i used to live in brooklyn, and that was pretty swell. i think new york city is the most heartbreakingly beautiful city on earth, even the parts that smell like pee and hobo. but i kept escaping on the weekends to go climb old quarry walls and look at 17th century dutch settlement property lines in the lower hudson valley. paying brooklyn rent to not be in brooklyn is ridiculous.

now i live in rockland county and read lots of history books and take pictures of the things around me. i want to know every inch of the west bank of the north river south of poughkeepsie.

i am the only twenty-something here who doesn't want to leave.