Moving to MPLS

what I’ll miss about San Jose

[I’ve been prompted to get started on the posts that have been waiting for me to write them down. Thanks, prompters.]

Most of this blog has been about what’s so great about Minneapolis, and it really is great. But back in September, I sent myself a short list of things I planned to miss about San Jose. Annotated, here they are:

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packing

This morning I decided I’m not worried about getting packed: Worst case, in our last week, we just dump everything we might want into boxes, and everything else into Goodwill, etc. But it’d be better to have actually decided what we want to keep, and better to have found good homes for what we don’t.

I also decided that although I’m not worried about getting packed, I’ll feel better as more of our stuff finds its way to boxes, and off the walls, floor, shelves… basically the less our stuff looks like it looks when we live with it, the happier I’ll be. I’m looking forward to living with it someplace new, though!

so many neighborhoods!

A long time ago I wrote a post about what neighborhood we should move to. Our main ideas were and are Uptown-ish and the Northeast Arts District, but there are so many great places! SO MANY! I realized today that we could live within two blocks of the new Peace Coffee Cafe, the Hub Bike Co-op, the Trylon microcinema/XYandZ Gallery, Patrick’s Cabaret, and the East Lake Library. Just a little farther to the Midtown Greenway and the light rail. Longfellow!

Assuming there’s an apartment building with an available unit we can afford right in the middle of all that, of course. Small matters of reality do not interest me.

I spent some time stewing over what neighborhood is best (I developed a theory that Uptown would be a great place to consume, and Northeast would be a great place to produce, and to make a choice would require deciding once and for all what I truly value) and then suddenly, like a fever breaking, realized that we had an incredible array of good options, and all I really had to do was wait and see what’s available when I get there, and be happy with whatever neighborhood we end up in.

Moving to MPLS

I had this idea as we were talking about our planned move to Minneapolis that we could start a blog where we documented the process - for our friends and family, or anyone who was interested, but also for us. A place to write down how we were going to do it, and why.

So far it’s really been all about the why (Minneapolis is awesome! and we like Saint Paul too!), and not about the how. But we’re still moving! And things have been pretty thin here for a while. So from now on I’m going to try to post less MPLS, and more moving.

Starting with a date, of a sort: The plan is for me to hit town by Thanksgiving, enjoy a nice family holiday, and then start looking in earnest for a place to live while Kate finishes stuff up in San Jose. There. It’s a theory. Now to decide how I’m getting there.

Minneapolis had not one but three art fairs (featuring somewhere over 500 artists) this weekend, with a free shuttle between them. Minneapolis is obviously a great town for artists, or will be once they’ve solved that whole law of physics about being two (or more) places at the same time.

Bonus weekend art: Lutefisk Sushi mini-comics publication and gallery show, and St. Paul’s monthly Lowertown First Friday. And this is just visual art - never mind the performing arts.