For the over 30 meme, 11 and 16?
Sep. 17th, 2016 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2cl0WfZ:
11) How many places (towns, states, countries) have you lived in?
I’ve spent all but two years-ish of my life in New York State, but within that time I’ve lived in three vastly different regions of the state, so. In case you’re not from here, you might think that sounds silly, but New York is one of the rare enormous East Coast states. We’re called The Empire State and are extremely full of ourselves in different ways depending where you are. New York City remains the most populous city in the United States, and so deservedly thinks of itself as a complete entity unto itself, which is cute, but the rest of the state all put together equals the City in population, so.
The difference between the City and its immediate environs vs. the rest of the state is kind of dramatic. And the terminology is thus: anything outside of about a 50-mile radius of the city is “Upstate”, but upstate is also a direction word. And Western NY is technically Upstate, but beyond about Syracuse, is really a distinct entity with totally different concerns and social norms than the rest of Upstate. There’s a different dialect, different words for things, different ideas of what’s normal. Definitely a noticeably different accent.
If you’re not from here, Western NY is probably the “nicest” in terms of people and culture, but as an insider to the Upstate-but-not-West region, I am quite deeply fond of them. It’s an older, weirder, spikier, more New Englandy culture with none of the Great Lakes charm and friendliness that WNY is pretty steeped in. (Western NY is practically Midwestern by East Coast standards.)
None of that really made any sense. Anyway, I was born in the city of Troy, which is near Albany, and went to college out west in Rochester, and lived down near NYC (Westchester County, ugh), and have lived in Buffalo for like twelve years now, and the farm is even farther east than Troy, tucked right up against the Vermont border near where it intersects Massachusetts.
My two exception years were spent in Scotland (St Andrews) and New Jersey (Jersey City on the border with Bayonne).
16) How did you spend New Year’s Eve 1999/2000?
Ha. I was 20, which I had figured out well in advance of it, so I couldn’t go to any bars. All my friends were in Rochester, and I was back at home for the school break, and I didn’t really know anybody in town since my high school was a boarding school so most of my buddies lived elsewhere.
So this is maybe the most boring answer ever: I stayed home with my mom and dad. And Dad managed a state office building, and they’d decided that because of Y2K the building managers had to be on premises at the stroke of midnight just in case the world ended. So Mom and I sat at home, and Dad called us on his state-issued cellphone (uncommon at the time) as he sat out where he could look at the fireworks downtown, and we had a good laugh about the Y2K paranoia and enjoyed all the discount survivalist stuff. (My parents actually bought a woodstove in all that lead-up, which they still use now, because the woodstove place was having a sale because of all the paranoia.)
I actually have basically never had much of a party for any New Years. It’s my dude’s birthday so for the last fourteenish years I’ve let him decide what we do, and he almost always wants to just sit at home. So we do.
11) How many places (towns, states, countries) have you lived in?
I’ve spent all but two years-ish of my life in New York State, but within that time I’ve lived in three vastly different regions of the state, so. In case you’re not from here, you might think that sounds silly, but New York is one of the rare enormous East Coast states. We’re called The Empire State and are extremely full of ourselves in different ways depending where you are. New York City remains the most populous city in the United States, and so deservedly thinks of itself as a complete entity unto itself, which is cute, but the rest of the state all put together equals the City in population, so.
The difference between the City and its immediate environs vs. the rest of the state is kind of dramatic. And the terminology is thus: anything outside of about a 50-mile radius of the city is “Upstate”, but upstate is also a direction word. And Western NY is technically Upstate, but beyond about Syracuse, is really a distinct entity with totally different concerns and social norms than the rest of Upstate. There’s a different dialect, different words for things, different ideas of what’s normal. Definitely a noticeably different accent.
If you’re not from here, Western NY is probably the “nicest” in terms of people and culture, but as an insider to the Upstate-but-not-West region, I am quite deeply fond of them. It’s an older, weirder, spikier, more New Englandy culture with none of the Great Lakes charm and friendliness that WNY is pretty steeped in. (Western NY is practically Midwestern by East Coast standards.)
None of that really made any sense. Anyway, I was born in the city of Troy, which is near Albany, and went to college out west in Rochester, and lived down near NYC (Westchester County, ugh), and have lived in Buffalo for like twelve years now, and the farm is even farther east than Troy, tucked right up against the Vermont border near where it intersects Massachusetts.
My two exception years were spent in Scotland (St Andrews) and New Jersey (Jersey City on the border with Bayonne).
16) How did you spend New Year’s Eve 1999/2000?
Ha. I was 20, which I had figured out well in advance of it, so I couldn’t go to any bars. All my friends were in Rochester, and I was back at home for the school break, and I didn’t really know anybody in town since my high school was a boarding school so most of my buddies lived elsewhere.
So this is maybe the most boring answer ever: I stayed home with my mom and dad. And Dad managed a state office building, and they’d decided that because of Y2K the building managers had to be on premises at the stroke of midnight just in case the world ended. So Mom and I sat at home, and Dad called us on his state-issued cellphone (uncommon at the time) as he sat out where he could look at the fireworks downtown, and we had a good laugh about the Y2K paranoia and enjoyed all the discount survivalist stuff. (My parents actually bought a woodstove in all that lead-up, which they still use now, because the woodstove place was having a sale because of all the paranoia.)
I actually have basically never had much of a party for any New Years. It’s my dude’s birthday so for the last fourteenish years I’ve let him decide what we do, and he almost always wants to just sit at home. So we do.
