Early morning thoughts

Eventually -- and this is a scary thought after having been here for more than 11 years -- I'm going to want to leave the Bay Area.

If we do, it won't be for another two years at least. And if we do, it will probably be with the intention of coming back.

Still, there are things I will miss should we leave -- things I never thought I'd grow to appreciate with such ferocious affection. Great food and access to amazing, wonderful produce. This makes a difference when you like cooking as much as I do.

I'd miss the natural setting, the trees and the water, the easy access to some of the best views in the world, found simply by driving into the Berkeley hills.

And I'd miss the hugeness and the accessibility of the place. Anything you want, you'll find it here. Drive an hour in any direction and you're in a different world.

I doubt I'd miss the people as much. I've learned there are different kinds of individuality: the kind where people think for themselves and the kind where people walk around with multicolored dreds. There are plenty of both here, but I sometimes feel the dreds win. I'm also terribly over San Francisco's kooky politics. I'd be considered a liberal anywhere else in the world, but in a place that condones and supports juvenile Honduran crack dealers as well as a mafia organization that eventually shot a journalist dead in the street, I'm a little more toward the center.

I've met some of the best people in my life here. I've also met some charming, charismatic flakes who will win your heart and then proceed to break it. Is this a West Coast, Bay Area mentality? Perhaps.

We've got ideas and we've discussed them briefly. For now, I'm going to enjoy this place -- despite its irritants -- and whatever decision process that comes.