so, after wasting all wendsday afternoon napping and blogging, we headed to south boulder (this is a and i) to check out the new place. it's the END of boulder- the last culdusac south, with a wide open field to the south, and to the west there is a big dog park and then the flatirons. (the path starts here, 5 hr. hike to the top) the dog is hendrix, a charming black lab. there is apparently also a cat named marley, who doesn't deign to meet the new roomie. the place has a huge kitchen, charming living room, and 3 small bedrooms downstairs. the roomates, well, they don't seem to fit any stereotypes. a had been saying all week, every time we saw a guy, "that could be my potential roommate!" they're not stoners or partiers or painfully shy geeks. they are snowboarders, straight, very tidy. they spent hours (literally!) telling us how wonderful boulder is. i tried to make myself useful, get in the important questions, incense burning, door locking, pest problems, things that i knew a would want to know. i'm glad she got good vibes from them too- we were pretty euphoric back to broomfield. we called nate and he said he wouldn't be home till later, so we went to boulder and i saw the co-op, and we walked down pearl street. very hippy-dippy, totally boulder-esque. i can see all that ch says about the place, but i also think it will be a good place for a. unfortunately, my contacts were killing me, and i was really tired, as it was late, so we went on back to nate's.
i need to be more greatful to nate for so graciously offering up his floor to me on such short notice and such feeble connections, but i was SO frustrated with him this morning. he did his basic morning-routine-that-wakes-everyone-up thing, sitting in his chair, eating his breakfast, talking to a asleep on the couch. and what does he tell her? that he doesn't have to be in on time, and he's going back to bed for 20 min! a and i are like, right, thanks, we appriciate you waking us up for this info. so we cut another inch off her hair while waiting. it's perfect now, i did a good job. will hopefully be able to post pics soon. i'm almost afraid to mail away this roll, though, ever since the last one got lost. i called stacy twice with later and later times for us to meet, but eventually nate did take me to the walnut cafe. stacy and i were both really hungry, so we got big breakfasts and were sad that we couldn't finish them. it was much too hot to take them with, though- record settng temps in colorado, over 100 degrees every day. we walked to her fave used book store, and both spent way too much time and money. fun though! i got a jostein gaarder children's book i'd never heard of, a live coal in the sea by ml'e, and an original vegetarian epicure vol.2. the recipies looked better than the first one. after that we drove around ch's old neigborhood, and stacy pointed out the house he used to live in on marion. then we went to the library, a lovely place, as all libraries are. this one is as fun on the inside as on the outside- designed by michael graves- you know, the guy who does all that design for target? after that, we went back to stacy's house, as it was too hot to do anything else. the car temp. held at 108- that's what, 42 degrees celcious? dude, that's HOT! her poor dogs. we were lazy, just hanging around. she was exited by the sound of my odessa beet salad, and so she pulled some beets from the garden, got out her sun oven and cooked them. we went to the lil general store for pineapple. i felt like it was a winner. she picked a HUGE zuchini from the garden for me- i'll be eating it all week, i'm sure.
it was a bit of a farce at the airport- i've got all these little bags. once through security and i'd found my gate (i was there 40 min. before boarding- i did NOT need to get there that early) i rearranged my stuff to fit mostly in my backpack, with a rice bag for a purse, and it in a plastic bag with my camera and this enormous zuchinni that doesn't fit anywhere. sigh. it was fine. i just put my nose in my utne reader, and when i was done with that, my book. put my zuchini under the seat in front of me.
i have all these phrases written in my blogging notebook, these combinations of words to remind me of the stream of conciousness blog entry i was composing as i was leaving the airport. i was trying to gauge the weather as i was walking through to my gate, but i couldn't quite. but as soon as you leave the airport's air conditioning, the air hits you like a wall. i could feel the humid air coating my chapped lungs as i walked to the train. the thickness of the air here, compared to boulder, is incredible. there, the sun bakes all the air away, you can feel the uv rays going directly into your skin, with nothing between you and the sun to protect it. (did i mention when i opened my saline bottle upon arrival in co, it let off a preasureized hiss? it's creepy, i think, to drive all that altitude.) here, the air is tangible, you wonder why you can't see it, it feels like something you shouldn't be able to breathe, like the oft quoted pea soup- it feels like living in a cloud, this is what angels breathe.
still processing my trip- i mean really, i just got home an hour ago, max. my biggest impression of the boulder/denver area was the suburbia feel of it. nate lived in a suburb, stacy lived in a suburb- it's a frustrating lifestyle to me. of course, every thing anyone ever says has to begin with how it's smack dab up against the omnipresent mountains. every time we turned a corner and were heading west they where there- always surprising me, and i exclaimed "look! there's the mountains again!" . i think i think of them as weather sort of phenomenon, like a rainbow or the cycles of the moon- something more fleeting. and for me they are. but a and stacy wake up every morning and look out the window, and if it's clear, can see the mountains. but beyond that it seemed all big houses and fancy stores to me. denver is gritty urbania, and stacy's suburb is charming, but still- i spent a fucking huge amount of time in people's cars. and this is a big problem for me- i have a hard time in a place i have to be shuttled around. i hate having no transport of my own. i hate relying on the willingness of others to brave traffic. i wanna be free. this independence was my other issue with my trip. i'm so used to planning by myself, it's sometimes hard to take other's plans into account. and i communicate so very, very differently to stacy and a- i think they were both slightly shafted by my failure to plan or communicate well. it fact, with all these problems, i think it's amazing i had such a very good time, and they both still like me.
it was nice to fly over the city lights. to take off in the blazing desert of colorado and to land in the humid city- it's another world. i am comfortable here, this is my place, my city, my home. i revel in the fact that i am urban, that riding the subway is not the begining of my vacation but the begining of the rest of my life. and i still have this apartment i'm getting used to (three weeks tomorrow!) to be newness in my life. i was a little jelous of a, being selfcenteredly anxious about all the major changes that are happining, to all of a sudden find yourself in the city of your dreams with your car packed full of your stuff, realizing that now that you're here you have to create the life of your dreams. i want to go to a new place, the place for me, and start from scratch creating a perfect life. but i was glad for it to be a vacation for me. usally, one doesn't want to get on the plane and have the vacation be over, and go back to boring normal life. but i would be so full of fear at starting so completely new. i was glad i got to leave the job hunts and couch sleeping behind and return to my stable, boring life.
and really, it's not boring at all right now. have this HUGE play meeting hanging over my head tomorrow, which i haven't done a THING for- so fucking unprepared it's embarrassing. plus, an inbox full of messages for plans for upcoming vacations. who's mz thang now?
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