Booze Cruising

Anyone who knows me well knows that I refused to drink alcohol in high school.  People knew better than even to ask me if I wanted to go to a party.
  
Sometime between high school and my senior year of college, though, that changed.  I mostly blame two people and one situation for the change of heart: Jordon Nissen, Medora, and Guillaume Andrieu.

In my junior year, I was still working as an RA of Watson Hall at Jamestown College.  I turned 21 that year, and I was on duty until midnight every Sunday during the second semester.  Come rain or shine, when midnight rolled around, there was my coworker Jordon, ready to take me to the bar for drinks.  Keep in mind that at that time, bars in Jamestown closed at 1:00, so we'd have less than an hour. But believe you me, we made the most of that hour.

The following summer, I spent my first summer in Medora.  I made friends with crazy people who liked to drink a lot. The rest, as you know, is history.

Upon returning to Jamestown College that fall, I was fortunate enough to make friends with this French kid. Guillaume.  It's pretty funny how I met him in the first place, actually, and if you want to know the story, just ask.  It doesn't really apply to the blog, so I'm not going to tell it here, but it IS a good story.  In any case, Guillaume did not allow anyone not to go out and have a good time. Especially me. And if we weren't out having a good time, we were in having a good time. It made for a good year.

And I haven't stopped the trend.  I drink about two nights a week now that I live in Boulder.  And have a really good time...

However, not many things in Boulder can compete with the beauty of booze cruising.  Now, you city people will never, ever understand the appeal or rationality of this, but I'll do my best to explain it in such a way that you won't think I'm crazy and stupid.  I definitely don't condone doing this where there are people driving or walking across the roads. Or where there are stoplights.  But it's a little different when you are the only car for miles and miles on gravel roads in cold, lonely North Dakota.|

Anyway.  Like I said, in high school, I didn't drink.  And anytime anyone did anything that involved drinking, I didn't want to be around.  My sister, on the other hand...  Again, a different story.  The thing is, though, that in high school, kids are way under the drinking age.  So going to the bar is out of the question.  Next best option: create your own bar.  In a car.

Yes, that's right.  Booze cruising, for those of you who haven't been exposed to the term, is quite literally and simply drinking and driving.  Usually in excess.

I had never *really* gone booze cruising until Thanksgiving this year.  And by the time the decision was made to go booze cruising, I had had enough to drink not to care about the safety issues behind driving around in a pickup on snowy, gravel roads with a driver who had had too much to drink beginning about 3 hours prior to the start of the cruise.  It just seemed like more fun than going home and going to bed.

And it was way more fun than going home and going to bed.  I can't really explain the appeal in driving around, drinking, peeing outside (yikes!), getting lost, and other such behavior.  It's just really fun.  I don't know why.  I guess it's just one of those things.  Or maybe it depends on the company?  I'll stop guessing.

In any case, I did it again at Christmas, and this time may have been even more fun, due to an incident that requires acting.  If it didn't, I would describe it here.  Maybe I'll take a video of it sometime for all of you.  Suffice it to say that it involves snow, gravel, peeing, and driving.  All at the same time.  Use your imaginations.

To be clear: I don't condone this behavior, nor do I necessarily think that it's a good idea.  That's why I didn't do it for a long, long time.  I still am not sure that it's something that I should be doing at the age of 25, but boredom breeds bad decisions?  (See "whoops.")

The Long Commute

For my seventh birthday, my parents bought me the Laura Ingalls Wilder book series.  I don't know what possessed them to do such a thing, but I could never put them down.  I can't even count how many times I read them when I was young.  I was so obsessed that I made my family go to their homestead museum in De Smet, SD during a family vacation.  They hated every minute.  I loved it.

After Thanksgiving, I was talking with my pianist, and she had said that she had read one, "The Long Winter," while she was home during Thanksgiving break.  I thought to myself, "What a fantastic idea," and decided to read the series while I was home for Christmas.  Between drinking, knitting, drinking, puzzles, drinking, and drinking, I didn't really have time to read a whole lot.  However, I brought the books that I didn't finish with me to CO so that I would have some entertaining reading for my life.

I just finished "The Long Winter."

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That story has absolutely nothing to do with this blog topic, other than that I stole the name of the book for my blog title.  Ha!  I make myself laugh sometimes...

Some know and some don't that I was kicked out of my apartment in Boulder at the end of December.  They didn't really have any good reason for kicking me out other than that they didn't want me there, but I left without a fight.  Luckily, at about the time I was getting kicked out, Kenny's ex-boyfriend was moving out of their condo in Broomfield.  Broomfield is a suburb of Denver, approximately 15 miles from Boulder.

Fifteen miles is not that far.  At least, not by ND standards, where cruising speed is 68 on a 65, and highways are void of things like traffic, potholes, car accidents, and stoplights.  Yes, stoplights.  I'm not kidding you when I say that highways here in CO have stoplights in the middle of nowhere.  There is nothing more annoying.

The road that I take to Boulder doesn't have stoplights, but it does have traffic.  Let me tell you: it has traffic.  Sometimes it takes me 45 minutes to go those 15 miles.  And that's on a clear day.  I haven't experienced snow/ice yet, but Kenny tells me it's even worse on those days.  Ew.  Now, I could take the bus, but I can't park for free at the park and ride because I have ND plates, and it takes even longer to get to Boulder by bus.

Because it now takes me more than 7 minutes to walk to class every morning, I have to get up that much earlier in order to get to class on time.  I have class at 8:00 am twice a week and at 9:00 am twice a week.  That equals getting up at 6:00 and 7:00 at the latest.  If you know me, you know that mornings and I are not friends.  Not even close to friends, so that is less than ideal. 

After fighting traffic to arrive in Boulder, I have to find parking.  Because I have class so early, it's generally not too difficult for me to find free, off-campus parking, but it's not too convenient, either.  It's just a hassle.

Let's not even talk about how stinky it is not to be able to go home in the middle of the day to take a shower, or a nap, or to eat dinner.  Most days, I bring lunch and supper with me. There hasn't been a day yet that I haven't spent more than 12 hours in Boulder.  But it's not worth coming home in the middle of the day, and especially not during rush hour traffic.

The current condo is cheaper than the old one per month, but we have to pay utilities and I have to pay for gas for commuting.  Blech. 

Now, there are positives to the new place.  My room is much bigger, I have a bathroom all to myself, there's a piano at home.  Oh, and of course, I have a fantastic roommate who entertains me daily.  Next year, we'll be living the high life in Boulder.

No, not that high life.