East vs West

My grandparents came to visit San Diego this weekend, bringing the intensity of the colder and wetter climes to bear upon us, the well-nourished, sun-blessed and generally mild and glassy-eyed SoCalese.

If environments make creatures behave and even evolve differently, then New York makes people into quick, sharp, small monkey-creatures of little patience and great intensity to feed and breed.

Southern California evolves a comfortable, slow-moving, drifting, sliding type, of long aquatic movements and tendrils of relaxed comfort. Gentle and sleeping seals, prone to barking or being selfish, but mostly seeking the prized jewel of respite.

Monkeys like the seal's beaches. Seals like the monkey's warm jungles. But a monkey can't live on a beach, and a seal can't live in a jungle.

Then there's the Midwest: grazing, lumbering and wary buffalo. Good land, good food, and lots of distance to look out for intruders.