no subject, rambling post

This isn't going to be that relevant of a post. Sometimes, when you're 40 weeks pregnant, you sit down and type stuff.

The Santa Barbara PD is great. Lateral entries are paid over 70k, top out at over 80k, and they have gratuitous benefits and even a $1000 and up uniform allowance.

I looked them up on a whim, as my husband and I have looked at police departments in pretty much every state seeking a place where he could still do work he loves but actually be able to support our family and have hope of some sort of future.

When I was 17, I traveled from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Santa Barbara with my sister. My sister was stationed at the Air Force Base in Vegas, and I was staying with her. I'd come from a very small, very country Mennonite and Amish community in Northern Indiana. Within six months, I'd been all over Vegas and to L.A. as well. What a shock! I pretty much didn't understand much of what I saw, but was rather impressed with the architectural aspects of a big city and not to mention the great beauty of the ocean. The people were frightening, but I didn't know quite why I felt that way. Going from Amish who keep to themselves and don't regularly meet your gaze to hard city dwellers who talk to you at the gas pump and have too many fru-fru coffee and emotionally driven poetry joints was odd.

From people my age, I was suddenly hearing terms like "emo", "anime", "goth", and "cutting", for starters. These things were cool, everyone did it there, apparently. The farthest I actually got into the youth subculture of Las Vegas was dying my hair so I looked like a My Little Pony and buying a few outfits at Hot Topic. I spent a few evenings riding the (excellent!) public transportation to one of the coffee/tea/poetry places and thought I'd heard better poetry in my small town 2nd grade auditorium.

On a trip to L.A. my sister and I had driven out to a restaurant that was a ten minute walk out onto a pier, so you were eating breakfast sort of in the ocean, with a trendy old guy playing acoustic guitar, seagulls overhead and surfers to the sides, aqua sky and aqua water everywhere: the whole gamut. I remember leaning against the pier wall thinking, "I've made it." My mom had lived in small town Indiana her whole life, barely finished high school, and only seen the ocean once in her life. It took me a while to see that it was no big deal to everyone else, but that blue world out there that looked so free and easy, backed up by golden sand and cute shops selling shell necklaces for $50 bucks.

I was pretty bent on being a photographer so I spent most of my time, outside of endless hours waiting tables to save for a car, sitting in a Barnes and Noble sipping coffee drinks I'd never had (no Starbucks in Topeka, Indiana) and reading photography books and magazines. In one of those magazines, I saw an article on a photography school in Santa Barbara. I read more about it and then called. Within weeks I was going to an orientation.

We drove from Vegas to Santa Barbara. It was great fun, being sisters, young and silly, with loud music on desert highways. We got pulled over multiple times for speeding. When we arrived, I knew Santa Barbara wasn't like L.A. It certainly wasn't like Vegas. The homes were all huge, beautiful, and well kept. The people were athletic, tanned, and as well kept as their houses. There was a Starbucks on every corner and we stopped in at some of the boutique shops, only to slowly and inconspicuously retreat after seeing the price tags. The photography school was on the ocean, and I sat through orientation with a bunch of rich high school kids...I was the only one in the group who expressed concern in a question answer session over the price of tuition. The extravagant price of tuition, I was assured, could be covered by loans. I knew immediately I couldn't get enough loans or aid...We toured the school with the group and it was very impressive.  Afterwards we were offered refreshments on the balcony behind the school that overlooked the ocean. Goodness, it was picturesque. I leaned over the railing, nibbling on a fancy cucumber sandwich, and thought about what life was like for the people that lived in the neighborhood of the photography school, what life would be like for their kids that got into the photography school, as well. What does it feel like to spend your life without any financial struggle, doing whatever makes you feel good, having what you needed readily provided, without worrying how much it would cost you or how much your feet would hurt after hours of working, just earning enough to pay for a small room and your food?

After that trip to beautiful Santa Barbara, I was tired of the West coast. I spent some times camping in Utah trying to figure out what to do next. Go home to Indiana? Since I had discovered that my only option for college would probably be the community college of Las Vegas, I wasn't thrilled with the prospect of staying there. Besides, other than the flashy downtown strip, Vegas is not really an ideal place to live. There's really nothing to write home about, so to speak. I couldn't imagine living there for more than a year of my life and that year mark was looming.

Thinking back to Santa Barbara now, as an adult with a growing family, I wouldn't want to live there. I've earned a few eccentrically driven ideas that make me think about earthquakes and California falling into the ocean, not to mention radiation and the proximity to nuclear facilities. But those aren't the first thing I think of when I consider if I'd like to raise my kids there. I want to raise them in a cabin in the woods or the field somewhere. They should see the ocean, but not live by it's tides. I don't want manicured lawns and perfectly tiled roofs to block their view of the world. I don't want them to never know what it means to work hard with their hands. I don't know if I can show them that, but I hope I can.

I can make them mow the lawn, at least.

If only the mid-south paid cops 70k.

That would be nifty...