I'm Back...

To all my New York friends, I hope to see you soon. I watched my first Brooklyn sunset in a month from my roof tonight and it felt great.

To all my readers, I promise a forthcoming post entitled "Unicorns, and the Land That Irony Forgot," about some of my adventures on my trip through the Midwest back to New York, as well as highlights of my extended family reunion, at which I realized I'm related to retards. Literally, retards. (As well as some very nice folk, but they're not as funny.)

Until then, I have to go drink a beer or 10 to celebrate my sweaty arrival back on the right coast.

Love,
E

Wildflowers

Wildflowers
Originally uploaded by erinschulte.

There are so many wildflowers you feel like Dorothy in the poppy field.

Conundrum Hot Springs Pool

Conundrum Hot Springs Pool
Originally uploaded by erinschulte.

This is where you will spend many hours soaking your sore muscles and watching hippies.

More 14ers Near Conundrum

marroonbells
Originally uploaded by erinschulte.

Marroon Bells Near Conundrum Hot Springs

conundrum1
Originally uploaded by erinschulte.

Pictures of Conundrum

conundrum2
Originally uploaded by erinschulte.

Conundrum

So just in case anyone's wondering why I've been AWOL for a bit, it's because I have been totally and blissfully removed from all forms of modern human communication (cellphone, IM, email) and instead have been wandering around up in the mountains, relying on old-fashioned forms of communication (talking, signal fires, and nonverbal cues such as raised eyebrows or a slap across the face).

Last Friday I went up to Aspen to meet up with one of my oldest friends, Kristi, who is a doctor in Salt Lake. I took the hippievan up there and let me tell you -- getting over mountain passes in a van with the same aerodynamic shape as a wall of brick and an "engine" that's comprised of a starving mouse on an exercise wheel does not for a fun trip make. I saw an old lady with a walker pass me. She had polio.

ANYWAY, my sweaty palms and roiling stomach as I crept along in second gear ON AN INTERSTATE were totally made up for during this trip. Kristi brought her boyfriend, of whom I'm a big fan, and two other friends of theirs I had never met before. Somehow the entire group had this amazing instant chemistry (or was it just that we were all sharing the same Scotch...) and our boisterous revelries threatened to scare away anyone within a half-mile range around us. It was a riot.

Conundrum Hot Springs are located at the end of a 10-mile trek straight up a bunch of big mountains, through which you must carry all your stuff (tents, bags, food, stoves, BOOZE, naturally). This means we were carrying bags that had to weigh a good forty pounds, which has left me wondering upon my return how I could have hiked around 25 miles in three days carrying 40 pounds on my back and have GAINED THREE POUNDS. What the hell, people! This is why people find my blog by searching for the term "getting fat," apparently.

But back to the matter at hand. Conundrum is the most amazing, beautiful hike I've done outside of Yosemite. Photographic evidence to follow, but of course it doesn't do it justice and, for some reason, all the shots are blown out. (Boo!) Suffice it to say there was no shortage of massive fields of wildflowers, shooting stars, cold cold mountain streams, massive, colorful mountain peaks, hot springs, and weird looking woodland creatures that alternately delighted me and froke me out. As icing, there were still snowfields at the top of the mountain which meant...snowball fights in July.

I can't tell you what an amazing feeling it is to shrug off a forty-pound pack, shed your clothes, and hop into a huge hot spring pool at the top of a mountain. The air is cold, the water is hotter than a hot tub, and there are more stars than you've ever seen in your life.

As such, I have absolutely NOTHING to bitch about in this post (ok, fine, except for the wimpy van and my ever-expanding ass). But seriously, it was one of the finest weekends I've had in ages, and I'll hold onto the memory forever. Like I said, these pictures don't do it justice (and there are none of me or anyone else topless, so no worries there), but if you ever make it to Colorado and need an excellent hike in July, make it Conundrum.

Yeah, Yeah, the Ass Double's in the News

I'm posting this so everyone will please stop sending me this article in Slate about the ass double I ever so briefly dated (if you can even call it "dating"). It's too embarassing to link to specific posts I wrote about Luke Wilson's fill-in posterior, but you can peruse January if you want to subject yourself to my shameful neuroses over this worthless idiot, who nevertheless had the Perfect Ass. I'm tempted to run his full name here so as any future "Virginal Maiden" such as myself who runs across him, is asked out by him, and Googles him, will find my unfavorable report. But that just seems too petty.

My only thoughts about the Slate article: 1) Last year I said it would be my goal to write for either Slate or Salon at some point. This year, when I met Ass Double, I thought, "Gee, that would make a great story -- a day in the life of a professional Ass Double!" CRAP. However, I console myself that there probably would have been a conflict of interest there somewhere. (Editor to Schulte: "Why did you call the Ass Double 'The inconsiderate and self-centered prick' when you were describing how he interacted with Uma Thurman during the shoot? etc.) 2) At least they didn't quote him, further inflating his obviously already too-large ego.

As I Drag My Feet On My Own Journey to the Library of Congres

...It's good to know that at least I can sometimes be in the company of greatness. My friend Tom's book on the diamond industry is featured today on Salon; I just missed his book tour in Denver before I got here and now I'm missing the readings he's doing in New York. At any rate, his book is a fantastic piece of reporting and a compelling read (apparently, the awestruck reviewer agrees). Pick it up if you're interested in those rocks you see on everyone's fingers.

Step Forward, Stalker

**NOTE: (UPDATE!) THE CULPRIT has identified himself as a former colleague at the WSJ who is now located overseas. So there you have it. Mystery solved.

I know it's a little weird to admit that 1) I read my Statcounter page (which, for the unitiated, lets me know where people are reading my site, how they found it and which search terms lead to my site) and 2) that I pay any attention to it whatsoever.

In my own defense, I am able to pay more attention to the Statcounter than are most bloggers because I am more underemployed and because no one reads my blog. (Wait, that was a DEFENSE?)

Since I get about 1.7 hits a day, it's easy for me to study each one carefully, pondering over why they're Googling "puss filled red dot vagina," or more disturbingly, why those words are leading them to my site. Nine times out of 10, people find my site by Googling "John Krasinski," or more recently, "John Krasinski AND Rashida Jones" -- that mention alone should count for 100 new hits tomorrow! -- assuming that I'll have some kind of scoop on their psuedo-interracial romance, which I don't. (Call me, John, let's dish!)

But today I noticed somethin' funny. Somethin' weird. Someone did a Yahoo search yesterday, using my full name, from Paris.

Now, I don't know anyone in Paris, and I don't know anyone there who knows me, and the last time I had a chance to go to France I passed it up because I don't think I'd probably like anyone in Paris, what with their stupid little dogs and ability to eat a baker's dozen of croissants without gaining an ounce of cellulite on their size-2 thighs. Not to mention I don't speak a lick of French, to the point where it's embarassing to go eat French food because the only thing I know how to pronounce is "duck confit." Good thing I LIKE duck confit.

So ANYWAY, the question of who is googling my name in Paris is starting to bother me. It's "stuck in my craw," if you will. It's like the old refrain from "When Harry Met Sally" regarding the days of the week underpants: "Pretty soon that's all he could think about: Where was Sunday? What happened to Sunday?"

I must know: Who knows my name in Paris, why are you Googling (or, Yahooing) me, and furthermore, what are you doing reading all my most embarassing posts, the kind of posts that result in search-engine hits generated by typing in "puss filled red dot vagina"? Reveal yourself!

I am asking these questions whilst sitting at my computer in the dungeon basement with Dumber the Dog (Wizard), who is curled up on the carpet like a kidney bean and farting happily, and frequently, in his sleep. It's totally gross. Little dogs, indeed.

I Will Cut You

I'm aware, what with all the pictures of fuzzy creatures recently featured on this blog, that it's starting to resemble CuteOverload.com. As an antitode, I thought I would post some pictures of Natti, my sister's cat. She is the Meanest Cat Who Ever Lived, and I like to call her Nasty. Her uncute streak definitely comes through in these pictures, don't let those baby-blue eyes fool you. She stalks the house with Dumb and Dumber, the only dogs so stupid they can't figure out how to scratch their own balls.

Every time I see this cat, she seems to be thinking, "Come any closer, and I will Cut You, Bitch." The only people she will (occasionally) allow to touch her are my sister and brother in law, which leads me to believe that, as a kitten (when she was found nearly-dead by my brother-in-law's dad, who is a vet) she must have been anally raped by a tall, pale redhead resembling yours truly. Because whenever she sees "invading her territory" -- i.e., walking from my bedroom down the stairs -- she declares war and comes at me as though she'd love nothing more than to filet my calves.

Luckily, this homicidally-inclined feline had her front paws declawed and so, whenever she attacks, it feels more like being swiped with a pair of cotton balls. I should throw some anti-blackhead toner on there and have her wipe down my face at night, or something. Then again, there's always those fangs.

Not only is this cat mean, she is spiteful. Though my sister and her husband have done nothing but love, feed and protect her, she still seems to want to get back at them for their very existence. Thusly, she REFUSES to crap in the litter box and instead leaves a daily "package" for my sister to clean up just inches away on the carpet. Occasionally she'll do her bidding somewhere else, probably hoping I will step in it. This behavior has prompted my sister to provide the cat WITH HER OWN ROOM in which to crap on the floor! The cat LITERALLY has its own room! This is apparently the kind of thing you can do when you live in the suburbs in a sprawling McMansion.

Anyway, the cat is such a bitch that my sister thinks they'll need to pawn it off on someone when the baby comes lest it attack (not to mention, they might need to take the cat's room for the baby at that point). Unfortunately, the cat is SO MEAN that they're sure no one will take it and it may have to be put down, which they really don't want to do. Anyone want the meanest mouser on the planet? As long as you have an extra room for her to crap in, all should be well.

The Post In Which I Blow Up The Second Vehicle In a Month

After my car blew up in New Jersey, affording me the "opportunity" to spend my day with a man named Bubba towing it off to a junkyard, I was exceedingly grateful when my brother offered to loan me his second car -- a 1981 VW Westfalia van, something along the lines of what I'd always wanted to own, anyway.

I had hoped to spend many a happy weekend in Colorado camping in my new orange pop-up dream, making cowboy coffee in the morning whilst gazing out serenely onto the mountains. On Sunday, to celebrate the hottest day of the year (103! 103!) in Denver, I decided to embark upon a 10-mile hike with 2,000-foot elevation gain near Evergreen. To get a jump on the heat, I arose at the marginally-daylit hour of 5:30 a.m. and went to gas up the car. But of course, I should have known better than to plan on driving anywhere, because when it comes to motor vehicles I apparently eminate the "magnetic field of destruction and scuttled hopes."

Once I had spent approximately four hundred and ninety two dollars filling the tank, the poor old van wouldn't start. Numerous attempts were made, batteries were jumped, engines were flooded. But eventually, it was AAA to the rescue again and my brother's car was dumped unceremoniously in the parking lot of a repair shop that still hasn't called to tell me what the hell is wrong with the thing, or even when they'll be able to diagnose it, which is too bad because I had planned to put-put up to Aspen this coming weekend and hike with a girlfriend 10 miles through the wilderness to Conundrum, the famous NAKED HOT SPRINGS of Colorado.

I guess I'll just have to turn on the tub and get naked at home. Or, I'll stop feeling sorry for myself and invest in a rental that has fewer than 300,000 miles on it.

ANYWAY, my brother in law was nice enough to loan me his car for the day. I drove up to Evergreen, slogged out the gorgeous 10-mile hike, and at the top made this new friend, with whom I shared my lunch. Rodents here are so much cuter than they are in New York.

Cheesecake, Dead Beavers, and Other Midwestern Adventures

A few weeks ago I vowed that to get into the spirit of Colorado I would attend a megachurch and eat at a Cheesecake Factory, the Garden of Gluttony that boasts of 200 menu items, and of which New York City has long been deprived.

I still haven't slid my (now bigger than ever!) butt into a pew at a church where sermons tend to revolve around topics NOT EVEN MENTIONED IN THE BIBLE (i.e., abortion), and to be frank, I'm usually out camping on the weekends, admiring God's creation and all that, so it might not happen at all.

But, dear reader, I have fearlessly crossed the double-wide rubicon that is the threshold to the Cheesecake Factory, and have lived to tell of a menu that would choke a famine victim with envy just by glancing at the four-page appetizer selection.

The Cheesecake Factory's slogan is "Something for Everyone!" (often code for "Nothing for Anyone!") and I wanted to see what all the fat-assed fuss was about. Last night, being in the mood for a 12,000-calorie meal, I dragged my pregnant sister into her car and set off to the mall (even more authetically suburban!). I figured if anyone was ready to strap on the feedbag, it was someone who was already eating for two. Of course, eating for only two is, by Cheesecake Factory standards, conservative -- as I was about to find out.

Appetizers included carboriffic sounding selections such as fried macaroni and cheese balls (fried! cheese! balls!), Tex Mex eggrolls and fried Taquitos, but I pushed us toward something lighter so we could gorge ourselves on three entire courses. We tried the Vietnamese Shrimp Summer Rolls and, I must grudgingly admit, they were totally yummy, and not even overly filling. Ramping it up for the mains, I dove into a platter -- no way you could describe something that big as a "plate" -- of shrimp scampi. Slightly dried out from the heat lamp, it was nevertheless more than passable. And the plain cheesecake, which we shared for dessert, was nothing to sneeze at either (though undoubtedly, one of the underpaid immigrants in the kitchen probably did just that). The service was friendly and quick and my bottomless glass of mango iced tea was super refreshing.

So, I can't even bitch about the Cheesecake Factory. What I *can* bitch about (you knew there had to be something) is the other patrons of the Cheesecake Factory.

There are two types of people who eat at a Cheesecake Factory: people so thin that you wonder how they've ever dined at a Cheesecake Factory, and people so fat that they should never eat at a Cheesecake Factory.

It was a group of the former that really caught my attention. Standing in the vestibule of the CF with me and my sister was a 40-something mom, a teenage daughter, a 60-something grandmother. The grandmother and mother were both wearing sequined gold jackets and hooker heels showing off gnarly feet and fresh pedicures. They obviously thought they had it "going on," though these ladies, believe me, were obviously the key market for "KY Sensual Mist Warming Personal Lubricant." Can you say "dried up old biddies"?

Meanwhile, both were so bird-leg thin that I feared their imminent collapse under the weight of their hair. And why was that? Each was wearing her own mismatched shade of piled-up fake-hair ponytail that looked like an overteased 60's updo -- or dead beaver, take your pick.

I was looking at them in awe and disgust when my sister said, "Ugh, there's ONE trend I hope goes away soon!" and I was like, "Wait, wearing roadkill on your head is a TREND out here?" And she says, "Yeah, they have a whole kiosk of fake hair in the mall -- and in Sioux Falls, they have a WHOLE STORE full of it!" Sure enough, when we waddled out of the fried-food emporium, there was an entire square in the middle of the mall sporting every shade and length of man-made pelt.

The midwest is weird. Fat people eating entire rounds of cheesecake, and anorexic grannies wearing dead beavers on their heads.

Sunshine, My Ass!

A number of people have asked me why I decided to move to Colorado for a month. Here is a short answer: the sunshine.

New York is depressing in so many ways. One NEVER has enough money, square footage, or viable prospects for matrimony. Half of the population is always currently suffering either from a hangover or a coke-over, making them chronically crabby, selfish and unhospitable. It's impossible to keep a pet of the fuzzy variety -- which is proven to improve one's quality of life -- unless it's a tarantula, or one lives with an aforementioned viable prospect for matrimony (which I don't) to help shoulder the burden of walking the thing and picking up its poop. And to top it off, the weather is awful approximately 327 days a year. If you're not dealing with mugginess that makes you feel as though you're being gagged with a sweatsock, you're busy trying to dump slush out of your shoe as a pile of snow alights on, and then melts upon, your newly (and expensively) blown-out hair.

One day back in early June, I think it was, I woke up in Brooklyn. The birds were singing outside my window, the sun was shining in on my face, and I thought, "I could deal with waking up like this EVERY day. Where better but to do that than Colorado, land of 300 days of sunshine a year."

Well, folks, you know my luck with travel, which apparently extends to lengthier living arrangements as well. Because it's hardly stopped raining since I got here. Record deluges soaked the middle part of the state all weekend, causing rockslides and flooding and general unhappiness among wet campers, myself included.

The plan was to head up to a stupid-sounding place named Poudre (pronounced POOT-er) Canyon and climb at a place called Grey Rock. Poudre Canyon, despite its ridiculous moniker, is a gorgeous canyon near Fort Collins, through which runs a pastoral-lookin' river. It's surrounded by big rock cliffs and fir trees. Saturday me and some friends of friends got tickets to a dirty-hippie concert (photographic evidence to come, as usual) at a place called the Mishawaka, which is a music venue outside a tumble-down old log cabin, where the stage is nestled five feet from the roaring rapids and dirty hippies come to eat mushrooms and twirl aimlessly like the parentally-funded autism victims they are.

The trip did not start auspiciously. It was pouring in Denver but I hoped that the weather pattern would miraculously shift once we drove farther up into the mountains. It was not to be, but the Mishawaka was a nice place to hang out -- at least during the opening bluegrass band. Then the headliners -- Little Feat -- took the stage, and my misery multiplied tenfold.

Little Feat lost their lead singer something like 57 years ago. He was replaced by some woman whose name I will never bother to research who had a very unironic mullet, was carrying about 80 additional pounds and had a singing voice like that of a tone-deaf hyena. The band started out with a song wherein one of the graying, balding backup singers informed us that he had a "Rocket in My Pocket," which I found supremely hard to believe and set the air of bemused annoyance for the rest of the night.

Not so luckily the sound system there is great, which meant that my ears were close to bleeding by the end of the night to the point that I was literally getting nauseous. The screeching and noodling grew to epic heights throughout the night as the members of Little Feat cranked away endlessly on such instruments as accordians and bongos. To make matters EVEN WORSE, I was responsible for driving everyone back to the campsite in my van (the only thing that made me "pass" as a hippie for the night -- see picture!) and so I had to remain relatively sober throughout the entire ordeal.

However, it would all be worth it for the climbing the next day. Of course, since I apparently bring bad weather and bad luck with me wherever I go, the rain never stopped and thus we were unable to climb.

Of course, today is Monday and now that I'm back in a basement working on editing stories about the sex lives of the arctic albatross and whatnot, the sun is shining gloriously -- mocking me, I'm sure. And yet, the camping was fun, and I finally got to drink some beer when the Show of Pain was over Saturday night, and all is well.

So A Girl With Chronic Dystentery Goes Up a Mountain...

Sure, it sounds like the beginning of a bad scatalogical joke, but unfortunately, it has become my life.

Everyone wants to know how my time in Colorado has been so far. The answer, I'm sorry to say, is "shitty." Literally. Somehow between New York and Denver I must have inadvertently sucked down about a gallon of water pumped directly from the Ganges, because my gut has been doing squirty flip-flops for the past six days and shows little sign of calming, despite heavy doses of Cipro and my staunch refusal to eat or drink anything other than Immodium and Gatorade.

That's not to say I've been having a terrible trip, as is evidenced by the above picture, which I took standing atop Mt. Bierstadt admiring the incredible views.

Excluding the 6.3 collective hours I spend each day in the bathroom, I've been having a grand old outdoorsy hippie-lady time. It was a bit crowded over the 4th of July weekend, what with the entire family crammed into my sister's house, but we got some nice hikes in and had a steak cookout to boot.

On Sunday night my brother and I decided that, given his impending move to Germany, we -- the two fittest and outdoorsiest members of the family -- should really hike one last fourteener together, I guess to say goodbye to the ol' US of A and get him ready for the Alps, or something.

For those not in the know, a fourteener is a 14,000-foot mountain, where the air is about 40% thinner at the top than at the bottom. There are around 50 of them in Colorado.

It was probably not the smartest undertaking given that I was already massively dehydrated and hadn't eaten in three days, since it takes a little bit of energy to climb around 4,000 or so vertical feet and hike more than 8 miles straight up and downhill in a morning. But I was damned if I was going to miss the trip, the camping out, and the time with my brother.

We hopped in his Volkswagen Westie van -- of which I am now the proud temporary-owner -- and headed up to the mountains, me with a two fistfuls of Immodium for dinner and much excitement in the thin air.

We arrived near the base of Mt. Bierstadt around 11 p.m. and camped there that night. The next morning, Nick made us coffee on his little stove. I took a tentative sip, disregarded the need for any further nourishment, and off we went.

Well, folks, it was slow going, but I made it -- and I didn't even poop myself!

I'm still as sick as a schizophrenic pedophile, and now my glutes are killing me on top of it. But the views were worth it, and it's the first of many great Colorado camping and hiking experiences to come. I wanted to post more pictures, but since it takes half a dang hour to upload each one onto blogger, I am throwing in the towel for the night and heading off to the bathroom for the next hour or so. Next time I rap at ya, I hope I'll be able to stop talking about my intestinal issues -- even more than you hope so, I'm sure.