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Name 5 places you'd like to live

1. Iowa City: I love it here. Great schools, fantastic cultural events, good friends...who could ask for more.

2. St. Louis: Having my kid grow up close to grandparents would be wonderful. I've also loved the cultural vibe of the city ever since I interned at the paper there in the mid-'90s. Question is...would my inlaws and I still be speaking to each other if we lived that close?? (I'd say the same thing about my own parents, too...but I don't want to live near them because if I had to live in Kansas again, I would cry. A lot. There's no way I'd send my kid to school in a state that doesn't want to teach evolution, for criminy sake.)

3. Monterey, Calif.: Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Too bad the state's bankrupt and marred with active earthquake fault lines. Loved visiting. If I had a zillion dollars and felt daring with my welfare, I'd plant roots there in a heartbeat. (I could probably say the same about any of a number of California cities -- San Francisco and San Diego are two others that come to mind.)

4. San Antonio: Love the Riverwalk. Not thrilled about the state, but any place that has highs in the 60s and 70s in the winter and virtually no snow rates high in my book. As I get older, my tolerance for cold weather gets exponentially lower.

5. Seattle: I've never even been there, but anyplace that in love with coffee and angst would be perfect for me. Lack of sun would be a problem. But everyone I know who's lived there adores it.

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