August 3, 2003...8:49 pm
It’s official: We really hate Colorado
Official diagnosis
We hate it here.
No offense to The Freds, who shared the opportunity, but it’s just been one huge disappointment after another.
Remember not long ago I wrote about the brat from upstairs who sounds like he’s racing horses over our heads, throwing bowling balls down the stairs and yelling through our closed, blinds-pulled window at our dog? Well he’s only part of The Noise Factor now.
We have neighbors above (the kid, his brother and his mom), neighbors beside (students who just moved in) and neighbors above them (also students). The last two nights, the student factions have been out on the porch/balcony smoking and chatting. Now they’re not talking at a really high volume or having a party or anything but the talking is right outside our bedroom window. And it’s loud enough that it carries right through the window and wakes us up.
And when I say “us,” I include the dog. So then the dog has to bark or growl at the strange human voices. So we get next to no sleep. So we try to sleep in a little, the never-ending construction on the church across the street starts up. There’s so much dust on our patio table and windowsills that even if I wanted to, I couldn’t open the windows. And I don’t want to b/c the town smells like cow shit.
We heard on the news tonight that our town, which I’m now calling “Whazatsmell,” had 15 100-degree-plus days in July. I grew up in Florida and even I have to say that’s fucking ridiculous. At least in Florida it rains once in a while.
Speaking of growing up in Florida, there’s some kind of bugs that are feasting on me. The backs of my legs are so raw they hurt. I think they’re ants. Fire ants wouldn’t surpise me in the least. I’ve seen some fire ant-like hills near our streetside sidewalk. Hawk and Jake don’t seem to have a problem but I sure do. It’s also on my hands and arms but not nearly as bad as on my legs.
So anyway, that’s part of the problem. The only solution we can come up with is that as I write this, Hawk is actually moving our bed from the master bedroom into what was the baby’s room. The computer room will become the baby’s room and the master bedroom will become the computer room. And I can’t help w/ this furniture-moving so Hawk is doing it all himself. As he said, “I’m going to have to be up at 5 a.m. I can’t be laying awake until 2 while they have cigarettes and talk.” Which is what happened last night. I drifted off and was woken up every hour on the hour by the talking and then woken up for good by the construction.
By the end of next week, we’re going to have a baby in here. How am I supposed to get a baby to sleep w/ people constantly making noise that sets off my dog (who is an easy-going dog and it takes some effort to disturb him enough to get him barking)? Moreover, how am I supposed to rest while the baby rests when all night I have students yakking it up and during the day I have Spartacus cavorting around over my head?
I didn’t share that I was at Home Depot last week and when I came out there was a flyer on my windshield. It was a flyer for this apartment complex. When we looked at the complex, we were led to believe that there were families, retured couples, etc. living here. It’s ended up being well over $1000/mo for student housing and it pisses me off. But we’re locked into a lease. Hawk says we could afford to get out of it, if need be. But who wants to move again after all we went through to get out here?
I swear, I get more respect for the covered wagon pioneers every damn day.
10 Comments
December 28, 2007 at 9:29 pm
I agree, Colorado is a piece of shit state. Above all, it was virtually impossible for me to land a stable position even though I have experience in government and am a New York attorney. It appeared to me that Colorado does for its natives more than anyone else. If you’re an outsider looking for a position, good luck! When something becomes readily available, the revolving door begins to turn and ALL of the insiders almost always have an “in” no matter what their experience and educational background. To me, it always appeared that if you were a cousin of Jim Bob, Bubba Ray, or some tight ass yuppie then you were basically given the position without much effort.
As for the people, I have nothing good to say about them either. I lived there for two years and noticed that a majority of them go with the stupid phases such as the, retro mohawk, the black leather jackets with the orange pinstripes, and the ever so annoying backstreet boy look. In Boulder, it’s the opposite, rich hippie college students with dreadlocks, babies in sling sacks, and women who don’t shave.
In essence, I gauge that this shit kicker state with the mix of yuppies is not accustomed to people from the east coast. For those from the east coast who managed to fit in, I would love to know their secret because I was always at a total loss. As for me, I moved back to New York. I loved the scenic views, but the people were assholes.
December 28, 2007 at 10:55 pm
This was the same as our experience in the end. Our attorney (also from NY) said the exact same thing. I had more culture shock in Colorado than I did in Europe. Happy to be back east now
February 5, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I hate it here too and I love you! We are trying to sell our house (2 years and counting) so we can move back east. I am so ready to Run screaming that my head might explode. This place is like crazy-backwards-bizarro-world, no?
March 6, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I hate CO too! Also from east coast (MA)
We have been stuck in purgatory for 3 years now.
As soon as the market picks up we are so back to MA.
People do not understand personal space here at all! They say NY and Boston drivers suck. People here have no clue. Things that are missing are: culture, good food
and intelligence. Hope you make it back east soon.
March 6, 2008 at 9:39 pm
We left Colorado in June 2004 and have been happy in Pennsylvania ever since. You might be surprised how many comments, e-mails and other correspondence I’ve had from people (usually eastern transplants) who had the same reaction and experience.
April 7, 2008 at 3:52 pm
i hate colorado, they wouldnt let my dad get a job there and there was nothing bad in my dad’s background. they say it is hard for a forginer to get a job in colorado and my dad is a doctor. he is very samrt and everything but they wont let him get a job thre
April 18, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I hate colorado. I just have to vent and thought this was the perfect place to do it. I lived in boulder for two years and hated it. Now I live in westminster and still hate it. The people in boulder are just a bunch of rich hippies that don’t work and ride their stupid bikes all over the place and think they own the roads. Good luck finding a place to park in boulder on the weekend, they have more places to park bikes than they do cars. Westminster is just a really bad suburb. Every strip mall in Westminster has a liquor store in it, hmmm…I wonder why? The new place we move into, and are renting is so freaking lame. We had to move from Boulder (like I really cared leaving that place) because the rent was too high for us to afford to get a bigger place. The price of rent in Boulder is f-ing insane!!! Anyway, at this new place, I NEVER see any of my neighbors. I go outside all of the time hoping to meet some people and no one is ever out, not even on the weekends. I guess they are all getting liquored up from the liquor they bought at the 500 liquor stores available within a 10 mile radius. Then, last but not least is the snow. I can’t say enough bad things about the snow. Maybe colorado does get 300-something days of sunshine a year but it is to damn cold for half of those days to even go outside and enjoy yourself without freezing your ass off. I miss my home state of Texas. People in colorado are NOT nice. The are strange, hippie, tree hugging freaks! I am all for taking care of our environment, etc…but if you go to boulder they shove it in your face….If I have to walk down pearl street on a nice day trying to enjoy myself one more time and have some stupid person trying to get a few minutes of my time for a survey to save this or free tibet, I think I will have to punch them in the face. Screw Colorado, I want to move back home to Texas, I miss the heat and humidity. My skin here is shrinking and I have so many wrinkles now that I never had before.
April 18, 2008 at 3:35 pm
You’re not alone. I get an obscene number of hits for “I hate colorado.”
Move. Your skin will think you. My daughter’s skin still hasn’t fully recovered but at least it’s not scaly anymore.
May 10, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Wow! I thought I was alone in the I HATE COLORADO world. I live in the smallest part of Colorado… it’s not even a city-it’s a villiage. I have an MBA and there are no possible jobs out here. Unless you are into education or AG then forget it. The people here are horrible. If you have not grown up here, then forget it… it’s like you have the plague. I miss my home in Texas. Life made sense there. People actually had personality, thoughts (other than the “town” thought. Seriously people there is a BIG world out there. BTW thanks for the skin thing… I thought I was just going crazy with my skin. I have aged like 10 years. I HATE COLORADO!
May 11, 2008 at 1:11 am
You have to slather in lotion and use high-output humidifiers constantly. My daughter’s skin has never properly recovered from the scaly state it was in in Colorado (in addition to regular skin cream & lotion, we had to use prescription skin creams on her legs; she was less than a year old).
It’s a very closed community, I agree. The illusion is that it’s open and accepting in that western-romantic way. It’s not. We lived there a year and wished someone would prove us wrong on that front. No one ever did.
Leave a Reply