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A Pixelated Mind

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It’s a state, I swear!

I get in trouble all the time whenever anyone asks me where I’m from. “New Mexico,” I say. “Ahh, Mexico!” they say. “I love South America! Have you ever been to the Leaning Tower of Pisa?”

I should rephrase. I get in trouble whenever anyone with a piss-poor grasp of geography asks me where I’m from.

The reason for this is that I feel the answer of ‘New Mexico’ says something different than ‘America’ in a way that adds value.  Of course, I might be the only person that thinks that.

I think that when you say where you’re from, the ideal is to convey the most true information possible that is somehow relevant to the listener.

So if an Englishman says he’s from London, it means something.  If he says he’s from New Brungenstenshire, but was raised in South Smarsburg, then I really can’t bring myself to care.

Compare this to specifying locations that change nothing.  A guy from São Paolo is no different in my mind than a guy from general Brazil.  I know São Paolo exists, but I have no impressions about it that help answer things in any way.

Let’s go back to the United States.  New York City specifies something.  Namely, a person from a large, metropolitan city.  It would be wrong to generalize a New Yorker in a statement about Americans, because the New Yorker has had a different experience than other Americans.  Perphaps they are more metropolitan or cultured, perhaps they are more rugged and world-worn.

Saying you are from Texas will also add something: that you are a fat cowboy who wears big hats and likes to hunt.  This might be wrong, ((it’s not)) but it at least adds information that saying you are just American would not.

Alabama, Chicago, L.A., Seattle, Utah, and a few other places are like that.

For some reason, I assume New Mexico is too.  Perhaps I’m hoping for a hint of the internationalness of the word ‘Mexico’ that is in the name.  Or perhaps that’s because nobody knows a New Mexican, so I can make up my own story about it.  Whatever it is, I should really stop doing that, because I think I just confused the shit out of my new Turkish roommate.

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I get in trouble all the time whenever anyone asks me where I’m from. “New Mexico,” I say. “Ahh, Mexico!” they say. “I love South America! Have you ever been to the Leaning Tower of Pisa?” I should rephrase. I get in trouble whenever anyone with a piss-poor grasp of geography asks me where I’m…

4 Comments

  1. i stayed in chicago last week with a blogger, and when he asked where i was from originally and i told him, “montana,” he said, “wait! there are people!? from montana?!”

    yes. yes there are.

    and then when i told him i’d moved across the northern border of the country to two different north dakotan locations and two different minnesotan locations, he decided i was pretty much just a canadian.

  3. It’s true everyone has different ideas of different places. It’s kind of like when you say “dog”, people picture different dogs. I’m from Northern Virginia, and I usually say that if I’m close by or down south, otherwise I just say DC. Saying Virginia I feel puts some kind of hokey image in people’s minds.