled spouse.  He'd been looking at the email for an hour and a half like a nerdy little Hamlet.  Further confirming my theory, the last email he'd received was all about how to prepare for his technical interview, including websites to digest and books to buy.  Even though an employer is under no obligation to treat people nicely, I knew Google wasn't going to say they'd give an interview then give you the ax just because they can.  J didn't have an interview time scheduled yet (late in the week was the tentative plan) but it didn't seem right to me.  Since it was 5pm here, that meant it was 3pm there, giving his recruiter maybe enough time to get back to him on a yay or nay.

I was chasing the dog around the yard just 10 MINUTES LATER when J came out shouting, "It was a mistake! I have an interview on Monday!"  As much as I've been trying not to put all our hopes on this, we did get rather fixated.  This is a pretty big interview, but it's only the first one, so if it doesn't happen, that is not weird at all.  He should be so proud of himself for landing an interview so quickly.