Lately, whenever I travel to Minneapolis, I think about living there. But I don't think about living there now. I think about what life would have been like if I had lived there 10 or 15 years ago.

Mostly I'm struck by how easy it would have been to temporarily move back then. These days, moving is a major event involving trucks and boxes and grudgingly willing friends, not to mention several days of packing and several weeks of unpacking. Days off from work. Painting. Cleaning. Trying and failing to pare down years of accumulated stuff. Assessing what is needed and what is not.

When I was 20, moving would have involved a large backpack and a bus ticket. With no job of any importance and no bills to speak of, I could easily have moved away for the summer, or taken a year off of school a bummed around for awhile. My standard of living was nonexistent, but I didn't realize that at the time.

In my imagination, I would have worked at a restaurant or a record store and I would have had a zine. I liked the idea of zines, which I suppose is one of the reasons why I ended up with this website, but I never actually read a zine that I liked (back then), and I didn't see Duluth as a town that was friendly to zine distribution (back then).

Today I think of moving to Minneapolis in the same way I think about having a zine in 2007 -- a lot of hassle and expense for not much payoff. A cool idea at first until you realize that Duluth and the internet are better suited to your personality.

And the reason I never moved to the Cities when it was convenient was that I did like my life back then, which was full of great things that helped to make me who I am today. It's fun to think about alternate paths your life might have taken, but if you could actually change your past, you might turn yourself into an asshole in the present.

But there's no harm in daydreaming.