Tell of Woe

Well it seems I'm in full-on blogger mode again, which means I've reverted to my Great Obsession.

It makes me want to laugh. Or cry.

It's finally snowing in Boulder. The wind is howling and we could get as much as a foot by tomorrow morning, along with sub-zero temperatures. Counting today I have four more days before I have to go back into the office. I plan to spend the majority of that time fireside knocking out a few books, doing a little blogging, and working on my novel.

So what brought my obsessive feelings back? Partly I wanted them to come back. I missed them, if that makes sense. I guess it's how I've come to define myself. It makes me wonder how I'd feel if I ever were to achieve my fantasy. I mean imagine you spent your whole life fantasizing of, say, going to Greece. Then you finally get to go. Upon returning home, what then? What comes next? Would you be satisfied thereafter? Or would you find that it was the obsession with Greece, rather than Greece itself, that you actually needed?

Partly my obsession was brought back by just not being at work. I haven't been in the office since last Wednesday. It's now Thursday of the following week. In the past week I've been to the Leanin' Tree Museum of Western Art twice, and that always catapults me back into hardcore Western fantasizing. It's one of the best little museums I've ever been to and the only art museum I've ever loved. It's in Boulder, it's free and open to the public, and it's usually very quiet so it's a good place to meditate on the things near and dear to my heart. And the art collection is amazing. Even my parents loved it. Often I'll go alone during some off-time when I'm sure to be the only one there and I'll spend an hour or two gazing into an intangible world that captivates me. Every sculpture, every painting is a moment frozen in time - yet they all tell a story, however brief, and give one a glimpse of what was and what would be, even if the stories are only based loosely on historical events.

The deep lines painted on an old Cherokee woman's face as she stares off into the desert at something only she can see; the cowboy about to be crushed by his sun fishing horse; the war party in the pale moonlight; the haunting spirit horse mourning the death of his warrior; the epic struggle between hunter and mountain lion; the tenderness of two cowboys at Thanksgiving in a rugged and unforgiving world; the packers after a successful hunt; breathtaking western landscapes with all their minute detail and a thousand things more. These images move me and haunt me; they fill my soul with something I can't get from the daily grind of "normal" life.

And finally, my obsessive feelings were brought back by getting out into the mountains. Rocky Mountain National Park is what keeps me sane, and it's not even the most perfect slice of the American West. That title belongs to Yellowstone, the only in-tact ecosystem in the lower 48 that still looks and functions more or less like it did before the arrival of the white man and all of his destructive ways. I think that when the day comes that I visit Yellowstone I won't want to leave. Wolves, grizzlies, wolverines, bison, untrammeled forests and meadows, snow-capped peaks and untamed rivers - Yellowstone is the last refuge of Wild America outside of Alaska.

For lunch today I sat down with a warm bowl of leftover homemade chicken soup: potatoes, carrots and dried oregano from the garden and chicken from a local farm. I served it with a leftover buttermilk biscuit I made from scratch for breakfast yesterday. In the glow of the Christmas tree I watched the snow falling outside, warmed by my soup and my thoughts. This is heaven for me, this moment.

I'm a philosopher. That's what I really am, no bones about it. I probably wouldn't make for an exceptional cowboy; I'm not reckless enough. I probably wouldn't make for an exceptional mountain man; I may not be tough enough. I don't make an exceptional analyst or businessman; I don't care enough. What drives me is a desire to become enlightened and to be inspired. What thrills me is to enlighten and inspire others. What comforts me is nature. What satisfies me is purpose.

I don't want to be a scientist; they care only for what makes a thing tick. I don't want to be a businessman; they care only for making money. I don't want to be an adventurer; they care only for the thrill of the moment. I don't want to be a politician; they care only for winning the game.

I think my calling in life is to be a teacher, a writer, a naturalist, a philosopher, and a non-academic historian. These things I am now, as much as I can be. I do want to know about science, I do want to have business sense, and I do want to understand the game. We need professionals in all areas I suppose. Thing is, I don't want to specialize in the activities. I want a bird's eye view of all of them, to understand how they form our world. I want to know who we are, where we came from, where we are going, why we do what we do, or don't. I want to inspire people to think beyond what makes a thing tick, to care for more than just money, and to realize that the game has no value but that which we assign to it. I despise the concept of money and accumulating wealth in monetary form. I despise the corporate ladder and the Western concept of "progress." Alas, this is the world in which I live, so I struggle to find a way to "earn a living" from the things I love, rather than from the unsatisfying activities that I know will work but leave me feeling empty. My body is clothed and nourished by my career success, but my soul is left destitute.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

You Can't Hide Your Lyin' Eyes

So the Fourmile Canyon Fire, which has been burning the mountains west of Boulder since Monday, is now officially the worst wildfire in Colorado history - not for its size but for the nearly 200 homes it has so far burned. They're still fighting it but it looks like Boulder is safe. A rain shower last night even cleared the air of the choking smoke.

I'm suffering from a severe lack of purpose. Big news, I know.

A couple of weeks ago I had another one of those moments where I decided reluctantly that my life is great, my job is great and I just need to settle in and enjoy it. And I did, mostly. For two weeks. Ish. But I knew it was fleeting. One can have everything in the world, but if one doesn't feel fulfilled then it doesn't matter much.

This much I do know: it isn't just the desk job aspect that I don't like. It's also the core of my job function that turns me off. I'm almost as sick of GIS analysis as I am of staff meetings and TPS reports. Surprisingly, however, I have found some spark of interest in web mapping; that is, making interactive , functional mapping applications for use over the internet. That's what's been keeping me moderately entertained at work lately. As long as I'm in the GIS field I definitely want to take my career in that direction for as long as it can hold my attention. Though still I know it's just a smokescreen; a distraction from the things I truly long for.

Anyway I decided to really try and get my mind off cabins and mountains and horses, but I'm like a mountain man junkie: I can stay clean for a little while but inevitably my thoughts start turning back to the things that consume me. It's a constant battle. That's why I'm blogging at 9AM on a Thursday morning instead of working. The blog is my attempt to help me organize my thoughts and get back to work, instead of heading out to the ranch or "running down to Boulder Horse and Rider - just for a few minutes to see what's new." Yeah right.

Gerard spent several weeks in Western Colorado and Montana this summer for an internship. He and some fellow student researchers were camping in remote parts of the Rockies studying pikas. At first, he said, it was beautiful. That gave way to pain and misery after the first day, because he wasn't accustomed to the rigors of "roughing it" and of spending so much time physically working and hiking. But after a couple of days he physically and mentally adapted and sort of fell into it. From that point on, he said, it was just awesome. I know the feeling. Every time I've been on an extended wilderness excursion or even in a physical working environment I've had the exact same experience. Gerard described Montana as the best. "It's very wild," he would say with a dreamy look in his eye. They saw bear, bald eagles, and heard wolves howling at night. The photos are stunning. Gerard lost 15 pounds during his time in the wilderness and didn't even notice. Mind you that was 15 pounds of "cushioning" he'd put on in the last few years since he pretty much gave up the gym. He looks good. He says at home he eats when he's bored. He exercises little and isn't really motivated to hang out at the gym and go mindlessly through some contrived routine. I very much know the feeling. This is a huge problem in modern Western society. Our lives are too soft and entirely too contrived. I despise the clock and the calendar like you can't imagine.

I once had a professor in college who was an archaeologist. He described a project he worked on where he lived in very primitive, stone age conditions for a month, and he described the same kinds of experiences that Gerard had. Even years ago when I was sitting in his class I was dreaming of how awesome that must've been.

I have another friend who was in the Peace Corps in Africa for two years, and he too described these experiences. He rarely got to call home. While talking to his mom on the phone shortly before his return to the US, she asked what he would be most happy to see upon coming back to the US. He said, "I can't wait to have a microwave again so I can easily heat up some water to take a bath." She paused. "Keith, you know we have hot water that comes out of the faucet here." He had to think about it a moment, then realized he had completely forgotten! I desperately need an experience like that.

In a scientific experiment conducted in Australia, a group (all volunteers of course) of older Aboriginal men who had lived the majority of their adult lives in the city, were asked to try living in the wild for six weeks. These men were all overweight, suffered from high cholesterol and high blood pressure and all the usual stuff. For six weeks these men lived in the Outback: no electricity or running water, no grocery stores, nothing. They had to make, catch, cook and gather everything. In six weeks all the men had returned to a normal, healthy weight and their medical problems had vanished.

I'm not saying life in the wild is all roses. It's the fact that it isn't that makes it so appealing and superior. There's a saying that there's no such thing as a free lunch. Modern society certainly offers a lot, but there is a high price to pay for all this luxury and softness, and I think I'm about tapped out.

War of the Worlds

I had the most awesome day fly fishing in Rocky. Between me and my buddy Keith we probably caught two dozen or so cutthroat trout, many of which were a good 14 inches or more. It's about a three mile hike up to the Loch where we fished. It's a place of stunning waterfalls and dramatic cliff faces, thick pine forests and clear icy waters. And of course a lot of trout.

The Glacier Gorge area is arguably one of the most beautiful parts of Rocky, and it's the area I spend most of my time in. The hike up to the Loch isn't what I would consider terribly strenuous, but most tourists (thankfully) disagree. It's three miles in with about 1,500 feet elevation gain. And of course it's at about 10,000 feet so the air is a might thin. While fishing, we had the occasional hiker come by and wave, but mostly it was just us fishermen with only the chipmunks and the gray jays to keep us company. For lunch we stretched out in a wildflower-carpeted meadow next to a stream, surrounded by fortress-like walls of sculpted granite, and watched the trout gulp down midges and the honey bees drink up the last of summer's nectar. It was spectacular.

I hadn't been fishing in a long time, but I can see now that this is a hobby that's way overdue. I can't describe the thrill I get from the game. Fly fishing is especially so, because trout are so finicky. One minute hundreds of fish will be feeding en masse, gulping anything on the surface that moves. The next minute, every one of them will stop, drift to the bottom and disappear. Often they'll only be interested in midges, and ignore anything else, then suddenly switch to grasshoppers or flying ants. With trout it's a constant game of trying to guess what the fish want, and then tricking them into taking a fuzzy bit with a hook that more or less looks like whatever is pleasing their palate at the time. Then of course there's the grand finale, the icing on the cake: the moment when a big one takes the fly, and you the fisherman are fast enough to set the hook in the split second before the trout figures you out. The fight is thrilling, and I can't quite explain why. I imagine it harkens back to those hunter instincts our ancestors depended on for millennia before the industrial revolution. I released all of my fish unharmed today, but the thrill of the chase was extraordinarily satisfying.

I also love the smell of a live, squirmy fish, and the way it feels in my hand. Cutthroats are among the prettiest and most vivid of fresh water fish, and I'm always dazzled by their colors. There's something thrilling and primal about going out into nature and having a close encounter with a wild creature. I think that's especially true today with so many of us living such disconnected, ignorant urban lives. I've blogged before about the simple thrill I often get at touching the bark of a tree or of hearing the sound of a stream after being subjected to cube life for an extended period of time. To go out into nature and see something, some beautiful form of life, that lives all on its own and needs nothing from man to survive but to be left alone still amazes me and fills me with delight. Going into the mountains reminds me that I am alive. It reminds me of the real world - the world beyond the artificial urban world - the world that created us, the world in which we have lived for millions of years, and only very recently have forgotten because of the illusions we've created with our cities and our nifty techno trickery. The cities and all they contain could not exist without the green, living world they, like a tick, have imbedded themselves in. How quickly most of us have forgotten our roots.

On the hike down from the lake this evening, I noticed - I always notice - that the trail gets busier and busier the closer one gets to the trailhead and parking lot. The people get fatter. The kids get more numerous. The attitude (mine) gets worse. Just hundreds of yards from the trailhead one will see fat suburban women wearing flip-flops, smoking, and screaming at unruly children who are literally climbing over the "stay on the trail" signs. One will see teenagers with their headphones on and people of all ages pecking away at their iPhones. One will smell a thousand different perfumes, deodorants, fabric softeners, shampoos, cigarettes and other toxic aromas from "real life" in the city. One will find cigarette butts and trash on the ground, and a hundred other signs that the ignorant, uncaring masses have descended upon the "easy" parts of the park to get their snapshot on the family vacation. I push through, and I keep my mouth shut. What, after all, can be done? Why can't these people switch off the city for a day? Why can't these people come into nature with the reverence these wild places deserve? Nature is not some playground for dumping your kids in. In my mind these are sacred spaces, not just that overgrown area outside of your suburban shithole.

It's always like this. All of the prettiest places I've been are being loved to death, most especially by the people who can't come into the country without bringing the city with them. It's always a nasty shock for me after I spend time in a relatively pristine wilderness and then step back into the urban machine. Most people are like predictable, selfish little drones. If you build it, they will come. Give them their iPhones and their fast food and their artificial lives and they will flock to you by the millions. They are mesmerized by shiny things, things that whirr and beep and give offer instant gratification. They like the illusion of material wealth, and the superficial trappings of a civilization that can never have enough.

As for me, if you build it I will leave. A more perfect system cannot exist than that which nature designed. The Earth in all her complexity is a perfect system that constantly creates, destroys, and recycles so that new things may be born: mountains, oceans, rivers, life. Here in the mountains can be found all of the things I could ever need to be healthy and happy: deer, elk, rabbit, bison, pronghorn, fish and turkey for food, shelter and ornamentations. Meat is for eating. Bone is for making tools and weapons. Hide is for shelters and clothing. There are edible and medicinal plants such as service berries, wild raspberries and strawberries, currants, cottonwood, mariposa lilies, yucca, mushrooms, and hundreds more. There are plants for making string, rope and dyes. If one has good food, clean water, a warm safe place to call home and loved ones to share it all with, what more could one possibly want or need? How could an iPhone or a shopping mall really enhance these most basic of human needs and comforts? Instead of sitting alone typing my thoughts on some lifeless, glowing box, I could be sitting around a cozy fire talking with real people; perhaps telling stories or talking about what a great day I had catching fish, and perhaps sharing a good haul of roasted fish with my loved ones. But that is not our world. In our world, some of us step into reality when the weekend comes and we are granted a reprieve from the Matrix. We are allowed, for a short time, to tiptoe through the unadulterated system that truly sustains us. Then on Monday we must go back into The Machine, back into the artificial world where we are told what to eat and how to live and what's fashionable, where we live by the clock and calendar under artificial light, eat toxic "food" and sit mesmerized by television and all it's mind-numbing power.

And now I must go to bed. The Machine is expecting me at 8AM.

Happy Birthday

He turned thirty-six last Sunday
In his hair he found some gray
But he still ain't changed his lifestyle
He likes it better the old way
So he grows a little garden in the back yard by the fence
He's consuming what he's growing nowadays in self defense
He get's out there in the twilight zone
Sometimes when it just don't make no sense

He gets off on country music
Cause disco left him cold
He's got young friends into new wave
But he's just too friggin' old
And he dreams at night of Woodstock and the day John Lennon died
How the music made him happy and the silence made him cry
Yeah he thinks of John sometimes
And he has to wonder why

He's an old hippie and he don't know what to do
Should he hang on to the old
Should he grab on to the new
He's an old hippie...his new life is just a bust
He ain't trying to change nobody
He's just trying real hard to adjust

You're Kidding

Mom's supposed to be flying up to see me today for my birthday. She gets to the airport this morning in plenty of time, to find no one that can help her do curbside checkin like she always does. She manages to find one rude person to tell her that Continental has moved to a different terminal. There, she finds no one curbside. She tries to check in at a kiosk, but it won't accept her information. Again she flags down someone who clearly can't be bothered, but who puts forth minimal effort to help mom. "You're doing it wrong!" the attendant snaps. The attendant tries, and the kiosk will not accept her information. After some runaround, they figure it out and the attendant tells mom there will be a $25 charge for her single bag. It's a new fee. So she tries to pay in cash and the attendant snaps that she can't give change. After another 15 minute ordeal mom proceeds to security. At security it was another long string of fairly mundane but typical hassles. By the time she gets to the gate the plane is gone.

She explains what happened and the attendant says they'll put her on standby on the next flight, but gave mom the wrong gate number. Eventually she gets to the right gate and verifies she's "on the list." She waits. After everyone is boarded, even the other people who were waiting on standby, she is ignored. She goes to the counter and inquires only to find that the new attendant can't find her name on the list. An argument ensues and mom produces her receipt from the last gate which finally gets her on the plane. The plane is locked and ready to go, when they shut things down, open it up, and call her name. They need to see her ID! After that 15 minute delay, the'yre finally ready to take off. The plane has started to taxi when it dies on the runway. They sit for 20 minutes, announce the plane is dead, haul it back to the terminal, unload everyone, and say it'll be another hour before they have more information.

This morning my water heater died, and it's supposed to be cold and rainy the entire weekend.

Happy birthday to me.

Life Lessons

I think I'm finally running out of steam when it comes to Facebook. I've reconnected with just about everyone from my past. In general, I find most people aren't as excited about reconnecting as I was. It's disappointing. I'm also starting to remember why I was so eager to get the hell out of Huffman.

Maybe there's a darn good reason why people from my past who are no longer in my life are, well, no longer in my life.

I'm trying to understand why an old friend would claim to be so excited to reconnect, send me all kinds of wonderful emails about how much I am loved, say "call me!" and then not return any of my phone calls going on two weeks now. I know these people are still alive because they've posted on Facebook a few times since. Yeah, it's happened with more than one.

Then there' s slew of people who friend me, but won't respond to any of my messages.

Of my old high school friends, there are several who grew up to be really jaded. I can't imagine going through life with such a bad attitude.

But maybe I'm just the weird one. Or maybe I'm just weird in my own special way. I love the idea of having a community of close friends, but the older I get the more I feel like most friends are really just paying lip service. And maybe they really aren't even doing it on purpose. Maybe they're just too wrapped up in their own issues to pay too much attention to a friendship. I know that's been true of me before.

Tonight Gerard and I went out in Denver for a couple of hours, just to try and meet some people. I get so frustrated and tense in crowds, especially crowds of strangers, that I need to be drinking to enjoy it. Being Sunday night, I only had one beer. I can safely say that the bar scene hasn't changed since I first started going 20 years ago. I, however, have. We left.

On the drive back to our quiet place in Boulder I reflected silently to myself on the past week. Side note: I don't think I've mentioned it at all on my blog, but my old classmate Kelly Danaher was killed one week ago today. I've spent the better part of the week mourning with my classmates via Facebook. I was terribly, terribly bummed out by it and only now am I starting to somewhat get out of the funk I was in. I wrote an open letter which was probably entirely too mushy and posted it on Facebook, but it helped me get my head clear. I actually got a lot of positive responses, which made me feel good. I'll probably post it here. I've been neglecting my blog lately because I've been so wrapped up rediscovering people on Facebook.

Anyway, the drive home. I thought about the ups and downs on Facebook: happily rediscovering people only to have them not be interested in actually making a human connection. I thought about the overcrowded bar full of people who by all appearances were frankly a little pathetic. Like I said, the scene never changes. I sometimes get these nostalgic fantasies in my head: If only I could go back to high school knowing what I know now, it would be so much more fun! If only I were free to party again like I did in college, it would be so much fun! If only....

But it isn't true. I still clam up in bars (unless I'm drunk) just like I did in college. My old classmates are proving they are still very much the same people they were back in high school. Sure some have mellowed. Others have gotten more intense. But my subconscious fantasy that we're all going sit around reminiscing about the old days and forging some kind of new improved friendship is bullshit, I'm sorry to say.

It's also very clear to me that the life I have today is the life I built for myself. I built it because it's what I want. I guess sometimes I start wondering about what else might be, or what might have been. But those are silly things to seriously consider. As I drove back to my quiet home in Boulder, I thought, yeah, this is what I want. This makes me happy.

Beauty in Diversity

Late this afternoon I was cruising in my truck down a country road out on the eastern plains. The weather had been cloudy for days, and this morning rain finally started to fall. It was a cold, wet spring day and I was taking the long way home from the dairy.

All at once the rain stopped. As if the breath of God were blowing down on a frothy cup of chai, the clouds ahead of me broke apart and the sunlight poured through. In an instant I was under a blue sky. The rolling green countryside, dotted with big red barns and sprinkled with horses, stretched in all directions. The Rocky Mountains stood hazy and dark in the distance, and the world felt so alive. So perfect. Some lonely old country song came on the radio. I smiled. I cruised.

My day started early with the farmer's market, as every Saturday during the growing season does. Today we had the first of the asparagus! Unless you've eaten thick, tender stalks from an old plant cut early in the season, and just hours after harvesting, you've never had asparagus. That crap in the grocery store, even the stuff from Whole Foods, is only asparagus in appearance. I also picked up fresh mushrooms, a few pounds of crisp baby spinach, two dozen eggs from chickens that eat grass and bugs, ten pounds of anasazi and black beans, cider from last fall's apples (spent the winter in the deep freeze), purple potatoes, white and purple onions, green garlic, fresh goat cheese and a few other things. This afternoon, on the way out to the dairy for raw milk, I stopped by Rocky Plains to buy local, grass-fed bison, pork and chicken - steaks, pork chops, sausages, ground round, roast, marrow bones, Rocky Mountain oysters, bacon, etc.

I can honestly say the highlight of my week, and one of the highlights of my life, is the farmer's market. I can't tell you how happy - how downright giddy - I get over local, farm-fresh produce and the people who produce it. It isn't just the superior flavor and freshness or the nutritional value. It's more than the community aspect too. It's more even than the "green" aspect and the self-sufficiency factor. A big part of it is just the simplicity of the system. It appeals to me on such a deep level. There are no factories, no complex and convoluted chains of corporate fat cats, no elaborate distribution networks, no chemicals, toxics or synthetic additives, no vile marketers trying to invent new "products" with flashy branded labels, no wasteful packaging, no nutrition labels, no fads, no gimmicks. It's just sunshine, some nice farmers, some beautiful produce, and some very happy customers and neighbors. I dig that in a big way.

This year I'm planning to supplement my diet with some wild game. My ultimate fantasy is providing all of my own food, and having no use for the industrial food system. I shopped for hunting rifles after lunch. It's been a few years since I shot a gun and I haven't owned a gun since I left Texas. I haven't been hunting since my early college days. I took a few shots on the rifle range. There are a lot of options, but I think I've settled on a sweet Remington 700, vintage 1979. It's got a gorgeous woodgrain stock and all metal sights - today they're mostly plastic. This one has been well cared for and lightly used. It's a very good find. It's a perfect all-around hunting rifle, from coyote to elk. I'm prone to impulse buying, so I decided to think on it a few days. If it's still at the shop next week, then it was meant to be mine.

I have to say it has been a long time since I set foot in a gun shop. It was worth it for the culture shock alone. This shop is in Weld County, which is about as close in culture to rural Texas as Colorado gets. In fact, while I was there Texas came up in conversation. Some of the patrons were swooning over Texas' legendarily pro-gun politics. The employees' uniforms had the following quote printed on the back: "I'll keep my money, my guns and my freedom. You can keep the 'change'" with a badly drawn illustration of an American flag and a gun. A poster on the wall showed pictures of Obama and McCain on dollar bills, with the text, "Don't blame me, I voted for the American."

I had to laugh. My only other option was to blow a gasket. Not to get off topic, but I've recently reconnected with a whole lot of my old high school friends and acquaintances through the magic of Facebook. Probably ninety percent of them would think those shirts and posters were right-on. Even a half-way educated person would see the utter ridiculousness of them, but we're not talking about educated people here. Not even close to half-way. But does that make them bad people? I went to school with those kids, some of them for twelve years. I know they're not bad people. I knew them before we were old enough for politics and religion to come between us. The guys at the gun shop were just as nice as they could be. They were so willing to help and talk about this and that, share hunting stories, give tips on scoping out used guns, etc. They weren't pushy salesmen. I distinctly felt like they wanted to help. But the tiny world they live in doesn't allow them to see very far beyond their own noses. You know, I can remember a time when I supported George Bush. Yes, I mean DUBYA. I can even remember a time in high school when I thought segregation was a good thing, that blacks and Mexicans were all dirty freeloaders that couldn't be trusted. I went to church and Sunday school - I even voluntarily got Baptized because I thought it was the only way for me to go to Heaven. It makes me chuckle now. I remember the first time I saw a man with long hair. I was a child. I cried. My Aunt Kiku (Karen Sue - but as a baby I said, "Kiku!" and it stuck), among the most tolerant of the family (and that's not saying a lot), tried to explain that he wasn't a bad person just because he had long hair. It kills me to admit this, but I can remember a time long ago - long before I'd even heard of Hitler or the Holocaust - that I though genocide wouldn't be such a bad idea. Of course I didn't know the term. Hell I didn't know much of anything. I wasn't stupid, just incredibly naive, sheltered, brainwashed. I had no real concept of many of the ideas I was taught. Black people were just the scary homeless figures that lived in downtown Houston, a place our family very rarely ventured. They weren't real to me. They were like boogiemen - a scary thing I'd heard about but never really seen. It was easy to imagine wiping them out. Just like vampires and werewolves. All I knew was my tiny little world in Huffman and what the adults told me. Small Texas towns don't allow a lot of room for thinking, questioning, learning anything at all about the world beyond. I knew all non-white races only by their horribly racist names. But it was normal. We weren't angry or spewing bile when we said those words. It's just what they were, in our tiny little world views.

Moving off to college was rough for me. It was shocking. It was eye-opening. But I, unlike many of my old high school friends and acquaintances, DID go to college. I asked questions. I traveled. I experienced just a little more of the world. But I think the greatest driving force in my life was my sexuality. That, more than anything else, forced me out of the tiny world of Huffman. It was the hardest thing I've ever gone through. And I suppose that even today, as "extreme" as I would be considered by my hometown, I'm still tied to those roots. I still love the simplicity of country life. I love trucks and rifles and cowboy hats. I have no desire to be some kind of backwoods dumbass and get into bar fights (like plenty of people I've known in my life). I guess I just like the simplicity and the honest ruggedness that these things symbolize. Yet I've noticed that when I go home to Texas, especially when I visit my family or very old friends, I feel compelled to put away the cowboy hat. I want to wear fashionable city clothes and put on airs and talk about my job and politics and religion. I want to conduct myself in a way that separates me from them and puts me above them. I guess I want to say, "I am NOT like you!" But when I come back home - the home I've made for myself - I relax back into a way of life that, in many ways, fits well with my Texas roots. Isn't that curious?

My life is a dichotomy. I've said this before. There are two people living in my head: a Texas good 'ol boy and an educated liberal activist. Now if that ain't a fine how-do-you-do! I don't claim to know everything. In fact, the older I get the more I realize I know nothing. I don't want to fight with the conservatives because I believe in Obama. I don't want to fight with the liberals because I drive a Super Duty. At best I just want to be friendly with everyone. If not that, then at least just let me live and do my thing.

I do find a degree of entertainment value in being a Super Duty-driving, gun-owning, cowboy hat-wearing Obama supporter who gives money to Greenpeace. I guess it takes all kinds.

Faces

I've been Facebooking. I'll reluctantly admit it's not all that bad. I can't speak to the long term viability, but in the short term Facebook is having a big impact on me, and here's why. I've spent the last 18 years largely avoiding my hometown of Huffman and steering clear of old acquaintances. But when I have gone back I always find myself getting really sentimental. In the last few days, through the magic of Facebook, I'm seeing pictures of 35 year olds with families who, in my mind, should still be 18 year old kids with their whole lives ahead of them.

I'll cut to the chase. I'm crying inside and I'm trying to figure out why.

Maybe it's just the result of my mind trying to process so much information at once. Maybe it's a lot more than that.

I've been friended in recent days by people with whom I had complicated emotional ties as a kid. I've talked to a few people who just revealed to me that they had huge crushes on me. I had no idea. I've talked to others that I had such feelings for. Strangely, after 18 years those feelings seem to have resurfaced - although they are tempered considerably by age and wisdom. How strange that even after 18 years old joys and pains can bubble up as if they were there waiting just below the surface all this time. Makes me wonder if time really can heal all wounds, or if it simply distracts us from them.

I've learned of a number of former classmates who have died - cancer, car accidents and suicide started taking their toll immediately after graduation. It's weighing heavily on me.

I think part of the problem is that it has brought to the forefront of my mind my own mortality. In the aging faces of kids I once knew, I see myself. In their deaths, I see my own. But it's more even than that. I want to run home to Huffman and grab these people and hug them, and it's baffling me. It's like I want to go back in time, back when we were young and had the whole world at our feet - back before our futures were written, or at least before they were revealed. I want to push aside petty things. I want to push aside fear and insecurity and do it all over, but better. Better in that I want to talk to people I was afraid to talk to. I want to be nice to kids I was mean to. I want to forgive kids who were mean to me. I want to hug those that would soon die, and laugh with them one more time.

I realize I cannot go back in time. I realize that what's done is done. But I also realize that, if I live long enough, there will come a time 20 or 30 years from now when I'll look back on my 30's with a similar nostalgic, sentimental view. What will I regret at that time? What will I wish I could do if I had a single day to go back to being 35 and do it over again? Today is that day. I am 35 and my future is not yet written. What I will remember tomorrow will be determined by what I do today. I find some comfort in that.

Still, I wish I could understand where this pain in my heart is coming from. I'm even getting sad thinking that all of those innocent, silly kids, myself included, are now gone. They're adults now, doing adult things. The memories I have of those people are just that: memories.

I was thinking today that I've known these people longer - much longer - than anyone else in my life except for my immediate family. Some of these kids I remember from elementary school. For twelve years we climbed that ladder of public school together. Even those I wasn't close to, we still essentially grew up together. I think I need to see at least some of them. I need to see them face to face and talk to them. I think it's time for me to bridge who I was with who I am. I've been hiding from my other life for a long time, and I don't even remember why anymore.

Advice to the Young

If you're under 30 and you have a craving for adventure, just go do it. You'll probably never have such a great opportunity again.

Go backpacking across Europe or Asia. Walk across America. Go work a summer job as a wrangler at a dude ranch. Do it before you have kids or a job that you'd be a fool to leave. Do it while you've still got time, before life ties you down, before sensibility destroys your ability to throw caution to the wind. There will always be time for college and a "serious" career, but the window to really taste life is very small indeed.

If Life were Like a Musical

Ever had one of those awesome moments where you're just doing your thing, a song starts playing, and you just get overcome with the joy of that moment? For a moment it's like living in a musical.

Acceptance

Did you know that, in terms of environmental impact, owning a dog is equivalent to owning and driving TWO gas guzzling SUV's simultaneously? It's mostly because of all the factory farmed meat and fillers in commercial dog food. In addition to that, dog waste spreads disease and pollutes millions of miles of waterways. Dogs are also a major killer of wildlife. Cats don't score much better and are a major cause of decline among songbirds and small mammals and reptiles. If you flush your kitty litter down the toilet, you're spreading Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite that infects and kills aquatic wildlife such as otters.

Wind turbines kill migrating birds, and new evidence suggests that the vibrations they produce may cause nervous system disorders in humans. To install wind turbines and solar panels, forests must be cleared. Deserts must be covered. Habitat must be destroyed. Solar panels also contain highly toxic materials that are difficult or impossible to recycle. Electric cars use a lot of highly toxic batteries. Hydrogen is commonly made from coal, which produces carbon dioxide.

Studies have shown that "local" food isn't always the "greener" food. In the UK for example, it would take far more energy to grow strawberries and tomatoes in greenhouses than it would to grow them in Africa and ship them to the UK as is currently done.

The list is long and disturbing, and I'm learning that we modern people have two choices: party like there's no tomorrow, or try to conserve so the party is less wild but lasts a little longer. Either way, the party will end. There are just too damned many of us. And that, my friends, is a fact.

Biologists are quite familiar with a scientific concept called carrying capacity. Carrying capacity is simply the number of organisms an environment can sustain indefinitely. The concept is simple: a population grows slowly at first, then more and more rapidly. There are two possible outcomes: 1. the population levels off and reaches equilibrium with the resources the environment can provide. 2. a major spike in population shoots up beyond the carrying capacity, which is then followed by total collapse of the population. Basically, nature hits the reset button. It's nothing magical or mystical. It's just math. I've read nothing to indicate that any credible scientist or study suggests that anything but number 2 is the path we're on.

I believe I've reached a new phase in my life: acceptance. It's good in that I'm a whole lot less stressed (and thus happier) these days because I just don't worry about stuff very much - especially the things I have little or no control over. It's kinda sad though because the passion I had, that foolish hopefulness that the world could be saved and we could all live in some kind of harmonious Eden, is fading. My passion for things has always been one of my key personality traits. I'm known for it. Who am I without it?

To be clear, it isn't that I don't care about saving the whales or local agriculture anymore. I do. Outwardly I haven't really changed my habits in any obvious ways. I still think saving the whales is the "right" thing to do, though I must admit I don't know what "right" means anymore. The big change for me is internal. I can eat my local, seasonal produce and not get stressed or angry or exasperated if my neighbor doesn't, because I now think that ultimately it won't matter anyway. He's not destroying our society. I'm just delaying the inevitable.

I just don't believe our technology can save us. I believe, and this is just me, that we'll never be able to invent a clever enough machine or system to replace the natural system that nature put into place. No matter how "green" our cars or our cities become, they won't be sustainable, nor will be our population. Only small, dispersed groups of stone age humans can achieve true sustainability, as the North American native tribes had done for 10,000 years. The only way we can last is to live by nature's rules, but ironically by our own nature our culture can't seem to do that. We like to write and re-write, and re-write again our own rules, and pretend that we can overrule the natural world that created us - a world we're still very much a part of no matter if we choose to pretend otherwise.

I'm going to drive my truck and I'm going to love it for the simple joy it brings me, pink haired lesbians, pretentious cyclists and other ignorant Boulder do-gooders be damned. I'm going to relish the return of the farmer's market simply because it brings me joy, regardless of what affect it may or may not have beyond my tastebuds and my health. I'm still going to buy mostly American because it's something I like to do. I'll continue to hope my choices are having a positive effect on the world, but the Cult of Green is no longer my religion.

I'd like to talk a little bit about my last comment. Are you familiar with the concept of original sin? Many Christians believe we're all born sinners, and that our purpose is to spend our lives sacrificing pleasure to try and achieve a level of perfection that, by definition, we can never actually achieve. Seems a little strange, doesn't it? Why would God do that? It's as if you took a little kid, told him he's an awful, lowly, disgusting form of life, then put him in a magical candy store and said, "You have to spend your whole childhood in this store, and the only way I'll forgive you for being the disgusting, imperfect creature that I made you to be, is if you never touch any of the treats with which you must live. Every candy you could ever want is in this store, and I gave you a taste for them all, but you have to eat boiled spinach every day and never touch the candy, and only then can I forgive you for being the person I made you to be."

What?

Well whatever biological issue that made humans invent religion and believe stupid stories like the one above is alive and well even in the non-Christians. Baptists, the Taliban and Greenpeace all have one thing in common: a fanatic devotion to a fanciful, intangible notion that gives them hope but, sadly, isn't real. I think it had me too, because that's how I was living my life. Only I wasn't trying to get into a heaven in the clouds, I was trying to bring heaven to earth. A vegan friend of mine in Boulder is another great example. He's a vehement follower of the Cult of Green, as if he's morally superior to the infidels who eat meat and drive cars. The thing is, even if everyone on the planet lived like him - ate fresh produce throughout the snowy winter, had a posh office job, had plenty of clean water and nice clothes, had a pet cat, had a cute little suburban house, etc., we'd still be unsustainable. We'd still have to wipe out species to put up wind farms and ship our produce from some exploited African farmers. Sorry, but there aren't enough resources for 7 billion of us to be suburbanites with cats. Not even vegan suburbanites. Owning a car, in his mind, is the Green equivalent of "evil," yet he has no problem hopping on the bus for work, or even hopping in the truck with me when I offer to take him snowshoeing. Seems hypocritical to me.

So if an atheist is someone who turns away from a religion that worships God, what do you call someone who turns away from a religion that worships Green?

It's funny. When I finally stopped believing in the Christian God after high school, it was both liberating and sad for me. I'm experiencing that all over again. You can stop believing in the Christian God without turning into a bad person bent on wreaking havoc on the world. It doesn't make you any less kind or compassionate. Likewise, you can stop believing in the Cult of Green without becoming bent on cutting down all the trees and laughing at the loss of the whales. The difference, I suppose, is that you no longer justify your actions as a moral obligation to some fantasy cause, however much false hope it may give you.

Actually, that's not entirely fair. I can't of course say that there is no God with anymore certainty than I can say that there is. Nor can I say with certainty that the recyclers and the wind farms of the world won't save us. Maybe they will. I can't know. There's nothing at all wrong with having hope for a brighter future and working to make it a reality. I do have hope and I'd be lying if I said it played no role in my decision making process. I'm just no longer carrying the guilt and self-righteousness as commanded by a fictitious deity who makes empty promises.

Tuesday Night on the Town

I don't think I've had this much to drink on a Tuesday night since college.

Patrick, a 28 year old brilliant scientist and co-worker who just returned from his latest stint in Vienna presenting on his integrated assessment model, invited me to The Kitchen for their monthly community beer and wine tasting. It's by reservation only, and everyone gets seated at a big community table. Over 4 hours, we're served multiple courses, each with a beer and wine, that fits whatever theme they're featuring that month. Tonight it was something about the Ides of March, St. Patrick's Day and some other nonsense, so the food/beer/wine was Roman and Irish. Strange, but it worked. The food at The Kitchen is really good. It's one of my favorite Boulder restaurants. It was also the first time I'd ever been served wine by a sommelier. It was pretty cool. I actually learned just a little bit about pairing wine and food, though I have to say I still think it's mostly bullshit.

Boulder is such a weird and fun place. At our table, there was a 25 year old girl who was, by her own admission, a gold digger. She likes to date rich older men. She's also smart. She has a degree in biology and works in biotech, and she's missed only one of these events in the past two years. There was a nice woman who has her own PR company, and her likable but incredibly crass husband who kept insisting in a good natured way throughout the evening that Patrick and I were going to fuck before the night was over. (We didn't of course. It was never a question.) There was the German woman who apparently ranks third in the US among women runners, and who talked incessantly about running. There was the 55 year old fat married man wearing high heels and a blouse who, apparently, just likes to "shake things up" and kept hitting on the 25 year old biotech girl, which she clearly found exasperating. There were two strapping young men, dressed almost the same, who I couldn't figure out if they were gay or straight, and a few other couples at the other end of the table I didn't really get a chance to talk to very much. Then of course there was me and Patrick, and our really fun beer and wine experts who just circulated telling us all about our many beverages and being good natured despite the table they were serving. We were also visited in regular intervals by the chef, who explained where all of the food items came from, how he prepared them, and how he came up with the combination of flavors.

It was quite an awesome night. The conversation ranged from integrated assessment of renewable energy, to running, to sex. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. At one point I found myself separating from the moment, just sort of stepping back and looking at the big picture of my life. On the one hand I want nothing more than to have my ranch, my monster F350 and to spend a whole lot of time running the roads and traveling. But on the other, here I am, a "scientist" by title, with an awesome (albeit desk) job having a $75 per head meal at a table full of the most eclectic mix of strangers in this freaky fun town. Life can be so weird, and despite my complaints I recognize how lucky I am. I'm lucky to be able to experience just a little more of the weird, wild world than most of the rest of my family. I'm lucky to have choices in life.

Most of the people I've met in Boulder have been to far flung places. They've traveled the world, they speak multiple languages, they've got multiple degrees and have so many crazy stories to tell. Compared to them, I'm plain as vanilla. But compared to my roots, I'm the one with a the wild adventurous life. I guess, again, it's all about perspective. Relativity. I sat at the table tonight drinking my beer and smiling, and thinking how very lucky I am just to be out in the world.

It just sucks that I have to go to work tomorrow.

Learnin'

They say you learn something new every day. That must be an average because I swear there are some days I don't think I learned a damn thing. Today was not one of those.

Today I learned:

1. That I'll be driving the Yaris for at least another year, probably two. I went to the Ford dealership earlier in the day. They had my dream truck on the lot. I mean, down to the last bolt, this truck was exactly what I would end up with if I could sit down and draw up the plans from scratch. It was $59,000. I drove it. I salivated over it. I caressed it. I sat in every seat. I looked at it from every angle. I tested every feature. I even applied for credit and worked the numbers. All I had to do was sign on the dotted line. But I drove off in the Yaris. This wasn't the agreement I made with myself when I bought the Yaris. Stick to the plan, man.

2. Biker bars aren't nearly as much fun as gay bars. Yes, I picked the place and organized an after-work happy hour. We did have a good time, and people at work seem to like this bar (which is why I picked it.) But I couldn't help but take note of the stark differences between the two kinds of establishments. When you go into a gay bar most of the patrons have gone to great lengths, or at the very least some lengths, to take care of themselves and make themselves attractive: nice clothes, fit bodies, fashionable hairstyles. And it's so easy to meet and talk to new people. But in a biker bar, it's all about how much fat you can squeeze into denim and black leather, and how much greasy gray hair you can stuff under a bandana. Have these people no pride at all?

3. Life can play very cruel jokes on you at times. Or so it seems.

4. My gaydar is seriously out of whack. Apparently I wouldn't know a homosexual if he smiled, winked and flirted with me week after week for over a year every time I went into Whole Foods. Or if he stared at me every time he passed my desk at work for months on end. Or if he was the slightly effeminate new guy who showered me with compliments and kept asking me what I was doing this weekend.

Gays are weird, straights are weirder, and people in general leave me exhausted.

Eureka!

The other morning I woke up, sat straight up in bed, and said, "Holy crap, I'm a philosopher!"

Just to make sure, I did a little research on exactly what a philosopher is, and I'm pretty satisfied that I fit the description. I don't know why this never seems to have occurred to me before. I also don't know why the label helps, but it does. My favorite thing to do, it seems, is think. My blog clearly demonstrates how tortured I often am by my thoughts - not that they're so terrible, but rather that they're so voluminous. It doesn't have to be anything that means anything, though a lot of my time is consumed by thinking about things that I believe are important. "You think too much!" I've always been told. I guess having a label for it helps me shrink it down, put controls on it, manage it. It's not so mysterious when it has a name.

I've found that I've been lighter of spirit since that little "aha" moment. I went to the gym and worked out. I completed 10 more chapters in my ActionScript book and didn't even complain about it - and as a result I was able to talk some ActionScript with my co-workers which felt kinda cool. I ate at a restaurant and didn't worry that it wasn't local or organic. I watched some PETA demonstrators downtown and didn't even get angry. I had a few beers and didn't go to that dark place. I've even laughed a few times. I've kinda felt like my old self, like the person I was before I despised society so much.

I've just kinda felt like, what's the point of being so dark and brooding all of the time? The world is what it is, no matter how happy or grumpy I may be. Just roll with it.

Of course I'm not just going to dump all of my beliefs. But maybe I can quit internalizing so much, and just let the world be.

Born in the Wrong Century

We've been doing a lot of snowshoeing lately. This is Emerald Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.

A couple of years ago I bought an old straight razor for shaving, but I never could get a nice edge on it. I came across it today and did a little research. It's a Joseph Elliot, and this particular model, with a wooden handle, was manufactured between 1820 and 1850! How many faces this little instrument must have shaved in the last 160-190 years!

I found a service that can restore old razors like this one. I'm going to mail it off tomorrow and hopefully in the next 4-6 weeks it'll be good as new! I'm pretty excited about it.

I also took the liberty to hand write the letter I enclosed with the razor. It's so rare that I hand write anything these days, and when I do it's never more than a word or two. It felt good to write sentences and see what it looked like. I even wrote it with a pencil - not a plastic, disposable mechanical pencil, but a real wooden pencil by Forest Choice. Supposedly these pencils are manufactured from trees in "well-managed forests" and don't contain paints or other toxic materials. It's not as green perhaps as a quill pen and homemade ink (which I know how to make and am waiting for this autumn's walnut harvest for the raw materials for my ink) but it'll do for now.

I actually spent the entire weekend chained to my computer. My classes this quarter are particularly time consuming, and work is kicking my butt too. There's just a lot going on. I've noticed that the more the modern world tries to tighten it's grasp on me, the more I resist it and long to escape it. Maybe my 190 year old straight razor or homemade pen and ink aren't going to save the planet or mean anything at all in the grand scheme, but they bring me comfort I can't quite explain.

I kinda lost it today in one of my online classes. There's an ongoing discussion forum on the topic of fire modeling. We're discussing the technology behind predicting the spread of wildfires using GIS. Some goofy girl said something innocent but stupid about how she hopes GIS can help stop all forest fires and we can all live happily ever after. I launched into a multi-paragraph diatribe about the incredible ecological benefits of natural fires, and how today's wildfires are the disastrous result of white man's superiority complex, brought about by his technology and misguided belief that preventing forest fires will somehow be better for the environment and our pocketbook. By stopping the small, natural fires, we've created millions of acres of land with decades of unspent fuel. Now when fires do ignite by lightning or a careless camper, they turn into massive blazes that create their own weather systems and send roiling clouds of ash and cinders a thousand miles into the sky. Rather than grooming forests and rejuvenating the landscape, the obliterate everything in their path. As I pointed out to her, it's our over-reliance, our unquestioning faith in our own technology and presumed brilliance that created the environmental problems we so desperately seek to "manage" today.

Sometimes I really wish I could go back to the year 1750, wander off into the western wilderness, befriend some natives and just do my thing like the early mountain men did. Maybe it would suck, I don't know. But the fantasy sure sounds nice. Insofar as I can guess, the only thing I'd miss is books. I like learning about food and nature, and what's going on in the natural sciences. But I suspect that life might make up for that because if I were friends with the natives I could learn a lot of cool things about the natural world that you just can't get in books. I wouldn't need to read about balance in the natural world because I'd be living it.

Hunger

Ever feel like a fish out of water?

I was sitting in one of our many office lounges at work the other day waiting for a meeting to start. I was a little early. I sat there looking around the room at all of the cheap suburban-style particle board furnishings and kitschy decor and wondered how I ever ended up here. This was not part of the plan.

Since my horseshoeing experience a few months back, I chilled out quite a lot in terms of my incessant obsessing about getting away from it all. I had a terrible hunger - indeed I was starving - for a taste of a more rugged, more deliberate life, and I was satiated by the experience. But lately I've started to feel those pangs of hunger again. My stomach is growling, and I'm starting to search for my next meal.

I hate this, actually. I feel like I'm on a rollercoaster. I go back and forth between intense desire to be packing in the mountains, and a sort of reluctant acceptance, tinged with guilt, for the cushy life I have now. I like the money. Sometimes I like that my job is cushy. But in the back of my mind, and often in the forefront of my mind, is a little voice saying, "Yeah, but you'd really rather be on a horse somewhere in the wilderness, where things like IKEA are just a bad dream."

One of these days I'm going to up and quit, ride off to Montana and never look back.

Rocky Mountain Home

After two weeks in my old Texas stomping grounds, I'm back in Boulder. A two and a half hour plane ride and an hour and a half bus ride and I'm the happiest person in the world.

I stepped off the bus tonight and took a long, deep breath of that sweet Boulder air. A bright moon shone in a cold clear sky, making the snow covered ground glow a silvery blue. Boulder creek was tumbling and icy. And mountains. Those beautiful, beautiful mountains.

I soaked up every glorious moment of the stroll home. There I found Gerard with a smile and a warm hug. I ate a hot homemade meal of spicy pinto beans and fresh baked cornbread, took a hot shower and slipped into my favorite flannel pj's.

There is no screaming television. There are no strings of traffic backed up for miles. There are no interstates or tollways, no skyscrapers, no chemical-laced prepackaged factory "foods" and no rednecks. There's just me and the mountains, the snow, the creek, and my lovely, sleepy little town.

I don't mean to imply that my trip to Texas was miserable. It was not. I had a great time and I loved seeing my best friends and my family and visiting my favorite Texas hangouts. Some of the highlights of the East Texas portion of my trip were hiking with the family in the Big Thicket National Preserve, long wonderful talks with mom, getting a tour of the "new" Houston from Michelle and Gina, and hanging out by mom's pool. In Austin, it was chatting late into the night with Scott, sharing a beer at the Ginger Man with Elizabeth, dinner with Ragen at Truluck's, dinner at Eastside cafe, barbecue at Rudy's and Artz Rib House, breakfast at Kerby Lane with Keith, a long walk around Town Lake (I have a brick dedicated to me in the overlook at Town Lake and Barton Creek), shopping for boots at Allen's Boots, visiting Bookpeople, Tesoro's and the Whole Foods flagship store, strolling the capitol grounds and hiking at McKinney Falls State Park, and spending New Year's Eve celebrating with lots of friends, food and karaoke. No, I had a wonderful time in Texas just as I always do.

But the wide open spaces of the west call to me. The mountains and the snow and the solitude of places west of Austin - whether they be in Texas or Colorado - call to me. My home calls to me. I guess I'm an introvert, because people - however much I love them - drain my batteries. Quiet time restores my energy. Nature rejuvenates me. Privacy keeps me sane.

How I love my Rocky Mountain home.

How Quickly We Forget

Yesterday I saw my Aunt Snoopy, mom's sister, for the first time in nearly a decade. (Nearly our entire family has odd nicknames, and some of us have multiple nicknames that are used interchangeably. I need to sit my mom down and find out where these names came from.) I walked inside of Aunt Snoopy's "new" (to me) house and it was like a blast from the past. My family never seems to evolve. People get older, even get new houses, but it's like they're stuck in a time warp in terms of what's going on in the mind.

I love my Aunt Snoopy. She's as sweet as can be. But she, along with everyone else down in this part of Texas, have reminded me how different my life is today. They've also reminded me why I am the way I am. My Boulder friends wonder why I bought a Ford F350 Super Crew long bed 4x4, love my cowboy hat and dream of a ranch? They need only visit my family in Texas for a day and all of their questions would be answered. It even slapped me in the face.

Snoopy's house is pretty typical of what you'll see if you visit any household belonging to a member of my family: American and Texas flags flying on the flagpole out front, huge framed emblems of the Seal of Texas on the walls, mounted deer heads and other assorted animals placed around the house, paintings of cowboys, sculptures of cowboys, references to cowboys, trinkets and fridge magnets and t-shirts and coasters and dishes with Texas symbols on them, signs out front that say things like "We don't dial 9-1-1" next to an image of a pistol, sprawling property with several big trucks in the driveway, etc. And then there's that thick Texas accent. I swear I don't know how I ever lost mine. Maybe it was the same force that took me to college and out of Texas. I'm one of only two of all the family with a four year college education, and both of us left Texas. In fact, after we left Snoopy's house, mom and I drove around the country a little bit just looking. I commented how beautiful it was and how I still can't believe you can buy a huge house on 20 acres of land for $150,000 out here. I could have a garden that goes forever and all the horses I could stand! And every house has a Super Duty, standard. But mom said she didn't want me to move back. "I would love nothing more than to have you close to me, but you'd be miserable here. You're better than this. You would never be happy living around all of these backward rednecks. You'd miss the mountains. You'd miss Boulder. You'd miss being around all of those smart, educated people and doing good things for the world." And she's right of course. I'd have no friends here, not now. I've evolved too much. Kinda made me sad, actually.

Then this morning I awoke to rain - hot, steamy rain. It's the day before Christmas eve and it feels like a tropical rainforest outside. I read in the news this morning that Boulder is going to have 10 inches of snow on the ground by Christmas Day. I have friends there who are going skiing. There's a live webcam of Pearl and 11th on the front page of www.dailycamera.com. I've been watching it for the past hour. You can just see the restaurant Salt on the left side, and to the right is the Boulder Bookstore. People are walking on white sidewalks and I miss Boulder deeply.

It's funny. I really do love Colorado and Texas in equal but different ways. They are both home to me. I'm reminded of my road trip to Austin last summer and that moment when I realized there are two loves in my life.

Feels like Christmas in July

It's not exactly tropical but it's close enough for me.

I'm at mom's house outside of Houston. This morning I awoke to a beautiful sunny day and sat out by the pool in the sunshine, barefoot and in shorts. It's the first day of winter. It's supposed to be near 70 today. Except for the higher humidity, it feels very much like early summer in Boulder.

The Christmas lights are up and everything in the house looks very festive, but I can't shake the feeling that it's summer. I grew up literally five miles from here and yet I find this surprising and disorienting. But I also find it comfortable and familiar. The big trees are just now dropping their brown leaves, a process we went through in Boulder months ago. I left Boulder with snow on the ground, and here I'm walking around like I'm at the beach.

I actually find it liberating. Sometimes in the cold of Colorado I start to feel trapped, though much less so now that I've had a few years to adjust. Often in the dead of a Colorado winter you can't leave the house without being bundled up in five layers from head to toe, yet here I am in Texas lounging poolside and contemplating a swim. But as I sat there wiggling my toes in the December sunshine I remembered the days when I fantasized about mountains and what it must be like to actually have snow at Christmas. It always bugged me that the Christmas cards and decorations depicted snowmen and wintry scenes, when outside the grass was green and short sleeves were in order.

I think I'm pretty lucky to have the opportunity to live in both worlds.

Thanksgiving 2009

Well another delicious Thanksgiving has come and gone. It started Wednesday when the lab closed early. Yesterday (T-Day) was just gorgeous, as most days are in Boulder. We slept in, didn't do much for most of the morning, then spent the better part of the afternoon biking around town. Yesterday evening we had dinner with our friends Christine and Mark and a few other couples. Let me tell ya, that girl can cook. Christine is a professor at the University and her husband Mark is in high tech. They have no kids, unless you count Monroe their 13 year old lab who they treat like a child. Mark is a vegetarian with a ponytail, and Christine is the very incarnation of Lilith from Cheers, with the exception that she's a less masculine and much sweeter. They both dress in black and live in a beautiful mansion on Mapleton Hill, and they have the most eclectic assortment of interesting friends. They're pretty awesome.

We slept off the turkey and wine, and today Gerard worked on homework and I spent most of the day just roaming around Boulder on my bike. It was another stupendous, sunny, 70 degree day with ten percent humidity. Since Boulder is completely surrounded by Open Space (that's park land in Colorado), you can bike nice, paved trails west all the way up the canyon and into he mountains, or east all the way out onto the grasslands. Or you could just mill around downtown among the coffee shops, bookstores, art/craft stores and high end clothing stores. The thing is you never have to bike on a road. The trail system here is amazing.

Naturally during all of my roving I took a few moments to ponder all that I have to be thankful for: Gerard, my mother, my friends, my job, my city, my life. I'm not rich but I want for nothing. I don't have my cabin (yet) but I can't complain. Sometimes it makes me feel guilty. Why should I have a great career and have the privilege of living in a city as beautiful and bike friendly and progressive as Boulder? Why should I have so much when so many suffer? I'm not complaining, mind you. Just thinking.

I read in the news today that Boulder is about to get one of the very first carbon neutral neighborhoods in the US. How cool is that? But at a cost of just under a million bucks per house, I won't be moving in anytime soon.

Tonight I was craving turkey and dressing and all the fixins, so I went down to Whole Foods and bought the whole spread already prepared. Gerard and I had a second, quieter Thanksgiving, and now he's passed out on the sofa. I'm sipping eggnog. And blogging.

Tomorrow we head to Rocky Mountain National Park with a friend for some snowshoeing. Think about that. It's Thanksgiving weekend, and on a whim I can go snowshoeing in Rocky Mountain National Park for the day and be back in time for dinner. I remember a time when mountains and snow were an exotic fantasy, just something on PBS. Now they are my world.

I do have a lot to be thankful for, so thank you. Thank you thank you thank you!