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Another post written while travelling.

Did you know that the Cincinnati airport is in Kentucky?

Thus I find myself writing a blog in Kentucky. (“Blog” is not a recognized word on Microsoft yet. “Microsoft” is, though)

So, early, early this morning, I left home to go… home. Which is the real one, and which is merely a reasonable facsimile? I’m tempted, of course, to call Oregon my ‘true’ home, mostly because I still exist in the transient world of higher education. No one is actually from Winston-Salem (okay, maybe one or two people are, but deal with it). And few plan on staying there.

But can I call a place home after I’ve lived more years away from it than years in it? Seven years in our house, eight years out.

I’ll just call myself bi-home-al. And bi-coastal!

Last year (cause it’s 2005, now), I went on several vacations, some (i.e. cruise) specifically designed to be relaxing. But! I am here to tell you all that there is NO place as relaxing as your childhood home. There, I don’t have to cook, don’t have to clean (beyond just picking up my own junk), don’t have to grocery shop – or even pay for the groceries. I don’t have to worry about oil changes or the electricity bill. For the whole time you are there, you are transported back into your childhood.

Can you blame us (I speak now for my generation) for putting off such things as marriage and children? Hello?! Can’t you see how good we have it? Why muddle that up with joint finances and dirty diapers?

People (our parents) wonder at the trend of selfishness that is running rampant thru the twenty- and thirty-year-olds of the U.S. We are putting of marriage! How could we?! Yes, of course this has to do with the ease of being single nowadays, and the acceptability of having a career before a family. But I also say it has to do with an unwillingness to give up the one place on earth that allows us to truly relax.

Those of us who grew up in a happy, healthy home anyway. That is not to say, of course, that people who get married or have kids early did not have a happy, healthy home. Maybe they’re just less selfish than me…

Or maybe the ultimate home is when you actually find someone that can provide you with that contentment you get in your childhood home. That would be pretty cool.