Middle America Blues

Sometimes the Middle American-ness of Middle America gets me down. That could partly be because I live in Appleton, Wisconsin, which is practically an epicenter of that Middle American quality. It's a nice, affordable city in the nice, affordable Northeast Wisconsin region, but there are times I feel out of whack with my surroundings -- single in the land of the coupled, childless in the land of the prolific (really, four kids around here is nothing), intellectual in the land of...well, the non-intellectual, gay in the land of the straight, summer-lover in the land of long winters, etc. (Of course, I'm largely out of whack with my era, too, and I know that.)

All that said, I've lived all over the United States, and I don't know of a better place to live in America: the bigger cities have certainly priced themselves out of my market. I rather think my next move is going to take me away from the United States, permanently, to spend the second half of my life elsewhere. Puerto Vallarta, perhaps? (a city I just love). I turn 50 in August and I'm thinking about such things.

UPDATE (5/1/2009): I have started within the past year to feel badly bored by Northeast Wisconsin. That doesn't mean it's the worst place I've lived or that I couldn't continue to live here, but since I'm between jobs at the moment (long, economy-based story), I'm concentrating on the sun belt (Texas, Florida, North Carolina) in my current high school teaching job search. That's where all the teaching jobs are these days, anyway; Midwest schools are laying teachers off in large numbers.