Lincoln, Nebraska: Perfect if You Want a Buzzy, Lively, Mid-Sized Town With Great Food, Cool Buildings & Youthful Energy

With a walkable town center, gastronomy, friendliness (OBVIOUSLY), architecture, green space, affordability, and safety, Lincoln is really nailing it.

You know when you get obsessed with an idea? Like the time you had a sewing machine sent to your house, as if your name were Lauren and you were going to start making everybody jean jackets? Or the time you ordered thirty-seven bottles of extra-strength bee pollen? Or when you promised yourself you were actually going to start—oh, the ridiculousness of it all—calling people back?

Well, this was me with the state of Iowa.

Not that I’d ever been to Iowa, of course. Who goes to Iowa? But, that’s exactly the thing: I love nothing more than romanticizing a place I’ve never been, in the hopes that it’ll be “the one.”

You know “the one”: the perfect place where you will finally have manicured cuticles, unironically sit on things made of wicker, have witty comebacks for every occasion, know exactly where the Allen wrenches are, turn down a second glass of wine (thereby anointing you into the magical colony of the “I’m okay, thanks” people), read poetry during your lunch hour, not make a sexual face when sucking anything through a straw, remember your friends’ kids’ birthdays (the hardest part of being an adult), answer the door to the neighbors without grabbing a knife, and look like a dainty swan in a flower-print maxi dress as opposed to a frumpy, sex-deprived baker from the 1600s.

These are the kinds of thrills that have brought me to the Midwest. The timing of it all was accidental: a speaking engagement in Denver led me to realize I was “close” to Iowa—and, what’s a nine hour ride in a 1.8 liter rental car with weak acceleration and few advanced safety features?

Iowa would be worth it. All of the stockpiles of nice people would be worth it. Because, you know their reputation, right? Two words I’ve fetishized for years: “Midwest nice.” In a category all of their own—like American baseball, or Bush’s Baked Beans, or that one chin hair that thinks it’s an emperor. Iowa, however, even takes it a step further: they claim to be “Iowa nice,” which is even nicer than “Midwest nice,” as if they are having a pageant. Having a pageant seems like an awfully midwestern thing to do.

But, I’ll take the pageant if it means that the lady at the post office will doodle hearts on my packages and offer my poor, aching knuckles some moisturizer; if the person in the elevator sings me happy birthday upon entry; if the bartender doesn’t seem like he’s just come out of a concussion as he serves room-temperature cask ale with a look of superior disdain. Life is hard enough, you know, and it’s extra excruciating when the people around you are all twingey mops. For example, when I bought property in a gorgeous historic building in Philly, my first introduction to the neighbor below me was, “Lawyer up—I’m suing the HOA, and you’re now a member.” (It was a 20-year vendetta over an inch of parking space outside. Now you see why I answer the door with a knife.)

So I began to wonder: in the age of remote work when you can live anywhere, why not choose a place where the people make things out of rhubarb? Where a dark basement studio costs less than the construction of a minor league football stadium? Where UPS packages never get urinated on? And where the Department of Transportation names their city snow plows “Clearopathtra” and “Better Call Salt.” (I can’t make this up.)

I was optimistic.

There was only one question: could you really live in the middle? Or, would all the other things the Midwest is known for—extreme conservative politics, religious zealousness, and the pronunciation of “milk” like “melk”—be too insurmountable a hurdle?

I assigned myself the task of finding out. I would drive across the Midwest and encounter all of these nice people in their natural habitat—and maybe even search out the perfect small town while I was at it. Parks! Parades! Houses with porches! But, make it progressive and give me at least one person who knows how to cut hair. You usually only get one or the other: porches or bangs. The great conundrum of our time.

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I have a seizure the moment we cross into Nebraska, somewhere I hold in high regard as the birthplace of Aunt Becky on Full House. There is a notable place of worship everywhere, except it’s not a church: it’s the local “Kum & Go,” which is not even a little bit a typo. Fortunately, Google tells me the locals, in a most sensible group decision, often refer to it as the “Jizz & Jet,” “Bone & Bounce,” and in some scholarly circles, “Ejaculate & Evacuate.” I can’t decide if this should go in the plus column or the minus column, but I do appreciate a cerebral environment.

Something else I quickly discover? Nebraska is a MEAT MECCA. “Skewers” are the dish du jour, oftentimes taking up a whole half page on the menu: beef skewers, chicken skewers, shrimp skewers, skewers wrapped in bacon, skewers wrapped in little kid’s tears. (Those I had special made.) Obviously you’d be a pervert to order shrimp in the middle of America: here, you want the Jameson Steak Medallions, my dish of choice at Cunningham’s Journal, an American-style gastropub in a town called Kearny, about midway across the state.

I casually throw out “gastropub” like they’re just around: they aren’t. We had to hunt for this culinary heroine. The hunt started an hour earlier in a town called Gothenburg, named for the abundance of Swedish settlers in the 1800s. Apparently, this place and Gothenburg, Sweden are the only places named Gothenburg in the world—which, after being there for 5 minutes, I can tell you why: nobody wants to replicate this calamity.

The town park is nice enough: Ehmen Park, a picture-perfect square block of manicured lawn adorned with criss-cross walkways, a playground, and a few trees—apparently it’s part of Nebraska’s arboretum network, but it just seems like a park—along with a Pony Express Museum, a real pinnacle for a pseudo intellectual like me. The elementary school sits a block away, where kids were having a Saturday football game. I consider what it would be like to live in Gothenburg, and whether “Midwest nice” also meant I would have to put on potluck dinners and know how to do a McCall’s sewing pattern—two things I am incapable of doing. Right as I am about to contemplate the merits of meatloaf, C pokes me in the ribs. “Look at this kid,” he whispers urgently. “He’s going to kill that bird.”

I look over to see Ted Bundy Jr., a pre-teen boy who has taken a rock and was beating the shit out of a robin with it. The bird flops & seizes, and the kid chases after it and PLONK, smacks the bird over the head again before it stops moving for good.

This, of course, is the moment you find out what kind of person you really are, and I can tell you right now: I am the kind of person who gets the hell out of there. If you’re thinking, Why didn’t you intervene, you unbelievable ballsack? I’ll tell you why: because I am also the kind of person who is terrified of children. You can’t have a conversation with a child—it’s like talking to someone on life support with jelly hanging out of their mouth— which makes me angsty because words are my only recourse. Plus, I have the mild feeling—call it a hunch—that the kid’s parents are RIGHT next door with a shotgun. We drive away a little sad, a little disjointed. But surely, not more than the bird.

The town itself feels tired and worn. Even the homes on the park’s perimeter—traditionally built as the most desirable in a neighborhood—are cheerless little slabs. There is a decidedly 1960s feel: single-story, orange brick, awnings over windows, wrought-iron spindle scrolls. A quick search on Zillow shows one for sale for $160,000—an attractive price point, to be sure, but at what cost? In what other ways is the town stuck in the 60s?

To quell our bird trauma, we stop at The Nebraska Barn & Grill. It is a nice corrugated metal barn: the kind you’d imagine would house an antiques shop, or maybe an October pumpkin patch with some guy named Skip. Not one, but four weathervanes adorn the cranberry-colored roof, and old metal roosters decorate the front. In stark juxtaposition is a neon “Michelob Ultra” sign lighting up the window, next to the area advertising “kerbside pickup.” Apparently, Midwesterners like their “K” spellings a whole lot.

When traveling, I tend to seek out dining experiences that strike the perfect balance between “locals with questionable hygiene” and “I’d like the Pinot Noir chilled to 55 degrees.” (This may or may not perfectly describe who I am in my soul.) This place is perfect. I fling open the doors and immediately try on my new “Midwest nice” personality. The single patron inside the restaurant—an elderly man who I’d place at around a hundred and seven—doesn’t buy it. My warm and cheery public greeting, like I am Mary Fucking Poppins in a jumpsuit, is met with a face of constipated steel. The bartender, a woman who appears to be a NASCAR fan, seems exhausted by our arrival. We read the room and order two Bud Lights. The beers are plopped onto the bar without comment. There are no questions about who we are or where we’re traveling from; no attempt to make conversation; no glance in our general direction, despite it being silent enough in there to hear the old man’s lungs trying to keep him alive.

These are the moments when you wonder: is it me? Am I really such a tremendous twatwaffle, that even the nicest people in the nicest part of the country are like, “nah?”

And then I start to wonder, with seizure-like horror: maybe it’s C. No, it couldn’t be.

Could it be???

C is Costa Rican, and his skin is sparkly golden. To speak to him, you’d never guess he wasn’t a U.S. citizen: a childhood spent in Pennsylvania made his English creepily native. But, could it be???????

Or perhaps it is the game that women play with one another around the world: you don’t impress me much. I am always the loser of that game, because I am impressed by everyone: my over-the-top enthusiasm consistently gives me away as a chump. I am the opposite of the cool, effortless, indifferently French: I am a 4th of July celebration in pearls.

Or, maybe it is simply a function of being in Gothenburg, Nebraska: a small, rural, economically depressed area where effort simply isn’t rewarded the same way it is in other places, and therefore less effort is made.

I ponder this majestic PhD thesis, and then quickly eliminate it: my own hometown, located in the economically-battered and often-mocked Binghamton, NY / Scranton, PA corridor, with an equally humble economic climate, is full of what I’m starting to think are actually the nation’s nicest people—because, trust me, I’ve been investigating. The area may not be branded this way, but some of the most congenial people you will meet are hiding there, right up through Buffalo, New York. Walk into a place like this, and you’ll be best friends with that bartender before you’ve even finished your first sip. Sometimes this can be annoying—there’s a level of naivete involved—but I mostly find it refreshing. And if the Midwest wanted a pageant? So far they were losing.

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An hour further east, Kearney’s Main Street is a stark, threadbare, once-upon-a-time place: as in, once-upon-a-time, it was full of grand, brick buildings of glory and stature, but now house “Kearney Vacuum,” “White’s Hearing Aid Center,” “Pet Kingdom,” “Quilter’s Cottage,” “Yandas Music,” and a very special place called “Self-Service Furniture” where your Cousin Larry goes to pick up a sofa, tucks some cash into an old tin behind a popcorn maker, and straps the thing to his back while whistling “Polly Wolly Doodle all the day.”

A department store called “Shopping Trippes” has two “P’s” for some extra flair, while its competitor down the road, determined not to be outdone, added the tagline: “Your Inspirational Department Store.” My favorite, however, is the vintage movie theater converted into a dentist’s office—not only because I’m imagining the size of the rooms back there, but because the marquee out front advertises “SEDATION.” Again, do we put this in the plus column?! Minus? So many decisions.

The buildings themselves are charming, yet house the kinds of stores that make small-town girls like me want to leave the places they grew up in the first place. I have to wonder: maybe the phenomena of brain drain—where young workers leave the places they were born in search of better opportunity—isn’t always about young people’s unquenchable yearning for big city lights, but sometimes just a simple desire to escape the jaundiced, flickering ones at White’s Hearing Aid Center.

We finally arrive to Cunningham’s Journal and are immediately relieved to find the server to be much more welcoming: having just experienced puberty, his enthusiasm for our ability to mix and match our skewers is inspiring. Is this it? Has Midwest nice finally begun?!

He doesn’t know how to pronounce “cabernet sauvignon,” which is both adorable and awkward, and then proceeds to bring over a glass of sauvignon blanc—an easy mistake for a college kid, but also like reading a fortune of what life might be if you were to live here: an endless back-and-forth dialogue about whether you wanted the red one, or the white one. (Though, you might not mind the pour.)

To my surprise, my Jameson Steak Medallions are achingly, mesmerizingly, otherworldly good. Like eating little pieces of dreams. A filet mignon on a javelin? Sign me up. As someone who became a teenager during the Atkins era, this was my 18-year-old diet’s fantasy. Skewers for president! Meat mounds for all!

When he arrives with the check, however, he says something unexpected: “Thanks for being the nicest guests I’ve had all night.” I FEEL LIKE I AM GETTING A GOLD STAR. But, I’m also confused: how can that be?

“Oh, no, nooo,” I reply. “Thank YOU for being so kind to us. We’re traveling across the Midwest in search of nice people, and you’re our first one!”

“Oh,” he says blushing. (He probably thought we were some kind of aging swingers.) “I’m not actually from here.”

“You’re not?” I say, immediately panicked.

“Nope. Just going to school here,” he replies. “I’m actually from Buffalo, New York.”

And I have never been more disappointed.

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Lincoln, on the other hand, feels like promise. I had read that Lincoln was an up-and-coming desirable place to live, and when we roll up, this mid-sized city looks happening. In fact, it is so buzzy, I am close to doing something I never do: go out to explore past the ripe old hour of 9pm. But, of course, there is a problem checking into the hotel. Isn’t there always a problem checking into the hotel?

This particular problem, however, illustrates an interesting characteristic of the Midwest that soon comes into focus: even the people in the big cities come from small towns. I know this because only someone from a small town would risk decapitation with the following conversation:

“Oh no! Our system is on the fritz and we can’t find your reservation. The only thing I can suggest is going to stay in a nearby hotel and we’ll refund you once it’s fixed.”

“But, you still have available rooms?”

“Yes, but our system is down, so I can’t find your existing reservation or make you a new one.”

“But, it’s 9 o’clock at night. And, we have a reservation.”

“I’m so sorry about that. There’s nothing I can do.”

The phrase “there’s nothing I can do” is a dead giveaway you’ve never met anyone from, say, Manhattan. Or perhaps even seen a map of the Manhattan. Or perhaps even seen a map.

Fortunately, another young woman appears and tells us she’ll get us our room right away and fix it in the morning…as any reasonable person might do. Still, the whole ordeal takes approximately forty minutes of my existence, and I wonder if perhaps a slower pace of life is sometimes just incompetence. Then again, I have forgotten how casual rural areas can be: there is little regard for haste in a place where people often spend their lives counting the hours.

The next morning, after getting ready in a bathroom covered in corn husk wallpaper, we get a coffee and take a walk around Lincoln’s Haymarket District. Instantly, I am struck: this place is really cute. I have a full-on personal rating system to assess a place’s livability (as one does), and at the top of my list is a walkable town center, gastronomy, friendliness (OBVIOUSLY), architecture, green space, affordability, and safety, and so far, Lincoln is really nailing ‘em. Other factors, however, I am not so sure about: open-mindedness remains a big question mark, as does “proximity to literally anywhere else.”

A person on Twitter—someone from Nebraska—clarifies for me that western Nebraska is a whole different world than eastern Nebraska. This is immediately apparent. Here, revitalized brick warehouses on attractive cobblestoned streets all feel alive and bustle with creative businesses: Bluestem Books, Alchemy Cocktail Bar, Crescent Moon Coffee, James Arthur Tasting Room, FUSE Coworking, Hat Killers Barbershop (can we talk about THAT fantastic name?!), Husker Sports Network, a tech start-up called Hudl, a bunch of different breweries, a handful of art galleries, several hair salons (bangs!), a restaurant called Leadbelly (which was excellent), tattoo shops, dining & cabaret, and a checkerboard of professional offices.

Back in the 80s, it was a crumbling, vacant warehouse district, but Haymarket was one of the first pilot initiatives of Main Street America, an organization I regularly dream about waltzing into with a set of heels and a cigar and saying, “Let’s get to work, gals.” They revitalize historic commercial districts around the U.S, and Lincoln was one of the first. If investing in a cute, walkable, historic town is on your agenda, Main Street America’s latest projects is a good starting place.

My only hesitation about Lincoln is simple: its nucleus is The University of Nebraska. We were told you should “never drive anywhere near Lincoln on a Saturday; Saturdays are college football days,” and if you’ve ever seen a movie—like, any American movie at all—you know what that means. On one hand, colleges bring vibrancy, culture, and ideas into a community. On the other, they bring beer pong. While I was clearly a beer pong champion in my day—pauses for applause—now I am a decrepit old armpit who does self-guided audio tours of museums and thinks that people screaming “wooooo!!!” at one o’clock in the morning is like being force-fed shark brains. (The gauge against which I measure things.)

I ask a local real estate agent—a born and bred Linconite—what it was like to live here. Not only was he passionate about the region—“wouldn’t live anywhere else!”—he was my first, real-life nice person. He was extra nice, by which I mean: (a) He radiated warmth and enthusiasm and zero signs of syphilis; (b) Seemed genuinely happy to engage (he wasn’t slightly put off by my question, or the fact that I wasn’t a buyer and was therefore “wasting his time”); and (c) He made friendly eye contact, smiled often, and offered up jokes to make the conversation pleasant.

Talking to him made me feel like I had been let into an exclusive club—and, that’s the true superpower of nice people, isn’t it? They make you feel like you are wanted. They make you feel like you are welcome. And, they make you feel like you belong. In a world where you can hardly buy a loaf of bread without feeling like a dipshit, this is a valuable gift.

Nice people make you feel more confident.

Nice people make you feel like it’s okay to be you.

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There are bad ideas, and there are “let’s go to a winery in Iowa!” but C has been studying wine, so we figured this is an excellent teachable moment in terroir.

Breezy Hills Vineyard is, in fact, on a very breezy hill: we drive up a long dirt driveway that feels like trespassing on someone’s private property before swinging past an old apple tree and farmhouse, and having the view explode to reveal an endless panorama of corn fields and silos and aggressively swinging wind chimes that scream “I’m about to be in a tornado movie.” A golden retriever approaches as if on cue, cementing the image.

We are the only ones here. Who knows what we’re going to find inside. A weirdo? Someone with a butcher knife? AN IOWAN SERIAL KILLER USING A WINERY TO LURE UNSUSPECTING MOTORISTS INTO THEIR LAIR??? If a tornado doesn’t get us, surely it will be Kathy Bates from Misery.

Inside, however, I am relieved to find the Iowan person of my dreams: a caricature of the Midwest if there ever was one. If you were to have a grandmother in Iowa, I’d wager she’d look like this: mid-60s. Mousey grey hair curled primly under her ears. A pair of Mrs. Claus glasses and a needlepoint sweater. And a soft-spoken demeanor, like anything over a whisper might call in the devil.

I try to reign in my enthusiasm. Put my hands behind my back and try to slip the giant skull ring off of my middle finger. Then, scold myself for wearing all black—as usual.

I am a nice girl.

I am Iowa nice.

Hear me…whisper!

She pours us a wine flight while we observe our surroundings: farmhouse-style tchotchkes, wooden plaques written in Curlz font, things that cringely say “Wine not?” and “It’s wine o’clock!” I’m experiencing cognitive dissonance: my new Iowan granny doesn’t seem like she’d ever touch the stuff. In fact, she looks like the kind of woman who would impose a 6pm curfew, read the Bible nightly, and unironically have a sewing machine sent to her house.

The grapes, I’d never heard of. FRONTENAC. LACROSSE. MARECHAL FOCH. EDELWEISS. I listen as she explains that in the 30s, Iowa was sixth in grape and wine production in the entire nation, but that a combination of prohibition, The Depression, a powerful corn herbicide, and a destructive winter storm in 1940 wiped out the industry.

Her husband, Darrell, had been the one to turn their farm back into a vineyard. It was Darrell who was passionate about resurrecting Iowa’s grapes. Unfortunately, passion only goes so far: we are drinking the corpse of The Sugarplum Fairy.

I do not tell Roberta that.

Instead, I rave. I rave about their wines—even a ghastly strawberry “fruit wine” she offers us as a bonus—and even more so when she tells me the truth: Darrell passed away last year. Her son didn’t want to take over. The work was too much for her. Roberta would be closing down Breezy Hills by December, for good.

She tells me this with her signature quiet restraint. A hint of somber in her voice, tempered by old-fashioned stoicism. Never did her voice raise, nor drop: it remained even-keeled and uniform for the time we visited with her. It wasn’t that she was emotionless—she had a kindness behind her eyes—but she remained unanimated, as if a lifetime of being agreeable had placed a corset around her throat. I got the sense that enduring had been a theme of her world: enduring hardship. Enduring seasons. Enduring grief. Enduring time. Enduring an eternity of minding your Ps and Qs and trying to be a good, sensible woman who doesn’t ask too many foolish questions and humbly accepts whatever God has in store for her.

I pull two dozen bottles from the shelf. Tell Roberta I’ll take ‘em all. And then load up our backseat with two cases of wine we will carry all the way to Pennsylvania, but never drink.

Roberta was nice—of that, there’s no doubt.

But, at what point does “nice” become “obedience?”

And, can that even be a compliment anymore?

Picture a cornfield—then multiply it by three oceans, seven seas, and the width of your ass. This is the approximate number of cornfields there are here. You could build an entire Atlantis inside these cornfields, and no one would even notice. “Excellent for hiding bodies,” C quips. Maybe he is the Kathy Bates.

C, whom I have nicknamed “Charlie Napkins” for his great fondness of stuffing napkins into his pockets when we travel, is used to rugged Costa Rican rainforests and soaring mountains and chasmal gorges and daredevil beaches—and at least one man holding a warm fish on the side of the road. With little change of scenery for days now, he quickly becomes restless. I do, too: the monotonous, horizontal landscape feels tiring in the way that talking to someone with no personality feels tiring: you’ve got to do all the work. Keep the conversation flowing. Fill the painful silence.

That’s what driving across Iowa feels like: a whole lot of silence that needs filling.

The starkness of the land makes everything feel isolated, lonely, inhospitable—like you really are all alone in this world. I hadn’t realized how comforting mountains actually are, enveloping a place like a warm hug. Maybe it’s the flavored water from the Kum & Go, but right now, mountains feel like safety. Mountains feel like home.

In yet another fun-filled expedition off the highway, we make the grand decision to enter a sports bar…in a shopping plaza. I convince myself it’s part of the adventure. Plus, there’s no better place to analyze culture than in a bar: regardless of the language spoken, humans are all doing the same thing inside of them. It acts as a control, making it easier to spot the differences from culture to culture.

The big University of Nebraska football game is on TV. At one point, a couple enters and we shift over to make room for them; they seem shocked we would go to such great lengths. I am confused why everyone thinks that we are the nice people.

That’s when Ken from Waterloo shows up.

Ken marches right over to us in his tucked-in gingham print shirt and jeans, props his foot up against the bar stool, and says: “Let me ask y’ something—you like red apples or goldens better?” (If you asked me this in Philly, I’d think this were code for drugs.)

“Leave ‘em alone, Ken!” a middle-aged woman behind the bar yells.

I reply “red,” as any together person would. But, Ken is already onto the next topic—which, surprise, turns out to be his life story.

Soybean farmer. Waterloo. Good Christian man, just like his father.

I love characters like this. C starts kicking me though, because he knows what’s coming next: the moment when I will hit The Point of No Return™️. The Point of No Return is a real hazard in this line of work: it’s when you encourage conversation with strangers in bars AND THEN CAN’T ESCAPE WHEN THE FOOD COMES.

This is a universal problem. Happens worldwide. No place is safe.

C says it’s me—that I’m too nice—but C is a bastard, and he is wrong. Whenever we are faced with this conundrum, I initiate Operation: Jiggle Arms. I explicitly rotate my entire body 180 degrees from the offender. Unfold my napkin by making large, vigorous motions with my arms. Remove my silverware with the ceremony of the Olympics. Push out my elbows like jack knives. Begin “weak smile” mode. And even, as a last resort, pull out my phone to start photographing my food, as to say: “Look, it’s my food! IN CASE YOU DID NOT SEE THE 12 DOZEN PIPING HOT CHICKEN WINGS THAT I WOULD LIKE TO NOW EAT.”

If this doesn’t work, I will initiate Level 2 protocols, which involve getting the server’s attention to ask for literally anything: another drink, another glass of water, a lead pipe. This, though, is a risky move: it gives the offender the opportunity to also order a new drink. (Bad.) When executed correctly, however, you can seamlessly launch into a brand-new conversation with the bartender—hopefully long enough to send Motor Mouth on their way.

Spoiler alert: this only has a 2% success rate.

The other 98% of the time, you will ultimately resort to Level 3 protocols, in which you will finally just pick up a wing and fucking eat it. This is the worst outcome, because you must now eat your wings in that delicate, polite, bullshit way you do when someone is watching you eat wings—which means that instead of enjoying your hot fleshy meat sticks, you will blinded by the rage that is not being able to set adult boundaries.

“My father was a good Christman man,” Ken labored on. “But, he was also an alcoholic and my mother suffered nervous breakdowns, so my father sent me on a bus at age eleven to a small town in Wisconsin to work. Well, that changed the course of my life, it did, because that’s how I ended up becoming a soybean farmer.”

I must admit: the upside is that I learned there are lots of interesting uses for soybeans: Biodiesel! Environmentally-friendly solvents! Soybean crayons! Nascar racing tires!

Ken knows ‘em all. In fact, his last project? Working with the University of Iowa to use soy to remove graffiti. Did you know you could use soy for that, too? Oh, yes, yes you can. I finally give in and express genuine interest, and that’s when Ken utters the following words: “Well, ever since the Blacks trashed the campus.”

And, there it is. The thing I have been worried about with the Midwest. You can have the nicest porches in the nation, but it will never be enough.

We get our check.

C stuffs some napkins into his pockets.

And Ken follows us outside, goes over to his truck, and gives us a plastic shopping bag full of freshly-picked red apples.

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At last, we have made it to the promised land: Des Moines.

Des Moines, the place with public safety officers rolling around on Segways. Des Moines, the place being voted “most neighborly city in America.” Des Moines, the place with a “buddy” program to help newcomers to the city get acquainted.

Everything about Des Moines seems so wholesome, but in a cool “I like your beard” kind of way. At least, from what I had read. The Iowa tourism board does a hell of a job selling you on this place.

We stay at one of the chicest hotels in town—The Surety—as a way of heightening this much-anticipated experience. But, there’s something I instantly notice about everyone inside: no one here is trying to be nice. They’re trying to be cool.

The staff have an arrogant, unaffected air, as if I have just entered the poshest hotel in London. I am fortunate to have been to the poshest hotels in London and, quite honestly, feel more at home there. For a minute I find myself wanting to scream: “YOU’RE NOT THAT COOL, KUMQUAT!” since using a K word would surely sting.

The hotel restaurant—seemingly one of the most buzziest places around—is full of well-dressed people who still somehow manage to be dowdy. But, they’re trying. They’re trying so hard to be pretentious. I want to tell them not to be; that the world doesn’t need any more of that.

We do lots of healthy, outdoor “well-adjusted happy family” things in Des Moines: attend a community food festival. Go walking through Gray’s Lake Park. Visit Salisbury House. See the Better Homes & Gardens test garden. House hunt in Linden Heights Historic District. Bop over to East Village. Pop into coffee shops, and book shops, and breweries.

But somehow, the magic of Des Moines escapes me.

I keep looking for meaningful interaction with locals, but find them to be more guarded than I had expected—like cracking open a walnut. Or a nuclear bunker.

Finally, I realize what’s bugging me: I have been searching for the wrong thing.

In my short time here, I perceive that “Midwest nice” means something different: it means polite. And, there is a difference between being polite, and being warm.

The word that keeps coming up for me is “flat.” Flat, flat, flat, flat, flat. I can’t get it out of my head. Every interaction is characterized by a distanced courteousness, but one that, to my east coast sensibilities, feels hollow. Limp. Neutral. And so grievously even. Like people speaking in beige.

I hadn’t realized that “nice” might mean different things in different places; here, it seems to be a substitute for manners, for following the rules, for tameness—but for me?

I want passion. I want energy. I want you to laugh loudly, and have interesting opinions, and tell jokes about your mother, and act as if the world is your stage.

I want people who are buoyant. People who are big. People who are engaging. People who are free.

I want people who bend, break, weave, wiggle, twist and contort themselves into whoever they want to be that day.

I want fun.

I want sarcasm.

I want personality.

Turns out, that’s my personal definition of “nice.” It’s why I love my hometown. Why I love Ireland. Why I love talking to characters in bars.

And that’s when I realize the truth: what I am really searching for is belonging. I am secretly looking for all of the other 4th of July celebrations in pearls; the place where I can finally have shitty cuticles, say “fuck wicker,” throw my Allen wrenches into the garbage, drink a seventh glass of wine, read mediocre novels during lunch hour, and absolutely make a sexual face when sucking things through a straw.

WHILE STILL HAVING A PORCH.

Does this mythical utopia exist? That remains to be seen. But one thing I do know is this:

When we go places, what we’re really looking for is other people. How are we the same? How are we different? And what does that mean for my identity?

Am *I* a nice person? Will I be braver from this? Will I see things differently? Will I feel alive in a way I haven’t?

It’s an exercise in clarity: you can’t see who you really are until you see who you aren’t.

And, you know what? In the end, it’s okay if you can’t work a sewing machine. It’s okay if you can’t confront a 12-year-old boy. It’s okay if you are an arrogant, unbelievable ballsack who is scared of children and has no boundaries with strangers and wears skull rings and overenthusiastically greets people in restaurants.

The important thing is that you kame, and you left. You jizzed, and you jetted. You boned, and you bounced.

And forever, you will know that the real pageant to be won?

Is with yourself.