A Bohemian State of Mind...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemianism
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bohemianism

Is it Wednesday already! Jeesus...where did it go? Oh that's right, I spent it in the throes of relapse. A relapse into my old life here that left me wanting so much more.....

Snowboarding with Boozy was great, an absolute bluebird day at Loveland. We got 4 non-stop hours in, hit the cafeteria for some lunch and bolted out early before the traffic got as bad as it was on the way up. You south-Cali kids wont bat an eye but we here in Co DO NOT sit in traffic for 4 hours to shred! The extra hour of sleep was nice. And we got back to Denver in time to hop on bikes a cruise downtown for a pint and some grub. The idea was to stay at the Krause house but we were beat and it was early enough to get home so away we went again. I returned to Denver the next afternoon for a lovely birthday dinner with Court, drinks atop the Hyatt with a view of downtown, Court fishing around in a carafe of spicy Asian snacks to find just the right one while sharing her thesis on law school and grades, and how she would be damned if it was all going to get in the way of her relationships. Thankfully no less than 5 hott servers checked on us throughout the course of the Martini - which was fantastic! She had made secret dinner reservations at Bistro Vendome, my absolute favorite restaurant in Denver. Stellar food and a great wine list made for a gastronomically fantastic evening. Until the lovely Court sampled the steak tartar (one of the top 3 I have ever had!) and made almost the same face the night she bellied up to the stage lights at Denver's own premiere gentleman's club, LaBoheme after drinking all day at GABF'd. The face can only be described as pure repulsion. Vendome is a french restaurant on Larimer Square and if you have a chance, go there! And go there with your special lady or man friend person, and wear something you feel sexy in, and go nuts, and I promise you will get laid - its just that kind of place. And if that doesn't work LaBoheme is a short 4 block walk.

The next day I hopped on bike to enjoy a cup of coffee (or 3) at Pablo's - the absolute best cup of joe in Denver, and who do I run into but Joe himself, king of the SF hipsters working in D-Town. Joe was the genius behind bringing StumpTown coffee to SF from Portland and was one of the owners of Ritual Coffee House, a veritable sea of young professionals on mac-books all day every day! And a great place for the pervy stare. Bring your own fingerless gloves. I rode off the caffeine buzz around the familiar spots of Denver only to question why I liked the town so much in the first place.

This is where the weekend started to take a weird turn...I started to feel a little, well, over it. I mean Denver has always held a special place in my memory, spending so much time there wishing I could live there, and sneaking off to the city on weekend trysts and Hott Date Nites, exploring the bars and pubs, getting to know the streets via bicycle, and having a raunchy anonymous time. From sneaky birthday weekends to check out-time with friends, jazz in the park and meeting new people I have always had a good time, and fond memories of Denver. But something was different this time.

I abandoned the over-thinking bit for a euro-trash dinner and a good bottle of wine with my friend Katie. What I thought was going to be talk of adventure and travel turned out to be a much deeper conversation of satisfaction, and of place in the world, and of the mental battles we all wage when we find ourselves a bit out of sorts with our surrounding world. Katie is talking about going to Africa for a bit, a journey that will surely find her some peace with the question "What are we s'posed to be doin?" We talked a long time about the feeling of discontent with lives that seem perfectly acceptable on the outside, about feeling like you can't enjoy what you know to be a good thing, and wanting more. And the thoughts would not leave me alone.

I spent most of yesterday feeling a little cranky, a jumpy night sleep, and a lonesome drive back to the Fort with some Lucero blaring in the car were conspiring against a positive mood. My thoughts and feelings returned to those of last summer when I felt I should be stoked to be in Fort Collins, with all my friends, and the door of possibilities wide open in front of me, and the freedom to do all the things I never had the time to do working for that big corporate brewery. And all I wanted to do was run away from it. I mean despite trying to find reason and peace with my Mom's suicide, or the job I had committed so much to letting me go for no reason, and the woman I counted on for a modicum of stability betraying my trust, I was trying to find the good in staying put and making something work out for me across that diversity. But it got to be too much. Bike rides stopped clearing my head, drinks with friends stopped being fun or celebratory, drinks alone sure weren't helping, the pursuit of women was starting to feel disenchantingly familiar, I was smoking again trying to find calm in the stress of the pressures I felt inside - the pressure to run before I exploded.

I think we all get there too. The stresses Katie talked about seemed so universal to me, like I had been thinking much of the same thing, because it just might be the way we deal with the reality of our situations. Most of us (and by us I mean middle and upper-middle class white kids from the suburbs) struggle with the same things. Its what pushed Kerouac out on the road, its what pushes men to go west (or east if you are already west). Its also, and somewhat contradictory, what fuels us to get into routines that feel safe and static so we have a sense of place. I have always had a spot I felt was mine - a place to go and sit and think and write or draw, most of us do. At this point even the things I have always had and relied on leave me feeling dissatisfied. That's why I am so thankful for the opportunity to go abroad, and to share it with you. I'm hoping this trip abroad will help because it is not a vacation. I am feeling less overly romantic about sightseeing and spending vacation dollars on regular coke (cause who drinks diet on vacation!?) or fancy deserts. But I still have this conservative daydream about a return to a simpler life, about a relationship with the physical world that does not include laptops and iPods, cafes where conversation builds community, people who have a well defined sense of place because their forefathers are buried nearby and fought to keep their land through numerous invaders. I'm dreaming of a place where ancient dialects persist because people hold on tightly to tradition and identity, a place where there is a tradition of art and music that still retains some of its indigenous roots, using what the land provides with the influence of a simple technology by modern comparison. I'm not expecting to abandon technology or modernity - I'm just looking for balance. I mean America is only a couple hundred years old. Roaming around Balboa Park in SD I would see traces of the old in the architecture and the art - but how old was it? My roaming in Denver last week provided only a small peek of anything old in places that were constructed specifically to bring about nostalgia - a less than authentic expression of place and history.

I'm dreaming of my own Bohemia. Maybe it will turn out to be a state of mind. Have I been trying to create it all these years with booze, and drugs, or with food when I was married, or with women when I wasn't married anymore. It would seem that I have been looking for the right muse for a long time and although some of them have worked for a little while, most of them are doing nothing for me right now. Maybe it lies in the balance of history and modernity, of lives lived and lives being lived. Maybe I'm just antsy and full of shit. Who knows. But Ill let you know as I wander around a little bit more.