new york, chicago, los angeles, tri-coastal?

i’m fresh off of a valentine’s weekend in brooklyn with my sweetie. the dear bought my plane ticket out there and a dozen roses for my enjoyment while there. many a thing to contemplate from just the past two days. new york versus chicago versus los angeles. the merit and disadvantage of long-distance relationships. even, food in bars and economics in politics.

i think i’ll stick to the nyc vs chi-town issue. see, i’ve lived in southern california. i’ve lived in new york city. now i live in chicago. what does that make me? i was reading the gristmill blog, http://gristmill.grist.org/, and one of the comments was from someone in a similar position to me. he described himself as tri-coastal, with the definitional of ‘coast’ as being places with sand near a body of water where you can’t see the end of the water on the horizon. thus defining lake michigan as a coastal body of water.

i like to think of myself as trans-urban. able to fit in, in any major city. i can speed through la in my sporty two-door coupe, or trek along the crazy streets of nyc avoiding the even crazier tourists, or chug beer with the best of the sports fans at my local chicago bar. now i will honestly admit that i do not hold chicago as dear to my heart as new york, but it definitely beats out la for the darkest corner. but i want to further my list of cities lived in and loved to include most of the major cities in the world: dublin, paris, moscow, bombay, and many more. i just can’t get enough of the culture, people, and hustle-and-bustle of the urban environment. i end up so enthralled watching and contemplating the world around me i remain unscathed by the rudeness and oversight that occurs in masses of people.