Home again, home again.

Apparently, I missed the nastiest windstorm to ever hit Corvallis. Trees are still down all over town, schools were closed Friday (the Corvallist kid was actually disappointed about missing a school cancellation, despite having the entire week off for travel) and some people in the outlying areas are still without power days after the actual event.

Cool. That's not what I wanted to write about today, though. I originally lost a post about this some months ago, and was reminded last week during a conversation with my brother.

I spent part of last week in New York, where I was born and spent my first decade. I moved to California and stayed there for much of my second decade (with an additional, shorter stint more recently), but continued to call myself a New Yorker, partly because I still spent parts of the year there and partly because I never felt at home in California. (I should explain that the part of California where I lived was akin to... oh, Lebanon. Fine if you like it, but it wasn't a good fit for yours truly.)

I continued to refer to myself as a New Yorker until I moved to Corvallis, which I instantly adopted as home. I've called myself an Oregonian ever since, even during brief interludes in other states.

But being back in New York made me realize that I'm still a New Yorker, albeit a bit rusty. It took half a day to get back into the pace, but it came back like a visceral memory. I was there this time as a tourist, but by the end of the week, giving my kid the drive-by tour of my old neighborhood, it felt like I never really left. I didn't realize how much I'd missed it.

Or maybe it was just the pizza. Sorry, Cirello's. I love what you do, but it's not really NY style pizza.

I guess I'm a New Yorker and a Corvallist. Both places feel like home to me.