Denver v. Portland: The Mountain Men Have It

It is mid-October and Denver is providing one of the most beautiful falls I've had the pleasure to live through. Life here is very different than it was for me in Oregon, but at least I am not being denied the feeling of walking outside and seeing colors so stunning and breathing air so fresh and lovely that I am practically forced to feel joyful. If I can lift my gaze above the strip malls and see the mountains, it is not uncommon for be to be overcome by the splendor of the light as it touches the snow-covered peaks.

I assume none of you will find this shocking, but day-to-day existence in a four-bedroom family home in the suburbs has very little in common with day-to-day existence in a one-bedroom singleton apartment in a downtown urban area. Because I am who I am and tend to, in the words of Steve Windwood, roll with it (baby), it has not been a difficult transition for me (remember, NCG used to travel all over the country living out of suitcases and surviving on hotel happy hour fare). I don't feel terribly homesick and I don't long for a different life. I do know that I probably won't stay here forever, but since that was never the plan, I don't think that will be a disappointment to anyone. I love being with my sister and watching her and her husband parent with such patience and joyfulness. And taking care of my niece has been much more fun than I anticipated. She is a a sweet, sassy, groovy, squalling, squawking little beast of a monkey child, and if anything were to keep me here in the mile-high city, it would be my inability to tear myself away from her shrieks, smiles, and squeezable little cheeklets. I mean, just look at her...come on!

So, despite not being miserable (far from it!), I decided few weeks after I got here to take some steps toward the goal of getting out of the house and seeing a bit of "the real" Denver (which I have heard is great but rarely experience because when I visit I spend all my time at my sister's house watching "Jersey Shore"). One of those steps was activating my Ok Cupid account and configuring the settings to reflect my new surroundings. I have a brief history with this site. I went on two OKC dates before I left Portland (in keeping with my pattern of only wanting to initiate relationships with men whom I cannot actually date, logistically). One became oddly attached to me within 45 minutes and kept saying things like, "I just want to KNOW you!" and awkwardly trying to hold my hand. He sent me several texts afterward to which I responded minimally or not at all, and when he found out I actually had moved (as I explained to him repeatedly I was going to), he messaged regretfully, "We never got to make out :( ." The other guy seemed great but never took his sunglasses off throughout the entire date. I thought that was probably a sign he was a douche, but then told myself not to be so judgmental. Then he turned out to be a huge douche. Score one for female intuition...although, actually, I think a witness of any gender could probably have seen his douchiness coming. Actually, my niece could probably have called that shit. But that is why I needed to go out on these dates, to hone my skills, learn how to deflect the weirdos and identify the creeps.

In Denver, things in the OKC world were different. First of all, almost every single person who messaged me said something about my profile being different than other profiles. My profile was exactly the same as it was in Portland. Only the city was different. No one in Portland ever commented on my profile relative to other profiles. One P-town guy told me I was a hypocrite for claiming to like animals while also claiming to like sushi. Another told me that I seemed depressed and that he hoped I found what was missing in my life (???). But no one ever said I was unique, and I kind of like being told that. Good job, Denver dudes! The second difference that I noticed was that in Denver I received messages from multiple people I actually might want to go out with. I don't know what part of "31-42 and no kids" makes dudes who are 50 and have four teenagers think they should message me, but apparently men in Portland think chicks on OKC don't really mean what they say. Or they just don't read the fine print. Or they just don't care. Or they think they are SO GREAT that if I'd just meet them in person, I would throw out all my crazy, irrational "limitations". In any case, it was nice to get messages from people even remotely in my age range who seemed normal and were not either shirtless and flexing or surrounded by offspring in all their photographs.

So off I went, into the wild blue yonder of "Menver" (as my sister calls it due to the supposed abundance of dick in this town). My sister also warned me of a common phrase she heard from her single friends re: the quality of the men in "Menver": "The odds are good, but the goods are odd." I have to say, several dates in, that that may be true. However, I think anyone who is single in their 30s or 40s bound to be a bit odd, myself included. Patterns have formed without he guiding hand of a partner. Idiosyncrasy has had time and space to really sink in and take hold. I don't think that's a bad thing. Everyone I've met here has seemed very nice, and if they were odd they were odd "interesting," not odd "change your phone number". No one wore sunglasses inside, and no one attempted to hold my hand when I was pressed to the opposite side of a booth and avoiding eye contact. Out of four people I made a very charming connecting with one, and although there has been no subsequent "dating" to speak of, he is smart and fun to hang out with, and sends remarkably entertaining text messages. Considering that I don't plan to live here for very long, I think one new friend out of four attempts is a huge success.

Having experienced a bit of what OKC: Denver Edition had to offer, I decided to deactivate my account again. Despite the fun of meeting enjoyable people and seeing new parts of the city (which I desperately needed to do) I am periodically bothered by the fact that almost all people who are on dating sites either really want to find a partner or really want to find someone to do it with. I am not the answer to either of those prayers. After a while, it feels disconcerting to meet dude after dude and look at profile after profile and realize that each encounter, no matter how small, is attached to someone's private life. By responding or not responding, meeting or not meeting, I in some miniscule way become entangled in their quest for companionship, and that doesn't always feel right. I realize this is a silly thing to get hung up about, and that there is a very clear social contract with the Internet dating thing: no one gets to have any expectations. But I cycle in and out of finding the whole thing either super fun or really stressful, and I think such a low-stakes, optional activity should be fun. Maybe I'll hop back on at some point after...I...get...back...from...INDIA!!! Until then, I've got some planning to concentrate on that does not involve responding to "comparability" questions or uploading Instagram pictures of myself.

Oh, and here is a little parting gift for you readers from the mind of the Portland douche. "All girls who wear white sunglasses are bitches."Apparently he has tasted the rainbow and drawn this conclusion based on pure science; you should all be grateful that he took the time to share this important discovery with you through me. I don't know why OKC doesn't make "sunglass color" a category on their profile. Perhaps I will suggest it if I return to the site. I also don't know why I agreed to go out with someone who would bother to publicly make such a ludicrous observation, but this is where the practice of only dating people when you are about to blow town comes in reeeeal handy. In the words of Liz Phair, fuck and run, baby. Fuck and run.

(Note: Neurocrashgirl did not actually fuck anyone mentioned in this blog post. Liz Phair lyrics referenced for artistic impact and coolness points only.)

The Walk of Life

I woke up at 5:30 am, stripped the air mattress I had been sleeping on, and stuffed the sheets, pillow, and pillowcase into a dumpster. I folded the mattress into a square and put it under my arm, threw the keys on the counter, and walked out the door.

It felt like a scene from the Bourne Identity. Okay, it really wasn't quite that dramatic (or that simple...I might have done some last-minute mopping before making my triumphant exit), but waking up alone in an empty apartment and knowing it is the last time you will see that place does carry with it some emotional weight. The relentless chaos I lived in for weeks leading up to the moment of vacancy was so overwhelming that opening my eyes to uncluttered floors and uninterrupted expanses of clean, white walls felt both surreal and mercifully calming. My body and my soon-to-be-disposed-of bed were the last remaining objects in the place. The fridge gleamed with bright white emptiness. My eyelids stuck to slept-in contacts because my solution had been packed. Even the dog and her fur-blanketed neuroses had been removed days earlier.

And so began the countdown to my last moments in Portland. The following morning I would leave on a three-day journey to Denver, Colorado. But for the next 24 hours I would regroup and rest at the home of a dear friend, pack my car at the home of yet another dear friend, clean out my desk at work and drink with several beloved coworkers, visit with dear-friend-of-the-day # 3 over a glass of wine, and watch a flock of swifts roost with a new friend I am sad I didn't get to know better before I left. All these lovely moments occurred on a gorgeous sunny day in Portland that melted into a glorious sunset sliced by the rising of a milky blue moon. All quivered under the uncertainly of whether (or, more realistically, "when") I would regret the decision to leave.

Many people have contacted me recently to ask why I moved and, if the conversation's length and format allowed, why I moved so suddenly. This is a fair questions considering that most of these people have, in the last 18 months, been subjected to an outpouring of elated babbling about how much I love Portland and how ecstatic I have been to live there. Allow me to be the first to agree that it is strange that I no longer do and that I very much hope to again. So, the quick-and-dirty answer to this question is that I moved to Denver to help my sister and her husband with their baby. The full-fledged, bona fide reason I decided to make this move is not a single reason, but an amorphous composite of smaller reasons that includes elements of: family stuff, job stuff, double rainbows, and a recent decision to begin steering my own ship (see previous post). Granted, if that is the best reason I can come up with, it is fair for readers and friends to also wonder if perhaps I may be steering my ship away from any kind of remotely reasonable or recognizable port, therefor defeating the purpose of steering it at all. I would have to agree and admit that this fear is at the forefront of my mind. I do, however, take comfort in the fact that at least the ship is moving.

Now that I have been in Denver for almost a week, a number of crystal-clear truths have emerged from the ether of the last month's emotional and logistical turmoil. One, I do miss Portland terribly, like a jilted lover who keeps finding ways to work Portland's name into conversation. Two, my dog is a fucking freak. This shouldn't be a surprise (see previous posts) but new circumstances provide new venues for her to reveal the depths of her freakishness, and this one is no exception. Three, spending large amounts of time alone with someone who is a single year old is one of the most unnerving and revealing and thrilling and exhausting experiences a person can have. More to come on that (stay tuned!). Four, I am going to have to learn to love driving again, against my true nature and better judgement. If you will remember, I was about to sell my car. I now live somewhere where to be car-less would equal complete dependence or complete isolation. Five, the months I will spend here are a perfect opportunity for me to test some of the mental habits I have tried to form over the last year, specifically: making good use of time, persisting in the fact of obstacles, thinking positively, and making/pursuing plans that I know are good for me even when all I want to do is fall back into the blessed comfort of sameness.

None of these is a small thing. But I feel lucky to be so acutely aware that I am doing, as Mark Knopfler phrased it, the Walk of Life. My circumstances are fluid, in motion, out of balance but, in some ways, more under my control than they have been in years. My future is unknown, but that fact increases my awareness, my vigilance over every second. I have inexplicably left left the life of my choosing. I am starting over, staring out over a precipice. I feel lonely and scared, but also happy and excited. I feel alive.

Remember That Time?

Prologue: Don't ask me what this post is about cuz I'm not sayin'. If that disappoints you, you should really keep reading because you might learn something!

Remember that time when something you reeeally wanted to happen and thought was going to happen didn't happen and it made you feel like crap? And then the same day a bunch of other stuff you wanted to happen also didn't happen and you started wondering if overnight you had become a loser and the universe was mocking you and no good stuff was ever going to happen to you ever again, ever? And then you decided to blog about it and while you were blogging you burned your toast? Remember that? No? Well, good for you I guess.

You may find this shocking, but something vaguely similar to the above scenario happened to me recently. So today's post is about disappointment. If this were a real blog where I attempted to convey real information, I would have researched whether or not there are actual stages of disappointment (a la Kubler-Ross' stages of grief) and talked about those. But it isn't, so I am going to make up my own. Oooh, or maybe I'll make up my own and then try to locate the real ones and see how close I was or (more likely) how much better mine are. IN YO FACE, real researchers!

Stages of Disappointment (as experienced by Neuro Crash Girl)
1. Very hot and uncomfortable prickly sweaty feeling
2. Sinking heart
3. Numbness
4. Tears
5. Anger
6. Tears
7. Talking incessantly to anyone who will validate that was happened is "totally fucked up"
8. Drinking
9. More talking
10. Microwave lasagne

I think that pretty much sums it up. So now the question is...what next? One cannot sit around sweating, crying, and eating microwave lasagne for the rest of one's life.

It would seem there are two broad categories of action available--dwell or move on--and numerous sub-categories within each. I'm sampling from both, sliding back and forth for a bit. Ultimately this will mean that truly getting over my disappointment will take longer. But I kind of feel like going for broke on this thing. If I have to feel like shit anyway, why not get really into it and ring every last drop out of the experience? The opposite of feeling good isn't feeling bad, it's feeling nothing at all.

Having committed to wallowing around in my disappointment for a while, I'll attempt to share the essence of the self-talk running through my mind as I leap-frog from resignation to rage to delusion to optimism to bitterness (and occasionally flounder helplessly in the murky waters lying in between). In general, I consider myself a blessed and lucky person. Maybe I am not be the most motivated individual in the world (see: every post ever made to this blog), but things generally go my way. Recently, however, I have begun to waiver in this assessment of myself. Did I run out of luck? Or did I accomplish so little with the luck I did have that the universe decided that it was wasted on me and took it away? Or did the fact that I began consciously thinking about my luck make it disappear? Or are all these little set-backs just setting me up for some cosmic payout so mind-blowingly awesome that I had to save up a few months worth of luck just to make it happen? And this is where I think I have to make a choice. Because to truly move on, I think I have to believe that there is a big pile of unspent luck hanging out somewhere, grinning and rubbing its hands together in anticipation of the coming awesomeness. And I think I also have to believe that operating on that assumption will actually make some awesome stuff happen all on its own. But if I don't chose that approach, the likelihood of being disappointed again goes way down because I will have resigned myself to a permanently overdrawn luck account, so any good news would be like a nice surprise.

Having said all of that, I am going to disagree with myself. I actually don't think I need to chose either of those options. I am going to choose a third option which is to get down with some first century Roman philosophy. I'm going with Seneca who shared the wisdom, "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." I like this because it brings to mind an intersection of two necessary conditions, only one of which we have any control over. Seneca also said, "If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable to him." Change that to woman, and I think I have identified a big part of my problem. I have pretty much been bopping through life assuming things will always work out without having a clear idea of what "working out" really means. I can get my luck back...I just need to select a port and stick with that choice. Which is actually the theme of this whole blog which makes it kind of funny that I ended up back at that conclusions when I never intended to write about that at the beginning of this post. Hmmmm.

Things got a bit more serious than usual today, but it has been kind of a serious week. I can't stay down in the mouth for too long, though. First of all, the boundlessly kind friends putting up with me as I cycle through stages 7 and 9 will need a break eventually. And secondly, I need to save my lasagne for lunch this week. And sadness (even carefully cultivated sadness) gets kind of boring after a while. Maybe number 11 on my list should be "boredom." Oh, and in case you were wondering, this is the closest to an official "Stages of Disappointment" list I could find during my 30 seconds of intensive internet research:

• Experience a range of negative feelings (anger, anxiety, confusion, numbness, self-doubt).
• Feel a loss of self-esteem.
• Begin to accept the change.
• Acknowledge that you need to let go of the past and accept the future.
• Begin to feel hopeful about the future.
• Feel increased self-esteem.
• Develop an optimistic view of the future.

Remember that time my list was soooo much better than this load of crap? Me too!

Zoom Zoom Zoom...Maybe

I have been seriously thinking about selling my car. Sadly, I cannot claim that these thoughts stem from a desire to reduce my personal contribution to global warming, or concerns about peak oil, or even a sincere wish to represent "one less car" in the cramped lanes of Portland's roadways. Not-shockingly, my motives for considering dispensing with my daily driver are purely selfish or--at the very least--not admirable.

Why I Want to Sell My Car
1. I don't drive it very often and when I do I incur monstrous fines for really stupid shit.
2. Driving in the city makes me an angry, petty person who enjoys life exponentially less than walking, biking, or even sitting across from smelly weirdos on public transportation.
3. My car used to be beautiful and now it is beaten up and dirty and I don't want to fix it or clean it.

The car in question is a sporty little 5-speed Mazda station wagon. I bought it new in 2002 when I was young and thought that making $32,000 meant that I was rich, and that buying a new car was a great idea because it was red. I had seen this new model at the Mazda dealership in my neighborhood, and it was love at first sight. My heart was never fuller than when driving my friends around with the sunroof open, arms hanging out windows, blasting The B-52s or The Roots, rocking our way from parties to bars to swimming holes. I slept in it. I drove it across the country. I encountered my first bona fide sexual predator when it blew a tire on the side of I80 (and escaped unharmed). This car was a huge part of my identity for a long time. It represented adulthood and freedom. Plus its beauty and newness satisfied some un-admitted-to shallowness on my part without making me seem like too much of a materialistic asshole.

Fast-forward several years and the story starts to get (even more) embarrassing. My red car was trucking though life, doing her job, getting me from here to there like the reliable little Japanese engine-that-could she was designed to be. But I didn't get that thrill when I looked at her any more. Her paint was chipped and faded. Her side was scratched (by this weird moving pillar that appeared out of nowhere from the shadows of a haunted parking garage). I knew it was wrong, that I should attend to her scratches, get her detailed, maybe buy her a news stereo...but my eye began to wander. Then, through a series of strange and unfortunate events (and perhaps a few mini strokes) I became two-car family-of-one when I purchased a black 1978 Jaguar XJS. The story of how I came to own this notoriously dysfunctional car is a topic for another post, but the short version of the story is that someone (who definitely had my best interest at heart) told me not to buy it. So I did. In unrelated news, Oppositional Defiant Disorder is typically only diagnosed in juveniles, but the DSM V isn't the boss of me, so whatever.

So here I am, the owner of two cars, one of which runs great but is suffering some cosmetic damage, the other of which is so gorgeous that people stop and stare and smile when they see it...but it barely runs. Having just written that sentence, I am suddenly gripped by intense concern for my own ability to think logically or make rational decisions, since the entire theme of this post is getting rid of the reliable, working car and keeping the money-pit lemon that gets 9 miles to the gallon. On the highway. Remember why my blog is called Neuro Crash Girl? Yeah, that's not just me trying to be cute. 

Anyway, being a shallow weirdo with no common sense it only part of the story. Since moving to Portland, my love of driving has completely disappeared. I have gotten a speeding ticket (to the tune of $280 dollars), a parking ticket for not having a permit (that I actually did have, but just didn't have displayed - $60), and a photo-bot ticket for running a red light ($260). Plus my car got broken into requiring me to replace not only the window ($150) and the stereo (free--thanks Kara!--plus $60 in labor for installation). That's a fuckload of money that I don't have to spend on a car that I drive maybe once a week that is definitely going to need some serious maintenance soon. Plus, when I drive I realize how stupid people are and how much I want to punch their faces. And sometimes that feeling doesn't go away, and I feel the minutes of my life ticking away in anger which is not how I'd like to spend my time.

Soooo, should I keep both cars? Sell both? Keep one but not the other? I like the idea of having a classic car that makes driving an every-once-in-a-while, special occasion event (especially if it only runs every once in a while). If I need to leave town I can use Zip Car or take the train. And, if I sold my Mazda, I could use the money to buy a super-pretty brand new bike that I'm sure I would always love and never mistreat or neglect or grow tired of.

And if I sold my Mazda and felt trapped and isolated and impotent and worthless and all the other things I worry about feeling if I made such a bold move, I could always buy one of those sporty new Volvo station wagons like the ones at the dealership down the street from my house. Like maybe the blue one.

Tell Me Something Good

Okay, loyal fans. You've been toyed with long enough. The truth is....(what is the truth? shit...why would I ever start a sentence with the phrase "the truth is"? That is just asking to be called out on your disingenuous bullshit. GODDAMMIT. Okay, okay, still time to recover....everyone likes the truth...right?). So, as I was casually saying, the truth is that I may not be totally up to the task of writing a very well-constructed blog focussing on a single theme every month of my life. Or every two months of my life...or three...or, well, whatever.

So, Neuro Crash Girl is going to experience a bit of a metamorphosis. I know that after reading SIX WHOLE POSTS followed by months of silence it is going to be a huge adjustment for you. Fear not, loyal readers, for NCG would never subject you to this fate unless she had faith that you were entirely up for the task of altering your reading strategies to accommodate her writing whims. Hopefully, the whole experience will result in a lot more interaction and fun for both of us. Things may be a bit more casual, a bit more mundane and less story-like, but I think that's what needs to happen. Blogs need air to survive, and this one was on its death bed. Time to blow this fucker up.

Oh....and there might be more profanity too.

xoxo
~NCG