There is lightning in my head.

(c) sam brown, exploding dog.

I want you to know that I know this is foolish.  (Disclaimer)

Maybe it's the difficulty of finding a job, or maybe it's seeing my bank account slowly deplete.  Maybe it's the frustration I feel in a city where even printing 2 goddamn pages of a tax form becomes a day-ruining issue.  Maybe it's the temporary lives I've been leading, and all of the above.

For the last week, I have been thinking about March, and July, and a year from right now.  In March, I will go back to PA, with a month or two to figure out a next move, waiting for spring in my sister's old bedroom in my parents' house---a repeat of last summer.  But from there, I don't know.  I will come back to the States more or less broke, depending on whether I can sell a blog article or tutor a kid at USC on his freshman comp essays while I'm here in BsAs.  If I can't, I will be much, much more broke. 

Options: 

1. Live at my parents' house for 4-6 months and work the airport coffeeshop job like last summer, basically having gotten nowhere and biding more time, leading another temporary life, until I have enough cash saved to move west, to Denver, Seattle, or Portland.  (Portland being the biggest draw, with a number of MFA friends already there, and others considering emigrating.)
2. Move into a Pitt sublet for the summer & look for a job in the city, hopefully one I could walk or bike to.  Live a more interesting urban life but save pretty much zero (0) cash for a future move.  This would also amount to another temporary life, another waiting-for-the-next-thing.
3. Stay in Pittsburgh.  Get a job there, a yearlong lease.  Adopt a dog.  Give up on moving any time soon.

Living in Buenos Aires, where everything is fleeting and all of my possessions fit into 2 suitcases, has made me want to slow down, to hold onto something for once.  The original plan was to stay here indefinitely, more likely a year or two.  To chill out & make a semi-permanent life.  I still want the semi-permanence but not here.  Before I even saw it, I'd fantasized about living in Oregon, and Portland is one of my top 5 U.S. cities.  Powell's, the most microbreweries per capita, a thriving arts and music scene.  A core of MFA writers from Eastern are there, with some in nearby Seattle and my running crew in Spokane not far away either.  A move to Portland would not mean starting from scratch.  At 25, with a graduate degree but no career prospects, nothing long-term in my life but my by-email friendships and skypeable family, I don't want to start over anymore.  At least not for a few years. 

Portland, though, means living temporarily again in PA.  It means nearly a year of having bummed around, either in Pittsburgh or Buenos Aires, with not much to show for it.  I am slighting my BsAs experience here, and that's foolish, and tomorrow I may not feel the same way, but right now living abroad just feels like killing time.  Pittsburgh holds as many friends as Portland does, probably more.  It's cheaper to live in, and it still holds surprises for me, even though I lived in or outside the city for 23 years.  My family is there, for help or encouragement or just being family-ish.  And they have a pool.  But Pittsburgh will always be my home city, a place I can come back to any time.  This opportunity in Portland, a group of friends concentrated in one awesome non-Pittsburgh city, might never happen again. 

It's too early for decisions.  Jobless and putting off writing, I have too much time to think.  Thinking has turned to brooding. What a fool.

Spokane crew:  a lot of you have the same problem, wondering where the fuck you'll be in six months or a year, once thesis and graduation are behind you.  Let's discuss.  Will we build a colony of writers in Portland?  Or in the sunny hills of Denver?  Does anyone else dig Pittsburgh?