Writing for this Seattle guidebook has got me contemplating my relationship to the city after three and a half years ... being a corn-fed midwestern dame myself, never been nowhere else except Florida (which don't count), coming to Seattle was an exotic experience. I had never been to the Left Coast when Lori moved here, and my first extended visit was a solo cross-country car trip that expanded my world in a major way. Since relocation, I've enjoyed the rainy winters, the steep streets, the ubiquitous homeless, the way riders thank the bus drivers while disembarking. I like the still-not-quite-big city vibe that lingers despite cultural, technological and economic achievements no one ever expected from a former rough-and-tumble port town full of drunken sailors, prostitutes and gold rushers. There's as much art as Chicago, as much rock as Detroit, as much employment as Lansing, as many cops as Flint, and as much weed as Ann Arbor. Plus my wife, of course, which was all I needed to commit myself to "the next Minneapolis." Things get more comfortable here every year, and aside from the people I've learned to love along the way, I haven't spent much time thinking about why I like it so much. And now some jokers from New York City are paying me to. I'm easily the luckiest man in the world.