denver

NYC to Denver is a strange contrast. Here, the whole city is expansive. There's sprawl (and then literally mountains beyond mountains) which is so absolutely different from New York. The malls are all outside, which is particularly weird because it snows here, it's cold. And there are a lot of malls, with huge one story layouts. I'd say the people in Denver are a mix of outdoorsy snobs and yuppies, mixed with a little ghetto and some businessmen who still manage to wear underarmour or hiking boots to the office. I realize after typing that how influenced I am by my hosts, who haven't exactly had the social experience they were anticipating. I guess there are hipsters too, but we've seen them mostly at malls and they all have this adventure flare about them.

People are also really into pot. I'm not talking about Sarah & TJ, but rather the entire Denver community. There are dispensaries all over the place; some look professional, others look exactly like you'd imagine it would look if some high school pot dealer opened up a shack to sell his crop. It's really bizarre...apparently everyone has a prescription for it, regardless of if they 'need' it or not. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think the whole situation would just be better if it were just flat out legal instead of only legal for medical purposes because I think it cheapens the experience of those who actually need it. This whole counter-culture thing evolves where it's totally okay and cool to abuse the US medical system. Or the Colorado medical system, I guess. I don't know, I guess good for stoners who don't have to worry about being arrested, bad for morality. Why can't they just come out and say it's legal even if you don't have glaucoma or anxiety attacks? I don't think weed hurts anyone as much as everyone likes to vilify it. Gateway drug? Maybe. But what about tobacco? I've seen people ruin their lives because of that drug.

Seeing Sarah has been tremendous. She has to be responsible this week, meaning she has to wake up at 2am to get to work at 3, but she's off by noon every day just pretty tired. It's not a big deal though because as much as I like exploring and seeing a place, I'm really here just to see her and it really doesn't matter what we do. Plus that, I miss doing normal stuff with her like watching TV, baking and going shopping anyway, which exactly what we've been up to. When I got here, she surprised me with this bottle (pictured at right) which has the words to the song from the Fox and the Hound "Best of Friends" decoupaged around in a circle. I cried. We're such girls.

This apartment is really incredible, too. They've done such a good job of decorating it, and this couch that I'm sleeping on they got for like $20 on Craigslist. You can see a little of the matching love seat in the background of the picture. I'm so happy for them, they're real people. It's almost sad that they're coming home in September...almost.