can't sleep

I've had a serious problem with sleep lately. For as long as I can remember the problem has been that I can't get enough of it, but lately, I can't seem to do it at all. Well, eventually I can, but initially, it's difficult. And--the real shocker--I keep waking up early. So anyway, tonight this blog is a result of my wakefulness. It's almost 1:30 a.m., and I am hot and slightly disturbed because of the sounds I hear outside my window--a train whistle and the repetitive sound of it chugging it's way down the tracks. (I have no idea if "chugging" is an appropriate word for that sound, but I'm going to leave it. You know what I mean.) That sound is eerie to me--no idea why. Opening my window at night is always a little dangerous as many scary sounds enter in . . . the train, voices, and the very cool yet strange yelps of coyotes congregating in the field.

Well, perhaps I should move on to a more interesting topic . . . This week has been a good one. Though it's still officially Spring, I feel as though Summer began this week. Last weekend was Memorial Day weekend, the Boulder Creek Festival, and the Bolder Boulder, a 6.2 mile marathon with over 50,000 participants running through the streets of our fair town. The entire weekend was so much fun--so fun that I've decided to start recommending that people who want to visit Boulder come that weekend.

On Sunday I went to church and then to the Creek festival with some friends. We walked around, looked at the exhibits, art, food, etc. Later, i went home and went on an accidentally long bike ride. The bike paths in Boulder can be confusing . . . at least to me . . . and when I thought I was going north, I was actually going west. Whoops. I was completely disoriented. But it was a great opportunity to get more acquainted with Brutus (my cruiser bike . . . he's scarlet and grey).

Later, I went back to the festival with the boys from the Dank (Donnie, Daniel, and Rusty--the dwellers of Natalie and Ramin's basement). I'm not sure I can even begin to chronicle all the events of that crazy, cold, windy night, but in a vague, confusing summary, I can tell you that there were balls of pizza dough being thrown around, a girl dancing around with deer antlers on her head, a certain young man peeing in the Boulder Creek, the recording of a song on Daniel's loop machine, the baking of pumpkin pie, and to top it all off, a reggae dance party in the Dank.

And then I got up at 6:45 the next morning to watch the Bolder Boulder. Many of our friends were running in it, so several of us congregated in front of Mark and Karin's condo downtown to watch them run by. Congrats to Aubrea for beating her goal! yay! It's really an amazing sight . . . 50,000 people running through the streets of Boulder for four hours. Crazy. And it was a party everywhere we went . . . and early in the morning. Insane. But so much fun.

Most of this week has been spent working. I worked at the preschool in the mornings, and in the afternoons, headed to one of my favorite coffee shops on Pearl Street to work on a book I'm editing. I love that I can do that. Love.

On Friday, Tara proposed that we carry out a year-long dream: build a cornhole set. We coerced a few friends who actually know how to build things to help us, and around 10:00 on Friday night, the project was complete--minus the sewing of the corn bags. We're convinced this is going to revolutionize our summer--and possibly Boulder as we know it. Thanks to Brady, Jordan, Julie, Niles, Ian, Logan, Tara, and the paint guy at Home Depot for making this dream a reality.

On Saturday Tara, Amy, and I went to the Farmer's Market, which is held every Wednesday evening and Saturday morning downtown. It's amazing: beautiful fresh flowers, organic everything . . . goat cheese, honey, peanut butter, herbs . . . everything, hippies, the smell of patchuli. So Boulder. I bought some honey. Can't wait to use it. I spent the afternoon/evening working, and then Tara, Amy, and I went to Southern Sun, where we acquired some beer coasters from our friend the waiter, Mikey. We're thinking of using them to decorate our cornhole set . . . maybe a little decoupage. :) Much later, Aubrea stopped by the apartment, and we made cookies . . . at 1 a.m.

Today we had church, then I said goodbye to Juli, who is going to Thailand for six weeks, went to a graduation party, and then back here to work some more.

I'm sure many other exciting events occurred over the course of the last week, but I can't remember them all. And most likely, you don't care about the ones I've listed (yeah, I know that's what you're thinking, Josh), but this has given me something to do while I'm wide awake at 2 a.m. And now you're pretty much caught up on my life. So there you have it. Wow. That was long. Thanks for reading.