I'm just a college town kind of person.

I used to think of myself as a city person. A smaller city person, but definitely a city person.

I loved living in DC in college. I never, ever liked New York - it was always too big - even when I was young and spry and down for a party. I liked DC. Now I realize that it wasn't that it was the city, but rather that Georgetown was functionally a college town from which I could access a small city.

I have never been remotely a country person. I love growing food, but I love it in a garden. A farm, far from everything, would just be too much for me to handle. I also don't like livestock much, so the equation would be: me + farm = no way.

Recently I was thinking that I was, shudder, a suburban mom. I mean, I drive my kids around in a minivan. On a recent shopping trip I was gleeful when I realized that we could go to one strip mall, get out of the car one time, and hit three errands in the stroller! Grocery store for kale and garlic, check. Print shop, check. Liquor store, check. (Yes, I take my kids to the liquor store. Would you rather I leave them in the car? We needed whiskey.)

I had almost been sold on the strip mall, and surrendered to the dreaded suburbs, but then I realized: If we just had a few more of the traditional stores downtown, I could stick the kids in the stroller and do the same shopping walking from my house. Which would mean not having to get into the car. Which would be far better than even the strip mall in the suburbs!

I was beside myself with joy - not a suburban mom after all! Sure one strip mall trip worked out, but I was not sold. (And in my defense, it was raining that day. So the walking would have been a bit miserable.)

I like living in Gainesville because we have a downtown. I love living downtown. OK, so not everything is available, and since this is Florida we can't get rid of our cars just yet (blech for sprawl!) however, it is a college town. Biking and walking are normal here, and even if you do have to get in the car sometimes, nothing is really more than 15 minutes away. We get lectures. And shows. And experts in horticulture who are interested in teaching you things. And the University gives the town a center that really can't shift too terribly far, and has to be accessible to bikes and people on foot.

Yay for the college town. It's for me.