get the hell out of Ohio

... i’m leaving … FOR GOOD!

that title is is everything i feel about my screwed up home state. i love it for the easy close at hand access to both the city and non-city areas. i love that going to the West Side feels like going to some far off land in only 20 minutes. i love the underground diy we’re-all-in-this-together feeling. i love that we’re still not co-opted by big business because we suck. i love that we suck and embrace it and proudly proclaim it. but…

i hate it here because some folks can’t see the freedom of suckiness. they throw away money on making my home a ‘destination’. they build giant useless stadiums and convention centers while police, fire, and sanitation depts can’t get proper funding. they don’t build facilities to clean the raw sewage going into the lake, our source of drinking water. they toss city and county contracts to their buddies rather than the best people for the job. they pass arbitrary or unenforceable bans to look good for others. this state’s leaders are the kid in school who tries desperately to be liked by the cool kids, only to be made fun of for trying too hard.

ohio has a perfectly lovely arts and culture segment of the population. but it’s not the kind of arts and culture those in power want representing our state. as a part of this a&c segment i have decided to pull up stakes and settle where my way of living is acceptable. where my art is acceptable. where I am acceptable. where i’m not treated like the crazy aunt the relatives shove in the attic so noone can know their shame. my little neighborhood used to be this place. now developers have bought most of the area and are charging outrageous rents to the tiny mom’n’pop businesses. most them have folded, their spaces taken over by chains who replicate each other and saturate the market. in a three block area that had 3 totally different restaurants, there are now somewhere around 15 food places all following the ‘sports bar’ theme. now drunk frat boys lunge around, harrassing the old folks who live in the 55+ building and getting into fistfights over the now inadequate parking. this was a walking neighborhood where wierd hippie families wandered and punks sneered at the ‘tourists’ and the uncool kids gathered because this was the place they found they could ‘belong’.

mostly i’m mad that my slice of heaven is being turned into a prefab-in-the-bad-way cookie cutter shopping/drinking extravaganza for the very people who drove me here. it feels like an attack.

I’ve had family in Ohio all my life - still do - but when I moved there for college…

I learned that I can live anywhere. Big city. Suburbia. Small Towns. And while there’s a lot to be said about raising your kids in a small town these days, I still couldn’t wait for my sentence to be up and the degree to be bestowed so I could split Ohio for a place that made more sense.

Well, grew up in a small west central town. My mom still lives there and I will only go back to visit. I miss Columbus a little bit but couldn’t be happier living near the Ocean. Midwest living is not for me.

I couldn’t wait, either-left for Minnesota, lived in Indianapolis, but actually missed Columbus, much to my surprise. Came back due to career move-fate?

I moved to Chicago

its worth it to get out a little and see the world. i warn u though, go to california and people complain about it being cool outside like their freezing