In December, Will told me I was a real Minnesotan...

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

In December, Will told me I was a real Minnesotan because I said, “Did you know that Jingle All the Way takes place in St. Paul?” It’s true; I’ve settled in here like a happy alley kitten who knows audienceless facts about Minnesota’s Hollywood history. Tomorrow marks the five-year anniversary of my move to Minneapolis: Hot dog! Food truck! Bike path! Tomorrow I am going to chow down on some cream cheese wontons at Leeann Chin, where I’ve never eaten, and watch Purple Rain, a movie I’ve never seen in its entirety.

In honor of this momentous occasion, here are five things I’ve learned in my five years in Minneapolis:

Right now the Twin Cities are like that kid in high school who is generally cool but doesn’t have any self-esteem and is really self-obsessed, so does some occasionally lame things. It’s not that it’s harder to make friends here than anywhere else (it is hard to make friends everywhere after you graduate college); it’s that we’re obsessed with how we feel about it. Just make whatever friends, treat whoever like however, they will figure it out, stop thinking about yourself that way. You can do it. It’s like MPLS is Liz Lemon in high school - so much potential, but kinda mean because it’s so obsessed with being compared to others (you are going to bring up Portland again? ok, I’ll wait. And no one says hi to you on the street except for in the South, ok? That shit’s annoying.) Anyway, there’s a lot of potential bubbling under the surface right now, and one day Minneapolis will straighten up and grow up and own it, and that day is almost here.
No one neighborhood is cooler than any other neighborhood. Minneapolis and St. Paul are similarly badass. They all have equally sweet blocks and even better hidden secrets. South Minneapolis is as cool as Northeast, which rocks as much as the Northside and West St. Paul. You can find apartments with badass built-ins in every neighborhood.
The best place to meet a stranger with whom you would like to get down immediately is the 331 Club.
There are a lot of favorites everywhere, but a perfect day would involve a trip to Franconia, a visit to Selby & Snelling and dinner at 112 Eatery, capped off by a show at the Hexagon Bar.
It’s more than ok to be obsessed with Prince, still. It’s the coolest thing, actually. Every time it rains in this city a radio station is playing “Purple Rain.”

I have nothing but love for the Cities. Once I convinced a friend from out of town that Minneapolis’s slogan was “Let’s go crazy. Let’s get nuts.” Can we make that happen?