I have a serious distaste for the ‘burbs. My hometown – once a small place, has turned into a bedroom community for Boston (where I now live). It disgusts me.

I suppose my somewhere else would probably be within the Middle East; although I don’t mean to imply that by being “slower” the region is any less modern, what I mean is that, generally speaking, there’s more of a sense of importance of family. I haven’t yet found a place in the U.S. that truly feels like home, most often because of the prevailing ignorance (often intentionally) of the rest of the world. Granted, there is no utopia, but I would like to find somewhere where people are like-minded (I suppose SF is the closest place in the US, but there is way too much hokey liberalism for my liking).

I so rarely feel nostalgic for specific people or events from my childhood – but I miss the northwest, by which I mean the land, the water, and the climate itself, more than I can express. I sometimes wonder what that says about me, if I’m a cold or jaded person for feeling so little sentimentality about actually being a kid and feeling more innocent.

I understand the longing for something else, though, whether it’s something you’ve already experienced, or something you just hope to experience one day. I’m still waiting to live in a place that truly feels like home, a place that I won’t want to escape from.

OK, you refer to memories, not illusions. And suburban-ness, speaking of which, have you read anything by James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency and a couple of blogs? He says that pretty soon none of us will be able to sustain suburban living anymore.