Edelman

Call it what you will, but the last week spent with my family and Josh Klehr was Spring Break '06. Telluride, Colorado is an amazing place, and I don't mean just the slopes. The city is beautiful and real, considering that no commercial chains are allowed into its cozy nest of magnificent mountains. Yes, the locals dislike the tourists and the tourists don't understand how someone can have so many piercings, so little clean clothing, and so much hair and still manage to find a job that can support the increasingly expensive lifestyle burgeoning in the tiny mountain town of Telluride. Of course, the snowboarding was amazing, as we got enough snow in the beginning of the week to facilitate it. In fact it snowed so much that we had to be diverted twice to Grand Junction, Colorado (a real hoppin town) before we were bussed in.

But it wasn't the amazing snow, snowboarding, or snowy town of Telluride that got me thinking. Okay, in a way, it was. All that (and my parents, of course [hi, Mom.]) made me kind of step back and take a larger look at things. What was I doing? Where was I going? What do I want to do? Where do I want to go? Much of this may sound hackneyed to all three of my faithful readers (PS, sorry for the lack of writing recently. I've been, uh, busy), but do I really want to spend the rest of my youth in a windowless office staring at a computer? Maybe it was the unadulturated beauty of the mountains or the lack of oxygen getting to my brain at 12,000 feet, but whatever it was, I really began to feel like I was missing out on life. What was keeping me from living among these enormous, endless ranges? Life. What was keeping me from leaving my shell and exploring and trying new things? Life. What has been trying to pigeonhole me and lock me up into its depths with its billions of other victims?

Life. It sucks. I know. But if it were as easy as just up and moving into a log cabin in the middle of the woods to be one with nature and the animals, cities would not exist. Even Emory JAPs would wish they could escape from the hoi polloi and the search for their Jewish doctor/lawyer/diamond merchant/rich-daddyed husband if they could witness the absolute pulchritude I was exposed to last week. Granted, I'm sure they've all been to Aspen, Vail, etc., but I'm talking about more than exposure. I'm talking appreciation. And I'm not only talking about nature; I'm talking about life and living freely.

Maybe it's not even this trip, but rather the monotony of my job that's made me really attempt to break out of routine, since routine is the definition of my job. An example: after work one day last week I laced up my cross-trainers, slipped on my sleeveless shirt, and drove over to the gym to play basketball. I haven't played basketball in maybe two or three years, and I have never been good, but I can't remember the last time I enjoyed playing a sport so much. Maybe it was the extra 10" I gained on my vertical from Air Alert or the fact that I scored more times and got more shot blocks than I ever have in any basketball game in my life combined, but whatever it was, it was just so refreshing to do something different for a change. I might add this to my post-job routine, after I get some actual basketball shoes.

Another example: for Portugal's birthday, Jamie, Portugal, and I went to the Brick Store Pub in downtown Decatur. I ordered a meal consisting of few pierogies and many vegetables. Don't get me wrong, I like vegetables, but only certain kinds. I normally will pick out the broccoli, onions, peas, carrots, and corn and leave the squash, zucchini, peppers, and other nasty vegetables. But for some reason that I still cannot comprehend (hunger?) I decided to try the squash, zucchini, and peppers even before I was done picking out my usual suspects. And I liked them. Mom, if you're reading this (which you told me you were while a bit, um, mojitoed this past week [the altitude is a bitch, I know]), you know that this is weird for me as I am very averse to trying new foods. What the eff is going on?

What is this fledgling sense of adventure yearning to burst out of me? Hopefully it didn't drain with the altitude-induced bloody noses from this past week, because I like it. And maybe after I quit my job and open up Columbus Supply: Atlanta, I'll be able to rescue my time and my life from the clutches of the asshole known as Life.

Until then, though, I gotta set my alarm to wake up in seven hours. I get paid this week, and it includes aaaallll of last week. Revenge isn't the only dish served cold.

Word of the Day: quincunx n. an arrangement of five things in a square or rectangle with one at each corner and one in the middle

Aside from the description of the design on the five side of a die, I cannot think of any other real-world practical application that would necessitate the word quincunx. I mean, can't we come up with another word for "boobs" or something? "Hey, check out the quincunx on her." "Yes, I do like the fine plaid print on her sweater." SMACK.