Fort Collins, CO - March 2003

This is a picture of Kristen Y (original Kristen, for those of you keeping track) and I at the apartment I shared with Biz and Steve Y in Fort Collins, Colorado. It was taken around mid-March 2003. There was a blizzard while Kristen and Christine were visiting - right around St. Patrick's Day. They even closed the mall because there was danger of the roof collapsing under the massive amount of snow. I think that was the day we all stayed inside and started drinking around 1 in the afternoon. I had Admiral Nelson vodka mixed with Sprite out of the giant beer mug that John had smuggled out of a bar in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

In this picture, I'm enjoying some New Belgium beer brewed right in Fort Collins, at the world's only completely wind-powered brewery. New Belgium offers Fat Tire, Sunshine Wheat, and four to five other outstanding beers. Odell is the other microbrew in FtC, and they have some good beer as well. I still use my 90 Shilling bottle opener that I received at a tour there, although the logo has long since worn off. The six packs were roughly $7, but we usually went for them anyway because it was just so good. There was a bar there called Tony's that most of the Sears guys would go to on Wednesdays because they offered dollar draughts of both local microbrews. Tony's was only marginally better than Sunny's in Fredonia, but Christian always wanted to go so he could hit on the shots girl with the huge tattoo and large (very likely fake) rack.

I was intending to grow my hair out in Colorado, but I could never make it past that awkward stage. It kept getting more and more puffy without seeming to approach the shoulders or even lower on my neck. So I went from the one extreme (this picture represents almost the longest point) to another. I shaved my face first and the next week, Chris F came over with his kit of supplies and cut my hair down to about 1/8". It was pretty scary - I looked like I had just joined the army. Eventually the beard came back and was cut down to a goatee - Colorado was the first time I had the goat, and that's what I had when I returned in August for Randy & Laura's and Links and Brooke's weddings.

On the refrigerator in back, you can see the collage that Biz assembled prior to the invasion of Iraq with various amusing combinations of words and pictures. There was one thing that he did that I especially liked; he had cut out the word WAR and placed it across the upcoming week's forecast. It was fitting. This was the time period when every cable news channel had had "Target: Iraq" or something similar written in the corner of their telecast with flashy graphics. There was little debate in the mainstream press. I remember getting into an argument with an empty-headed flag-waver at work after he made some derogatory comment about the protesters that had peaceably assembled on College Avenue, down from CSU. There was never a thought among most people that the war might be unnecessary or a mistake, and to touch on the subject was blasphemous - "you don't support our troops!!!???" was all you would hear. Well, I don't support the use of our armed forces in a war of choice in which tens of thousands of innocent civilians will perish. Nope. The beat goes on though, two and a half years later.

There's a tangent. Here's a couple more...

I'm posting a bunch of pictures because I'm home now and have the ability to do so. I couldn't install Picasa on the computers at school and didn't know how to upload anything without it. I think it's nice to have them on the blog. It serves to break up the mass of text that there would be without them, and might encourage people to stay who don't like to read my endless ramblings. I like this picture, despite how my hair looks and despite the fact that my beard was growing in even less well then than it does now. It was great to have Kristen and Christine visit and to hang out and have fun with them. We had been in FtC less than a month at that point, since we had lived in Denver for about two weeks after a couple days with Alison in Boulder (that was as long as we could stay without washing dishes...that's an inside joke for Steve and John).

...although it did kind of point out to me that two thirds of the guys in the apartment had someone sharing their bed (guess who the other third was?). This really wasn't a huge deal, because I was only about four months from the Destini thing (which had led me to stop going to classes at Fredonia and then to move out to Colorado), and although I was definitely lonely, I was in no position mentally to be with anyone. Living with two cool guys, being very poor, and drinking a lot were just about everything I needed. There was a little crisis there when Biz and Steve took off for a week to California, leaving with Kristen and Christine. They left me everything I needed to meet our group's financial obligations, and Steve was always very generous with loaning me his car even after I smashed up the front end in a very low-speed, no-traction sort of collision, but I would come home from work and go out of my mind with nothing to do. I burned up a 600-minute phone card that week talking to Destini. I found out later that she had seriously considered coming out there, but of course that would probably have been very damaging to what psychologically needed to happen for me.

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I just attempted to find the email about that on this computer's Alltel account in Outlook Express. The entire Destini folder is gone. Vanished. Kaput. I have no idea what has happened to it, although I know one of the only reasons this computer is still around is because I was intending to transfer all of those emails somehow to disk or at least print them all. But everything is gone. I don't know how that could have happened. I don't even know what to say about it, other than that I'm feeling a little too much like Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine right now - things being erased out from under me. Wow.

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So......................

I've gone away and come back to this too many times, so I think I'll just finish it up.

I was pretty hard up in Colorado until just about the very end when a girl named Desiree - who was apparently just out of the movie Saved! - came along. I certainly never got to that point with her, but Desiree, like one of the girls in the movie was under the impression that she was going to preserve her virginity by only having anal sex. She had one of the dirtiest minds I've ever encountered, but she was a staunch Republican. I kind of forgot about the email she sent to me after I came back home to NY, but I just looked it up and I think I'll post part of it. I remember that I snorted in shock and amusement while reading it because it was so unlike how she was in person. I'm sure King will enjoy a certain portion of it - he tells me the same thing all the time. I think I was worse then than I am now though.

Here's a sample:

"you told me you saw Morgan and me in my car at the mall. You told me when you were here just before you left and then you email ed me the same statement which leads me to believe that you thought this was a big deal or some sort of problem. Why? I live with two guys, seeing a guy in my car is hardly anything to worry about. Besides, he's my best friend, and had you and I had a relationship, I still would talk to him and want to hang out with him. No one understands me like him, no one is as close to me as he is. Never has been, never will be (except Jesus).


Which brings me to my next point. God is vary important to me and my growth as a person. No offense, but I could never be with someone who doesn't have the same views. Not just because that is important to ME, but because the Bible tells us that a relationship where the couple is not "equally yolked" will have a difficult time and more than likely not succeed. Now, if none of the above things were factors, and I really was interested in a relationship, your lack of self confidence and the way you bad-mouth yourself would be an issue. I did find you physically attractive, but when you go on and on about how you don't think so, it's a definite turn off, and that would have ended it soon anyway. I will tell you now that you would find ME hard to get along with as well as I am probably one of the most conservative people you may ever meet. I can appreciate smart liberals who have views with reason and have taken years to find out how they truly feel about things, and then there are the delusional ones which make up about 95% of the liberal population. I don't know which you are, I don't care. But I refuse to have unnecessary conflict in my life, and two different political views would certainly cause conflict.

Now I know I am not the most articulate person ever, I didn't plan this out really. As I said, I'm just telling you how I feel. It felt good to know you didn't care if I had makeup on, or anything like that. But the pace at which we moved was WAY too fast and it frightened me. I believe there is a reason for everything, a reason I did what I did and a reason you left. I believe everything works out for the best in the end and I know I won't always understand or like the outcome, but eventually everything works out. That is the way it is suppose to be. A purpose to everything. I wish you the best of luck in the future, I'm sure you'll end up happy."

Morgan was her ex-boyfriend. The boyfriend that became an ex-boyfriend when she called him up to break up with him three days after she made out with me. He was in the Caribbean or something. For what exactly, I forget. One of the guys that she lived with was Morgan's best friend. His name was Jon and he weighed about 300 pounds. Very funny, very likeable guy until she started hanging out at my place (her apartment was about 10 seconds away if I walked slowly). Then she started sneaking around like he was her father. It was annoying.

I don't think that I "went on and on" about my low opinion of myself, but I probably did.

I never heard a word about God or politics until shortly before I left for the weddings. Desiree had just retrieved the mail and I was looking through a radical Republican newsletter that was addressed to Jon, laughing at the headlines. Even then, she didn't say the type of things she said in this email.

The fast pace was to third base in about four to five weeks or so. Actually only slightly faster than my first long-term relationship, although to stick with the baseball analogy, that runner was stranded on third for seven more months before he scored.

The makeup and stuff like that....I just pointed out to her that she was very pretty and didn't need any of it as far as I was concerned. I also did some math for her and figured out she was spending about $200 per year just getting her nails done. She actually gave that up and got rid of the fake nails within a week of me saying anything about it. This both impressed and scared me to think that I had that much influence. She was only a year younger than me, but acted quite a bit younger than that.

You can imagine how much I loved the statistic that 95% of liberals are delusional. I found that hilarious.

I saw a nice bumper sticker the other day: The Only Republicans are Millionaires and Fools.
Of course, this is the same sort of blanket statement.

I laughed out loud at the "(except Jesus)" because it just surprised the hell out of me (no pun intended) just coming out of the blue like that. Like I said, she had given no indication of this during the time we were together. She had definitely been the aggressive pursuer of the two of us and also told more dirty jokes than I had heard in the past year.

So Colorado was an interesting experience.