What you learn about someone when they talk nonstop for an entire 10 minute bus ride

Posted on May 9, 2013 by

She’s getting a tracphone today and she doesn’t know how it works; she’s 50 years old and doesn’t know about all this technology. Babies, though, these days they know it, they can pick up a phone and work it. Just the other day her grandbaby picked up a phone and took a picture with it, just like that. But she’s old fashioned, she remembers Mountain Bell.

Her mom worked at Lowry for 34 years and bought the house her sister lives in. Her sister is 45, but she’s older than she is in a lot of ways, she thinks, she knows her money and her jobs. The house is paid for and she lives in it with her sister. She’s blessed to have her sister, because she’s on medication and can pass out with no warning at all.

She had her babies in her late 20s and she thinks she waited too long but her babies are her life and she talks to them every day.

Her dad is dead, died driving a truck, which he did his whole life. Both her parents are in Heaven, she’s sure of that, absolutely sure. She herself doesn’t much like people, she’s been married 14 years and is waiting for her divorce. She doesn’t like people around her, in her home, always around doing things. She likes being alone, she’s a loner at heart. She likes Jesus to walk with her, and that’s it. Nobody else.

She is going to Emily Griffith school, she’s turning her whole life around. It’s a whole new chapter in her life, and she’s gonna take control of it.

She’s worried about young kids these days on drugs and in gangs. They know how to work their phones, but their lives are going all the wrong ways. You can see in their eyes, the eyes tell the truth and the truth guides her everywhere she goes. Their eyes, bugging out, you know they’re on some kind of drugs. But she lives her life clean and their ain’t no two ways about it.

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“Magic Mike” made me feel sad feelings

Posted on April 4, 2013 by

There are certain activities that are more difficult to enjoy with ironic hipster relish. Going to the shooting range and watching mass-produced pornography have both fallen into the “Oh my god, wouldn’t it be funny if we___?” category at least once for me and then, upon execution, have proven so depressing (porn) or genuinely, viscerally profound (guns) that they most certainly can’t be described as “ironic” experiences. I kind of expected watching Magic Mike to be another on my list of backfired experiments in pseudo-intellectual sneering. Hey, it’s a Soderbergh film, after all. But what happened was actually much more unexpected. Magic Mike is not a good movie, but it’s not the movie I thought it would be. It’s neither a Vegas-style flexploitation show of man-flesh, devoid of narrative, nor it is a “serious,” arty take on a trashy, consumer-driven subculture, set against the backdrop of sex and glitter that is (apparently) the world of male strippers. No, it fails at both of these, if it actually attempts either.

Here is what Magic Mike does that it probably wasn’t designed to do. It is a mumbly, sunwashed Abercrombie and Fitch commercial of a love story between two people whose connection is as inexplicable as it is boring. It is an after-school special without an ending. It’s a Channing Tatum vehicle that proves he will continue to need vehicles because abs can’t say lines and his face looks like it’s been over-proofed before baking. I actually didn’t watch this all the way to the end, but what I wound up seeing in Magic Mike was the floundering state of masculinity in a world that is beginning to superimpose the worst of our gender expectations for women onto men, while attempting to level the playing field by imbuing women with the same ridiculous limitations of the male gaze and dominant male sexuality.

Let me back up a bit on that one.

For me, the funniest thing, and at the same time the saddest thing (like that happy/sad clown face you can get airbrushed on a shirt at the flea market, right?) about male strippers is that the pageantry of it is simply a reworking of the male gaze and a male idea of what women want to see. Funny enough, although both the troupe of dancers and the audience are devoid of gay men, the pageantry of the dancers remains solidly within the realm of what gay porn teaches us that gay men like. And somehow, that is sold wholesale to female audiences as if they see and want the same things. And why is that? Well, basically, the culture as expressed in Magic Mike has no way to negotiate what women actually want to see. Because women aren’t supposed to want. Or to see. Women are supposed to be wanted and be seen. So, the whole male stripper thing is kind of a joke, because it’s not at all about responding to the ways women work sexually. It’s just a reversal of the way men work, replacing women in silly outfits with men in silly outfits, replacing a lucite heels and impossible hairlessness with a cop outfit. So for most of this movie, during the montages of men preening in the dressing room and modifying their costumes, I felt like the reversal was not only silly but really sad. As you hear about more and more men getting eating disorders, and as you see the airbrushed images of men in rags like “Men’s Health,” you understand how “being seen” (being objectified, in other words) is troublesome for all concerned.

So we’re living in a Maxim magazine world, and we all know that, and we all know why that’s problematic for both men and women. But that doesn’t seem to be what Magic Mike is interested in showing. Instead, what we see is Mike himself utterly failing at the things men are supposed to do well with. His fuck-buddy (Olivia Munn, the girl from “Attack of the Show,” the stuff of crusty teenage boy sheets everywhere) doesn’t take him seriously, he makes “furniture” nobody wants, his credit is shit and he can’t even get an SBA loan from Hank Schrader’s (flustered, clearly aroused, skittish) wife. 

Ma’am if you look at my resume, you’ll see that in addition to being an entrepreneur, I’m also a fireman, a construction worker and a cop.

Now, if this were a movie about a female stripper, none of these life issues would be a surprise to us. And it’s not really a surprise for us, when Mike puts on his suit like he puts on so many other costumes, and tries to dimple and grin his way into another woman’s good graces. But the subtext here is the same subtext we see in so many post-recession films. The guy just can’t get it together, and at every turn he’s faced with women who can. He’s surrounded by successful women and all he can do is live off the crumpled singles they stuff into his g-string. Just as we all knew that Nomi wasn’t gonna make it as a “dancer” in Vegas in “Showgirls,” we know that Mike isn’t gonna be hawking his hideous coffee tables in Skymall anytime soon. But while “Showgirls” was a shopworn tale of disposable people in a disposable culture, Mike is something other than disposable. He is… extraneous. Nobody needs Mike. He’s like so much of the ephemera in middle-class women’s lives. He’s no more necessary or enriching to a single girl’s life than her imaginary wedding planning board on Pinterest. But if you’re into that kind of thing, they are both nice to look at for a while.

In one of his many moments of stripper wisdom, Matthew McConaughey’s character “Dallas” waxes philosophical and shirtless about how the men at XQuisite provide women with an escape, and they are then able to return to their boyfriends or husbands with their needs fulfilled, guilt-free. For a guy who owns no shirts, but does own a marble bust of himself (I’m pretty sure this is either A: a prop Matthew McConaughey just “had” and let the prop folks use, or B: something created for the film that now has a place of honor in his own actual home) this is remarkably on-point.

Nobody enjoys being an asshole quite as much as Matthew McConaughey.

And this is probably the film’s point, although Soderbergh sure does take his time getting to it: come see a movie with a bunch of almost-naked dudes who could never actually be a suitable partner, go home to the guy that is (or to your single life that is free of any dudes, but which is still probably better than if you were dating a meat-headed stripper) and it’s all in good fun. But there’s something nebulously sinister about this film, even if the fantasy and escape are the real reasons for its existence. It reinforces the idea that women are turned on by exactly the same kind of constructs that men are (visuality, objectification, silly costumes and faked oral sex.), which is simplistic and silly. And it introduces us to yet another relatively useless guy who is adrift in a world where successful women hold the key to any guaranteed future stability. It felt like more of the same sad story of masculinity in America. And I can’t enjoy that, not even ironically.

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An opportunity isn’t a right

Posted on March 18, 2013 by

I’m tired. I got a full three hours of sleep last night, due to meeting an old friend I hadn’t seen in ages (yay!) and later, tossing and turning while my husband emitted snores that sounded like a bear. Passing a gallstone. Possibly while wielding a chainsaw.

So I’m running on no sleep, and it’s Monday, and I’m cranky. I’m especially cranky because I woke up to a media shitstorm that further explains just why so few rape cases go to court. Because too many people believe that given the opportunity to rape, men will take it. And that somehow, that opportunity is the same as a right.

Let me put it this way. You forget to lock your front door and someone steals your TV. Are you still robbed? You take a shortcut through an unfamiliar alley and someone jumps you, takes your wallet. Are you still mugged? You get drunk at a party, pass out, and a bunch of teenage football players treat you like a human fleshlight for several hours. Are you still raped?

Yes. The answer is yes. Yes to all of those things, because when someone messes with something that isn’t theirs, whether it’s your TV, your wallet, or your genitals, it’s a violation of your rights. It doesn’t matter if you made a bad choice. It doesn’t matter if you were forgetful and didn’t lock your door, or if you were ignorant and walked someplace dangerous, or if you were drunk and dressed “slutty.” Because it is still true: having the opportunity to steal from you, hurt you or rape you is not at all the same as having a right to do so.

The fact that anyone is defending the actions of the Steubenville rapists (and apparently, they are defending them) is deeply, deeply disturbing to me. Because this is not a case of “he said, she said” that was reconstructed in a courtroom where personal testimony was the only evidence. This was caught on tape. Circulated through a community via social media. Corroborated by many, disputed by none. Everyone involved agrees that the boys on trial had sex with a girl who could not consent to it. So what was on trial? How could anyone look at these boys and see anything but rapists?

The answer is that we live in a society that has such low expectations of its boys and men that we assume they cannot fight the urge to have sex with any vagina left unattended. We view anything possessed of a penis as essentially unable to make a choice to NOT have sex if presented the opportunity. We prosecute thieves even if their theft was easy. We prosecute those who plot nasty financial schemes against the elderly, even though they effortlessly prey upon the ignorant and uninformed. Why is it so much harder to get a conviction, and later, to get consensus, on something like Steubenville? Because we view thieves and con artists as people who make a choice to victimize, hurt, deceive. We view teenage football players as acting from a place of animalistic, natural drive, somehow beyond the realm of rational decisionmaking. Time and time again, rape trials focus on the failure of the victim to properly maintain her defenses against rape, not on the choices the rapist made. And this is so fundamentally wrong it bends my brain.

I, for one, think more of men than that. I know men can make choices about sex that come from a rational mind. I think most women can think of a time when sex wasn’t working for them, for whatever reason, and they asked their partner to stop. And he did. Men can, and do, make decisions about sex with their brains. I think it is perfectly realistic to expect all people to act with this basic level of decency, even when presented with an opportunity to do otherwise. And those that fail to treat others with respect, those who fail to respect the boundary of “yours” and “mine,” should be thought of with the same social disdain we direct toward all criminals. No matter how “easy” it seemed to be.

The CNN piece about the dousing of these young men’s “bright futures” is essentially a show piece on rape culture. Asserting that boys who showed so little respect for another human being can somehow still deserve to carry on as before suggests that they acted in a way that was beyond their rational control. Too many people look at the victim here and think, “she should have known better.” Whether or not she could have made better choices is beside the point. In fact, it was these boys who knew better. They should have- and absolutely could have- decided not to rape this girl. They made the choice to rape, and they deserve to face the consequences. Because even though they had the opportunity to commit this crime, they had every opportunity to do the right thing.

Posted in Ranty, Serious Face | 5 Comments

The Privilege to be Unpaid

Posted on February 20, 2013 by

I grew up in a reasonably middle-class family in the middle of the country, with big dreams to leave it all behind and become a rock journalist or a fashion designer. That didn’t seem like too crazy a dream… I figured, as a teenager, it was more pragmatic than leaving it all behind to be a fashion *model* or a rock *star*. But even those second-place dreams were eventually dashed, and here’s the reason why:

Unpaid internships let rich, well-connected kids get a leg-up on people who actually have talent. And now, we’re facing the mediocre fallout.

When I was first out of college, even local-ish publications like Outside and Aspen both offered either minimum-wage or unpaid internships. I remember thinking, who can live in Aspen and Santa Fe while working for free, or close to it? And now, when I flip through the pages of magazines (or, more likely, scroll through their online versions), I realize just who was able to do those things. People with trust funds. People with parents who know people. People who can afford to write and design for free.

But the problem is, now we’re getting what we paid for.

You know what kinds of clothes are designed by heiresses with no real need to sustain themselves on their art? These kind:

Good morning, Dr. Muppetshoes!

And you know what kinds of articles get written by rock journalists who slept through basic composition but were able to live in their parents’ mahattan loft while they interned at Rolling Stone? Well… I’ll just let you click over there on your own and see (according to this article, by an unpaid intern, his no. 1 choice was an internship at RS, which was snagged out from under him by Bono’s niece. I’d have loved to see her clips…).

I’m not saying that all rich kids are untalented hacks. And I’m not saying that simply being in the 99% imbues you with a vast, untapped wealth of talent. But what I will do is point to this Vanity Fair article that articulated something that has troubled me for a while… we seem to be stuck in a rut. Art, fashion, music, film, even car design: all the creative fields that a young person used to be able to struggle into, struggle to survive in, struggle to remain relevant in are now off-limits to anyone who simply can’t give up a paycheck to follow their dreams. And nothing is really changing in these areas the way they used to (Well, except for the novelty of Muppet shoes… and I’m not sure that’s a good thing). I just can’t help but see this coincide with the rise of the unpaid intern. When your survival is all but assured, you have nothing to fight for. And it’s that fight that used to make things exciting… or at least, more fun to wear, watch and read.

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On going analog

Posted on January 31, 2013 by

As calculating and manipulative a film as it can be, I love the movie “Amelie.” The colors, the sweet love story, the quirky and irresistible Paris that performs a tour de force (albeit a slightly filtered and CGI’d one) at the center of the action. It’s a beautiful movie that has a beautiful message: We must go beyond our self-imposed boundaries if we are ever to satisfy our need to love and be loved.

The last time I watched this movie was about three or so weeks ago, and I had a bit of a revelation. I have realized that our world, the world we live in now, removed by some 16 years from the world Amelie was supposed to be living in, has made it all the more difficult to break through those boundaries. Has anyone else noticed, for example, that Amelie and her neighbor (L’Homme du Verre, the “Glass Man”) were really engaged in social media?

tumblr_mb86q3HAsk1r1cfc3o1_500

“L’Homme du Verre has sent you a video!”

Safely tucked in her impeccably cute apartment, ensconced in the womb-like red walls, Amelie conducts her first and most important non-familial relationship in the film using the transfer of media. She risks little in this relationship, because she only feels comfortable articulating herself in mediated imagery.

Later, she does the same while pursuing Nino, who she desperately wants to have a romantic relationship with. But her every move is calculated, curated, edited in such a way that it stalls their eventual meeting and even calls into question whether it will actually happen. She comes nerve-wrackingly close to instagramming her way out of true love.

This picture has 0 likes.

This picture has 0 likes.

Amelie was told at a young age that she had a cardiac condition, because the sensation of being touched, even by her doctor, would make her heart race. But in truth, she’s like all of us: detached from human connection to the point where it presents both highly desirable and terrifying possibilities when we actually have it.

And this is why I’m quitting Facebook for a few weeks.

Huh?

OK, I’ll back up. After discussing individuation and Julia Kristeva in my Media Theory class this week, I have realized that Kristeva’s “clean and proper” body has an ultimate logical conclusion: the Facebook profile. As Kristeva would have it, we strive to close our bodies and ourselves off from the world, despite the fact that we are in constant communication with our environment. This is because we so desperately need to see ourselves as unique, different selves, distinct and apart from the world. So, when we take this to the extreme, we have a world in which we are not bodies but data. A picture, a series of brief statements about how we are doing, who we are sharing our time with, what we do with our working hours. There is no viscera, only media. We choose the “Face” we put on “Facebook,” which is highly sanitized and edited for mass consumption.

I listened to an incredible NPR interview a while back with Katherine Losse, a former Facebook staffer who regularly unplugs from social media in order to ground herself and reconnect with the people in her physical sphere. I liked the idea, and the conversations in my class and with a few friends cemented the decision: time to take a break.

This background is a little academic, but it is central to my decision to step back from our socially-mediated world for a little while. And yes, I get that I’m typing on a blog that I’ll probably promote on Twitter almost immediately after I hit “publish.” I realize I still have a Pinterest addiction that keeps me awake into the wee hours looking at recipes for homemade pop-tarts. But for the last 30 hours or so, I’ve been absent from the book of faces.

So what’s different now? Well, reassuringly, I’ve already had several friends text or email me to make sure I’m OK (I kinda did this without any real warning, so that’s probably understandable). I’ve had to directly text a few friends with requests, questions or bits of conversation that I’d probably have sent by Facebook before. I had a long and fascinating conversation with my husband last night on the very subject of this blog- and it was certainly one of the longest and most involved conversations we’ve had in the past month or so. It’s only been a little while, but I feel just a little more connected to the people I care about. I’m hoping that this will continue to be the case.

For the next few weeks, I’m using the Internet primarily as a mechanism that gives information to me. I read my Google Reader feed. I look at Pinterest. I read Twitter and the news. But I’m not broadcasting every detail of my life.  I’m consuming, not generating content (except for this, of course).

This is an interesting exercise… for non-blog tidbits, I’m confined to the formats of voice, text and email, which have a readership of one or two rather than 400 or so Facebook friends. But so far, I like it. I choose my audience, they choose me. And when I try to think of what I’m missing, I can’t really think of anything huge. I can text people to see if they want to come to happy hour. I don’t need all 400 Facebook friends worldwide to know that I’m going out. My world feels a little smaller at the moment. But it feels closer.

I fully intend to return to Facebook at some point. I, like everyone else born after 1975, can’t fully imagine my life without the conversation that happens online. I love that I have Facebook friends I’ve never seen in real life but have known through virtual channels for nearly a decade.  There are a few folks I met through my old political blog that I still “talk” to on Facebook… these people got me through the tumult of my 20s and I’ve never seen them, hugged them, shaken their hands. It’s an incredible world that these kinds of media have created. But the important thing is that this is not the only world we live in. And sometimes, it’s important to shut off the constant stream of updates, photos, videos and links and be present. That’s what I’m hoping for. We’ll see how it goes.

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We are all to blame.

Posted on December 18, 2012 by

Today, a gunman shot three people and himself in my hometown of Longmont, Colorado.

This breaks my heart, not only in its pure tragedy, but in the fact that this kind of event has become so banal in our country. But more importantly, it forces me to examine something very fundamental that this and Friday’s tragedy share. Yes, we need to look at the way we distribute guns in this country. I say this as someone who honestly enjoys shooting guns. But there are two huge issues I’ve been thinking a lot about, and I think they are much more fundamental to our culture of random violence that causes these kinds of things.

First of all: we reward the worst people in this society with instant celebrity, and that needs to stop. Like, yesterday.

Second: we do not truly know the people who live around and among us, and we cannot continue to try and build a society on this foundation of isolation and ignorance.

I’ll unpack that first one. As a culture, we have decided that we do not care to make famous those who truly deserve our admiration. We exist in a bubble of constant, smug schadenfreude. We think of ourselves as “good” simply because we’re better than the worst. We watch Honey Boo Boo’s mother or Snooki and feel better about every poor choice we’ve ever made. We watch celebrities dwindle into drug-fueled self-destruction. Our 24-hour news cycle feeds us prechewed emotional reactions to events like Aurora and Newtown that function only to propel the monsters in our society to instant stardom. We need to stop. We need to stop looking for failures in others to compensate for our own insecurities. Our entire culture has shifted in such a way that we do not choose to use our freedoms to become the best we can be, instead choose to defend them as excuses to be as terrible as possible. We must stop allowing ignorance, evil and chaos be the fastest route between obscurity and instant fame. Not just because of tragedies like this, but in general. It diminishes us all.

My second issue is particularly salient to me because the events in Longmont today reminded me of how hard it can be to live in a place like that. Like many small towns, Longmont can be as much or as little of a community as you choose to make it. And I’m afraid that shootings like what happened today are a result of that “minding your own business” ethos prevalent in so many communities today.

We have become (incorrectly) convinced that any one person’s struggles are their own problems. Whether financial, mental or physical, we look at the way others are suffering and we don’t think of it as something our community needs to address. This is wrong. This is fatally, completely wrong. Especially when it comes to mental health. And even more especially, in the huge majority of mental health cases where a mentally ill individual is the victim of violence, not the perpetrator.

The common thread that ties so many of these mass shootings together is that the community describes the gunman as a “loner,” someone who “didn’t fit in,” as someone who “kept to themselves.”  We continue to let the most disturbed in this society fall through its ever-widening cracks. The truth is, it’s our problem all along- from the moment a kid is bullied in kindergarten to the moment he decides violence is the only answer. And no matter how many gun laws we put in place, unless we all recognize the most tormented among us, they will always find a way to (tragically) make it our problem.  We must aspire to be the kind of society that knows those around us, that cares enough to reach out to those who need help. At the very least, we must become the kind of culture that encourages those suffering to seek help (first of all, by providing help that truly makes a difference) before they get to a point where violent escape as their only solution.

That’s all I’m going to say about this. I’m really tired of seeing this happen. I’m so tired of hearing about these violent eruptions of our broken society. We can’t continue to fail like this. We can do better. But until we come out from behind our self-imposed barricades, and stop consuming the tragedy-porn being shoveled our way, it is going to keep happening, and we’re all going to share the blame.

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Denver FAQ for newcomers

Posted on December 6, 2012 by

Why does Denver have such shitty Chinese food?

Excellent question. Unlike many Western cities of its size, Denver does not have a historical Chinatown, or even any REALLY good, authentic Chinese restaurants. You may think this is strange, because of Denver’s history as a rail hub, and because, as we all know, plenty of Chinese immigrants worked on those railroads.

The reasons why there isn’t an established Chinese neighborhood in, and why Chinese food sucks in Denver? Racism, and a lack of ladies.

In the 1860s and 70s, there was a Chinatown by what is now the area near Coors Field. In the Wild West days, the area was known as “Hop Alley” due to its high density of opium dens.  Denver didn’t draw families of immigrants like San Francisco did. It attracted single men, or men with families still in China. So, there were few “family businesses” and even fewer second-generation Chinese to establish themselves in the community.

My favorite part of this story: local Madam Lizzie Preston arming her girls with high heel shoes and liquor bottles against the white rioters and protecting several Chinese immigrants in her brothel.

According to legend, local Madam Lizzie Preston armed her girls with high heel shoes and liquor bottles against the white rioters and protected several Chinese immigrants in her brothel.

In 1880, violent race riots resulted in lynchings in Chinatown. Though a handful of Chinese immigrants stuck around, the population experienced decline beginning with the riots and continuing through the early 20th century. By 1940, Hop Alley was bulldozed for redevelopment and most of the few remaining Chinese citizens relocated to West Denver (South Federal area). You can find some decent Chinese food down there, but the Vietnamese food is WAY better. Pick a Pho place with a number that means something to you… it’s like takeout roulette!

 When you do order “Chinese” in Denver, you’ll notice that almost every menu features Thai or Vietnamese food as well. This is because the restaurants are likely owned by Southeast Asians, who throw Americanized favorites like General Tso on there to attract a broader customer base. My advice: stick to the Pad Thai and save anything Szechuan for when you’re back home or visting LA, San Francisco or Chicago. It’s just not worth it.

OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MY SKIN/HAIR/NAILS?!

Hi, and welcome to the high desert!

Oh… you didn’t know that Colorado was a desert? You were going on the climatological education you got from every John Denver Muppets Christmas special and thought that Colorado would be like Norway?

John+Denver++the+Muppets

Sorry, no.

Well… let me reiterate. Welcome to the DESERT.

Denver was established due to the confluence of two bodies of water: the Cherry Creek and South Platte rivers. This was valuable to settlers because the rest of Colorado is very, very dry. In fact, there wasn’t even any real cultivation of most of Colorado’s Eastern plains until the advent of mechanized irrigation… it was too dry to grow anything until they could use a sprinkler system of some kind.

So yeah. Denver’s really fucking dry. If you come from virtually anyplace else in this country to live here, get use to the realities of lip balm, moisturizers and exfoliation. Also, consider this the answer to the other FAQ: “Why doesn’t it stay snowy here all winter long?” and “Why are the mountains still so far away?” I’m sorry to tell you, but you’ve been mislead. Take it up with John Denver.

What is that horrible smell?

Well, that depends. Is it cold out? Do you think it’s about to snow? Does the sky have that heavy, gray, foreboding look to it like something out of Mordor?

Then what you’re smelling is probably Greeley, a city to the Northeast that happens to be where almost every cow you’ve ever eaten has probably come from. No, really. And when it smells like Greeley, it means the wind is coming from the cold North, which means we’re in for a snowstorm. When I was a kid, I kind of just thought that snow in Colorado just smelled like cow shit. And then I’d wish we still lived in Minneapolis, where snow smelled like snow, or Albuquerque, where snow smelled like A DAY OFF SCHOOL BECAUSE NOBODY IN ABQ CAN HANDLE SNOW, BITCHES!

If you’re smelling something a bit more like processed meat and grain, it’s probably the Purina smell. The Land O Lakes/Purina plant in Commerce City makes animal feed and dog food. So, lucky you, you get to smell that cattle feed coming AND going here in D-Town! This usually coincides with a cooling in the weather, too, since that plant is a bit to the North of the city, too.

If you’re downtown, near where the financial district fades into Five Points, that horrible smell might also be the stables where the staging areas where carriage ride operators park the trailers for their horses for the 16th St. carriage rides. I actually don’t mind that smell as much.

You’re from here. Why don’t you ski/snowboard/mountain bike/hike/climb mountains/rock-climb/kayak?

Look, the mountains are great, but there’s a big difference between those of us who are here by no real choice of our own and those who decided to sell everything they own and move here from New York, Texas, California and Iowa. You came here because mountains. There’s nothing wrong with that. And yeah, lots of us who grew up here still like to do mountainy stuff. But we didn’t choose to come here for that, it’s just what’s always been around. And for people like me, who decided that the cartilage in their kneecaps was better than sweet, sweet air off of a half-pipe, we just enjoy the mountains in different ways. Like, from a patio. With a cocktail. So lay off.

Why can’t I find a boyfriend/girlfriend in Denver?

Well, sweetie, look at the previous answer. Because mountains. People don’t move to Denver to find a life partner or to realize ambitious career goals. They move here to ski, snowboard, mountain bike, skateboard, jump off of things or out of things and otherwise defer responsibility for as long as possible. Don’t expect your chances to improve much when Amendment 64 comes into full effect, either.

Hey, ladies.

Hey, ladies.

I’m not saying that all transplants in Denver are stoner slackers who don’t have jobs. But I am willing to bet our stoner/slacker population is only rivaled by Portland and Austin.  A dating top tip: remove “outdoorsy” from your online profile and if you’re lucky, you’ll snag a native.

Why am I so drunk right now?

Altitude, baby! Don’t worry, when you get used to it, you’ll be a CHAMP back home.

Any other questions? Ask away in the comments.

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