Changes in Attitudes, Changes in Latitudes…

While we’ve not made a secret of them, neither had either kitanzi and I made any general announcement of our upcoming plans. Part of this was due to a great number of open questions that made it difficult to make concrete plans, but as we approach the launching of the expidition, things are starting to fall into place. So here, in convenient FAQ form, is an announcement.

In January, we are moving to Seattle.

Wait…what?

Washington state, that is. Space needle…Eddie Vedder…[end gratuitous Todd Snider shoutout]

Why?

Well, that’s a complicated question with a complicated answer. The truth is…Atlanta isn’t the place I’d have chosen to live if I’d made an actual choice. I just sort of ended up here. I moved to Georgia originally to be closer to a_blue_moon_cat, who I was dating at the time. That relationship ended over ten years ago. As early as then I was evaluating whether I wanted to stay in Georgia for the long term. Then kitanzi moved down and we both had good jobs and it settled into a stasis.

But the truth is, I don’t really like Georgia. I like a lot of the people here, but the actual place I don’t like very much at all. So, in recent years, I started to think hard about where I’d rather be. Larissa only moved to Atlanta to move in with me, so she has no deep ties to the place, either. I had a list of cities that, based on my research, talking to people who lived there and my own travels, I felt would suit me better than here. And finally, after much deliberation and a lot of thought, we’ve decided where it is we want to live, and we’re going to make that happen.

This is all so sudden…

It probably seems so, if you’re learning about this from this post. But this is actually a decision several years in the making, and many months in the planning to actually go.

So, why Seattle?

It meets all my criteria for a place I’d want to live. It has a better climate to my tastes. (No, really.) It as an active filk and fannish community. The culture there is much more agreeable to us. And, as a bonus, it puts us substantially closer to a great many people we’d like to be substantially closer to. (It also puts us farther away from some people we’d rather not be farther away from, but that would be true of anywhere we moved, or even if we stood still. The algebra of our interpersonal relationships defies simple equations.)

Seattle was always in the top four or five places on our list. It moved to the top for a variety of reasons, but the simplest answer is, having visited on many occasions now, we just like the place, and it’s the sort of place I can see myself living on purpose, rather than by accident.

Do you have jobs lined up?

Nothing firm, as yet, though there are irons being placed into fires. But we’ve been saving the last year, putting aside funds to allow us to pull ups stakes and move and weather a period of unemployment. I feel confident we’ll be able to find something on the other side. (If you’re in the area or have contacts in the area who might be looking for a good unix sysadmin with superb customer service skills, drop me a line.)

Are you insane?

Almost certainly.

But if you move, what happens to Gafilk?

Nothing happens to it. I will continue to chair the convention, and Larissa will continue to be the treasurer. I have people I trust that are here to handle such tasks that require a local person, and we have a fabulous relationship with our host hotel, so we don’t need to scout new venues. There may come a time down the road where I hand off the reins to someone prepared to oversee Gafilk’s third decade and settle into the same emeritus role that bedlamhouse currently enjoys, but that won’t be soon, and in the meantime I plan to keep putting on the same con that we’ve all enjoyed for the last 15 years for as long as everyone keeps wanting to come to it.

So what’s the plan?

The plan, currently, is that I will end my current employment at the end of the year, and we
will stay through Gafilk. Once Gafilk is wrapped up, we drive west. Most of our things are in storage, and the rest will be by the time the con happens. runnerwolf, who will be our housemate once we move, is coming for Thanksgiving, and will take the cat back with her. We are driving across country, likely taking the southern route and up the coast to avoid crossing the high plains and mountains in the middle of winter, and plan to arrive in Seattle just in time for Conflikt.

I don’t know what will unfold over the first few months of 2013. I know it will be an adventure, and I’m looking forward to what the future will bring.

So….that’s what’s new with us.