Ok, so let me be honest here, the reason I'm moving to Canada can be summed up in one word: Love. But, let's not be naive about things. With love comes politics, semantics, economics, legality, psychology, sociology and sometimes even numerology. Which I guess is what brings me to this blog.

I never saw myself as a doing one of these blog-things. But, then again, I'm not sure I've ever been in quite this position. While my reasons for emigrating and immigrating have to do with the fact that my partner of 2 years is Canadian (and trust me, the commute has grown reeeeeallly old), the story isn't quite as simple as girl meets girl. You see, when one of you is "here" and one of you is "there," you have to make choices which lead you to think about, delve into and experience all kinds of areas you've only thought about in passing because of some random NPR story if indeed you've thought of them at all. All of a sudden, when you trying to bring "here" closer to "there," the intersections between gender, sex, sexual orientation, class, race, economics, law, health care, policy and a million other things come crashing towards one another in some sort of pre Big Bang moment in a "really real" kind of way. (Trust me, the immigration debate in the States takes on a whole new feeling when you're the one who's entire future rests in some file folder on a complete stranger's desk.. more on that later.)

Anyhoo, I kind of wish I had I started this blog 2 years ago. While I had visited Canada quite a bit prior to this relationship, it wasn't until I was up to my very pierced ears in it that I realized I was beginning quite the bi-cultural journey (which I'm quite familar with since if you're queer, a women, person of color, poor or anything other than the "moral majority" in the States, you have to learn to be bi-cultural or die). Despite what many Americans may think, Canada and Canadians are not just an extension of "us." Nor do I suspect that it is the utopia that some of us fantasize it to be either. At any rate, the more I've thought about it, the more I wondered if as I make this transition from "here" to "there," maybe I could use this blog to chronicle not only the logistics of my physical journey, but, the emotional, ideological, political ones as well.

If all goes as planned in my head (which can be cluttered place most of the time), I hope to use this time of transition to explore (and I invite you to explore with me) issues which influence and are influenced by us, which affect and are affected. As the weeks and months of this process of "here" to "there" unfold, I hope to comment from a both-sides-of-the-border (i.e. a sorta-kinda Ex-Patriot) perspective on topics such as immigration, health care, marriage and sexual politics, social attitudes and policy and who knows what else.

Thanks for reading and journeying with me