Why I’m No Longer Mad at Boulder, Colorado

Why I’m No Longer Mad at Boulder, Colorado

You can't go home again. That's what they say. Which is weird, because the truth is that you never really leave. Regardless of how many years or miles pass by, there's always a part of you trapped in that place. A splinter of home is forever lodged in your psyche.Home is a complicated thing. It isn't just a place. I'm not talking about those corny plaques that everyone's grandma has hanging in their kitchen that says something like, "Home isn't a place, it's a feeling." Or even worse, "Home is where the heart is." That's all too simple and trite. Especially if you've had many homes.One of those places wasn't my home at all. I never lived in Boulder, Colorado. And yet, I've long had a thorny relationship with the place.Curled up on the floor of my cramped bedroom in a little trailer park in Indiana, I drew one enormous picture after another of mountain scenes with my fat Crayola...
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London, Paris, New York… and Longmont

London, Paris, New York… and Longmont

It all started with laughter and a longing to be somewhere else.I don't miss my hometown. I moved out of Longmont, Colorado in 1994, and never wanted to move back. For me, crossing that town line is like stepping into a dark parallel universe of bad memories. It's a time machine that only goes back to traumatic events; to people who only knew me as the juvenile delinquent offspring of a narcissistic, alcoholic mother. People who said I'd end up as nothing, popping out kids, smoking crack and ending up dead in a ditch. It's the town where a loser who nearly killed me is still frequently seen walking around on the street.I still have some very awesome friends living in Longmont, and while I almost envy their loving view of the place, I simply do not share it.My home life was not as bad or as good as it could have been, but it was difficult. It had a...
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There & Back Again, Part 5 – The Last Stage

There & Back Again, Part 5 – The Last Stage

"No vacation goes unpunished." ~Karl Hakkarainen"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow." ~Lin Yutang"The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land." ~G.K. Chesterton * * *When the guy across the aisle from us began discussing stabbings & which mixture of drugs enabled him to best endure such an incident, I knew that I had had enough of fucking Greyhound.We arrived at the Greyhound station in Denver after our brief stop in Amarillo.  We had 2 hours to stand in a line in front of the door where the bus would arrive.  Sucking down our mediocre & over-priced nachos, Olivier & I observed that while the bus station in Denver was larger & cleaner than what we'd grown accustomed to, being forced to watch Fox News on...
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