For My Northern Friends Who’ve Moved South Who are Now Visiting Me in the North
I am well aware that it’s warmer in the south. No need to tell me what temperature it was when you left your home and how cold and damp it is up north. If every time you visit you are cold, pack a damn sweater and wear some socks.
Yes, the gas is high in the north...so are intelligence quotients and number of teeth in one’s mouth.
Yes housing is astronomical! Yes small houses go for a fortune up here and you live in a mansion down there that you bought with pocket change. What that translates to is this: I will end up getting more money for my shitty little house than you will for your mansion when you go to sell.
I’m glad the weather is so fine that your husband gets to golf everyday…but the question is are you happy about that?
Glad too that in the south you have found religion and go to church again because people are so spiritual in the south…maybe your brains are frying in the sun, maybe you’ve given in to peer pressure…whatever the reason I’m happy for you but don’t try to convert me.
We know we don’t have great “barbecue” up north…in fact when we hear the word “barbecue” we actually don’t think of pulled pork…we think of the grill we’ve got hooked up to a tank – we call that our barbecue.
We don’t have flowers in the winter…we also have less bugs in the summer. Such is life. You hate the snow – we aren’t fond of lizards – so we’re equal.
Just come for your visit and restrain from comparisons okay? We lived in the south and loved it but have made our home in the north and love it also.
There’s the good, the bad, and the ugly no matter where you live.
Stop your bragging, okay? Stop pitting one region against the other. It’s quite possible to enjoy your new region, your new home, your new experiences without dissing where I live and where you used to live.
Y'all come back now, y'hear!
I am well aware that it’s warmer in the south. No need to tell me what temperature it was when you left your home and how cold and damp it is up north. If every time you visit you are cold, pack a damn sweater and wear some socks.
Yes, the gas is high in the north...so are intelligence quotients and number of teeth in one’s mouth.
Yes housing is astronomical! Yes small houses go for a fortune up here and you live in a mansion down there that you bought with pocket change. What that translates to is this: I will end up getting more money for my shitty little house than you will for your mansion when you go to sell.
I’m glad the weather is so fine that your husband gets to golf everyday…but the question is are you happy about that?
Glad too that in the south you have found religion and go to church again because people are so spiritual in the south…maybe your brains are frying in the sun, maybe you’ve given in to peer pressure…whatever the reason I’m happy for you but don’t try to convert me.
We know we don’t have great “barbecue” up north…in fact when we hear the word “barbecue” we actually don’t think of pulled pork…we think of the grill we’ve got hooked up to a tank – we call that our barbecue.
We don’t have flowers in the winter…we also have less bugs in the summer. Such is life. You hate the snow – we aren’t fond of lizards – so we’re equal.
Just come for your visit and restrain from comparisons okay? We lived in the south and loved it but have made our home in the north and love it also.
There’s the good, the bad, and the ugly no matter where you live.
Stop your bragging, okay? Stop pitting one region against the other. It’s quite possible to enjoy your new region, your new home, your new experiences without dissing where I live and where you used to live.
Y'all come back now, y'hear!
posted by mary bishop | 2:10 PM
20 Comments:
As a former Cali girl who went to college up north and then transplated myself to the south, I so feel your pain. Everyone is like "What on earth made you leave cal???" Um how about rampant illegal immigration, crime, and houses that cost as much as something we think goes in Beverly Hills. I mean every region has their issues. In the south, we do have the better weather but for the love of God, the size of the bugs. I just can't deal. Up north, no bugs but then you got snow. You just never win completely. However, I am with ya - I am tired of always hearing about other parts of the country.
I've lived in the north, I've lived in the south, I've lived in between. I've at least visted both coasts, the midwest, the southwest. And I agree. I could make my home in any one of them and find good and bad. Truly, I'm most at home in the midatlantic and regions just north of there. It's the area in which I grew up and it has the right number of seasons for me (although try reminding me of that during winter.) Your friends sound like my parents who now live 9/12 of the year in Florida and feel the need to rub it in without realizing that I'm HAPPY where I am. Rubbing it in requires my unhappiness and/or jealousy first. I'm not. When I'm their age, I might feel the same. But I don't right now. All regions have their perks. All regions have their evils. So get over it. No region is better than another!
Being a recent transplant from Phila. PA to Orlando FL. I am in total aggreement with you. The people down here just brag and brag with how awesome they have it. I live here now stop talking about how bad it is in the north. reading your post made me miss home.
SFG - my point...I don't think there's one place that's perfect but there's perfection in many places...if that makes sense.
I loved my 2 years in the south and would never have moved back north if it weren't for my husband's job...
Now I'm back loving it up here...I'd probably love Texas and Iowa and Maine and Montana...etc. etc.
E - I think it's the new southerners who insist on giving temperature readings and telling you how much better it is where they live...
You can love the south and the north at the same time -- both places I called home - I don't understand why the new southerners seem to feel it is necessary to hate where they came from to love where they went...
Hey William, welcome!
Good luck on the transition...hard at first but it gets better.
Have a Chick Fil A sandwich for me will you? I love those things....
I love snow and I like bugs... so I'll probably be fine just about anywhere... As long as it's not too hot! (Here we go...) ; )
I am also a Northern Girl gone south and I can't stand it when my brother brags on FL and I am sure my relatives up north hate it when I say it is "nice out" here....heh, I have been thinking about moving lately but can't decide where I want to be? Snow or no snow? Rainy or not rainy...I have lived in the desert and didn't like it so that is out....I like the midwest alot since that is where I grew up. I have never been to the NorthEast or the Northwest tho....sure would like to check it out!!?? Ahhhh...didn't mean to go on so....nice post....really spot on!
Irina...I love the cold and I love the heat..both of which I can artifically have through my furnace and AC unit...
I do adore fires in the fireplace...so much so that in the south I'd put on my air conditioning and light the fire!
Weetzie,
If I could take all my loved ones with me and move...I'm not sure where I'd pick either.
Actually I'd love to do winter and spring in the south and come back here for summer and fall.
Maybe after I win the Powerball, which is doubtful since I don't buy tickets...
I love this post. I've always lived in the north. Michigan. Lately, the last several years, I'm so tired of the snow. But, I havent lived anywhere else to know what I do like. Ultimately, I'd like very little or no snow, no bugs, no spiders, low humidity, very little rain, 80's year round, and perfect blue skies. I said, thats my ultimate, not that its a reality anywhere. :-) Until then, I have to live with what I do have, and thats not so bad.
Lawbrat, I'd love the weather you describe except for Halloween - I have to live somewhere where there's a snap in the air and crunch leaves to kick, or Thanksgiving, gotta have that fire going in the living room, and of course christmas season...also I want the fire and snow but by January first I'm ready for that 80 degree weather again.
I agree with a fire in the fire place with some snow, gone by January....as long as I dont have to ever go outside during that time, or my car is already warm with heated seats.
The last few years, I just seem to freeze. Constantly cold. Especially my hands and feet. They are never warm.
And I do love the fall. It is one of the most georgous times of year.
So, Michigan is ok, with winter gone by January, a bit less humidity in the summer (by a bit, I mean like 80% less) Keep fall and spring the way they are.
MB-this is exactly why we're up here in New York. Being raised in Florida-then lived in Atlanta-I hate the south! Bugs all year, yuck,heat!. And what is up with the sweet iced tea? And not to bring any wrath upon me, I hate Jeff Foxworthy too.
Paintergirl - ah yes, the sweet tea, I'd forgotten about that...
I personally hated all the religious signs and references to being christian...Christian lawyer, christian hair salon, christian dentist, christian chicken and fries...enough already.
I adored Johnny Ray's restaurant and Chick Fil a and the local restaurants that served up incredible southern food...yum
On my list of places to visit is San Francisco...I've never been there but desperately want to go...
I also adore New York City - it's little more than an hour's drive so I get to go there often, but not as often as I'd like.
If somehow I win the lottery, I'd retire in NYC...I'd be the little old lady with the long white hair in the crazy outfit with the unusual cane, traipsing down 2nd avenue walking my minidog.
I must admit, I, too, loved SF - unfortunately, there's an overload of attorneys out there and it's insanely expensive to live there. So I'll stick with my east coast for now. Maybe someday.
I studied in Nashville, where the weather is pretty nice year round. I visited my friends in Michigan during winter and man, talk about snow. I loved it!! But my friends were bitching about it every day. I guess when you visit it seems nice, but when you have to tolerate it every day, then it becomes too much.
I also visited some friends in Miami during summer so I got some heat wave action as well.
I prefer snow. You can always bundle up and stay warm. Plus all the more When it's too hot what can you do? Go around walking naked?!! Not really an option, hehehe..
Echrai -- did you ever do a search to find the area where attorneys' fees are the highest? Just wondering what the differential in fees is from region to region...
Along...I love to swim naked but don't think I could walk around nekkid no matter how hot it was...
I despise provincial morons who actually think that where they live is, like, the best!! It's just a subculture of the whole nationalist thing that is so prevalent these days. Get it through your heads, people: Different is not better. I have lived in Maryland (DEFINITELY NORTH, ignore the Mason-Dixon line) and Tennessee, and I must say that in Maryland, people think that Tennesseeans have outhouses, so there is plenty of stupidity to go around.
Veronica, I so agree...when we lived in the south people would say: gee you're friendly...most people in the north aren't friendly...
When we moved back here people said: you must be dying for some culture...when we were in the south we went to plays, museums, concerts, etc.
It is another opportunity for one person to feel superior to another -- and they just don't get it that this kind of neener neener stuff is bad enough on the playground and not appropriate for thinking adults.
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