Meditations With A Malbec

What do you do when you find the thing, at least a part of the thing; you’ve been looking for all your life?  If you’re me, you run.  You run far and you run fast.  You come to two proverbial roads diverging in a yellow wood and you take the one more traveled. It’s well worn and safe.  And you’ll never know if the other one, the one tangled with twisted branches and menacing shadows, would have made all the difference.

And me of the golden reputation.  The one who’s never home and never lonely.  The one for whom men supposedly fall so fast and so hard for that I’ve got nothing to worry about.  Ever.  Me of the golden reputation.  Me the breaker of hearts.  Me the taker of numbers.  Me.  The one who is alone.  And lonely.  Again.  With a fancy wine glass and bottle of Argentinean Malbec for company.  I toast to that.  The loneliness.  And drinking alone.  And nobody knowing all of theses emotions are dripping from each and every pore of my body.  It’s a good glass of wine.  Rich and complex.  Or so they say.

But I toast to the loneliness because the loneliness sneaks away, tail between its legs, with the first brush of morning.  The hurt does not.  And so I choose the well-travelled road.  The one most of us choose.  The one void of risk and thus, void of pain.  I could elect that road less travelled.  I could tell him how I feel.  For that matter I could tell my entire world how I feel.  But I digress.  I could tell him what I want and what I think about and what I dream about.  I could have the courage to show him this.  And they tell me that road less travelled would make all the difference.  And I raise my glass to that bullshit and say fuck that.  I’ll take the high road and avoid the hurt and pain that tears a body into so many confetti bits that a fraud artist couldn’t glue them together again to make a cohesive whole.  That kind of hurt means that one is never whole again.  And once again, I say fuck that.

And the one thing I want more than anything in the world is a connection.  To someone.  To something outside myself.  To something bigger than this.  And I have no one to call.  They’ve either told me they won’t speak to me.  They’ve cut me out completely.  Or they’re too busy.  Or they don’t understand.  Or they just don’t care to talk at this hour.  And why.  Because I’ve systematically eliminated everyone from my bubble of personal space in order to replace said bubble with an armored car of nothingness. 

But at least it’s safe. 

I’ll drink to that.

It’s a good bottle of Malbe.  Or so they say.

Welcome To Wonderhell

I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.

Into a wanna-be-hippie, thoroughly yuppie, always organic, sustainably designed, yogic, suburban Wonderhell.  And I can’t get out.  And like Alice in the rabbit hole, I’m not certain which direction I’m going, or which direction I came from in this suburban strip mall of a yuppie’s wet dream. 

Yesterday I got lost in a parking lot.  While driving.  Today I got lost in a pedestrian mall.  Just another day in the life of Wonderhell.

Everywhere I look there’s wannabe hippie, yuppie scum, trustafarians buying local, eating organic, riding cruiser bikes and cursing corporate America.  All while failing to see that their yippie wonderland was created by The Man himself.  And that trust fund they’re dipping into, and the Range Rover they’re driving drips from the power teat of capitalistic mass consumption. 

And don’t get me wrong.  I’m all for glutonistic mass consumption and corporately manipulated consumer greed.  And these yippies have some great ideas about how to put a feel-good, green spin on the old favorite known as greed.  I relish the fact that within one square mile I can shop at Prana, North Face, Mont Bell, Patagonia, Volcom, Smith, Whole Foods, assorted local/organic coffeehouses and sundry local/organic/sustainable/biodynamic/natural/vegan/vegetarian/ethnic/over-priced establishments of wining and dining.  But unlike the yuppies, posing as local/organic hippies, I fully admit to the fact our world is inherently driven by consumer desire and homogenous mass consumption. 

After all Wonderhell, in all of it’s green-designed, bamboo-floored, solar-paneled, prefabricated housing greatness, is a lesson in the homogeneity of an age-old phenomenon knows as Keepus Jonses, or, alternatively, “keeping up with the Joneses.”  While these ideas, from organic food, to green housing, to trendy locally owned boutiques selling adorable sustainable paper products and BPA free water bottles, seem progressive, unique, interesting and even cutting edge, they are in fact nothing more than a 21^st century rendition of the Joneses.   It’s a new spin on the 1950’s post-war society that demanded a college education, a grey flannel suit, a split level ranch in a growing suburb and a glowing Barbie doll called your wife, of every 20-something white male in America.  It was, after all, the American dream. 

And this Leave It To Beaver Stepford is not as far away as we yippies would like to think.  The homogeneity of Stepford went green, started shopping local and buying organic and before they knew what had hit ‘em they were conforming once again.  In an effort to rebel against The Man (their parents) and change the world (Stepford) they simply replaced the old forced conformity with a newer, more politically correct, yogic, organic version.  They put their Wonderhell in a myriad assortment of towns which allowed them to maintain the “healthy and active” lifestyle mandated by the dictator of Wonderhell. 

And while I thoroughly appreciate the convenience and benefits of suburban Wonderhell I’ll take urban Clusterfuck or country Redneckville any day over this homogenized and vacuum-sealed playground for the yuppies, the yippies, the hippies and everyone in between (at least everyone that fits in between the borders of the spectrum of conformity dictated in the Wonderhell Bible, aka, Stuff White People Like, aka Stuff Yuppies Like, aka Stuff People From Boulder Like).  Because, despite their shortcomings, these places have a certain degree of authenticity that is irreplaceable and unable to be prefabricated or designed.

So until I find the little door (or was it the giant door) out of Wonderhell, you must excuse me because I’ve many commitments to keep when in Rome, if you will.  I’m off to Whole Foods before I go to yoga and then I’m due at a dinner engagement at a trendy-chic, local-organic yuppie wining and dining hole.  Namaste.

Coffee, Hike, Shower, Shoot

"Let's get coffee, then hike, then shower, the go shoot."

We discussed our afternoon plans while our pedicures dried.

And I realized that I'm a little bit of everything all rolled into one.

Everyone here thinks I am a crunchy, granola, hippie who spends my days climbing mountains and drinking out of a Nalgene while driving a Subaru with a carabineer on the keychain.    But everyone from Cleveland thinks that I would never dream of living in a place without granite countertops.  Or wearing anything but trendy, overpriced denim and Stuart Weitzman heels.  And everyone from college thinks that I am an academic snob who spends my night in a book and my days pondering the meaning of life.  They think I’d never be caught dead in a bar past 10 PM.  And everyone from Ketchum laughs when they read that on their iPhone while watching me throw back Jager shots and pound Budweiser.  And get pedicures.  I like to chew Copenhagen.  And drink girly martinis.  I like to get muddy.  And go shopping for overpriced denim.  I like to drink PBR in dive bars.  And get all dressed up and spend too much on wine and dinner at fancy restaurants.  I like the Beastie Boys.  And Brahms.  And country music.  I like to hike (a lot).  And spend all day laying out and getting third-degree sunburns.  I like to drink coffee (a lot).  And wake up too late.  And stay out too late.  And watch movies.  And go to bed early.  And cuddle.  And be NC-17.  I like a good piece of gossip.  And a good conversation about world politics.  I like to read US Weekly.  And Ayn Rand.  I believe in God.  But I haven’t been to church since Christmas.  I hate wasting my days.  And there’s nothing I love more than an afternoon spent drinking beer in the sun just wasting away the afternoon.  I like to travel.  And I’m a complete homebody.  I love nice houses.  And sleeping in my car.  Or on a stranger’s couch.  I like dating.  And I am a serial monogamist.  I’m not sure I believe in marriage.  But I believe in happily ever after.  I am terrified to love people.  And more terrified not to.   I am a crunchy-hippie, redneck, fashionista, academic who likes pricey wine, nice clothes, cheap beer and getting dirty in the woods (take that how you will). Like most people I’m not to be defined by one nice adjective.  Unlike most people, I stand up for this right.  I’m a square peg in a round hole.  And so far this Valley of the Sun is the closest I’ve come to finding a place that lets me just be me.

I Have The Bartender's Clothes But No Bartender

Stuck in Denver with no place to go (Please See Exhibit A and Exhibit B for further explanation) and out of luck for the moment I opt for comfort food.  I come from Aspen, the love child that was born when Sodom and Gomorra went out drinking with the Land of Milk and Honey and just happened to have an unprotected good time.  In other words, because I spend my life in a  hedonistic winter playground for adults, my comfort food is anything that is not celebrated by Bon Appetite or Food and Wine, is not frequented by Paris Hilton or Kate Hudson and is decidedly not creative or progressive.  Comfort food is mainstream America at its finest.  I can order $2.95 tasters and cheap wine in Cherry Creek (an upscale enclave in Denver populated by hipster yuppies, desperate housewives and grey flannel suite wearing execs – all with crunchy-hippie yearnings), just as easily as I can in Cleveland.

I belly up to the bar and order a satisfyingly cheap glass of Zig Zag Zin and a basil, tomato and goat cheese pizza.  And then it commences.  My obsessive compulsive, psychoanalysis of my fellow Brio patrons.  There are the requisite business travelers.  A 30-something woman in a power suit who looks like she over-compensates for being a woman in Corporate America by being a raging bitch.  There’s a member of the grey flannel mafia hunched over a scotch on the rocks and studying the melting ice cubes in his highball glass.  There’s the brassy-haired blond behind the bar who probably escaped from St. Louis as soon as she got the chance.  And then there’s the bar clown.  Every bar has one.  He was the loveable funny guy in high school and has never really grown up.  His apartment likely has Chili Peppers posters and remote control cars strewn around despite the fact that he’s old enough to have a big-boy job and an apartment that is more Pottery Barn than Kappa Sig; or at least responsibilities greater than showing up to the bar in time for his 4 PM shift.  I’m intrigued by him though and throw him a wry smile.

He and the brassy blond and debating who gets to leave early on account of the snow.  They decide to Rock Paper Scissors for it.

“I can beat anyone in this bar in Rock Paper Scissors,” the clown puffs out his chest.

“That’s a bold statement.”   This seems to offend him.

“Well then let’s go kiddo.”

I throw paper.  I always throw paper first.  It’s easy.  Just a flat hand stretched out in front.  My paper covers his rock.

“All right it was just luck.  Let’s go best two out of three.”

My scissors beat his paper.  Sweet victory.

Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Rock-Paper-Scissor’s clothes would be in my car.  Alone.  Without their rightful owner.  How did he get away with no clothes you might ask?  Well the night didn’t end up like that.   What kind of girl do you take me for?  So how did I end up with three brand new shirts from Brooks Brother, a Nordstrom bag full of socks and two news ties of unknown designer origin?  Some things in life are just a mystery.

I returned said bag to the hostess stand with a polite note reading, “So sorry I had to leave quickly last night.  Thanks for a great evening!  Good luck in all future endeavors.  (970) 319-4810.  Kate.”   Four hours later I was almost back to Aspen and my phone rang.  Little did I know I had recruited a stage five clinger.  He would proceed to call me daily for the next three weeks.  He didn't stop until i threatened a restraining order.  Well actually that's not true.  But it would have been funny if it was, huh?

On Dying Alone

Today my mother called me a raging bitch.  Well not exactly.  But that’s how I took it.  I was perfectly content wallowing in a tub of self-loathing and self-pity for my soulmate-less state.  Who asked her for advice?  She “tried to help” by telling me that maybe I am too smart for my own good and that I make men feel inferior.  Talk about a backhanded compliment if I’ve ever heard ‘one.

My mother’s exact verbiage implied that my hyper-intelligent and overly intense personality, coupled with my inability to keep my mouth shut about my controversial opinions intimidates people by making them feel unintelligent and inferior. In further Freudian psychoanalysis, I was informed that I systematically alienate people because I have a fear of rejection.  I took this to mean that I am essentially a raging bitch who can’t leave well enough alone and who likes nothing more than to belittle, insult and demean by so-called friends in an attempt to alienate myself from society and live out the rest of my days in self-imposed isolation.  Ok so maybe that’s a bit melodramatic.  But then again I suppose I am just being true to my personality – a uber-intelligent, slightly crazy, hermitic writer who everyone loves to hate.  I’ll toast to that.  Here’s to living out my days with nothing more than my red wine and laptop for company. 

If I am to understand correctly, my dear old mum utilizes the following algorithm to reach the conclusion that I am a raging bitch who is destined to live my life alone.  It is given that I am very intelligent, very opinioned and completely unafraid of voicing these insight and opinions.  It is also given that I have been very deeply hurt (read: royally fucked over) by people who I thought were my friends.  It is also given that because of this I have lost my general faith in humanity, love and common decency.  By the way, that’s the adult version of finding out that there is no Santa Claus.

Mom concludes that I subconsciously use my intelligence, intensity and strong opinions to push people away to avoid loss and rejection.  After all, I wouldn’t want to find out there is no Tooth Fairy or no Easter Bunny.

Which brings me to a post-feminist rant outlined in a series of clichéd, rhetorical questions.  Since when did it become unacceptable to unabashedly voice one’s opinions no matter how controversial or unpopular they might be?  Since when did intelligence become a roadblock to the acquisition of male companionship?  Since when did making intelligent and truthful observations, in spite of any discomfort that they might bring listeners, make someone disagreeable to be around?  Since when did standing up for yourself equal a lifetime of loneliness?  And aren’t we all alone in the end anyway? 

The way I see it, we all end up alone and I’d rather do it with some dignity and aplomb.  Certainly we can bend ourselves like a Gumby Doll to fit the whims and fancies those we “love.”  Perhaps this allows us to find The One and live Happily Ever After.  Until, that is, we wake up one day, forty years from now, utterly alone in a room crowded with people.  When we realize that those around us only love the self-created, cellophane wrapper of a person we realize that we are more alone than ever.  Alternatively, if we stick to who we are, no matter how disagreeable that person might be in her utter authenticity, we realize that no one really wants to be around that person.  At least not for this social time construct known as forever.  And so we wake up forty years from now, utterly alone in an boho chic apartment with an English Bulldog named Charlie and a bottle of Tanqueray.  Either way, we’re alone.  Pick your poison I suppose.  I’d rather be a lonely raging bitch who stood up for myself every second, refused to sell out and had a damn good time throughout it all.

A Rainy Day In Idaho

It’s a rainy day in Idaho and I’m on the road again.  Still looking for that real world out there in that big, vast somewhere.  Disappearing down this lost highway, underneath that purple-gray bruise of a sky, I can breath.  Smells like wet, and dirt, like one of the juicy sausages of a caterpillar unearthed from beneath Mom’s terra cotta pots.  Country is on the radio again and it keeps interrupting my otherwise profound musing on the metaphysical being of life. It’s all pure America.  It’s all heartbreak and hope, healing and moving.  It’s never easy to say goodbye.  I’m gonna drive to Atlanta, and live out this fantasy.

It’s nice to sleep again. Woke up early this morning around 4 AM.  Thoughts of us kept keeping me awake.  Not passed out drunk from too many bottles of Fat Bastard sleep.  Not return to the crypt from taking four Tylenol PM’s sleep.  Not I’ve cried so hard that snot dripped from places I didn’t know it could drip and now my body is cooked sleep (footnote: thanks for dealing with that one D).  But good old-fashioned sleep.  The kind you get when the rain is sliding down the windowpanes on a summer night as seductive as Miles Davis’ Blue Is Green.  It’s what seeps into your body when you’ve finally put everything else to bed. But that’s ok, there’s nothing left to say. But you’ll think of me.

Clayton, Idaho.  Population 26.  I note the irony of the name.  My family’s name is Clayton.  Sweet somewhere far away someone’s name is Clayton. But we can be assured we’ll meet again by and by.  If not here then somewhere up above.  The place is lump-in-your-throat beautiful.  It must be how parents feel looking at their babies, or how art connoisseurs feel looking at a Caravaggio.  I am neither so I can only imagine.  The Salmon curls up and wraps around my mind like the ribbons of smoke that used to twist and wind up from my old lover’s midnight cigarettes.  It’s seductive and sort of frightening.  Like any good lover should be.  Most are neither. 

I really like to know things.  That’s deep I know.  But bear with me. Not knowing what we could have been, what we should have been.  However, it’s this desire to “know things” that provided the jet fuel for American expansion.  It’s also our collective, national ADHD.  Once we know one thing we want to know another because our attention has already deviated from the original thing that we discovered.

The lure of the open road lies in its promise of freedom and hope and new beginning and forgotten sorrows.  The logic is as follows.  If Point A is bad, and Point B is unlike Point A, then Point B must be better.  This has drawn road warriors from the pioneers to Kerouac, Lewis and Clark to Thelma and Louise.  The problem lies once again in the fact that human behavior is inherently illogical.  Generally humans arrive at Point B only to realize it has it’s own set of problems and that they should either go on ahead to Point C, or cut their losses and head home to Point A.  And so we as Americans move.  As Stevenson said, the great affair is to move.  That’s what we do as Americans.  We pack our worldly belongings into the big, American-made land barge (or small Japanese vehicle in my case) and head out in search of meaning and answers, new beginnings and buried problems.  The problem is we don’t find them.  But then again, I guess that’s life.  Take your records.  Take your freedom.  Take your space and take you freedom.  But you’ll think of me.

And it’s a good thing we’ve got problems, and highways, and cars, and hope.  Because if we didn’t we would never move.  And if we didn’t move we wouldn’t have the America we know today.  And maybe that would be good.  But maybe, like the weird uncle everyone has, you have to love America warts and all.  Because maybe that’s how life is.

It’s never easy lettin’ go of the ones we love.

Author’s Note:  Cut me some slack.  Thanks for listening to me wax poetic about life and the open road and it’s effects of the interpersonal relationships to individual problems that define the dichotomy of American life today.  I’m a bottle of cheap red wine in and it seemed appropriate.  Tomorrow we will return to our regularly scheduled programming.  

Hey Life...I Win

Nothing liked getting kicked when you’re down.  I mean really shoved face down in the muddy roadside ditch of life.  Curb stomped when you’re already on your knees.  And then kicked in the ribs one more time, just for good measure.

Well I was there.  And I lived to tell about.

I am an overeducated, rich, upper middle class white girl; blogging on my Mac Book Pro and 1 AM, drinking cheap red wine and living the dream in Aspen because I don’t have to get a job in the midst of the so-called Great Recession.  I am yuppie spawn.  Full of the appropriate proportions of self-loathing, self-righteousness, narcissism, and trite clichés about my existential angst and metaphysical confusion.  My kind seems to love nothing more than to whine about how hard our lives are and how much pressure we feel from our yuppie parents to succeed.

Still, being considered a failure unless you are a high school and college valedictorian, Phi Beta Kappa, Rhodes Scholar, J.D, PhD, M.D., MBA, M.A. and Supreme Court Justice is a rough road to drive down.  And after twenty-three years of it, I cracked.

I quite my high(ish)-paying big-girl job, packed up a duffel bag and got on a plane to Aspen.  I didn’t tell my parents about any of this until I was in DIA, lest they dissuade me from throwing away my life and undermining my potential.

And for the time being this Band-aid worked.  I was able to pretend that I was the pot-smoking, drop-out ski bum that the rich people I served in Aspen thought I was.  I thought I had it all.  And then Prince Charming skied down the mountain one day in the form of a ski-patrolling, fire-fighting, river-guiding mountain man.  And then I really did have it all – the glam local, the fun job, the cool friends and the ruggedly handsome mountain man.  He was everything that I thought I needed to complete my mountain picture.  I actually let down my guard for the first time ever.  People who know me know what a big deal that is.

And then he decided that he didn’t love me anymore.  And that maybe he never had.

Shit.

My plan at world domination was failing.  My mountain dream unraveled.  The glamorous little place called Aspen became just another town.  Skiing every day lost its charm.  The bar stopped being mountain-town cool and became just another dive bar.  If I was cracked before, now I was Humpty-fucking-Dumpty when all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t superglue his ass back together again.

Just for good measure, life kept on kicking my butt even though I was already curb stomped to the ground.  Every time I tried to get up onto my knees again, I fell back down.

On an airplane halfway between Denver and Quito, Ecuador I decided to get back up.  For real this time.  It took some doing but, much like straining and wasting energy trying to grab the next hold on a rock wall, I finally got it, even though it was ugly getting there.

Now, somewhere in the middle of BFE, in the South Dakota prairie I realize that I’m alive.  Really alive and living life on my own terms and by my own rules.  I actually look genuinely happy. 

I played a game with life called I Win.  And I won.

Which Way Is The Real World?

It’s all well and good to believe in happy endings. But, when someone just keeps screwing up, well, I guess eventually you just have to say, “fuck you.” Or something like that. I heard that today.

Aspen. The land of Happy Endings (both PG and NC-17). Aspen. The bastard child that was born when Sodom and Gomorra fucked the American Dream at the end of a weeklong bender. Aspen. A paradise found. Problem is, Aspen’s got no rules. And like the cliché says, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I spent the last four months waking up to dark coffee, the Times and two hour breakfasts. In was the trophy wide without the rich husband. I skied, I hiked, I did yoga, I repeated. I amused myself by figuring out which sap I could get to buy my overpriced meal and my fancy glass of wine. No one ever tells you to grow up. No one tells you that hanging out with Jim, Jack and Johnny seven nights a week is actually called alcoholism.

After an evening of average conversation with a nice guy I gave up on the Ridel wine glass and started swigging straight from the bottle of overpriced wine that was meant to impress me. I got just drunk enough to close my eyes and leave my body.  To settle for mediocre sex with a man who waxes poetic about how we were the fortunate few here in Aspentown. We didn’t have to deal with real life. We got to hide from it all in the Land of Milk and Honey. Bullshit.

The problem with Paradise Island is that none of its real. The only real things in life are those that happen by accident. You can’t force real. And you sure as shit can’t buy happiness. I hate it when clichés are true.

After a minute of living in paradise, shit got real. That’s the problem with life. Sometimes it’s real. And sometimes that’s hard. And I guess you just have to deal with it.

When shit got real, that’s when I got happy. There’s friends killing themselves, family members fighting, lovers turning their back on me, unplanned pregnancies, families dying, lovers lying, money getting flushed down the golden drain and you know what? I am happy. Hysterically, manically happy. Genuinely happy. All on accident. I am not happy despite these things. I am not happy because I live in Aspen and ski all day and party all night. I am happy because life is one huge, hot mess. Life is that drunk chick at the bar who is five sheets to the wind with mascara running down her face. She’s up on the bar singing Janis Joplin and drinking tequila from the bottle. And she’s loving every minute of it. Because it’s real.

I guess that’s life. It’s not the perfect mountain town fabricated with equal parts Dior, private jets and pristine ski slopes. It’s the little blond passed out in the bathroom at Su Casa. It’s that naked photo you wish wasn’t on Facebook. It’s the one night stand that became a baby. It’s the cancer that you weren’t expecting. It’s the lover who says they aren’t in love with you, and probably never were. It’s a dirty, cheating, lying bitch. And you gotta love it. Not because it’s perfect. But because it’s real. And because it’s one huge, messed up accident. No amount of planning could create that.

And on this sunny day in paradise hell, I’m sitting here wondering where it all went wrong. And this is my story.