Ways Indianapolis is Better Than...

Philadelphia: Fewer abandoned buildings and parking lots. More community gardens and urban farming. Big indie arts community. The sort of arts community that my former roommate - one Miss Bethie Extraordinaire - would just love.

Manhattan: Nicer people. Men - even young men - hold the doors for women, of all ages - indicating that their mothers appear to have raised them right. You can walk through the parks here without the fear of ending up in a Law & Order "ripped from the headlines" episode. No getting shoved into grimy subway cars in the morning. No one's written a song called "Indianapolis is killing me," have they? So what if we have more tornado warnings?

Vermont: It may rain a lot here in May, but at least it doesn't snow. And I know a couple Vermonters who either started out as Hoosiers or wish they were Hoosiers...so that's got to say something. And they love farms and growing their own veggies and planting chocolate chip trees and all that good stuff - and yet, snow in May works for them?

Washington, DC: I used to want to live in DC. I think I probably still could. But whereas DC has the Beltway, we have the Speedway. Cars only move on one of those. We may not be interested in funding public transportation any time soon, but we haven't defunded Sesame Street either.

New Haven, CT: This is hard, because I really love New Haven. And if I hadn't already closed that chapter of my life, I would move back there in a heartbeat. People look you in the eyes here, even if you don't have a graduate degree or aren't affiliated with an Ivy. So far, I've found fewer condescending people here (I'm sure they're lurking in the shadows, but at least here they know to lurk, whereas in New Haven, they very much do not). A big drawback of Indy, and a big draw of New Haven, is that the person who helped me do a lot of my growing up as I grew older is there and not here. However, on the plus side, my ex-husband doesn't haunt Indianapolis, so it's a trade-off.

Norwalk, CT: Ha ha ha ha ha. Do I really need to list the ways? Please don't make me.

And some other fun selling points of Indianapolis I've either just discovered, or continue to be impressed by:

• The farmers markets (they're everywhere!)
• The arts fairs (they're also everywhere!)
• People on bicycles (I doubt I'll ever be one, since I don't know how to ride a bike, but still, I think it's cool when I see people biking to work. I never saw that in CT. And in NYC, motorists were more interested in trying to run the cyclists over.)
• Leaving my office and not feeling like I want to throw myself down the elevator shaft (OK, so maybe this isn't a specific Indy thing, but it is a specific job thing, and since my job is in Indy, it counts. And it's especially important given that my office now is on the 41st floor, whereas in CT it was on the 2nd.)
• The Children's Museum (totally cool!)
• Calvin Fletcher's, where I feel more comfortable than I ever do in church, sometimes at home, often with friends. Strange, but I'll take it. (Their hours are lousy - how do I get a life where I can hang out there before 7 pm? - but otherwise I have no complaints.)