Trying on other people's lives, or ...

... back home in Wisconsin again. Yesterday while Dave was riding home too fast, we were traveling back to Wisconsin by plane, and car, probably a little too slow - at least the half hour on the runway in the Twins. While we were in Seattle, I spent a good bit of time musing what it would be like to live there. I think I always do this when I travel - grass is always greener and all that - I live in a little city, college town, and always get wistful when I go to a bigger city, looking at all the different kinds of people there, compared to being among all the college kids here.

We also were hanging out with my brother's friends, many of whom do not have exactly 9:00 - 5:00 jobs; many are artists and writers and entrepreneurs. Of course I don't have a 9:00 - 5:00 job either; - even though I am just a peon at a university, it's still academe - not really the corporate world by a long shot. And I'm not overworked and underemployed at a fast food joint or WalMart, merely a little fed up with the library profession as a whole, and my School in particular. But I also spent a good bit of time musing about having a different life, not just in a different place.

I started off thinking about how much cash I might have in hand if I sold both my Madison houses - not quite enough for a fresh start in Seattle ... but maybe. By the time we got to waiting by the baggage carousel in Milwaukee, I was thinking that after all, my current master plan is to keep doing what I'm doing for another 6 years (socking a big hunk of my university salary into my own TIAA-CREF, while I still have my inherited-from-my-parents TIAA-CREF coming in) and getting my kids through college - so I guess I still have plenty of time to muse.

While Mark & Ethan & I were breakfasting on Bainbridge Island, I mentioned that the diner we were in, eating off Fiestaware, was the only kind of restaurant that I'd like to have - and also mentioned an old gas station sized space for lease in Madison, on a main drag into town, on the walking route for staff to the big university hospital, that'd be perfect for a diner.

Winter's back in Wisconsin - it's 24 & snow flurries today, but I walked by the place this a.m. The for lease sign is down, just lots of "no parking anytime" notices and the remnants of homemade barricades - cement blocks and that orange plastic fence blocking the driveways - so someone else must have plans for it. More reasons to keep musing.