So I have been officially back in this town for 2 whole days... and all I can say isthat I am reminded once again of why I left this town. Yes, I love my family and friendsthat I have here, but there is so much more out there... To give you more context,Burlington, IA is a black hole. It's big enough for an Iowa city... it has some dirt barshere and there and some psuedo-opportunities for people to make a living. But it stopsshort on motivation and forward motion. People get stuck in Burlington, settling andcomprimising their lives for this dying town. It's almost pathetic. They get drawn in ,constantly telling themselves that Burlington “is good enough for me.†Theybask in the opportunity to make fun of others or judge others who do different things...or they create drama on their own and drown themselves in telling other people.. it givesthem a fake notion of worth. “Mr. X stepped down from the board, got caught up inheavy drugs... “ or “Girl Y is pregnant again... this is the 3rdfather..†or “Did you hear Z about A?†... It's just too much to handlesometimes, and then I reflect on why I left and whether I'm being mean or not open mindedenough to actually think people can live like this, but then I realize at how closedminded the people are here. You know... Im sorry.. Im sorry that I started this blog postin this direction... It bugs me everytime and now that my life is in Chanhassen... I canreflect. I just want to pick my family up, and move them somewhere else. They dont wantto move, they have been snagged by the black hole, but I think they would do betterelsewhere...
onto what has happened so far...
I got into Burlington on Saturday... sat next to this very attractive liberal hippiefrom NY who was at a Cognative Psychology conference in Minneapolis.. Her name wasBridget.. a 26 year old vegetarian who goes to school ... crap I cant remember.. she wasreading the Time Machine.. facinating talk because we both talked about artificialintelligence.. her being a cognative scientist definitely helped with the intellectualconversation...
Then Leah (my sisters friend) , my sister, and I went bar hopping to all the dirt barshere in Burlington.. Schooners, Roeders, Whitey's, and then Sam's till 3:30 am or so..saw a few people that I knew (thankfully it wasnt more than a few)... Sunday.. ate somebreakfast, chilled.. went over to Dad's... saw my other little girl (mut).. and relaxed..watched Elf (btw, fucking hilarious).. Today.. ate at a mexican join.. went downtown tocatch up with Cynthia and Lonnie... saw her shop, she's doing well and Lonnie's movie iscoming along nicely! He has a good thing going for him (rare for Burlington).. I can'twait to get my autographed DVD of the Movie...
For now that shall be good enough.. only one more day till I get to tear up the townwith Jacks... When we come home, we like to dress up and pretend we're in a big city..its awesome going out and getting looks.. having something of such beauty on my arm :)w00t!