I don't know about Ian but I've never lived among creatives,
   except for a too short experience at Hampshire College in
   Amherst in 1990-91. A number of my classmates ended up moving to
   the same area you are in, including Seattle and other creative
   venues in Oregon and some parts of California.

   Had I gone that route, I'd likely have been swept up within
   quite a number of movements through the years. But I live in
   Naples Florida now, in a woodsy part at that, and before that,
   Suburban NJ - 7 miles as the crow flies from 9-11. [I saw one
   tower standing and the other one just a plume of smoke from the
   7th story of my parking garage of my workplace (Schering-Plough)
   that day.

   I was supposed to be in building 5 for Unix training from Sept
   10-15th but begged my boss's boss to get me OUT OF IT because it
   was a WASTE of a week's worth of my time, when I was in the
   middle of a project. [I was a Systems Analyst or something - I
   dunno what they called it - I was their Excel/VBA guru].

   I'm glad I wasn't there because I probably would've had to walk
   that ridiculous bridge back home, and I'm really bad about not
   bringing enough snacks with me. I don't think I would've died
   but it's likely I'd have some coughing problems or something and
   major PTSD to this day.

   Anyway... there's a rooster crowing and I always found myself on
   the outside-looking-in to various exciting creative movements
   and in a way, it's been a huge bonus. Being removed from it
   directly, lets me see the societies as societies rather than
   being a part-of. When I *do* join societies online, I do so from
   an analytical and psychological point of view and try to find
   the holes in their thinking... because people in groups that
   agree with each other frequently are _always_ misisng
   _something_... often something plain-as-day to outsiders but
   invisible to insiders.

   It's lonely sometimes,, as it makes me contrarian in the end,
   but avoiding excessive agreement while remaining as much of a
   nice guy as I can, I think has been fruitful to the
   ever-changing, ongoing nature of my outlook on... stuff.