The Wheel of Possibility, However It May Roll

Sometimes, I find myself missing '90s music. I should qualify that a bit. I really don't have an extensive knowledge of my generation's music--just a little bit from a brief period in 1998 and 1999 when I became suddenly and inexplicably fascinated with Top 40 radio hits. Every Saturday, I would come back from breakfast in Main Building of boarding school and flip on Casey Kasem to find out whether my favorite songs had risen or fallen in the week's rankings.

I remember being particularly fond of a song by a group called Fastball, called "Drunk Behind the Wheel." No, this was not a depressing song about someone dying in a car crash due to a drunk driver. It was a fairly typical plaintive song about long gone wrong. But I liked it, for some reason.

I still remember the opening lyrics: "Sometimes I feel / Like I am drunk behind the wheel / The wheel of possibility / However it may roll." I was never exactly sure what this meant, but I took it to mean that he was giddy with life's possibilities.

These days, I find myself feeling that way, a little bit. It's amazing what taking your life off to a foreign country can do to you. When I was in New York, I often felt trapped within the confines of the Five Boroughs. I wasn't making much money, even when I was working, and even a day trip to Boston or Philadelphia seemed beyond my means. I had recurring fantasies about relocating to Philly, but it always seemed a little like an impossible dream. Finding a job in New York, where I knew a few people, was hard enough. How hard would it be in a city--even a city only 100 miles away--where I knew no one?

Those fantasies of Philadelphia have been coming back lately, with a vengeance. I actually spent a bit of time this weekend looking at housing ads in Philly to see what rents and home prices are. As someone used to the craziness of the New York real estate market, I was shocked. I knew Philadelphia would be cheaper, but I had no idea how much cheaper.

A few comparisons:

In New York City, $200,000 gets you maybe a shoebox studio on the ground floor, in a bad neighborhood. That is, unless you're willing to go out to Far Rockaway--it's called Far Rockaway for a reason--or into Bronx.

In Philadelphia, less money than that will get you a genuine one-bedroom in nice, central parts of the city. If you go only a little further out, into University City (the area around Penn), the same money gets you several bedrooms. And University City is fairly gentrified, from what I hear.

I'm starting to look into master's programs in teaching ESL at Penn and Temple. For the first time, Philadelphia seems like something I could actually find a way to make happen, not just a pipe dream.