So, like, BASICALLY

[Jasper]

I'm moving to Seattle after my transfer degree finishes up in June.

Until I get into a 4 year in the bay. 

That is all.  Move along, netizen.

[East Coast Hustle]

I'm jealous.

PDX is a great city, but it's no Seattle.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It doesn't even smell like pee and dead clams.

[East Coast Hustle]

You've been hanging out in the wrong part of town. There are entire neighborhoods of Seattle that smell like nothing BUT pee, though it's usually the leftover methlab chemicals rather than actual urine.

Unless you're in Belltown on a saturday night, then it's definitely actual urine.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh, I was talking about PDX. Seattle ALWAYS smells like pee and dead clams, except the neighborhoods where it's overwhelmed by bum vomit.

[East Coast Hustle]

I know.

Now I'm feeling all wistful and nostalgic.

[East Coast Hustle]

Seriously though, I was tripping my face off yesterday walking around through our lovely neighborhood, and feeling like something was wrong.

Then it hit me.

This place is just too nice and civil and clean. There's no pervasive aesthetic of dystopian futurism laying like a heavy wool cloak over everything. It doesn't look ANYTHING like Blade Runner.

For fuck's sake, Nigel, there are FARMS here. And you can eat the food that comes from them.

I notice that after I've been home for more than a couple months at a time, my brain starts to feel itchy.

I've spent my entire life living in places that were either comically violent, cruelly isolated (both culturally and geographically), brutally cold, suffering from a sever en masse psychological disconnect between people and landscape, or all of the above. The suspicious lack of those things here puts me on edge.

[Jasper]

Having grown up in Seattle, I'm definitely there.  I need to be back among my kind.

And Seattle has May and Paseo.  End of deliberation, for me. 

[East Coast Hustle]

also:

MUCH better live music
Permanent year-round farmers market that kicks the crap out of the PSU Saturday Market
People from Lynnwood and FedWay to make fun of
Whidbey and the San Juans
Alki Beach in the summer
Actual ethnic minorities in greater than token amounts
Slightly less likely to be shot by a cop
Better beer (yeah, I said it.)
A skyline

[Jasper]

I think it's just that I kind of need a big city feeling.  Farms and small towns never did it for me.  The downtown here is annoying to drive in like a proper downtown, but it's not overwhelming and dirty and crazy like a proper downtown.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Seriously though, I was tripping my face off yesterday walking around through our lovely neighborhood, and feeling like something was wrong.

Then it hit me.

This place is just too nice and civil and clean. There's no pervasive aesthetic of dystopian futurism laying like a heavy wool cloak over everything. It doesn't look ANYTHING like Blade Runner.

For fuck's sake, Nigel, there are FARMS here. And you can eat the food that comes from them.

I notice that after I've been home for more than a couple months at a time, my brain starts to feel itchy.

I've spent my entire life living in places that were either comically violent, cruelly isolated (both culturally and geographically), brutally cold, suffering from a sever en masse psychological disconnect between people and landscape, or all of the above. The suspicious lack of those things here puts me on edge.

That's how they get you. It's insidious.

[East Coast Hustle]

I think it's just that I kind of need a big city feeling.  Farms and small towns never did it for me.  The downtown here is annoying to drive in like a proper downtown, but it's not overwhelming and dirty and crazy like a proper downtown.

What I said, distilled. And I just know that whenever I inevitably end up living up there again, all the people I run into that I used to know will go "Oooooh, Portland?! Is it true they're just like we were in 1993? Oh, that must have been just darling!"

And I will laugh, but I will also encourage them to come down here on weekends and spend their money. Call it nostalgia tourism.