I've been thinking over the last few months about my interests and goals, and it makes me think about the society we live in and the expectations of its youth... had I not felt it so important to go to school right away after high school, rush through it and graduate, maybe I would have chosen a different major, different school and a different path.

I'm a much different person than I was 10 years ago when I moved to Seattle as a wide-eyed 17 year old college student. My aspirations, goals and dreams are much different now. After a few years of post college life experience, what I want seems much clearer now, and the expectations I have about life feel more solid...

Oh well, I'm a proactive, motivated guy. I've made huge risks to get to where I am now and have been successful, and in the next couple years, I see myself making another leap in a new direction, and hopefully I will again land on my feet. I'll find some way of making things happen the way I want them to, but it probably be easier had I chosen a different academic and career path, didn't have the student loans I have and a car payment I'm locked into for the next few years....

Well, yesterday was exactly a year since Jesse broke up with me, and today starts year 2 of being single. As much as I thought I would hate this a year ago, I'm actually loving single life now. I really can't believe I went through those years with Jesse, comprising most of my early and mid-20's, without all the freedom that I have now.

Every once in a while, I'll see a couple together and I'll want that for that instant in time, and then I remember many of the things about relationships that aren't too wonderful, and I'll snap out of my daydreaming. This kinda makes me wonder if I'll ever want a relationship again, under what conditions would I be willing to give up the freedom and the life I live now? What will a guy have to do to convince me that he is worth giving up my freedom? My life is just amazing, the things that I've been able to do this last year were amazing, my freedom is amazing.... why would anyone choose a relationship over this?

Well anyway, life is good, I'm single and loving it, I'm looking forward to many wonderful things the future will bring. With several interesting plans currently in the making, I know that year 2 will be just as exciting and awesome as year 1.

What do you get when the roommate blasts Bananarama's "Look On The Floor" on repeat for several hours???

One very disgruntled Chris..... :-(

So last Wednesday, they had whoever was available in the Denver office drive up to Ft. Collins to participate in the healthcare reform rally.  So, of course, we needed the crowd to get loud with some awesome chants, and my co-worker Daniel took this picture of me while I was leading the chants! :)

On September 1st, I fly back to Seattle for good. Good bye Denver.... This fact has been hitting me pretty hard over the last few weeks.  My campaign is ending, some folks here have already moved on to whatever is next for them, others will be returning to their homes over the next few weeks, and my time here will end just a month from now. 

However, part of me really wants to stay.  I've made good friends here, and Denver has become more and more a home for me.  I look back over the last year and I recall all the good times I've had, the fun trips, and all the great people I've met since coming here, and I realize that I've created something for myself here that's pretty amazing.  To top it all off, Denver is an amazing city, and an amazing place to live.  I came to Denver hurting, just out of a relationship, unsure of where life will take me, and I'm leaving healed, happy, and excited about life. I feel like me again :)..... It's gonna be really hard to leave.

But a month from today, I'm going to have to leave, return to my old life in Seattle, and begin to get my life back in order and move forward.  I need to find where all my stuff is, start my new assignment at work, and start working on relocating away from Seattle.  I'm determined to join my friends in San Francisco, and a move there will hopefully happen by the end of the year. 

I suppose it's exciting to finally get started on moving forward, and I'm looking forward to it.  But a huge part of me feels like the next month will fly by, I will have to say all my good-byes, and leave this temporary Denver life behind.  I just hope that these feelings of excitement and happiness with where I am in life continues after I return home.  It's been several years since I've felt like this and I don't want anything to take this feeling away.

I think I've come to a point to where I'm really liking being single.  It's really kinda awesome.

Now, if I can just get motivated to do my laundry so I can pack up and be single in San Francisco and San Diego, everything would be closer to perfect! ;-)

I think my live-it-up at the cost of sleep attitude has caught up with me.

I napped all weekend long, and now it's 4:30am Monday morning, and I'm wide awake!

This is not good, not good at all :(

I can't believe I haven't been to beer bust at the Wrangler since Easter.  Amongst my Dad, all my travels, being sick, and people pulling me in all sorts of directions, I've kinda disappeared from the Denver bears.... But today, I'm hitting up the Wrangler, gonna get my drink on, and I'm gonna have a blast with my buddies! Yay!

Last week, I think Wednesday, this adorable guy I met on bear411 several months ago invited me down to Albuquerque.  Being that I didn't have to work that weekend as I originally thought I did, I thought why not.

While planning the trip down there in my head, I came up with this brilliant idea!  What if he's a non-smoker?  Could I not smoke all weekend long?  Can I turn this weekend of fun into a quit smoking weekend too?  Well, I tried this idea with marvelous success so far!  The last cigarette I had was around 8:30 Saturday morning before getting in the car and driving to Albuquerque, and now it's late Tuesday night. :) 

The amazing thing about the whole trip was that I didn't really get any cravings.  Maybe it was because the experience was new and unassociated with smoking, but going the weekend without a cigarette was pretty easy sailing. 

However, Monday (Memorial day, yesterday) hit, I started feeling kinda achy, but I didn't think anything of it.  We went out to a restaurant before I had start the drive back, and I felt fine for the most part, just my skin was feeling slighty sensitive.

After starting my drive back to Denver, I stopped in Las Vegas, NM to get gas.  While walking from the car and into the store, I noticed that I wasn't okay.  My balance was off, my head was throbbing, I was VERY achy at that point, and my throat was sore.  I felt like I just got an all out flu, and I still had about 6 to 7 hours of driving to do. 

As I continued my drive, my flu like symptoms continued to progress.  My achiness got pretty unbearable... I would get too hot with the sun beating down on me, but would get too cold with the window open or AC on.  My headache continued to worsen, and it felt like my throat swelled up, making it hard to breath through my nose.  When I got to Pueblo, CO to fill up on gas again, before making the last 100 mile stretch of my trip back to Denver, I thought I was gonna die.  I was feeling deathly ill at this point, could barely walk straight, and was having concentration issues while purchasing water from the store clerk.  All I wanted to do was lay down and make all that I was feeling stop, but I had 100 miles more to go before curling up in pain in my bed.  I thought something was seriously wrong with me, I've never felt more sick in my life.

That last 100 miles completely sucked!  Not only was I desperately trying to concentrate on driving, desperately wanting to get home so I could lay down in my bed, but I ended up having to drive through the middle of the largest thunder and lightning storm I've ever been in during dark evening hours.  The rain was so insane that traffic slowed to 20 miles per hour because you just couldn't see in front of you because of all the water showering onto your windshield. No one could ever make a windshield wiper's speed fast enough to create any clearer visibility.  There was lightning and thunder everywhere!  I was worried with how hard it was raining, I would end up driving right into a flood, or be flooded away from home after driving 400 some miles, so close but so far.  And recently. the office staff was briefed about what to do in a Tornado!  And in my mind, if a Tornado were to form, this storm sure would be a good candidate to create one. 

The last 70 miles was slow and painful, my brain hurt from all the bouncing, thinking, and concentrating... My skin, well i just wished I could have gotten rid of my skin... I wanted to inject pain killers into my throat.... It probably took two hours to go the last 70 miles, and the speed limit along I-25 is 75 mph!  I must say, that throughout all of this, although cigarette's may have made it all stop, I was feeling so ill that a cigarette was not even considerable.

When I finally got back home, I crawled on top of the bed, went online to look up what I was going through while trying to keep my head as still as possible, and read that what I was going through is normal in some cases of nicotine withdrawal, and it's called "quitter's flu."  I was totally wierded out during the drive, thinking I was dieing, cause the last several times I've quit, the withdrawals were never so horrible, just an annoying cough that took forever to go away.  I proceeded to try sleep, waking up about half hour throughout the night.

Today, I feel much better than yesterday.  My body is still slightly achy, my head still hurts, especially when I cough, which is often, and my sore throat is not nearly as sore.  I'm still very uncomfortable, but atleast death doesn't feel like it's within reach.  The awkward thing about today is that my cravings were so much more intense and frequent than they were all weekend.  Fortunately, I resisted, and hopefully I can continue saying this for the rest of my life this time around. :)

mood: accomplished

Earlier in the month, I was told to keep memorial day weekend available to work, so I made sure not to book a flight out of Denver and instead would just take my weekend off next weekend.  I even asked my employer in Seattle for special permission to work on Monday (Memorial Day) to accomodate campaign needs which was approved.

And then earlier this week, I'm told to take the entire weekend off!  But that's okay, I've made last minute plans to drive down to Albuquerque, NM!  And I'm gonna go to a natural history museum in Santa Fe.  It sucks that I have to drive, but atleast I get two weekends off in a row, and I get to check out two different cities I haven't been to before!

Yay!
 

So looks like I'm going to San Antonio next weekend.  Should be fun and exciting since I've never been. 

Gonna hit up a party friday night, and a play saturday night.  Hopefully I'll be able to check out a bar or two there, and whatever else is around. 

Yay for traveling!

UGGGGHHH!  My phone bill was $360 bucks because of all those emergency calls to the Philippines!!! 

This totally sucks!

Well, she's 20, from the NY area, and therefore she hasn't driven very much.  I've ridden with her a couple times, and I must say her driving is, well, interesting :)  She actually got her license about a month ago.

Well yesterday when I got home, I parked next to her empty car with the keys in the ignition and the car running.  I thought it might be her car so I called her up to make sure, but she didn't answer.  I figured if it was her car, she'd figure it out.  Well, this morning, I went to go get some cigs, and when I went out to my car, I see that her car is still running with keys in the ignition.  I call her up again, and she freaked out.

She is just too cute and funny.  I'm sure she learned a lot from this.  Thank god her car didn't get stolen.  Her car was on empty, so she followed me to gas station, and we filled up her car. 

Her and cars just don't go together right now, but I'm hoping after all the driving she's gonna do on this campaign, she'll go back to NY as a great driver.

mood: amused music: Pearl Jam - Who are you

I was talking to my co-worker Teresa tonight who is here working with me from Seattle, and we were talking about life after Denver for me.  Of course she, as many others do, thinks this assignment away from home couldn't have come at a better time.  Not only has it forced me to live a single life, but helped shed light on an answer to a question - I have a good life in Seattle, but do I really want to stay? 

Before I came here, I remember thinking Denver would be a good trial run... can I be socially successful and make life work in another city, and both her and I think I've done that extremely well.  Truthfully, when the time comes, it's gonna be hard to leave.  I've made several really good friends here who I love, friends who don't want me to leave, friends who keep asking me to move here.  I've had an amazing time here so far, and it's weird to think that I might be leaving here at the end of the month, but likely at the end of August, but my time here will end nonetheless.  But the point is, despite how temporary this is, I've made an amazing life for myself here in a short period of time.  It was a successful trial run.

I was just in Seattle over the weekend, and I had an amazing time.  But last week, I wasn't excited to go.  I actually didn't want to go; I wanted to explore other places.  The only draw to Seattle was being able to see my friends.  It was great seeing them, and it was great hanging out with them, but even now as I write this, I don't feel a strong need to go back to Seattle.  I have gotten homesick a couple times, but those were mostly because I needed my friends with me, needed to talk to someone at the time, and the phone doesn't exactly hug you back, but interestingly, my new friends here have graciously lended their ears and hugs to me when I needed it.  If I can make quality friends this quickly in Denver, I can probably do the same anywhere.

One of the things Teresa did tell me that does make sense is that I have no strings attached in Seattle, nothing is keeping me there.  I own very little now due to decisions Jesse and I made over the last few years.  I no longer have an apartment.  I'm also very young.  If there were any better time to leave and try someplace different, it would be now.  How easy would it be to go off and be adventurous 5 years from now if I add to my possessions, enter into another relationship, and become more settled?  It be harder.  I really am at a good point where I can pack my stuff into my car, drive off into the night, and not look back.

So a couple ideas have been floating around my head, and I think the one that is winning out, is a move to San Francisco.  I've always wanted to move there, and i'veunsuccessfully tried selling the idea to Jesse numerous times. When I went there in February, I felt what I always feel when I'm there - an overwhelming desire to make that city my home.  And now that I'm at a point in my career where I believe I can be financially sound in SF, and that coupled with the support network there I've developed over the last few years should make life very feasible.  Some other ideas I've had were possibly doing the JET Program in Japan, or doing a working holiday in New Zealand, but I think I'll save extended overseas trips for my big plan that I'll make happen within the next decade.  So it looks like I'm gonna try to move to San Francisco within the next year.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I've made my mind up.... it's just a matter of enjoying the remainder of this transition period while assigned away from home for the time being.

The gave me the megaphone and told me to lead the marchers, and so I did!

Tonight is gonna be so much fun! I can't wait.... Going dancing with my buddies at SMD is gonna be great...  I've been waiting so long thinking about tonight during lonely nights in Denver, and it's finally here.  I'm gonna have a blast!

I stepped on a rat...