A good friend asked me the other day if I still love Oklahoma. What a cool question.

And I guess I haven't thought consciously about the answer, but here it is: I love Oklahoma more now than ever before. Which I know for lots of you who have been reading this blog for the five years since I started it would be difficult to imagine, given what a booster I've always been (Blake Ewing once called me an eternal optimist—which I think gets pretty close to the heart of it). What's happened is that my love of my state as a whole has deepened. The Tulsa area will always be home. But I've fallen in love with the red dirt and impossible skies of western Oklahoma. And the hills and craggy roadside reliefs in the south. And rowdy Oklahoma City in the middle of it all. 

I'd be doing you a disservice if I acted like I'm not really frustrated by this place, and often, too. I'm embarrassed by the policies pushed by most of our state and national representatives. I wish white flight from our urban cores—even from smaller towns like Broken Arrow, Claremore, Sand Springs—had never happened, which caused a domino effect with which we're still in negotiations. I'm disappointed that buy-in to what's happening in downtown Tulsa didn't come sooner. I go crazy when my friends complain ab

