sick

Yeah. I'm sick. And it's annoying.
Thing is, it's not a full blown sickness or anything. It's one of those, wake up and feel nauseous all day but never puke kinds of illness. Been going on for like 2 weeks and I'm pretty much done with it now. Thanks for comin out, there's the door. Fuck off.

in the moment

It really does baffle people when I insist on living in the now.
They can't...quite...wrap their lil brains around that.

How can you not think about retirement? Plan for it?
How can you not think about plans for the summer, or whether you're going to renew your lease next winter?
How can you just drift through life like that? Where's your stability?
Where's your roots? Where will you be in a year? Five? Ten?
How can you NOT KNOW?

I get harassed about this a lot. People have this pre-conceived notion that I'm a drifter, that I'm shady or something because I have no ten year plan.

No, I don't think about retirement. That requires me thinking about being old, and I'm just not down with that yet. I'll see when I get there. If I get there. I didn't expect to live to see 20, everything from there on in has been total icing on the cake for me.

Summer, leases, next winter, same thing. I might not make it until tomorrow, nevermind the summer, so no I make so solid plans. I have things I'd like to do; I want to skateboard a lot this summer. I'd like to get outside as much as possible. Get into the mountains. But I won't plan for it, because I might not be around. Those aspirations can follow me no matter where I go, not dependant on me living here, or having this job, or this apartment, or in this country for that matter.

Where's my stability. What kind of stability are we talking about? Stability, as society sees it, is an illusion. Life is not a stable thing. It's always changing, always shifting. What's true today will not be true tomorrow, or a week from now, or a year from now. Perspective shifts. Lessons learned. You are not who you were a year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago. You don't have the same job, likely in this economy, you don't have the same house, also likely in this era. Who really HAS stability anymore. I just chose to embrace it and live it.

I don't drift, entirely. I love Boulder. Can't say how long I'll be here, but I'll love it until the time comes to go. Then I'll hopefully end up somewhere else I'll love. That's the aim, anyway. To end up somewhere I love being. I don't have any roots, ok this is true. I have no family. I have no ties to any one particular place, I have nothing to hold me somewhere I might not wanna be. This is so liberating, so freeing. I can live anywhere I want to. No family fights, no "why don't you come visit", no obligations except to myself. Yes, I eat out and I see big families at tables and it makes me sad that I'll never have that, but ah well. I'll never have the drama of it either.

My job is great, for however long it lasts. I make no long term plans based on having this job. Cause the way the economy is, I could lose it next week.

When you live in the right now, things like this don't haunt you. They don't keep you up nights worrying if you'll have enough money in your retirement fund to cover your wrinkly ass, or if your job will be there next year, or how you're gonna pay your mortgage IF you lose this job - worrying that ultimately gives you ulcers, or heart conditions, or high blood pressure, which is of course more shit to worry about.
All that is lifted.
When you live in the right now, you see how brightly the sun is shining outside, and you can't wait to get out there. You wonder what's for lunch, you wonder where the afternoon is going to take you. Life is an adventure. I could work this afternoon, or I could end up in the mountains playing with the dogs, or I could be in the valley shooting a shotgun. I'm not sure yet. I do know that tonight I get to do computer stuff on a mac. Least I think I will. We'll see, that could change too.

When you live in the right now, everything is a surprise, everything is an adventure. And if you can accept it, it's awesome. Like a roller coaster ride, without all that wind in your hair and the nausea. I love it. It makes me so deliriously happy. I don't miss a moment, I don't pass a rosebush or a flowering tree in early April without inhaling deeply and loving that that flower is there. Smiling at the sound of a child's giggle...because honestly some of them have the absolute best giggle on earth...and having my heart completely unburdened by anything other than where my feet are taking me.

People don't get this. In fact I get the feeling they resent it. Maybe because they can't do it, or aren't sure how. Easy, I tell them. And this is the only secret to no stress.
Just
Let
Go.

Nothing, honestly, matters. If you have this job in a year, does it matter? If you move next week, I mean really, will you die? Will the world end? No. Life just changes. So what if your marriage ends. You try and if it doesn't work, let it go. Stressing about it isn't going to make it better.
Just let it go.

I'm likely going to get deported in 2 months. Back to Canada, suffer that 5 or 10 year stint of not being able to come back into the states when one gets tossed out of a country. I could stress about that, I could freak out and cry and beg my husband not to punish me, as he so rightly thinks I should be; I could think about it so much that I nightmare about it. That I develop ulcers, that I can't eat or sleep or work properly about it. It could consume me. In essence, I'm losing my home, my life, the town I love being in.

I started looking for places I might like to live in Canada again. Whistler, hands down the best snowboarding anywhere, is looking good. Rent is pretty cheap, jobs not bad even out of season there, and come winter, snowboarding that owns. There are hostels there too, in case I don't have enough cash stored up by the time 2 months comes around, so I'll have a place to stay.
The cat will need a home, I highly doubt I can take her along. Husband might take her. If not, I'll see about someone else. Not a huge deal. I love my cat endlessly, don't get me wrong, but when we're talking survival, when the chips fall and it's an apt or her, she goes. Being homeless taught me that.

And wherever I end up, it'll be an adventure all over again.
But right now, I'm in today. Tomorrow doesn't concern me other than a passing thought, that knowledge that everything really will be ok whether I stress or not, so I chose not to stress.
And today, I work for the lawyer this afternoon. Likely not all afternoon, but it's hours. I'll go walk in the sunshine a while at lunch. I have no food, nor any money for food, but the boss is letting me have leftovers from some big luncheon downstairs, so I'll be fed. Tonight, I'll possibly do the computer stuff. But in a moment, everything could change.
I can't wait.

Blizzard of 05

Oh puhlease.
No one in Boulder has the right to say this today.
Yes, there was a blizzard. Yes, it skimmed Boulder and dumped a few inches. Pfft. Pussies. Fucking hippy pussies.
The bus was late this morning. When I finally got on it, he was creeping along the road like he was plowing through 2 feet of snow.
The grass is still peeking through this snow here.

So I leaned up and kinda whispered to the driver.....
"you do know that's water on the road, right?"
I don't think he did. Cause RTD reserves the right to not adhere to any kind of schedule if the roads are bad. Only now, whenever it rains too hard, the drivers kick back and figure they can take their time.
Well fuck you. I have a job to get to, and there's nothing on the road at all. So drive, motherfucker.

I had a kick ass weekend, aside from the stupidity of bus drivers this morning.
We hit Breck on Saturday morning. Yeah, I only did 3 runs, but it's one better than last time. And I took a blue. Yay, go me, damnit. I'm so stoked. Bummed that the season is over like this weekend coming up, but stoked that I'm getting a lot better really fast.

We partied in Vail after Breck was done. Supposed to be some free concert, but the "blizzard" started that night so I think it was called off. Some dj was on stage mixing, it was cool, but not really worth standing out in the fucking cold like that for.
Standing there, that's when something large and round, I swear, hit me.
My knees decided that no, they'd done enough on the mountain today, they didn't feel the obligation to do any more.
My stomach chimed in, saying the altitude was fucking with it already and if the knees were going, then it was going to convulse too. Fuck me.
Someone in the ground below me took a deep fucking breath and sucked every last ounce of strength out of me, standing there in the cold.
Thank god for the bumper of that Escalade. I sat down hard. My ass reminded me I'd fallen on it earlier, but not quite as persistently as my head swimming in some imaginary bubble of water.

The boys looked around for me, as they were kinda wanting to go, and all just stood there for a second, staring at me.
"Dude. You're pale. Like more than normal." Insisting I was fine didn't work. I collapsed on the way to the car, but they didn't let me hit the ground. I was taken back to Mason's place, fed water and wrapped up in a blanket, as I was shaking so badly it looked like I was about to have a seizure. I slept, they partied around me, every once in a while feeling a hand to my forehead, checking if I was still trembling, seeing if I could respond. I survived the night.

Drove back on Sunday in a blizzard. Yeah, the kind that dumped 2 feet by the side of the road, sent semi's on their sides off the highway, had cars piled on top of each other on the highway. The kind that makes it take 5 hours for an hour trip.

If I could, I'd go snowboarding every day this week. Can't, maybe one day, but not all 5. This weekend is Vail's last weekend too. Gonna hit that hard, from what I'm told. Can't wait.

Blink. Blink.

I'm existing in my own little bubble of water today.
Everything around me is distorted just a little. Too far away. Liquid.
All my limbs are moving a lot slower than I think they should be.
My brain...honestly I don't think it's there. I think it drowned sometime yesterday.
I'm even blinking slowly.

God. I'm blonde today. I can't code, my mind is mush. The simplest code sends me into some coma-state where I sit here for the next 10 minutes. Drooling only slightly. I'm exhausted, even though I slept really well last night. Least, I think I slept well.

People say it's the weather. There's weather rolling into Boulder this weekend. Snow on Sunday morning, they say.
Ah ha.
Snowboarding sunday. And they think it's the barometer. It's my brain going over and over snowboarding stuff, that's all. It's occupied, that's all.

Let me tell you about my last run.
It was awesome. I went on the chair lift. I got laughed at cause i fell off it both times I took it up, but at least I didn't stop the lift. That whole one foot balance thing just throws me.
So I get on top of the mountain. Yeah, this is a flashback to Keystone and how it handed me my ass last time.
Ah ha, but I've been working on stance, and balance. Mountain won't kick my ass this time. Noo siree.

I only did 2 runs, granted. But I got some speed on me. Was riding switch most of the second run down, working on getting onto my heel edge from switch. Cause I sucked at that last time I tried it. Not bad. I fell twice that hurt me. The guys were actually really proud of me that when I'd fall from balance or stopping, I'd get right back up. No sitting in the snow for this girl.

And there was powder. There was a good foot of powder. My first powder day.
I love powder. I love it like I've loved nothing else. I floated down that mountain. I was one with the snow.

I carved more than once, hard, and didn't fall. Caught myself, fixed my stance, got my balance back. I followed closer than they thought I would, passing them even once. Ok they were standing still, that's not what's important here. They say my form is really good. My reaction time on the board is getting better, I'm starting to feel out the edges so when I nearly catch one, I compensate to avoid it. I done good.

I did fall, twice, hard.
The first time, I was compensating for catching my toe edge, and instead caught my heel. They said they could hear the "thump" of my ass hitting the snow from 30 feet away. They all winced collectively. I sat there in the snow a good 5 minutes only because it felt so damn good on an ass that hurt so goddamn much. My spine trembled the rest of the day from that.

The second time was spectacular. The boys didn't see it, sadly. I was comin down hard, faster than I should have been, and I nearly caught my toe edge. Instead, I carved over on it. But I think I leaned back too fast, and lost my balance. Hitting the snow didn't entirely hurt.
Oh look, there's the sky. Pretty snowflakes hitting my lips.
Oh look, there's my snowboard.
Coming up over my head.
Just once, rolled backwards. I felt the board hit the ground and wanted to stand up to recover, really I did. But I think I landed lopsided, too much weight on one foot, as always. The board twisted and did a cartwheel kind of move on me. My body followed, like a good girl. But I twisted both my knees, my right one in particular, so badly I sat in the snow with my head down gasping for air.

My knees are pissing me off.
So I made it down the mountain alright, rested a few times but I was ok to finish the run. Iced my knee and I was done like dinner boy. Still hurts, but at least I didn't blow it out or anything. Just pissed the muscles off.
And like the stubborn girl I am, I'll be doing it again this weekend. Especially if it snows again.

Yesterday, I went hiking. No trails for this girl either, we're talking no trails, scaling rock walls to get to a ridge on the mountain where there's thigh high snow waiting for you. Nearly 4 hours of that.
My legs are no longer speaking to me, routinely today threatening to give out altogether on me. So sshh on the snowboarding this weekend or they'll freak out and my ass won't be able to get up.

And even though I ache, nothing really hurts to the point where I can't move it. I believe that I won't ache tomorrow, and because I believe it, it'll likely be true. And once I stop aching so much, I know I'll feel stronger than I've been in years.
Cause I already am. If I could just lift my arms.

March Lion

In like a lamb, out like a lion, right?
Well rawr damnit.

This lion's dumped so much snow up in the mountains, they might extend the season. That would so rock. I can't wait to get up there again. I want to get at least SOME feel for that board before summer hits and it's skateboarding only. Last weekend skateboarding I managed to carve back and forth...same principle on a snowboard, just well, on snow. With my feet attached. I so wanna go try that out on a hill.
A little hill.
With a non-threatening kind of slope.
One that doesn't scream "I will SO kick your ass woman".
Cause I wanna get good enough to actually take a goddamn lift this season. Wimp that I am after Keystone kicked my ass proper.

I think we're going up this weekend. They wanna show me around Vail more. Hit Breck. Hit Keystone cause night snowboarding ends after this weekend and we can't have that. I can't wait.

Still haven't taken that bike out, cause um it's still too goddamn cold out. My bus pass expires tomorrow though. I'm wondering if I should just bite the bullet and not get a new one, forcing me to ride that bike in no matter how cold it is, or buy one for just one more month. Maybe I'll just get enough cash to do the bus every day to and from work, then ride everywhere else. Cause there's only 21 work days in april, and the pass is barely gonna make that worthwhile.

So I showed Astral how to skateboard. Lil bastard was immediately good at it. After I spent a month working on balance. The guy is good at it the first day. Not sure if that speaks for my teaching ability or what. I know, I know, he snowboards, his balance is good. Still. Pfft.

You know, I'd talk some about the whole trip to INS too, but I just haven't had that much caffiene this morning yet, and I woke up in a pretty damn good mood. Let's not ruin that, shall we.

Later that day

It's 2:30, and all my work for the day is done. Which leaves me sitting here for the next 3 hours, because damned if I'm gonna go home and forfeit that cash, when I give work more than they pay for anyway.

So I'm here.

I took up skateboarding recently. Recently being about 2 months ago. Boulder weather rocks, so I could. Of course today, it's freezing and there's snow on the ground. Call me weak but oh hell no I'm not skateboarding in 20 degree weather.

It was kinda one of those always-wanted-to-do-never-got-to things. Well, I did it when I was 14, but not well and not for long. I was roller skating well at 14 and I felt that was enough. The skateboarders back then were mean anyway. And I was busy trying to assimilate to be accepted, after an entire childhood of being told to fit in.

So I bought a half decent board, dicked around on it for a week or so. Worked on balance in my living room and found out I had the wrong balance. I ended up meeting some people one night in Boulder by fluke, or fate, or whatever. A group of skateboarder/snowboarders. Two of which have gone pro in skateboarding. So these are my teachers. They taught me where my balance should be over the board. Where my feet should be.

And I was hooked. The first time I went out in a parking lot, stomach turning feeling sick from nervousness, shaking, and got my ass on that board, I was totally hooked.

I did it for 4 hours the first time out. I sucked, mind you, and I couldn't push off at all without losing my balance. So I chose a little slope and worked on staying on the board. I fidgeted with my feet. I nearly killed myself, but I didn't hit the ground. I worked on convincing myself I could just step off the board whenever I wanted. No reason to fear.

Every day after that, I was out there. Venturing out onto the sidewalk...most of which are shit, by the way...practicing pushing off. That took me a good 4 weeks to get, and even now I kinda struggle with it.

The boys, they showed me how to tic tac. Move the front of the skateboard from side to side while still or moving. I practiced. My balance was still off. My weight was going to the back, and I was popping the board out from beneath me. Did that on a hill one day. Opened up my elbow, bruised my body all along the right side.

By this time, I couldn't wear a dress to work anymore. My calves were covered in dark, angry looking bruises. So were my knees, my thighs, my hips, my arms; not my hands though. Those were just scuffed up. I musta looked like a prize fighter.

And I couldn't get enough.
I can't get enough.
It's killing me that it's cold out today and I have time to kill. I'd love to be snowboarding today too, but that requires a car and I don't have that. The boys are prolly up there already. Bastards.

The day I got my balance, I felt like I'd just drank an entire bottle of tequila. No, not sick and puking. Think good tequila, $100/bottle tequila. The kind that gives you a wicked body buzz and makes you high. That kind.

Suddenly, finding the sweet spot on the board, I could do the stuff I'd be practicing and failing at. I could tic tac. Not at high speed, but I could do it. I could pedal better, knowing where to keep my toes on the board.

And the adrenaline washed through me like a hit of heroine.

I'm now an adrenaline junkie.
My stomach gets jumpy and quivering right before I get out on the board. Not out of fear, or nervousness. Out of the anticipation of that rush.
10 minutes out and I'm flyin. No drug, and I've tried a lot of them, no alcohol (with maybe the exception of absinthe, dunno haven't tried that yet) can touch this.

The people who jump out of airplanes (intentionally), the people who get dropped at the top of an inaccessable mountain to board all the way down snow no man has ever touched, the people who thrill-seek....

I get it now.
Skateboarding gave me that bug.
Snowboarding is next. Once I stop falling and stop being afraid of what kind of speed I can get hurling myself down a mountainside in the rockies.

Stupid People

Yes, I know, everyone hates stupid people.
I really dislike them. I also dislike people who would take advantage of stupid people, so that when my happy ass comes along and points out...um, you've been taken for a ride big time you know that...I look like some kind of rat.

Generally speaking, people are pretty ignorant about websites. They have little clue what kind of work goes into one. The code behind it. The design. Actually I think they don't *care* but hey. Doesn't matter.

I develop websites. I come up with the design, make the graphics, do the behind the scenes coding so it works how and where it's supposed to work. My stuff is cross-platform, cross-browswer compatible, which, when I say that, usually makes people's eyes roll back in their heads. It would horrify them what I sit and do all day.

Now, when I take over an existing website, generally the code is horrible so I toss it. Actually all the code is always horrible. Because someone's sister's cousin did the site in frontpage 3 years ago. It's a nightmare. I can rebuild it though. Make it better. Faster. Stronger. I can drag these sites into the 21st century kicking and screaming.

A server, if you don't know, often comes with the decrepid website. Oh now here's some fun boy. People telling me they're paying $20 a month for 250mg of space and 5 gigs of transfer. No frills. No PHP, no CGI, nothing.
Hell. Free sites come with that.
So I get to say um, yeah, your site is gonna be too big to fit in 250 mgs of space (400+ page graphics intensive website as well as login script), so you need more. And oh by the way, someone's been fucking you up the ass for the past 2 years...that hurt? Did they at least use lube? Give you a blow job every month? Something? Cause damn, I'm a woman and even I wouldn't want to be fucked THAT hard.

Now I get to deal with the people who run the site. The admins. Fun fun. The people pulling out their respective cocks to fuck the people I now work for. I'm never sure if I should smack them or congratulate them. But now I have to deal with them and say yeah, I want at least 10 gigs of space and 200 gigs of bandwidth, just to be safe. I want cgi capability, I want ColdFusion on it, I want PHP, I want database and email capability jesus CHRIST man where's your decency. And I want all this for under $10 a month. Cause I can get it for about $5 online with another host. Just giving you the courtesy because these people who are my bosses seem to like you.

Maybe they've just been fucking the bosses so long, the bosses have come to like it.
Maybe stupid people should be dragged out into the street and shot.
Then who would I work for.

Slide

I have no clue how to start this. Even need to go find the theory on the way of the warrior, because I really don't wanna quote it wrong. I'm online, I could go right now and find it. Slap it up there and look like I really do have it all together.

I'm sliding.

Sliding is like one step above laziness. Because in the end, I don't want to go find this theory and quote it, especially if it makes me trendy or clever. I know what it means. Does it matter if a mass of faceless people know? No. Not to me. The people I hang out with, they know what it means. Cause they do it all the time.

Though I do feel like I gotta explain that now. I'm not some bum who sits on her ass all the time, too lazy to get up and do anything, or care how she looks. I work hard while I'm at work. I play hard when I'm not. I spend a lot of time up in the mountains outside of Boulder, hiking, snowboarding...ok mostly falling when I'm snowboarding still. I'm learning how to skateboard. I'm trying to re-learn french and teach it to a few friends so we can talk about the trendy ski people when they're being assholes. In fact I'm so active, that I'm shedding body fat like a winter coat. A few years playing mmorpgs put like 30 pounds on me that I didn't ask for. Now I'm getting rid of it.

So sliding isn't traditional laziness. I just don't care. I don't want to be socially acceptable, beyond being able to keep a job. I don't have a career. I don't have goals or ambitions for greatness in the corporate world. I don't care to climb your corporate ladder. I'd much rather watch as it falls, take my skateboard and go on my way. I design websites, but I do that cause it's fun. Not because it ever made me a lot of money. Actually made me kinda an outcast in Binghamton, NY, where there were only 3 other people designing sites, all of which were guys. Not a lot of women do it here either. Maybe computers scare the pretty rich girls. Who knows.

So I took up skateboarding this winter. It was a nice winter in Boulder, I could. Whenever it's sunny and above 40, I'm out there for hours, trying not to die on this lil piece of wood. It's a total rush, I love it. I love it so much that I get bummed when it gets dark. Or snows. I'd say rain, but we're in Boulder now boys and girls. Doesn't really do a lot of raining here. When it's nice, I travel everywhere with that lil board because there just might be a sweet spot of pavement for me to go practice on, wherever I'm going. And I'll drop everything to skate around for a few hours, perfecting balance, getting ticking down at a speed, finding the sweet spot on the board with my toes...just to be on it. The world can fuck off, I have skating to do.

Since I've been carrying this board around with me, I find people behaving differently. Which is awesome. I dress up for work, dresses, skirts, heels, jackets, so I deceptively look like I belong to the adult world. Teachers, other business people will smile at me and even say good morning. Everyone's nice, warm.
When I bring the board, I'll wear my boarding clothes and bring my formal stuff to work, change there. Well. Things are different then, boy. The same teachers and business people refuse to look me in the eye. They scowl when I flip the board up to get on the bus. Suck at their teeth when I ride up to the stoplight. I get nods and little greetings from other skateboarders especially. The atmostphere changes.
I like it.

I don't ever want to be mainstream. I don't want to be like anyone else. I'm already not like any woman I've ever known; not like any woman any man I've met, has known either. That's great. Women are chronically insane, I don't wanna be like that. I don't spend more than 20 minutes getting ready for any occasion. I paint my nails cause I like the raspberry color, but it never lasts more than a day before I'm chipping it skateboarding or snowboarding or something. Ok I dye my hair. That's my girly thing. I hate shopping, especially when I don't have any money or I'm not dead sure what I want. I have like 4 pairs of shoes. And that's only cause I needed hiking shoes and flip flops, living here. My closet isn't even entirely full; I don't collect clothes. I don't collect anything fluffy...if you look in my one room apt, there's nothing ornamental in it. Waste of space, that shit is, just more stuff to dust.

Money doesn't entirely matter outside of paying rent and bills, either. Yeah I wouldn't mind winning the lottery but I don't play. I don't wanna be ms. corporate and have all this money and all the stress that goes along with it. I wouldn't mind striking it rich at something...like a one hit wonder kind of thing. Something where I don't have the pressure to keep it up all the time. Bam, be brilliant, rake it in, sink back into the shadows and live to be happy. A book would do that. Working on that, off and on. Website design won't do that. Not doing it alone, anyway.

The people I hang with, most of them travel along the same wavelength as this. Work is not your life, it's just something you do for money. May as well get a job you like, as long as it pays the bills who cares if it's going anywhere. Going anywhere...it's going in the bank, that's it. What I do outside of work is so much more important. That's where life is. On the deck of a skateboard. On the side of a mountain. On that trail you leave and hike for hours into the wilderness. In the moment you do something you fear doing and find out you can't stop doing it.

It's taken me most of my life to find people who think the same way I do. I'm grateful every day I get to spend around them. I get to really be me around them, no filter, nothin. And they dig me, they keep calling me to go hang out. Helps immensely to shed a restrictive past and finally come into my own, finally be me.