When people ask me where I’m from, my answer often varies, depending on what I see in the questioner.  For instance, I’ll always tell the guy with a certain accent (like the cashier at Trader Joe’s yesterday) that I’m from New York. He was jazzed, he’s from Flatbush. To younger people, all Millenials I suppose, I reply that I am from Seattle. If I hear anything about the state of Florida to somebody I have just met (and sometimes I will lightly quiz the curious), I will proudly state my hometown as Miami, Miami Beach, to be precise. It all sounds a little bull-shitty, I know, or like a fantasy spawned by an ultra-provincial person; but I here aver and attest, it is but guileless. I am from all of these places, for every place I’ve ever lived I’ve taken as my home while there. I mean, really, wouldn’t it be miserable to be any other way? It sure is miserable, I know this from experience and was reminded of it last month when I returned to my real hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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