the radio buttons are quite deliberate.

So a year ago, when I took this job, I thought -- and people said -- Oh, so it might be a good idea to move to Maryland now, eh? And I said Well, but, I have a twelve-month lease, and let's not go charging into anything; I'll revisit the issue when I've been in the job a year.

Yeah.

Okay, so, the situation is this. I live alone, which I like a lot, in a small apartment that I like a lot (and in which the lease is now month-to-month), in a solidly-built, well-managed building that I like a lot, in a neighborhood that I like a lot (for all the time I spend there). My job, one of my two other main time-sinks (the other is chorus, which is at the National Cathedral, which is inconvenient to any place I am willing to live, since I'm not moving into the District, and would be inconvenient even if I did, unless I moved to the Cathedral area, which would solve that but further complicate everything else), and most of the friends I see with any kind of regularity are over 20 miles away. So I'm thinking about switching sides.

Here is a pro/con VA/MD table as I see it.

staying in NoVA

moving to MoCo

+ I already like where I live. - With the exception of the grocery store at the bottom of the hill, it is relatively far from everything I need except, like, National Airport. + It's an easy drive to most things I need. - I can't really afford anything bigger, say a two-bedroom place so maybe people could come visit me. + Blue county in a red state; we are the reason Jim Webb is a senator, and come November, see also Mark Warner/senator, possibly [Barack Obama|Hillary Clinton]/president. + The taxes down here are better than up there. + It won't be long before I have to replace my car, so I'd rather not incur massive unnecessary expenses before then.

- I hate moving. - I mean hate it. + I'd drive something like half as much. At the moment I drive at least 45 miles a day. If I lived closer, on days with no curling and no chorus (so, Thursdays [g]) I could conceivably metro to work. + And not driving home 45 minutes after curling would be awesome. - I'm not convinced I can afford a place I'm willing to live in up this way -- I'm pretty much limiting my search to wordplay, ellen_fremedon & sanj's ZIP code -- except places that I'm evidently priced out of because I make too much to qualify for Affordable Housing. - Ideally, I'd like to buy something, and wouldn't move again until I moved into a place I owned (ideally with someone, but that's a separate issue, isn't it), but this isn't the time for that -- plus, see above re: car.

You see my predicament.

So with all that in mind, please vote.

[Poll #1129544]

I did, idly, do a search for three-bedroom places, on the theory that there's (I guess) a non-zero chance Ellen and Sanj and I could live together without one or two of us killing two or one of the others (or herself) ... but the cats are counterindicated, I'm afraid, and there is no floor plan in existence where Ellen and Sanj would be willing to restrict the cats to the combined area of their two rooms, leaving my room and the common areas cat-free, even if it were possible to do so, which, given Ellen's cat, it is not.