We are now into the fourth week of school and now it has become clear to me why I dislike school so much. It is almost impossible to maintain what resembles a normal life. I envy the people who work nine to five and have their evenings and weekends free.

Going to school and working forces you to be resourceful. I try to manipulate the hours of my job so I can have a ten-hour window of time when I get out of town and cruise down I-80 and visit San Francisco, a real city. The kind with large buildings, where I feel dwarfed by their stature and walk down busy city streets where no one even bothers to look at me or cares if I am dead or alive.I?ve been driving back and forth from Sacramento to San Francisco for the past two years and I still can?t shake the beauty of that city. I drive there in large part for my girlfriend, but I see the City on the side. She understands.

I?m in love with the sounds of the City; the car horns and chauffeur whistles which hail taxicabs in front of giant hotels. I like walking down Market Street against the cold wind with my hands stuffed into the pockets of corduroy pants looking at all the buildings with so many windows and workers toiling away in their cubicles. The City buzzes like a beehive with activity.

Don?t get me wrong, Sacramento is a big city, if you?re from Winters or Galt, and there is something to be said for that; but I grow tired of people in this hole in the ground called the Central Valley that feel the need to delude themselves into thinking that this is Shangri-La.

Typically these types of people say, “The traffic in the Bay Area is horrible and is over-populated, not like here.” Another thing that I hear a lot is, “Everyone from the Bay Area used to say this was a cow town and now everybody wants to live here.”

I will respond first to the latter statement. Sacramento while cheap to inhabit and a fairly safe place to live if you don?t live in South Sacramento, is hardly on the cusp of becoming a budding metropolis. People live here because they have been displaced due to economic disparity, not by choice. As far as I am concerned, you can have your strip malls, outlet stores, your painfully calculated downtown scene and your above ground rail system. I will not miss them when I leave.

I?d also like to shoot down the notion that traffic is not a problem in Sacramento. Where have you people been? The traffic here is atrocious, and while I admit that it is not as bad as the Bay Area, yet, it is very serious problem. Just ask some of the people that commute to school and have to go up I-80 East or Highway 99 in the early morning or afternoon.

I realize that this love letter has brought out my bitterness and jealously. I wish I could say I was sorry?But I can?t.

Contact Matt Wagar at [email protected]. But be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.