small town friendly

i really and truly do have a love/hate relationship with my hometown. it's remarkable. for instance: i love the fact that it's small, there's no traffic, and i know where everything is. i love the fact that everywhere i go, there are memories. i love the fact that, in certain restaurants, the waiter or waitress already knows my order. i love stepping out of my car at midnight and being able to see every star in God's creation, spread across a dark sky with no interference of city lights. i love the hills, and seeing the mountains in the distance, and friday night football.

okay, so for the i hates....or, i don't like: the fact that it's small and everybody knows everybody's business ALL the time, the ignorance that sometimes surrounds small communities (as well as the intolerance), traffic jams caused by tractors (i'm dead serious), lack of variety in places to eat and shopping areas as well as entertainment, small town cops who'd like nothing more than to write you a ticket for going too fast down a backroad...

i love, and don't love, my small town, all at the same time. it's a weird feeling. love it in theory, not necessarily in practice. or maybe it's that i just don't like it in practice.