Cool Guy in Colorado

This is my fourth week in Vail. Though I still don’t love it, it is growing on me, or rather, I’m finding ways to tolerate it. Through work, I got a free gym membership, so lots of my free time is spent there. But don’t be tricked into thinking I’m going to come back from Colorado buff and trim. Lots of other free time is spent searching for great ice cream. Work is finally picking up and I really do love the work I’m doing. I get to be around cameras and editing software every day, so that makes me happy. When the Teva Mountain Games were in Vail, I got to film and edit a piece on bouldering (which I found out was wall climbing without harnesses). The other day, I got to interview an author about his experiences on an eco-pirate ship (they attack whaling ships—fo realz!).

I’m also starting to bond better with the people here. Though I still don’t fit in (and likely never will) I’m finding common ground with the Coloradans. I’m trying out some of the outdoorsy stuff, which more often than not ultimately proves my original conviction that I suck at most athletics, but I’m always glad I at least tried it.

For example, I went hiking the other day thinking, “I hike in Ohio. This is something I can do! It’s basically just walking in the woods!” False. Hiking in Ohio may mean a stroll through a park, but hiking in Colorado means a steep incline in increasingly thinner air along narrow, cliff-side paths with patches of snow. We hiked up to a waterfall and the scenery was beautiful, but there were some rough parts. It was pretty surreal to be sweating in 75 degree weather but to be standing in snow. This state seems to be in another dimension where snow doesn’t melt and people need less oxygen.

Another attempt at outdoorsyness was horseback riding. Shauna, a coworker whom I’ve been hanging out with, knows a guy who takes care of horses for some wealthy dude who’s never around. She got me the riding hookup and she and I headed out to Eagle to do some trail riding. I hadn’t ridden in 5 years and didn’t realize how much I missed it until I got around horses. When I had horses, I never wore a helmet, but I decided to forego my already miniscule cool factor and wear my bike helmet while riding. Thank goodness I did. There were only two horses, so Victor (Shauna’s friend) rode one, I rode one, and Shauna ran alongside (since she’s a Coloradan, she has the power to run alongside horses). Shauna went ahead on the trail to take a picture of the horses as they ran past. The horses started running in a full gallop, but when my horse saw Shauna, he spooked and started zig-zagging. I fell to one side of him, but was still holding on. I tried to hoist myself back up as the horse kept running, but given my lack of upper body strength and the horse’s speed, I fell off. While this was happening, the horse behind me lost his rider. After falling to the ground, the last thing I saw before temporarily blacking out was the other horse sans rider running towards me. He ran over me and kicked me in the head, breaking the helmet. After the dust cleared, Shauna ran over to me to see if I was ok. I had a headache, some scratches and bruises, but I stood up and was fine. No concussion, no bleeding. Thank God I was wearing a helmet! I got back on the horse and cautiously rode back to the barn. I’ll be riding again next week. I've fallen off before, broken my arm, got clothes-lined by a tree branch, but this was a first for being kicked in the head. Hopefully that was my only near-death experience this summer.

The last time I wrote, I only had one housemate. Now I have three. Andy shares the upstairs with me and shares my disdain for Colorado (though I’m pretty sure his is not as strong as mine). Chris is the marketing intern who somehow ended up doing production stuff for the morning show. Hearing his frustration and complaints about having to learn about cameras and editing makes me happy to be a television and marketing major. Cam is…well…eccentric. First of all, Cam Fell is probably the worst name for a camera person (or any person who might one day be around other people). Secondly, upon first meeting him, he proved to me that he would be the strangest member of the house by providing sound bites such as “I like to read. I’ve read all of Michael Jordan’s books” and “What was the food like in Italy? Are you good at math?” and “You’re good at school and you’re Catholic, so you don’t go out much, right?” Yes, this dogtag wearing, rap writing, basement dweller is quite the character. However, his entertaining antics quickly turned into daily annoyances. Fortunately, I don’t actually encounter him too often since he usually hides out in his basement. However, we had a run-in in the kitchen the other evening where we discovered our mutual love of Cap’n Crunch and where I learned that Cam despises grocery shopping and child abuse (yes, this was revealed in the same sentence).

Being the only girl in the house is actually not too much of a problem anymore now that I am talking to the other girls in the office. I thought that all this time around boys would give me insight into the opposite sex, but it seems to be converting me to their ways. Don’t worry, my hygiene is still up to code and I am not wearing baggy pants with baseball caps. But in a conversation with Andy the other night he said with the best of intentions, “You’re not really like a girl. I mean, I know you’re a girl, but you’re kind of cool like a guy.” Thanks? Here I thought that this summer was teaching just how girly I am, but it turns out that I’m just a dude in a dress.

There’s nothing else that new to report. Between the gym, work, and housemates, I’m finding distractions to keep me busy. In July, I will be going to LA to visit Emma, so that should break up the summer nicely. Until then, I’ll just be proving to the fine state of Colorado my non-athleticism and my “cool guy” ways.