story

I had a friend visit a few years ago from out of state. We spend a good part of a week together and during one of the days, she decided that she wanted to see another friend of hers that was living in the area as well.

So, we trekked over to Boulder to meet this guy, Jason. on the way over, she explained to me that Jason was a crack up guy, like the best sense of humor and just all around great guy when they were growing up. However, in the past few years, Jason had decided to become one with nature and had really changed. he gave up his car, became vegan, and virtually just did anything he could to really change himself. in the process of this, he also became quiet. she was just telling me this, so that I could understand where she was coming from in wanting to see this guy...i mean, he was really cool way back when, so don't judge him on the way he is now (i guess).

Anyway, we went to his house and it was bare bones. just really plain, nice and simple. he seemed like a nice guy...you could see under the hair and stuff that he was really good looking. he was very soft spoken. we went to lunch at a place that he knew of that had the type of food that he could eat. so, we sat for lunch on a patio facing a major street in Boulder with lots of foot traffic on it. As we are getting lunch, we get on a topic of "don't you hate it when you start laughing about something and you can't stop" We all came up with funny stories, but all of jason's had to do with really "nice" things. Like, he couldn't stop laughing during an 8 hour meditation. stories where you knew, he just wasn't on the same plane as me. Like, you know he wasn't spewing soda out of his nose, laughing so hard his guts hurt. in the meantime, we all were saying, yeah, one of the worst things to do was laugh AT people. We all agreed and nodded, yeah, that is terrible. so, we were all kind of in a shame spiral about times we'd laughed at people. Basically, at that moment, it would be the worse, most inappropriate moment to laugh at people.

At that moment a man came towards us on a bicycle, with a long beard...wearing a little house on the prairie, laura ingalls wilder dress.