So I have some, uh, personal news.
Welcome to Sex and the State, a newsletter about power. Iām a writer working on decriminalizing and destigmatizing all things sex. I synthesize empirical evidence, stories, and personal experience to interrogate existing power structures to propose new, hopefully better, ways of relating. To support my work,Ā buy a subscription,Ā follow me on OnlyFans, or just share this post!
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So I have some, uh, personal news.
Iām moving from San Francisco, where Iāve lived for the past five years, to Madison, Alabama (where I grew up) in February. Iām moving to be closer to family and save hella money so I can save up and eventually be able to afford to write books and columns full-time.
Thatās the TL;DR.
Below is a very, very long and detailed Q&A with myself about the situation.
Q: Why, tho?
A: Since college, all Iāve really wanted to do for a living is write columns and books. My whole career has been trying to get as close to that while also getting paid enough to save enough money to reduce my likelihood of being a burden on my family. Iāve burdened them enough psychically. I donāt really want to cost them more money on top. Iāve tried doing that full-time, but couldnāt earn enough to save. Iāve spent most of my career doing paid work full-time and doing the writing I care most about on the side.
But my dream is to eventually spend the majority of my productive hours writing columns (newsletters) and books.
I think the fastest, most sustainable way for me to be able to afford to do that is to keep doing my SF tech work and OF remotely and save money much more aggressively by living with family in a cheaper city.
Also, there was a guy.
SF is literally the most target-rich environment in the world for someone who likes dating educated, employed men, and after five years of trying still managed to entirely strike out trying to find a life partner. Truly iconic.
But then approximately 10 minutes into my trip home I met someone who seemed to have no fear of intimacy or commitment, was humble, and didnāt think his job was the most important thing on the planet. He was so different than the people Iām using to dating in nearly every way, and seemed like more than I ever dreamed I could find. I fell in love with him while he ranted about the plight of the Palestinians in his thick Southern drawl.
Iām not especially superstitious, but that shit seemed like a sign. āJesus,ā I said to myself, āIām listening.ā
Alas, our love burned bright and fast.
I donāt feel, and have not felt for a long time, especially optimistic about my likelihood of finding another life partner.
Iām a polyamorous sex-positive anti-racist pro-market libertarian social justice warrior sex worker.
I have an unflattering and unfortunate stereotype of southern men from my growing up in Alabama. In my mind, men in Alabama are more misogynistic, controlling, and sex-negative than the men Iāve met outside the South.
I imagine the Alabama man calling my friends who are also occasionally lovers āsimpsā and describe anyone whoād be with me as a ācuck.ā
I always said Iād perform monogamy for the right person. Iāll never be a monogamous person, in terms of my preferences and orientation towards sex and love. I do think the benefits of consensual non-monogamy outweigh the costs for me, especially in terms of personal growth, sexual fulfillment, adventure, etc.
But I understand the appeal of monogamy. I do think that, most of the time anyway, consensual non-monogamy is doing relationships on hard mode. It certainly requires more time and effort than monogamy. And men who have sex with women nearly always have a harder time finding partners than women who have sex with men. Itās generally easier for women who have sex with men to find sex partners. On top of that, there seem to be more men who are willing to overlook the fact that a woman is in a relationship than women who are willing to overlook the fact that a man is in a relationship when deciding who to have sex with. Thereās a reason that itās the woman (at least last I checked) who usually starts the conversation around opening up the relationship.
Despite being open to monogamy, itās always seemed unlikely that Iād find someone who prefers monogamy simply because itās easier. Obviously, these people exist. Hopefully most monogamous people are like this.
It always seemed like it would be hard to find someone who prefers monogamy but doesnāt shame, stigmatize, or moralize about it. Especially in the South, Iāve often found controlling behavior and scarcity mindset to be comorbid with monogamy. If you donāt want me fucking my friends, itās not my preference, but itās not a dealbreaker. But if youāre going to get upset when Iām alone with my male friends, tell my friends I love them, touch my friends non-sexually, or Goddess forbid, have male friends in the first place⦠nawl. Hell to the nawl. No one is going to tell me who I can and canāt be friends with. Thatās on page one in the Domestic Abuserās Guide to Isolating and Controlling your Significant Other.
And also, Iām pansexual. Iām not looking forward to a man telling me itās okay for me to have sex with people who donāt have penises but suddenly feel threatened by another dick in the mix.
Growing up in Alabama, I experienced Southern men feeling threatened by the idea that I might be smarter, more accomplished, or know more about anything than them. This is something I never encountered here in SF.
But growing up, men would often underestimate me and dismiss my viewpoints out of hand, regardless of whether I could support them with compelling evidence. Which is unfortunate for a lot of reasons, but especially unhelpful for me. Because thatās kind of the main thing I bring to the table. Iām a terrible cook. I have no intention of ever getting pregnant or giving birth. Not great at decorating. I may be slightly higher than average in terms of being nice, pretty, and accommodating. Iām much more hilarious than the average person, and keep my house cleaner. Iāve got a decent income, at least in Alabama.
But when it comes to my comparative advantage, the thing I can provide better than most people, itās knowing things, explaining what I know, and reasoning through tough questions. Iāve been fortunate to date many people who knew more and were better at thinking and arguing than me and it has rubbed off, at least to some extent.
I want to partner who wants to learn from me and teach me. But I fear Iām going to meet a lot of men whoād rather have a woman who can cook. And, really, who could blame them?
Talking to Maeve recently about the Alabama man situation, she brought up Thatās worth a lot of suffering. Particularly the part I wrote about living on the far ends of the bell curve:
Thereās a balance everyone has to figure out for themselves. On the one hand you have a more interesting life. You get to experience the long tails of the bell curve. You chart new territory. You get a lot of questions answered. On the other hand, you have more of a boundedness to your likely outcomes. Your potential rewards are capped, but so are your risks. You plant yourself in the fat middle, along with everyone else.
Sometimes I want to put myself in the fat middle. Sometimes I want there to be a boundedness to my experience. I want desperately for there to be a nice, solid floor to how sad, lonely, disappointed, broken, and desperate I will ever feel.
āItās lonely on the tail ends,ā she said. And it is. I feel like Iām trying hard to live in the future I want to create. I want a world in which no one feels like any kind of adult, consensual sex is morally wrong. I want a world in which love and sex feel abundant and non-rivalrous. I want a world where everyone, regardless of gender, feels like a smart, accomplished, knowledgeable partner is an incredible gift, not a threat. I want a world where I donāt need to explain that interrogating the concept of whiteness is not synonymous with hating white people. I want to live in a world where I donāt need to actively oppose racism, sexism, transphobia, whorephobia, etc. because identity-based oppression was never worth its cost and now everyone realizes that.
But that is not the world I inhabit. So Iām effectively always somewhat alienated from whatever world Iām in. And by moving to Alabama Iām about to travel even further back in time, at least in some ways.
There is a gap. And it is lonely. Iād love to meet more people who either also live in the same future with me or are curious and confident enough to seek to understand and, at the very least respect, the future I am trying to inhabit and bring about. I have these people here, and it is exceedingly painful to know Iām choosing to be separated from them.
As sorry for myself as I might feel, I also feel sad for everyone I might encounter who would allow any insecurity, superstition, fear, etc. to keep them from the chance to benefit from my information and perspective. And I hope I can do a better job going forward of not allowing any insecurity, superstition, fear, etc. to keep me from the chance to benefit from anyone elseās information and perspective.
I donāt want to let my fear of Alabamaās likely rejection of me prevent me from trying desperately to understand it. I donāt think Iām better than the people who believe differently than I do. I try to assume, until proven otherwise, that everyone has something valuable to teach me. If nothing else, I want to understand what they believe and why.
As I move to a new (old) city, I think about the mistakes Iāve made in my previous lives. I think about all the people I needlessly and unintentionally alienated. Like when I wrote a post which I thought was lightheartedly poking fun at a certain training I attended but someone later told me really offended the facilitators. Like, I didnāt want to hurt their feelings, one. And two, it was probably pretty unstrategic to piss off this particular few people. This is the kind of thing I ruminate on when I get high.
I also I think about the people Iāve insulted who Iām less concerned with having upset from an empathetic perspective. But I do wonder, what would it be like if I were the kind of person who could avoid emitting copious, unstrategic, scathing denunciations? What if I could move to a city and not piss anyone, or relatively few, powerful people off? The power, the influence, I could have. The good I could do.
Oh welliekins. My current instinctual modus operandi is to throw bombs. I seem to prefer, at least in any given moment, pissing on power to having it.
Iāve spent the last decade in close proximity to power by living in liberal enclaves. First with five years in D.C. and then five years in SF. Despite growing up staunchly conservative in Alabama, this distance, plus the rapid changes in the political, economic, and social landscape, leave me feeling completely baffled by modern conservatism. When I read the news and talk to my family about politics, I donāt recognize much there.
I think a reasonably good understanding of the past and present is helpful when trying to bring about a better future. And I donāt really feel like I have that right now. So Iām really looking forward to speaking with people and absorbing a culture which has becoming increasingly foreign to me. I hope I can replace stereotypes with a fuller, more nuanced understanding. I hope I can get better at shutting up long enough to hear something useful.
Q: Why not stay in SF and hustle harder?
Bitch, Iām tired. Iāve been working at least three jobs and volunteering for the past year and a half. I havenāt had just one job since I launched the Anarcho-capitalism blog in 2009. Even then, I was doing SEO consulting on the side while working a 9-5.
I have chronic health conditions and Iām rapidly approaching middle age. I simply do not have the hustle to make up the difference between the cost of living in Americaās most expensive city and Madison, Alabama. (Which happens to be the most expensive place to live in Alabama. What can I say? I have expensive tastes.)
Q: Okay, fair enough. So why not try to ramp up your Substack earnings or do a Patreon or find donors or sponsors for your lifeās work?
A. I recently got a beautiful message by a wonderful Christian man Iāve known for almost a decade. Heās selflessly helped me tremendously at different points in my career. Once, he didnāt hire me because I couldnāt do that job and keep doing my own writing, which he believed in. Even my boss who didnāt renew my contract at Reason told me, in so many words, that it was clear from my writing that I really needed to be writing full-time, not doing marketing for other peopleās ideas and writing my stuff on the side. They were absolutely right. My next four jobs were all writing full-time.
This kind, Christian man offered to connect me with some grant money so I wouldnāt have to make porn to save money.
He didnāt do the typical Christian thing of telling me Iām sinning or degrading myself or anything judgmental or condemning. He didnāt threaten me with hellfire or accuse me of ruining marriages.
Thatās some real Jesus shit right there.
The reason I didnāt take him up on his very kind offer, and the reason Iām not starting a non-profit, working at a think tank, recruiting donors, asking for grant money, or even trying to make a go of it with my Substack full-time is simple.
I donāt think Iām special. Okay, thatās not true. Iām hella special. Literally everyone who gets to know me at all makes a point of how unusual I am.
What I mean is, money is a tool of power. Depending on anyone for my income means being influenced in more and less subtle ways by their preferences.
For my paid work, Iām okay with that. Iāll write marketing copy to serve the interests of a company as long as itās ethical.
But when it come to the work that gives my life purpose and meaning, I want to insulate it as much as possible from external pressures.
I want to avoid having my number of newsletter subscribers determine whether I can make rent. Without a strong safety net, I donāt trust myself to be immune to the incentive to write more and more inflammatory newsletters and be (even more) divisive on Twitter to pump up my earnings. I donāt want to be funded by power while trying desperately to thread the needle of undermining unjust power structures without totally pissing off my funders.
Iāve seen people with way more money and power get pulled into these cycles and I think itās suboptimal for them and suboptimal for humanity.
Maybe itās my perfectionism or my all-or-nothing tendencies. Iāve never been good at half-assing. But when I write about the shit I care about, I want to write exactly what I want to write without having to worry about how it might impact my ability to eat.
Iām moving to Alabama to create the UBI for myself that I think everyone should have.
Thereās a good amount of self-importance at play. I think that what I have to say matters. I think matters too much for me water it down for donors or outrage it up for social media. If it doesnāt end up mattering that much to anyone else, thatās okay. It matters that much to me.
Q: Are you going to miss SF?
A: Oh my God you have no idea.
San Francisco has been an amazing place to live. In so many ways.
My friend J was over recently and told me how proud he was of me for diving deep into the Bay Area poly/kinky/queer scene and coming out as a sex worker.
As he was talking, it occured to me that I probably never would have come out as a former sex worker, and then as an active sex worker, anywhere else.
Between the ADHD and the cannabis, I usually canāt remember shit. But I vividly remember the day I wrote about having been a sugar baby in D.C. for Maggie McNeillās blog. My boyfriend at the time had been helping me weigh the pros and cons of coming out for days, if not weeks, because I was so nervous. I can still see the inside of the hipster coffee shop. Sitting on that bench, while the boyfriend worked on startup shit, I hit send.
I waited patiently for the fallout that never came. My family already knew at this point, and I guess everyone else was like, āChecks out.ā
Living in San Francisco ā with a leather district, a trans district, a yearly street fair devoted to the gay leather scene, a sex-positive Democratic Club (which Iām a board member of), multiple sex-worker outreach and advocacy groups, multiple non-monogamous party groups, at least one monthly poly happy hour, a Dominants in Discussion group, a state Senator whoās actively working to decriminalize sex work statewide, and a DA who I got to go on record saying he wonāt prosecute adult, consensual sex workers for doing their jobs ā my past and present sex work has never for a second, at least that Iām aware of, been a problem for me. I donāt know of any jobs or friends I wanted it stopped me from getting. No oneās even been mean to me about it to my face.
No one seems to care. Thatās the beautiful thing about San Francisco. You like to wear a tail to work because you identify as a furry? As long as the code compiles, you do you. Want to walk around Folsom street naked except for a cock ring? Donāt forget the sunscreen. Want to get your ass eaten in front of a roomful of people? As long as the host specified that this is a play-friendly party on the invite, bend over baby. You can buy drugs of any kind from a hot Dominatrix on any given Tuesday. Her markup is insane, but she tests her drugs, lives a few blocks away, and has never sexually harassed you. Unfortunately.
(I donāt know what it says about me that Iāve never been sexually propositioned at work but I have been sexually harassed by several drug dealers. But, I digress.)
San Francisco is breathtakingly beautiful. From the redwoods to the PCH, California is truly stunning. The weather in SF is always a bit too cold and windy, but itās mostly the same amount of too cold and windy. In my apartment, bright sunlight streams through my windows and gorgeous sunsets peek over and through the tops of nearby buildings nearly every day of the year.
There are certainly things about SF that I will not miss. No place is perfect.
If you say you want San Francisco to build more housing or that perhaps taxes and regulations arenāt always the most efficient way to build a better society, SF is going to have a lot less tolerance for you.
The reason I moved to SF, besides wanting to start a life with the guy I moved here to be with (weāre great friends now), is that living in SF is living in the future. Besides all the social stuff, itās where new technology is invented, and tested on us first. Itās the place, more than anywhere else, where smart, ambitious people who want to change the course of history come to make their dreams reality.
And itās a place where smart, ambitious people who werenāt born on third base and donāt end up winning the lottery in terms of employment have to leave because they canāt afford to stay here.
Itās a place of extremes. Extreme acceptance, beauty, wealth but also extreme exclusion, ugliness, and poverty.
Everything good and bad about SF is coming to every growing American city, eventually. Even if you donāt personally care about cities or about San Francisco, youād be smart to learn from our mistakes before your city repeats them.
The most frustrating thing about San Francisco is that it already produces more economic growth for the entire United States than any other city. And it still only produces a small fraction of what it could.
It could be a place where any smart, ambitious person from any part of the world could come, and even bring their extended families with them, and produce untold innovation and shared prosperity for not just this country, but the world. And it could simultaneously ensure that no one whoās born here would have to leave if they donāt want to.
San Francisco is a fundamentally forward-looking city of 70% renters and many, many newcomers. Yet our political leadership is completely captured by an incumbent class who were lucky enough to buy land before prices got insane who are hell-bent on encasing their suburbs in amber in order to maintain racial and economic segregation, protect their home values, and violently enforce their aesthetic preferences.
San Francisco could be a place that shows the world what āharm reductionā actually looks like in practice. But instead we have, what looks to the outside world, like their worst nightmares when it comes to decriminalizing drugs and avoiding a police state and mass incarceration. Every drug except for cannabis is still illegal in San Francisco. Which is why we had 600+ overdose deaths last year. If we actually decriminalized all drugs, like in Portugal, that number would drop to nearly zero. But we choose not to do that.
We have a police force that will steal homeless peopleās belongings, including their ID, medications, and mobility devices, but will only bother to investigate 8% of reported crimes.
Despite what Fox News might claim, this is not an easy place to be homeless. Weāve had a 1,000-long wait for a shelter bed the entire time Iāve lived here. Our mental illness and addiction services are chronically understaffed. And our lack of services and affordable housing makes it one of the hardest places in the country to get back on your feet if you lose your housing. The vast majority of SFās homeless population was either born here or had housing when they moved here. When you look at the number-one cause of homelessness nationwide, itās the high (and rising) cost of housing.
The housed people of San Francisco have chosen to allow our neighbors to self-destruct on the streets because the desensitizing effects of allowing an appalling problem to continue for decades has erased the political will to fight the NIMBYism, bureaucratic inertia, preferences for economic and ethnic segregation, and social services industrial complex to actually implement effective solutions.
None of these problems result from āprogressiveā policies. All of these problems directly result from fundamentally conservative legislative choices such as criminalizing homelessness, opposing new shelters, single family zoning, discretionary review, the war on drugs, banning safe consumption sites, and refusing to adequately fund social services.
Our leaders point to the fact that theyāre spending millions of dollars on ineffective, bureaucratic, entrenched non-profits, task forces, etc, to say theyāre solving the problem. Meanwhile, they refuse to implement actually progressive solutions other countries and cities have found effective, like navigation centers, mental health and addiction treatment, safe injection sites, conservatorship, and legalizing affordable fucking housing.
Q: Are you long on San Francisco?
A: I donāt know. I still think thereās tremendous benefit to having smart, ambitious people working on similar problems in close physical proximity to each other. You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time around. The people Iāve met here have been some of the most interesting, world-changing, smartest, most ambitious people Iāve ever met. And just being around them has made me a better person.
I still love cities and believe dense, walkable, mixed use development is better for the economy, human happiness, public health, and the environment. Long commutes are empirically shown to be terrible for every aspect of life. They make us less happy, less healthy, less productive, more lonely and isolated, and even more likely to divorce.
But because SF has refused to build housing, most people are already faced with long commutes to work here. And with the widespread adoption of remote work, the policies SF continues to implement, and other cities starting to earnestly vie for tech hub status, the massive advantage SF had on other cities may be starting to erode.
Thereās definitely hope for SF. California keeps passing pro-housing bills.
One of the biggest problems facing San Francisco is that local politics is one of the lowest-ROI things a smart individual whoās trying to do good in the world could engage in here. There are so many high-impact things to work on here. Meanwhile, the barrier to even understanding the local politics is extremely high, due to our byzantine, arcane, insider political system and dismally underfunded local reporting apparatus. And forget running for office. Public servants earn far, far less than people with the same skills in the private sector.
But here again, thereās hope. While an individual working alone will see little ROI to trying to fix SF, an organized group of people can and will make a difference with much less effort. Iāve personally YIMBY-pilled at least two high-net-worth individuals. And one of them is starting a project to organize tech workers to influence SF politics.
I want SF to succeed.
I want more people to move from the suburbs and rural areas to high-opportunity cities. (Do as I say, not as I do.) (Although, technically Huntsville is a high-growth city with a decent amount of economic opportunity, especially if you donāt mind working for the military industrial complex.) (I do.)
I donāt want anyone to read this as, āFox News is right, San Francisco is a shithole.ā Theyāre not. It isnāt. Itās a gorgeous, dynamic, fascinating, mostly forward-looking city full of many incredible people and history. I believe, if anything, SF will see a resurgence after a devastating pandemic. Anyone who lives there is incredibly lucky to be able to do so. But will be it what it was, especially economically, after the widespread adoption of remote work? That remains to be seen and will depend in large part on policy choices.
Q: What are you going to do in Madison?
A: Iām going to continue working remotely for SF companies and keep doing this newsletter and my OF. Iām not going to buy a car, but I will probably need to renew my drivers license. Pray for me and everyone else on the road.
Iām going to visit SF all the time because Iāll miss the fuck out of everyone and the parties are unparalleled. The rent difference alone is such that I could fly there twice per month and still save money. I wonāt, because a bitch is tired. But I could.
Iām going to see my family more than once per year for the first time since I left Alabama and more than once a quarter for the first time since high school. Iām going to actually get to know my nieces and nephews. Iām going to be there for my sisters and be closer to my mom and help my dad raise chickens on the weekends. Iām going to sit with him in his shop while he builds guns like I did growing up. Might even fuck around and let someone drive me to church one Sunday. Who knows. New (old) state, new me. Letās hope I do not immediately burst into flames. Or, hope that I do, depending on how you feel about me.
I may fail. The economy may go to shit (looking likely) or I may have a huge, unexpected illness or other expense or I may get super lonely and depressed in Alabama. Who knows? But I think itās worth a shot. If nothing else, I wonāt have to do that thing Iād do during every visit home where Iād wonder what it might be like if I could spend time with my parents while theyāre still around and spend time with my nieces and nephews while theyāre still growing up.
Knowing me, Iām probably going to raise a modicum of hell while Iām there. Will Madison get its first YIMBY group or poly happy hour or SWOP chapter? Only time will tell.
Iām going to miss the shit out of SF. Iāve made so many forever friends here, and it will suck balls to not be able to just text them to get a drink or take a walk. Iāll miss being able to go to some fascinating talk or event on any night of the week. Iāll miss the crazy festivals and the drug and sex filled weekends in the woods and walking everywhere and being the dumbest, poorest, least accomplished person in the room at all times. Iāll miss transit and good Asian food and amazing produce and billboards about NFTs. Iāll miss the hills and the amazing ass they gave me. Iāll miss great sex with brilliant, consent-trained Shamans on demand and holding space and creating a container and people talking earnestly about astrology. Iāll miss seeing anti-racist window signs and women everywhere in combat boots with crazy hair colors. Iāll miss ACAB graffiti and illegal murals.
But most of all, Iāll miss the woman I was when I lived here. When I look back on Alabama me or D.C. me, itās hard for me to love her uncomplicatedly. Thereās so much regret over the ways I treated people when I believed differently than I do now.
But SF was where I started, for the first time, trying to start to really love myself. I wasnāt trying to approve of everything I do or think Iām better than I really am. I started trying to love myself like I do a friend. I started trying to acknowledge the bad, but focus on and celebrate the good. I started to give myself a break sometimes. I began to try to look deep into myself, at the core, and believe itās fundamentally good.
When I started therapy, I told him I didnāt want to be like one of these California blissed out hippies whoās all peace and love and acceptance and sophistry. I wanted to continue fighting, continue striving, continue trying to make a difference. SF helped me more fully let go of the idea that people are fundamentally bad and need to be goaded into being good.
And I have continued fighting. I am continuing the fight.
I like who I am here. And I know Iāll be a different person there. Because every place puts its mark on you. But I donāt think Iāll be a worse person. I think Iāll be a broader person. I think itās going to be a challenge to go back and confront the attitudes, predilections, and prejudices that I was grateful to escape. Itāll be a challenge to confront my PTSD over religion and college football (but I repeat myself).
Iām also excited about the prospect of re-entering a world thatās changed so dramatically that I donāt recognize it when I read about it on the news. Iāve spent the last decade in a walkable, dense, coastal elite bubble. I think it will be good for me to live life differently, at least for a while.
I never in a million years thought Iād be excited about moving back to Alabama. In my mind, it was always the place I had to reluctantly crawl back to if I failed out of living in a big city. (This safety net is a tremendous privilege Iām extremely grateful to have always had.)
But I am excited to move back to Alabama. Iām not under any duress, thank God. I could afford to stay here in SF and still save money. Thanks to OF Iāve been able to save pretty aggressively while Iām here. But I canāt save as aggressively while living here. Besides rent, basically every part of maintaining my existence is more expensive in SF than in Alabama.
If I were simply trying to save somewhat aggressively, I could do it here and I would do it here. The quality of life difference, generally but also especially in terms of the things I particularly value, would be more than worth it. But Iām trying to put the pedal to the metal (oh no Iām already using car analogies) to an extent thatās only really feasible in Madison or at least a cheaper city.
Iām absolutely in no way choosing a car-bound southern suburb in a deeply red state because I think thatās a better way to live. I am still deeply, wildly in love with cities and want everyone to live in dense, walkable communities with cosmopolitan people who are concerned with the fate of the world beyond their single-family home. This is a tradeoff Iām hoping will result in my ability to do far more for the world than I could have if Iād had to work longer to get there.
And even if it this plan totally fails, I donāt think Iāll regret a thing because I believe itās an experiment thatās worth running. Plus, itās a mistake thatās pretty easy to correct. I can always move back to SF.
So, please visit me in Alabama. Iāll treat you to some amazing BBQ. And wish me luck. And, for real, pray for Huntsvilleās poor other drivers.
Good luck on this new adventure. I'm both sad that you felt you needed to leave a place you obviously love, but happy that you will be able to live a more comfortable life -albeit with less access to the comforts of California.
Welcome back to Alabama! I think you'll find there are some pockets of progressivism and sex positivity here.
Plus, where best to fight conservative policies than in the belly of the beast? This state will never get any better if all our best and brightest don't stay and fight for a better future.