You gotta accept it.  Sometimes you wanna go, but you really have to stay, and even though the fairness in that is pretty skewed, just swallow hard and take the blows.

The Dalles is a provincial, slow moving town.  There are times I would give anything to be living in Japan or Hawaii again if it meant not longer living in this conservative backwater.  Of course, we chose to buy a home here, because well, this is the Columbia Gorge, and of all the beautiful scenic places in the world, this is pretty nice.  We figured we'd just make our own scene, like so many other scenes made before.  And probably WE won't have to do very much to make anything happen.  Seems like gradually good stuff is happening, anyway.  Ultimately it will be the wine industry (or even the cider industry) that will save this place from its own demise.  As much as the old timers try to kill this town, it will rise up by the power of invention, and there is nothing those folks can do about it.

But before realizing things would get better, I built up all these projections into moving from here... this 100 degree dirt and sage summer... and well now, that is just gone.  I can live with it.  It always comes down to money, and I totally hate it, but I can live with it.  Being forced to embrace it, you tell yourself to look to some silver lining... to see something unseen but wonderful... and somehow a transcendence will take place.  There are times I recognize the value of what I have.  A natural malcontent, I relinquish my surliness.  I'm not suffering in so many ways others do, and for that, I am extremely grateful.  That doesn't discount how amazing it would have been to live on the Oregon Coast.  I'll cry about it plenty when I'm not so dehydrated.

If you can't walk the beaches of Oregon, you find substitute pleasures.  First choice beach, second choice whatever else you can tolerate.  Nothing beats the first choice or ever will.  I do walk along the Columbia River.  I play God with the nature of my backyard.  I go to the gym and torture myself so I can live forever.  I read about all the things I can't do.  I escape into Alex Chilton melodies and Rolling Stones guitar hooks.  I think about what I want to write and occasionally write about it.

Hey, did you ever pick up momentum, like the world is so perfectly laid out in front of you, only to have one incident nearly destroy it?  Oh god today, I was almost there.  But you know, I REFUSE to let that one incident deter me.  There is nothing worse than letting some asshat get to you, crawl up under your good vibes and send your emotions all to hell.  One little fly on the lip of your glass... you have to just brush it away and get on with the drinking.  My life is too short to answer the question, "So how long do you want to live?"