Yummy Wakame

Deepak Chopra

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“Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane.”
~Honoré de Balzac

My love affair with Atlas started just a few posts ago and has blossomed into a chronic habit. I was more than happy to sit by my favourite window seat and people watch the Pearl Street pavement from The Cup, a coffee shop just a few doors down from Atlas. So Joseph, knowing I have a thing for good teas, had to nudge me a few times to give Atlas a try. Once he gave up nudging I realised I might forget, so I found myself here, trying out the frothy rooibos chai and sharing a giant table with a few friendly guys keen to expand the party.

I don’t know if its the huge poster of Craigslist > Atlas Missed Connections posted up on the wall or not but this place has an unmissable sniffable air of being a singles meetup spot for young, often trendy 20- and 30-somethings who I am guessing must be web designers, graphic designers, writers and other types of freelancers who can waffle hours of the day away looking busy. Freelancing is a good life for sure, and even with the unreliable income, no health plan and occasional cash flow crises, I wouldn’t trade what I do now for any amount of money or luxuries. I have a credit card for such emergencies!

Today as soon as I came in I started distractedly unpacking my laptop to secure a spot, and one of the owners, the one I got to know on my first day here, came round to my shared table and dropped off a tall frothy glass of Rooibos chai with a warm smile. Without realising what it meant, I don’t think, he was welcoming me to my home from home. Atlas is now officially my favourite work spot in Colorado. Once they are open till 11 I will be in heaven!

Here’s some snaps of my favourite bits to give you a feel for the place:

The wall of missed connections more…

The reason why we fail to achieve the significant goals and dreams in our lives is not lack of resources… it’s not lack of money, education, time, connections, experience…
its lack of resourcefulness.

Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better

“… It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sun, the sky – all things tending toward the eternal or what we imagine of it.”

~ Cesar Pavese

Mmmmn I loved this! Thanks Frank, for the constant reminders.

After the Atlas closed at 9 tonight I went wandering around for a late night wifi hookup to work a bit longer, and found myself drawn into the Laughing Goat by the lively sounds of an Irish band playing in the back and the warm-lit atmosphere. Another chai (not as good as the Atlas) and a huge hearty tomato basil soup later I’m ready for the next session.

Laughing Goat Coffee House
1709 Pearl Street, Boulder, CO 80302-5516

boulder craigslist > personals > atlas missed connections

I wish I could hold you – w4m

“Tormented. I’ve been watching you for weeks, working on your laptop, sipping your latte at Atlas Cafe. And though I try hard to catch your attention all you do is ignore me. I wish I could hold you till we were both dead! I shouldn’t care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn’t you suffer? I do.”

There’s a bunch of these posted up on the giant free-for-all chalk board wall, blown up huge. I love working from this spot. The tea and bagels are out of this world delicious, and the owners are so friendly. Atlas Purveyors in Boulder Colorado has only been open since November and already has a lovely make yourself at home feel to it. I realised its the only coffee shop I’ve been to where I don’t mind sharing a big table when the smaller ones are taken, though I can’t really tell you why. There are some seriously gorgeous acrylic on wood paintings here I would LOVE to own if I had the type of home that fit something that gigantic, though I’d need to be a lot more settled for that anyway. What I can afford to get in the mean time is a few bags of fresh tea leaves, sample 6 different rooibos flavours and some chais from their tempting wall of teas.

Atlas Purveyors
Twitter: @atlaspurveyors
1505 Pearl St, Boulder, CO 80302-5468

I’ve always secretly loved watching couples kissing. It kept the dream burning on. Its even hotter when a couple is completely oblivious to everything around them, where time stands still.

I don’t think I’m the only one…

Oh my God this is INSANELY sexy……………… Why have I never heard this before? Jack’s unbelievably dirty, grinding, raunchy guitar solo at the beginning drives me wild!!! The Blues just pulses and breathes through him. Meg looks freaking hot as always slicing away at the cymbals like the tease she is. The bass in this live performance is luscious. Mmmhmm. Enjoy!

This one’s for you Joseph…

So where do I fit? I’ve been thinking about this a lot today. more…

… and especially my oldest friend Bronny. I really just wanted to say thanks for your thoughtful responses of support, whether it be concern or happiness for me. more…

Smoky, your description cracked me up, but I had to agree and so this post was irresistibly named because of you.

This is our safety place.

more…

So I’m working from a coffee shop here in Boulder Colorado, minding my own business for the most part. I noticed two unavoidable things. The guys in Boulder are very forward in a fixed-starey way, they make things pretty obvious. I realised early on that my usual response of laughing invites the next step and so I snuffle it, which is hard, because seriously those stares are so unsexy its hilarious. There have also been a few weirdos in the coffee shop today. This one was my favourite:

A guy swaggers in with large loping steps, very expensive European urban styling, his long scarf swooshing as he does a very affected walk. He is speaking very loudly in a booming important voice to himself, as if he is on Bluetooth, every now and then with jazz hands. He sits down for an hour with his coffee and proceeds to talk about every person he sees in the room including myself, in-between very important business-sounding discussions. The point I turned and realised he wasn’t wearing Bluetooth was when he announced, “Oh!! Do you want to see a magic trick? OK!” and proceeded to do the magic trick with jazz hands, to much applause on the other end of the imaginary phone.

I’m not getting much work done, but at least its entertaining.

T-Rex – Dove

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Before you read on, I should warn you that I reveal something a little shocking towards the end, though none of it is coincidental.

This morning I woke up 2 miles above sea level, toasty from nose to toes, in a snow covered log cabin, under a mountain of chocolate labradors and layers and layers of sumptuous thrift-store bedding. The pellet stove crackling in the next room beaconing me out of bed to make a healthy, tasty breakfast from the freshly stocked fridge. Life out here is unbelievably idyllic, even more so, and even simpler than the life I temporarily left out in the remote Chihuahuan desert.

I touched down in Colorado a little over 48 hours ago. As I made my way to the baggage claim Joseph texted me that he was incredibly nervous to meet me. I felt completely unreal, dazed, my belly all twisty with excitement as I walked off the plane. more…

“That’s what real love amounts to — letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending, performing. You get to love your pretence. It’s true, we’re locked in an image, an act.”
~ Jim Morrison

Thanks Allison!

Don’t act like you can’t act
Stand up like a man
You better learn to shake hands
Treat me like your mother

Come on look me in the eye
You wanna try to tell a lie
I’ll bet you can’t and you know why?
I’m just like your mother

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“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”
~ Jim Morrison

A beautifully hypnotic, moving sculpture. sexxxy mmmmmmmmathematics.

Thanks Melissa!

This really brings back some strange feelings from the past.

Watch this FutureShort on YouTube

This year I plan to roadtrip as much as possible via CraigsList Ride Shares. All the pleasure of a roadtrip with none of the footprint guilt – that vehicle was going anyway, with my butt in it or not. Plus Id get to meet new people along the way and get hooked up with randomly awesome, unforseen scenarios that make a trip unforgettable. So when I found this guys site I was enthralled! He’s taking it the max. Well, max in that its a non-stop roadtrip. This is so easily doable, and so I am rubbing where my beardy beard would be and thinking about it…

LivingCraigslist
One mans mission to live in 3 cities for 3 months, using only craigslist.

Date: 2009-12-27, 6:30PM
America/Los_Angeles
“I am very much in a transitional stage. But then, my whole life is in limbo. Aside from living out of a suitcase and sleeping in three towns in four days, I have racked up 730-miles, stopping for bathrooms, of sort, food, coffee and sleep. Life is very much on the road.”

Here’s a peek into a big travel dream of mine for this year…

More to come..

What’s up with that? Where do I get this INSANE sense of URGENCY from? I feel like I only have 2 years left or something. Oh these plans for the next two years keep going around and around in circles in my head, I freak out about when I’m going to get it all done, how I haven’t been back to Cape Town in 10 years, how I’m going to save up enough to do the Appalachian Trail next year, get access to a chiropractor to fix my back… Late last night I was online chatting to my best friend Joseph, going on and on about this and that, trying to figure out where I’m going to settle for a few months to grow my garden, how I’m going to schedule and plan my garden’s seasons around all my travel plans just for this year, knowing the garden needs to be more of a priority as it will pay for all this travel. And its my first garden so I need to focus on it but if it goes too long it could tie me down… blah blah… fret, worry blah. Brain fart.

He just listened for ages. Nothing seems to rush him into a fluster, not even when I’m freaking out. more…

Ugh! She looks so much hotter without being covered in a layer of luminous plastic. This is the kind of crap so many guys and women buy into, a look no-one can achieve. Finding volumes of this sort of stuff online used to make me laugh at the unbelievable gall but these days I’m really just tired of it. We are all so lied to and all buy into it without even realising how insidiously it has crept in and reprogrammed even the best of us. The media is relentless and keeps us in a state of perpetual unhappiness with our bodies and everything we have. Its so twisted.