Maybe it is time to consider a different location to lay down some roots.

Chicago has been my home for over twenty years now, and there are many things and more importantly, people who live here who I love very much. All together those connections make the thought of relocating somewhere else really difficult if not damn near impossible. But it is NEAR impossible. After many years of nagging and an offer I could not refuse some friends drove me out to Easton Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley. It is near New Jersey, and not far from New York City. DC, as well as other choice destinations are anywhere between 2-3 hours away by car. There are several annual festivals with plenty of arts. I have had lackluster luck in trying to establish myself here in Chicago. Part of me thinks it is some sort of underlying current of self-sabotage. Another part of me thinks it has more to do with my stubborn refusal to do anything but what I studied in college to do because it is something which makes me happy rather than money. Money is however a necessary evil and living on such limited means when work appears to be scarce and what work there is is either minimum wage slavery. On an aside: we should raise the minimum wage and even McDonald's conceded in a very condescending report that if you wanted to live on minimum wage, you can't. You must have more than a McJob to do so. But whatever pride, or principles I claim to stand for has kept me from applying for a fast-food job are being pushed to a limit. That limit is relocation. If I can find some sort of meaningful employment which will sustain me, and permit me to do what I love: teaching art to adolescent age youth somewhere other than Chicago, why shouldn't I uproot myself elsewhere?