Boulder

On my long Western journey I went to Boulder for an afternoon. Pueblo and Boulder should really be more than a two-and-a-half hour drive apart; they're about the same size and located in the same state, but going from the depressed desert industrial town to the mountainous hippie enclave gave me culture shock.

For example, you wouldn't find a "women's bookstore" in Pueblo, much less an oxygen bar. The reason I took a picture of this sign, though, is that it introduced me to the word "smartinis." Whatever a smartini is, I want one.

Friday

I flew into Denver on Friday afternoon, and Niffer-bur picked me up from the airport and drove me to Deme's parents' house, where we'd be staying for fifth year reunion weekend. Deme and SGB were already there. We chatted for awhile and then went to our class reception.

As expected, I didn't recognize many people there. Appart from a handful of close friends, I somehow didn't get to know many people in college. We did run into a friend who'd lived on our floor freshman year, a Peruvian who's now a lawyer in Miami and going by a different first name. I knew I'd been gone for a long time when he asked me where I'm from originally and I said automatically, "I'm from Colorado," realizing a moment later that I was in Colorado Springs, talking to someone who'd lived there for three years, and could really be more specific.

Other signs I'd been gone awhile: I got out of breath from walking up a single flight of stairs, and though I didn't get drunk off the two glasses of wine I had at the class reception, I did wake up with a headache the next morning.

The other person I recognized at reunion was one of my housemates from junior year, now an artist and hairdresser in LA. Once a self-identified lesbian, she's still with the same boyfriend she was when we lived together. No, I did not ask whether she's still a lesbian.

txt me

Shortly after I moved to DC I signed up for emergency text message and email alerts. I'm not much for disaster planning, but it seemed like a good idea. And while I've gotten my share of completely useless information (DMV closed early due to excessive heat, gas leak five blocks away has been repaired), it's also proved handy sometimes, as when it tells me when the severe weather warning will be over--i.e., when it will stop pouring so I can go outside.

This service entailed paying for maybe five a la carte text messages per month, which made the useless information ones doubly annoying. Then friends starting texting me, at first just once in awhile if they were running late, then more frequently. Some of them seem to use their phones only secondarily to actually make calls. I gave in a few months ago and sprang for the 50 messages/month bundle, which was lucky because my phone company raised the messaging rates to $.15/each at about the same time.

Then this billing cycle came along. Suddenly no one communicates with me orally at all. And why not? Are we European high school students now? Why spend 10 minutes exchanging six text messages when a 60-second phone conversation would be more efficient (and included in my plan)? Was the demise of the phone call a signal of my generation's increasing alienation from our fellow humans? Or was I just doing more stuff that called for texting? Whatever the reason, I burned through 62 messages in a week. I needed to cut back. But how?

Yesterday morning I awoke to this text from alert DC:

3-Alarm Fire @ 2633 Adams Mill Rd. NW. Parts of Coumbia Rd, Calvert St. & Adams Mill closed nearby.

Interesting? Definitely. Useful? Possibly. But did I need to know this at 6:43 am? No!

Well, resistance was clearly futile. I switched to the 300 message bundle that morning, at the bargain rate of $4.99/month. So go ahead, text me. Maybe next month I'll switch to the unlimited plan.