"Should I Stay or Should I Go"

I actually decided today to not stay in New Zealand, beyond the 12-18 months I had been planning on being here. The issue of staying for longer, possibly emmigrating here, had been on my mind almost from the beginning. I even looked into what it would take to begin the process of becoming a permanent resident (more or less the same as getting a New Zealand "green card"). And while I think of it now, I realize it may be nice to have a place where you can run when the shit hits the fan, but at the moment I'm not planning on pursuing it.

How come? Well, for one, there's y'all. I said before that I missed my friends, though that is not what decided it for me. I miss California. I miss Berkeley, I miss San Francisco, I miss Mendicino, I miss the overbearing presence of the ocean, and the mountains, and the dry evergreen forests, and the hippies, and the psychedelic-inspired art and technology and music and parties, the impractical idealism, the snooty superiority, the desperate feel of holding the line before the onslaught of Texan fascists. I love and miss it all. It's cleaner in California -- New Zealand is green in spite of the humans here, not because of some ecologically aware national ethos, and unless they get their shit together soon, their shit will overwhelm them. There's a lot more going on in the Bay area, and already, I can feel the walls closing in here in this tiny-but-cosmopolitan burgh.

And I don't want to give the impression that I don't like it here. It certainly has its charms, and any place can be a heaven or hell, depending on what you make of it. In general, I'm enjoying myself. Just today, a bunch of us went go-karting at lunch: PURE FUN! On the other hand, I could see the day where I say, "Man, I'm sick of going to that crappy go-kart place." Plus, as I said, I'm making good friends here. That helps make the place fun to be in. But it's one of those "neccessary but not sufficient" things. Some of them may stay here permenantly, which means that I'll always have a reason to come back and visit. Right now, that sounds just fine. In the meantime, I'll enjoy myself as best I can (which is pretty well, really), and patiently dream of California.