doing shots of journalismjobs.com

I find that age-old obsession washing over me yet again : Leaving with the big L.
When I was four and living in Virginia for the first time since we moved to Buenos Aires, it was all I could do from finger the cold windowpane in my Charlottesville room and dream of Argentinian zoos and my friend's house where I had traded my all-time favorite animal for some beany butt doll I eyed warily and grew to hate.
Once we moved to Pennsylvania, I was happy with the nearby park but often made up songs about China and Japan and told my parents they could not say good night to me because, alas, though they thought I was merely a lump under my comforter, I was actually thousands of miles away in Shanghai. (Somehow, at age five, I actually knew of Shanghai.)
I've dreamed of Maine, Morocco, Algiers, Russia, Ghana, India. And so the story goes.
Now it's Alaska. I routinely check journalismjobs.com and recently found a posting for a writer/editor position at the Anchorage Press, an alternative weekly. I've spent a good chunk of time today devouring their articles and can list what to do and what not to do during an Alaskan winter : take walks, spend time with friends, buy a sun lamp, don't camp out in front of the television. I nod, as though I have any idea of what they're talking about, feign a shiver and dig my seventh-grade flannel out from the depths of the closet. (Yes, it still fits, along with my converse - you know, those shoes that once upon a time weren't made in sweatshop basements.)
(Side note : My husband is watching "Buffy the vampire something or other Slayer" and I keep getting horrific flashbacks of friends forcing me to watch Dawson's Creek.)
Anyway, I'll keep dreaming. But I know if I really was in Alaska, I'd be moping in some bar, going home by myself and counting the days until I got to see the person I love more than anything in the world again. So, I'll just have to wait until we can be those annoying newcomers chomping at the bit to explore the last bit of the Final Frontier together. Until then, Google images and Journalismjobs will have to suffice.