"Dog is good, cats are good. Life is good. Don't move to Pittsburgh!"

The question on everybody's fingertips, or so I'd like to think, is when am I coming home. Someday, I know, I will leave Japan. I'm thinking maybe around November. The real problem comes with finding out exactly where home is now.

Option A: Boston

-I have friends there
-something like a network for finding a job; I'm pretty much set to start teaching high school in Boston; I just don't know if that's my future.
-Boston loves beer
Downside: I know Boston. I lived there and I love it. In other words: been there and it was really expensive.

Option B: NYC

-Center of the known universe. The heart of the creative world in which I someday hope to florish.
-Fascinating people and a flatout beautiful city. Everytime I visit it's harder to leave.

Downside: Expensive is no longer the word. I hear the new Webster includes "New York" as an adjective meaning ridiculous to even imagine affording. ex. "a New York apartment"

Option C: Pittsburgh

-Make the folks happy. They ain't getting younger, and I do miss them.
-Affordable. I could have a huge one-bedroom in a nice part of town for the price of my old Brighton share.
-I assume a good community for poets (Pitt's there after all). But I'm guessing if your not a student, you're a townie.

Downside: I'll likely want to kill myself after the first six-months of not having any luck finding a decent job and basically struggling just as much as I did in Boston, likely shelling out coffee again too. Not to mention I'll live less than an hour from my parents. An hour!

Option X: Unknown U.S. City

-Fascinating arts and music scene
-Low rents because the Matrix-esque yuppies haven't found this Eden yet.
-I'll be able to find a decent job or at least get by on my savings and have plenty of time to write and study up in the 12-story local library.

Downside: it's an unknown city, likely (if at all existent) to be found in a parallel dimension.

So that's your homework my fans in cyberspace. Tell me what the hell I should do. I want New York so bad I can taste it, but I don't want to work my ass off for $12 an hour anymore just so I can barely make rent.

Teach me oh wise friends.

Peace and Love from the Far East. Japan is still great. I've been writing and I have a poem coming out pretty soon in Word Riot. I'll keep you posted.

-Steve