Hometown Pride
I went home this past week (see here for a brief treatise on the concept of “home“) for my sister’s graduation. College graduation, as it were. We’re all terribly proud. She was very proud of herself, I think. I don’t remember if I was at mine. Who can remember four years ago? She deserves to be...
Sweet Grass County
This story is proof of the mantra–which I don’t actually think is a mantra, perhaps more just an imagined adage–that nothing will happen to you if you don’t leave the house. In any case, leaving the Fraser Valley, the greater Denver area, and the generally-great state of Colorado simply could not come soon enough. When...
You know you’re a local when:
A local bar owner entices you to come to a show by offering to buy you a shot, and you end up with two. You only have to pay one cover charge for two people. You pay two dollars for two beers (two for one!), and it’s a girl bartender. You don’t get IDed…ever. You...
A brief and compelling argument for snow tires
People will tell you, and argue convincingly, that all-wheel drive is the way to go. And it might be. Frankly, I’ve never (to my knowledge) driven AWD in the snow. I bet with snow tires/studs/chains those things are f*cking tanks. Like serious battle-ready, machine-gun mounted tanks. But it’s not just about front axels, rear axels,...
Wet socks
In my defense, yesterday evening was NOT cold. Not warm, but not cold. Sure, I knew that theoretically it was supposed to snow a couple inches, but I was planning to be home well before the storm. But you know how it goes; one beer becomes three plus shots. Next think you know you’re sleeping...
Fast Times at High Altitude
I’ve said before that living in a ski town is like college, extended into our twenties (or thirties). It’s no real secret that my apartment in chaos tends towards frat house, and when we’re not working we’re drinking (and when legalization goes through, smoking). Reliving the glory days, again and again and again. Now that...
Homes
I spend the last two-plus weeks at home, or at my parents’ house, in Maine. It was wonderful. We got hurricaned on, which is always exciting. The night before I left I had some sort of crisis, or breakdown, or panic attack. Though as my sister pointed out, I didn’t feel like I was having...
Brief Interlude
We’ve now entered, and nearly completed, the awkward, precarious, sometimes-seemingly-infinite time that extends from the arbitrary end of one season to the likewise arbitrary beginning of another. At least solstices and equinoxes make sense, based on astronomical phenomena, as they are. Now we bide our time, consider our bank accounts, travel or contemplate traveling, catch...
On Yom Kippur in the mountains, tashlich with tea
[This post originally appeared on PolicyMic.] Today is Yom Kippur, and I just did tashlich with tea. Let’s not talk about why I’m drinking tea on a day of fasting (I happen to be coming down with a cough), or why I’m doing tashlich at the last possible minute (because I’m forgetful and lazy), or...
Cars, bad decisions, and knowing when to say when.
The story starts at the end, with my pretty much peeing in my pants (no, actually peeing in my pants) at the grocery store. Why was I peeing in my pants in the grocery store? Because I hate grocery store bathrooms and try not to use them if I don’t have to. I really just wanted to...
Digression
Life is tough. Reading Mark Twain travel essays on the American West, in the American West. It is notable how much different the mountains are now than a century and a half ago when Twain was venturing through the western slopes of the Rockies. It no longer takes weeks to cross the mountains, and there...
Badlands, retrospective.
And by retrospective, I mean it happened a while ago. I like maps. I had spent hours visually analyzing the selection of westward route choices — freeway? state highway? around the cities or through? risk? reward? I left Maine in the morning. I climbed the Poconos/Adirondacks/Appalachians (and feel free to let me know which mountains...
