Listen slugger, we need to have a talk. Sit down. Are you ready? Ok, here it goes: I moved to Oakland recently. I meant to tell you sooner, but things have been crazy busy and I wanted to do a really good job explaining.

I got a job at the Oakland Museum of California! When I found out, I jumped on my bed and blasted Phantom Planet’s “california” at maximum volume. The Oakland museum is such a good museum and they really care about the community they serve!

I’m a curator, but not the Indiana Jones kind that hangs out in the basement all day studying dead stuff. My job is to make exhibits and events that get Oaklanders excited about science. Our first exhibit is on Bees and the next one will be on the science of Marijuana.

Everyone at the museum is hella talented. Our office manager makes jewelry based on animal skulls and has a mohawk. Our poisonous snake wrangler is on the board of an n.g.o. Even our building manager has an m.f.a. from the rhode island school of design. He used to make metal sculptures.

When I first moved to Oakland, I subletted a room at a coop, where one of my oldest and awesomest friends lives (that’d Be Tina). It was really fun, and I didn’t know so many great people could fit under one roof.

Eventually, I moved a few blocks away into a studio. Immediately, our building was beset by tragedy! First we were tormented by a sick possum, then a dead possum (same possum), then outdoor fleas, which turned into indoor fleas. The good news: my neighbors are great and the adversity really brought us together!

my favorite uncle lives near Oakland. He’s a republican steel tycoon and has lots of innovative policy ideas like “maybe poor people should just get jobs”. While we differ on many things, curatorship and steel company management are pretty demanding careers so we’re going to take meditation classes together.

Making friends in oakland is actually pretty easy. I’ve been volunteering with open Oakland, a civic hacking group. since my coding skills are terrible, I do the outreach and organizing stuff. I mostly visit public libraries and translate materials in to spanish but it’s a good time. I also made a house improv team!

Like just about everyone else in the bay area, I went to Burning Man. It was pretty awesome. I rode art cars and lost my wallet on the Tesla coil zipline (that’s a zipline that goes through the lightening in a tesla coil in case you were wondering). A nice man named Stewart returned it to my uncle.

So basically I really like it here. Sometimes I just go up on the roof of the museum and look out over my beautiful city, like Batman looking out over Gotham.

But I’m pretty sure Bruce Wayne never had this much fun. I ride my bike everywhere!

But.. . moving away from all your friends sucks. And at least once a week I miss everyone so much I can hardly stand it. When that happens, I go get a taco from a Food truck and eat it by the water under a palm tree.

And if your biggest problem can be solved by a taco, some palm trees and a view of the ocean, do you really have any problems at all?

Think about it.