(no subject)
I hate driving with the passion of a thousand praire fires. I feel that a long drive is 30 minutes. Anything longer than that, and I would prefer to lay on a bed of nails (which was incidently my prize-winning 3rd grade science project, but thats another story). If I drive longer than that it means that I *really* care about someone.
I say this so you can better understand the gravity of the awesomeness that I had in Colorado this fall break. It was a 13.5 hour one-day drive each way. And it was Totally Worth It.
The drive itself reinforced my hatred of driving. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. You might remember that the window to my car broke a couple months ago. Well, I finally got it fixed a couple weeks beforehand. I'm 2 hours into the trip when I stop at a drive-thru to pick up some breakfast. As I'm rolling my window back up, SLAM: window drops, broken. Which was great considering it was raining all over the midwest the day I planned to drive down. I got lost, I almost hit a deer, hell I even got a speeding ticket. (Stupid Nebraskans used a freakin *plane* to tell them I was speeding)
But when I finally got there, it was totally worth it. Sigh. It has been so long since I've seen mountains. Almost five years. I missed them much more than I remembered.
Speaking of things I have missed, there's Amanda. She and I were housemates two years ago, and we got really close. She is an incredibly fascinating and caring woman; she's like the sister I never had. That year of my life was pretty shitty in general, but she was always there for me.
When she moved to Colorado we lost touch for about a year or so because I suck at maintaining long-distance friendships. That changed towards the end of this summer, when I finally got off my butt and decided "hey, its time to put some effort into maintaining friendships". Which is part of the reason why I made the trip. The other part is that I have always wanted to move down there. About half my extended family lives in Colorado, and even though I don't really care for them much, I always loved traveling down there. Colorado meant freedom and excitement to me.
And indeed, the trip was a blast. Heck, there was this one night where we to an Irish pub in town and I *actually* enjoyed myself. Which is crazy, because I've never had a good bar-going experience ever. I got to meet some of Amanda's friends and they sang Irish folk songs together. It was fan-freakin-tastic, and I got more drunk than I have been in years.
Amanda's cats are awesome too. Usually the way things go with cats and me is that I like them alot, and they don't cats don't care for me. Dogs tend to like me more. But this one cat, Toby, is totally awesome. Amanda even got a bit miffed because he was always trying to escape her cuddles to cuddle with me. Her other two cats didn't seem to care for me much, but I'm sure they'll turn around.
Another day we went on the most gorgeous hike up along Chicago lake. I felt like a boy the day before Christmas. My soul has always been in the mountains, and up there I truly felt that overwhelming feeling of righteousness. That's when I knew that I was moving to Colorado. It was only a question of how soon.
All those days were so wonderful. Driving back to Minnesota was hurtful. I wish that I could've stayed there. It was then, driving through the sleet storm between Colorado and Minnesota, that I realized I loved Amanda. She has always been a close friend and the dearest sister to me. And I have cared for her a great deal. But love? No. I set very high standards when it comes to loving people. Up until now I have only loved two people in my entire life. My mother, and Kitty. Now there are three.
And so here I am, back in Minnesota, happily typing away while munching on stale PB&J with Norah Jones playing softly in the background.
I am dreaming of freedom.
I say this so you can better understand the gravity of the awesomeness that I had in Colorado this fall break. It was a 13.5 hour one-day drive each way. And it was Totally Worth It.
The drive itself reinforced my hatred of driving. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. You might remember that the window to my car broke a couple months ago. Well, I finally got it fixed a couple weeks beforehand. I'm 2 hours into the trip when I stop at a drive-thru to pick up some breakfast. As I'm rolling my window back up, SLAM: window drops, broken. Which was great considering it was raining all over the midwest the day I planned to drive down. I got lost, I almost hit a deer, hell I even got a speeding ticket. (Stupid Nebraskans used a freakin *plane* to tell them I was speeding)
But when I finally got there, it was totally worth it. Sigh. It has been so long since I've seen mountains. Almost five years. I missed them much more than I remembered.
Speaking of things I have missed, there's Amanda. She and I were housemates two years ago, and we got really close. She is an incredibly fascinating and caring woman; she's like the sister I never had. That year of my life was pretty shitty in general, but she was always there for me.
When she moved to Colorado we lost touch for about a year or so because I suck at maintaining long-distance friendships. That changed towards the end of this summer, when I finally got off my butt and decided "hey, its time to put some effort into maintaining friendships". Which is part of the reason why I made the trip. The other part is that I have always wanted to move down there. About half my extended family lives in Colorado, and even though I don't really care for them much, I always loved traveling down there. Colorado meant freedom and excitement to me.
And indeed, the trip was a blast. Heck, there was this one night where we to an Irish pub in town and I *actually* enjoyed myself. Which is crazy, because I've never had a good bar-going experience ever. I got to meet some of Amanda's friends and they sang Irish folk songs together. It was fan-freakin-tastic, and I got more drunk than I have been in years.
Amanda's cats are awesome too. Usually the way things go with cats and me is that I like them alot, and they don't cats don't care for me. Dogs tend to like me more. But this one cat, Toby, is totally awesome. Amanda even got a bit miffed because he was always trying to escape her cuddles to cuddle with me. Her other two cats didn't seem to care for me much, but I'm sure they'll turn around.
Another day we went on the most gorgeous hike up along Chicago lake. I felt like a boy the day before Christmas. My soul has always been in the mountains, and up there I truly felt that overwhelming feeling of righteousness. That's when I knew that I was moving to Colorado. It was only a question of how soon.
All those days were so wonderful. Driving back to Minnesota was hurtful. I wish that I could've stayed there. It was then, driving through the sleet storm between Colorado and Minnesota, that I realized I loved Amanda. She has always been a close friend and the dearest sister to me. And I have cared for her a great deal. But love? No. I set very high standards when it comes to loving people. Up until now I have only loved two people in my entire life. My mother, and Kitty. Now there are three.
And so here I am, back in Minnesota, happily typing away while munching on stale PB&J with Norah Jones playing softly in the background.
I am dreaming of freedom.