Ode to Michigan by Angela Claire

I was really excited to be included in this Blog around the 50 states – until I remembered what state I represent.  Michigan. Now, before all my fellow Michiganders jump on me for being disloyal, I want to say that I, personally, love my home state. I’m one of the few Michiganders who left the state to attend school (law school in Boston) and went somewhere else to work (Manhattan at a law firm), but then eventually made my way back to the home state I left behind. And I’ve been here ever since. Twenty-one years. Twenty-one long, and not particularly good, years for my home state. Neighbors have lost their jobs left and right. The home I bought ten years ago is worth less than two-thirds of what I paid for it. Both my children have gone away to college in another state. 

Wait, what was this blog supposed to be about again? 

Oh, yes, an ode to Michigan. So, needless to say, I digress. Michigan has its problems – anybody who reads the national news can see that.  We’re the poster child, rightly or wrongly, for a lot of the nation’s ills. But all kidding aside, I do love it here. It’s why I’m still here. (That, and the fact that I can’t sell my house…just kidding!) 

For one thing, the grocery stores in Michigan have nice, big, wide aisles. That can seem like a small thing, but believe me, when I was cruising that tiny excuse for a food mart in Manhattan, trying to safely wield a shopping cart that would look like a kiddy cart in my own state, that made a big difference. And that’s sort of a metaphor for what’s so great about Michigan. You have space to move around. You’re not always bumping into fellow, harried, overworked louts who are fighting you for the same meager grub before they go home to sleep for six hours and get up and do it all over again.  

My much maligned four bedroom house with its park-like backyard, for example, would require a king’s salary - or at least an investment banker’s - in Manhattan. And getting to that house from work (so I can enjoy it) is not so bad either. We have room to – gasp -actually drive on our roads rather than just sit in our cars and make frenzied, jerky movements forward every once and a while. Not that I want to be picking on Manhattan, but let’s just say a two hour traffic jam in Michigan would be all over the nightly newscast, not just a daily commuter common-stance. 

 The rest of Michigan, beyond my grocery store and house and work, can be just as awesome as well. If you’ve never been here, check out the majesty of Lake Superior, the intellectual appeal of Ann Arbor and the old-world carless charm of Mackinac Island.

And while you’re at it, drive a grocery cart or two. You won’t be sorry.

My website is www.angelaclaireromance.com.

Two of my recent releases of 2012, Pleasuring the Professor at Ellora's Cave http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9971-pleasuring-the-professor.aspx and Executive Perks http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9872-executive-perks.aspx). I also have a series at Siren Bookstrand called Colorado Dreaming. The first book in that is Heart of Stone http://www.bookstrand.com/heart-of-stone.