A Caucasian guy behind him asks him who the gentiles are. He replies, "The whites." The cracker asks him what he knows about the whites. "What?" the dude with the cane exclaims. "I'm a minister of the truth!" The pale face backs off. The guy in the wheelchair speaks up, announcing that he identifies with the gentiles. "I'm white," he mentions. "You are?" cane dude asks. "You look black to me, nigga," he observes. The wheelchair guy says that he has a grandmother who was white. i don't know which is more powerful, the truth or its minsters. I grab lunch and then head out toward the bus to the bike shop. But I must walk for six blocks and run for half of the last one to make a bus. The boulevard is closed around the capitol for a street fair which I hope to attend tomorrow. I pick up my bike for one last ride. For the first time in the two and a half years I've owned it, the seat is raised almost too high for me to reach the pedals. This is going to be an interesting (meaning ridiculous) afternoon. A kind of abomination to the memory of the performance of this wonderful bike. Even having been so abused by the mechanics, it still gets me where I am going. I suppose that i will achieve a new skill in the process. I hop on a bus which takes me to the train station. I must transfer to another bus on the same route which continues further along to the waterpark. For a few minutes, I am standing at the train station where I used to come from work, the last time was some three and a half years ago. I haven't been here since then. I remember cold days waiting for the bus here. It reminds me of a decade's memories, of a company with 19 locations which are now all closed, and most of its employees. The memories blow through like a fog.
The next bus takes me to the waterpark. I have my swim before returning to the corner to catch the bus home again. The sun casts a shadow behind the shelter onto a grassy patch. It's strewn with some trash. I'm not there long before a guy shows up. I immediately recognize him from another bus route I haven't ridden in almost a year. He's in a black T-shirt a couple of sizes too big for him, and dark shoulder-length hair which appears to be naturally wavy. He paces and talks to himself. He spots the trash and asks me, "Is this mess your doing?" Some time later, another guy comes wandering along. He appears perhaps older than his years. Is he sixty? He looks like he's ninety. His skin is red and looks like worn out leather. He carries is both his arms a cardboard sign, a radio, and a cigarette. In the sunshine he sits down on the bench in the shelter, he shakes his head back and forth from side to side, and he bangs his left hand against one side of the shelter. He then rises and shuffles away. The bus arrives and we crawl up the boulevard. At the last minute I realize that the bus is in proximity to a 24-hour diner. I'm out of the bus and shortly thereafter sitting surrounded by the orange polyester cushions of a booth, and orange sun shades on the windows. In a little while, I am approached by a waitress from another age. 1970? She takes my drink order before promising to return. A guy then comes out of nowhere to ask me if I want any water, before disappearing again.
During the night, I awake unable to cease coughing over and over, before falling back to sleep. It's become a familiar routine of horror. When I awake in the morning, I've had the first full night's sleep in about a week. I'm glad I chose yesterday to swim, because today is overcast, gloomy, and the morning has an edge of a chill. Not exactly exuberantly enticing summer memes. I head downtown to attend the year's People's Fair. Denver's Cinco de Mayo is the first festival to arrive in May, but June's People's Fair begins the summer's outdoor festival season. I stop at the homeless central deathburger on the pedestrian mall, where I see a usual parade of mental troubles. A guy in line to order is waving around an empty water bottle. He says out loud, "I've been kissing ass for fifty-nine years." Apparently he expects to continue doing so in the process of ordering fast food. I order, collect my food, and take a seat in view of the downtown street through the window. A white-haired slowly steps along the bike lane in the street. He is slightly bent forward and headed the wrong way. He wears a black Atari T-shirt, presumably from some three decades past. Someone inside the deathburger rushes toward the door with a start. he is hauling a suitcase on wheels with a handle. He exits the place and makes a beeline for the other side of the street. In the process of hurrying across the middle of the road, he knocks over a plastic newspaper stand. It's like watching a Terry Gilliam movie.
I attend the fair, which has a booth with info about the ship which goes out to sea to confront whaling vessels. And then, it's time to go bike shopping. A sales dude convinces me to get one with three more speeds than my old one. It's also my first bike with disc brakes, which he claims will last longer. I take it for a test spin. It feels solid. I have them put slime in the tubes and forgo the water bottle cage. I don't find myself drinking from it lately anyhow. I ride home, and am stopped along the way. At a corner just outside of downtown, a woman honks at me. She pulls over to tell me that she is staying at a hotel just nearby and asks me "if it is safe to walk into downtown from there?" I tell her not to trip over the homeless, or their shopping carts, and she should find nothing less than a city of health and joy. Just as the mayor promises. The following morning, after another night of god awful coughing, I'm on the bus up the street to work. A middle-aged guy gets on. He has an old tattoo on his forearm and a cigarette behind his ear. Another passenger begins telling him about a new hotel which is hiring. He replies, "I can't do it for less than $10/hr., bro. How many dishwashers they need?" "Three on the weekend," he replies. I change buses. On this one is a guy who answers his phone. He is telling someone that he is in the process of checking up on a new job, but for now, he must donate blood this morning. He needs cash, bus fare.
Many people define a livable city as...safe neighborhoods with a diversity of people...a sense of place...economic prosperity, social stability...stimulus in moving to urban centers... "The old way...cities and towns sat back and let the market dictate how a community should be grown must come to an end." - natural awakenings, 6/2018
...how then do you incorporate that into society... It's not like you can get a prescription for psilocybin and go to CVS or Walgreens... [...ego was spread out before him like paint on a vast canvas.] ...ego dissolution...occurs on a high-dose psychedelic experience or during a successful meditation experience.. - Boulder Weekly, 5/31/2018
I have long waited to write about gentrification...if I could contribute meaningfully...after attending...the Denver metro Association of Realtors (DMAR), I'm ready to give it a go. Most of the attendees were...professionals...in real estate, so the discussion lacked the...emotion and volume that a public meeting...might contain. ...gentrification...benefits those in the industry... ...in 1991...a journalist...was my profession back then. ...you can't have revitalization without...the displacement of low-income residents.
[One Jefferson County homeless man's] panhandling...shift generally began at about 1 p.m. and lasted about two or three hours. He was used to people...yelling at him for panhandling...as this was his routine for the past four years. "I've had people throw things at me." ...last year...a man...got out of his car, yelling..."get out of my city"...and...shoving or chest-bumping [him and] nearly hit him with hi car. "The majority of the 9homeless0 [the Jefferson County Sheriff's office encounters] want to be left alone." "...alcohol, drugs and mental health issues are much more prevalent among Denver's homeless population then Jeffco's." Homeless campsites are more hidden away and less controlled by the authorities, plus many are docile... "Getting a job is generally no the problem, it's finding affordable housing." - Arvada Press, 6/7/2018
"We just have to understand that...to do things...that would truly benefit the community, they haven't been accomplished without community input. We're far too familiar with what the process looks like. We've had to press and press and press. [The Denver Police Department union] suggests that they're quite satisfied with...the old-school, let's-get-tough-on-people-of color approach. I've had experience with [my choice for the new Denver Police Department chief. He is] in favor of interactions with people...who suffer from substance abuse and behavioral health issues that don't involve arrest." - Westword, 6/14-20/2018
Tuesday evening. The first bus home after work pulls up to the stop where I get out. On the bench is an old guy who appears homeless. He's wearing a jacket with a Denver Police Department patch on the front. Across the street is a DPD cruiser stopped with lights on. It's next to another bus bench, this one with a young guy laying sown on it. Next to it is a folded wheelchair. I hop on a connecting bus. Down the way a young couple get on. The lady asks the guy if he will see her later on. he tells her that he has "group" tomorrow. a "house meeting is at six." He tells her that he is aware of her UA.
By 25 November...all the...great cities of Afghanistan - had been lost to...the Taliban... ..they decided to give me a visa. ...a young Taliban...stamped "Entry" over my visa... Far away across the Kandahar desert, I could hear that drumroll again, the thunder of B-52 bombs. "...the Americans are bombing the centre of town." ...a refugee with a cracked face...he looked seventy but said he was only thirty-six... "The Americans just destroyed our homes," he cried. "...a big plane...spat smoke and soaked the ground with fire." For a man who couldn't read and had never left Kandahar province in all his long-short life, this was a chilling enough description of the Spectre, the...AC 130 "Bumble Bee"... And down...poured hundreds more refugees... "There was a plane that shot rockets out of its side."... Suddenly, being the last reporter in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan didn't seem quite romantic... An American F-18 soared..above us... Out of a dust storm came a woman... "The Americans bombed our home in Kandahar and the roof fell on...my daughter..." Amid the chaos and shouting, I did what reporters do. Out came my notebook and pen. Age? "She was two." I turn away. "There wasn't much ;left of my son. Whe the roof hit him, he was turned to meat and all I could see were bones. He was a year and a half old." U.S. Marines landed at Kandahar's sporting club [where] Saudi princes [used] to hunt animals wit the Taliban. The end was coming. They came out of a blizzard of sand, these people each with their story of blood.
...black mountains rose from the ocean of sand...below the bomber contrails, came those changes in air pressure to remind us that the War for Civilization was only a few miles away. The river of [refugees] was CinemaScope obscenity. First, they needed to state their reasons for entering Pakistan to a soldier sitting atop a concrete bunker. ...to produce documents... Then they had to face the press. ...a man...dared to speak...who - in a second - becomes the centre of...wires and lenses and notebooks... [An] Afghan girl, perhaps five years old...is begging from a soldier. ...the sheer mass of people. They came like this when the Russians invaded in 1979, but somehow they have become too familiar..."banalises" as my colleagues from France 2 would say... The poor and the dispossessed and the terrified are background...to out drama. - Fisk
Thursday. On the bus up the street. There is one guy in sunglasses in the front seat on the left. There is a guy in a wheelchair in the space for the stowed front seat on the left. The sunglasses guy says, "I've been up since three 'o clock this mornin', tryin' to get a ride - 'cause of his old lady." Wheelchair guy mentions that he "got stabbed seventeen times, out in that field." We arrive at the train. He gets up out of his wheelchair and the pair get out. Wheelchair guy turns to the driver and says, "I just got through a $400,000 surgery." Friday. I'm at the deathburger next to work. An elderly mom and her middle-aged daughter come in. A girl comes out from behind the counter to ask the pair if they need help ordering from the new touchscreen kiosk. "Oh, we have to do this now?" asks mom. It could have been my own question. A couple of senior guys are laughing as one tells the other, "You can eat two sandwiches. I can eat two sandwiches too." Try saying that ten times quickly. On Sunday, I take a bus up the street, for the first time to the end of the line...at 112th Street. I'm headed to the company picnic. The ride from here should be considerably shorter than some 120 blocks. We left the city and entered what appears to be farmland around 80th. I cross the boulevard and spot a coffee shop. It's my only hope for breakfast this morning. I enter the open front door. It's one of those local places with leather furniture. By the door, a woman plays '80s hits on a dulcimer. I order a slice of quiche and tea for eight dollars. I eat it on a mosaic table which wobbles. The "picnic" is actually nice, despite the 97 F degree temp. After an hour and a half I ride back to the bus stop for another 100-plus block ride back south. Somewhere around 70th, a drunk/mental/high guy gets on. He complains about the heat. Perhaps if he was in shorts instead of jeans. Looking at his long, greased hair, I don't see any perspiration. He sits in front of a pair of female passengers, who he refers to as "sistas." He gets up to stand at the front, before sitting behind me, before getting up to stand at the front again. When he gets out, he struts around in a circle. I jump out at the train which I take through downtown. I decide that I'm hungry and grab lunch. Though I've had my suit with me, it's too late to swim. I take the train to a stop closest to the camera shop. At the shop I exchange a roll of used film for a new one, before a hot trek to another bus. I lived in this neighborhood for 16 years before departing in 2007, as (I've read) the recession was just beginning. I stop at a gas station with a broken ice dispenser. Across the street is a Subway. Where else can I find a soda machine with Vitamin Water? Power to those who don't need to purchase fossil fuel. Was it less than a couple of weeks ago when I was wondering when it would be enough to swim? Today it's pushing 100.
"This is the white-collar spiritual path." Much of today's upper class is engaged in a frenzy of self-improvement. They want to be skinnier, healthier, younger-looking, smarter, nicer, more loving... They may eat more vegetables, but this age seems more narcissistic that any before...and has put many individuals in the grip of an uneasy self-image... "Vanguard"...was the leader of their philosophical movement. ...his first student was "Perfect"... ...a number of colorful sashes hung on hooks. Each color in the hierarchy was...a higher state of self-awareness...also reflected a member's ability to recruit more members. ...what was important to know about [Vanguard, according to him,] was that what he does every day i simply walk and think...about how to solve humanity's problems. "I'm like a nerd who has...thought too much." men are repressed and do not enjoy the same rich experience of existence as women, but they have an understanding of right and wrong: women [believe] "the crazier I get, the more I get." ...most of the women had been indoctrinated...and thus believed that men were inclined toward polyamory and women not... As [Vanguard] was driven away...in a police car...the women gave chase. If they let him loose, perhaps they would be exhibiting weakness or hitting against an emotional problem that needed attention. - The New York Times Magazine, 6/3/2018
"' The City of Angels...virtually an ideal climate...natural beauty, and...economic prosperity...few demonstrations...little trouble from militant factions.'" ...KTLA-TV's "telecopter" was the first of its kind. [This, the first helicopter filming and broadcasting from the air showed] so far mostly...shots of the swimming pool where Marlon Brando's maid had drowned... Now... Los Angeles black citizens were burning down their neighborhood. So dynamic had the American economic engine become that it was fashionable to presume that prosperity could fix any social problem. "I'm sick of all the...talk about the things we can't do.," Lyndon Johnson had told an aide. When the people who felt like losers united around their shared psychological sense of grievance, their enemies felt somehow more overwhelming, not less... Martyrs...not really martyrs, oppressors...not really oppressors: a class politics for the whole middle-class. - Nixonland, by R. Pearlstein, 2008
Monday. After a workout and a swim, I am at the deathburger next to work. On one wall is a decorative map, complete with street names. I don't recognize any of the names and I realize that it's not a map of this neighborhood. At a table is a senior guy with something which I've never seen. He has a pair of matching camouflaged water bottles. Wednesday. I'm waiting for my last bus home from work. Evening finds me at the bus stop out from of the Muslim doughnut shop. There is a woman who does not appear to be even remotely Muslim here. She is furiously sweeping up the broken glass and cigarette butts into uncollected piles. She's in a black T-shirt with a logo on the front. It's for either a heavy metal band or some computer game. She has a brunette perm and a seventy-year-old face. "Got to keep the doughnut shop clean," she declares. I tell her that I wonder why it smells like gasoline out here. She takes several sniffs before letting me know that the shop does not use any gasoline powered machinery. The following evening, I am off work and at a stop for my first bus home. This is a different stop for the bus than my usual one, but it has its own unexpected characters. Standing right next to the sign for the stop is a single, solitary twentysomething. He has a metal cane which he continues tap-tapping on the concrete. It makes a ringing sound. He confesses to me that his phone "just died." He wants to know if this is the stop for a particular route. The numbers of the routes this stop serves are posted on the sign. He then hands me a small piece of paper with written directions. One arm has a sleeve of tattoos. At he top of this scrap of paper is the bus route and a "7", presumably a general reference to the time it arrives. "I don't know what the seven means," he mentions in his slow, quiet voice. He's yet another someone who is going from somewhere to somewhere else, on a route which he appears not to have been on before. The bus arrives, and we make our way back to my own boulevard, where I hop out. My last bus home arrives, with the bike rack full. A passenger hops out to take his off the rack, making space for me. After I put mine on the rack, another passenger rides up, just a second too late.
Friday. After work. Bus stop in front of the Muslim doughnut shop. I either get here just in time for a connecting bus...or I have a 30 minute wait for the next. This evening I wait. Toward the end of the wait, a Mexican guy 9who I've seen here once before, about this same time0 comes along. We exchange greetings. A bolt of lightning flashes overhead, from a dark cloud. Then I watch a woman, perhaps 40 years old, cross the middle of the boulevard. Her hair is bleached almost white. She has "ample bosom," as I've heard it said, and she's in a summer dress. I turn to the Mexican guy and suggest that she perhaps is a lady of the evening. He agrees. She's the second I've seen on this corner this year. The following Tuesday morning, I step out of a bus to work, on a corner where I catch a connecting bus. From around the back end of this bus comes a long grey-haired guy in a headband. It's an odd combination with his buttoned down shirt. He is pulling a collapsible shopping cart. He moves slowly and speaks weakly as he raises his hand and says, "Wait." He is the very definition of invisible. When the driver takes off, I listen to the wheels of the cart against the sidewalk. The day after, I am coming out of the sports complex after a workout. As soon as I get on a bike trail, I see a guy sitting on a bench. He has a cat on a leash. Some ten hours later, I am on my last bus home form work. In the back are a couple of guys discussing the prisons which they have been locked up in together.
Friday again. Fridays are my...Fridays. I'm at the bus stop across the street from where I live. Even when a minivan pulls into the parking lot of the liquor store, full of middle-aged and senior Caucasians, all dressed as if they are office workers out on lunch. It's been a little while since I've been at a bus stop visited by Jehovah's Witnesses. A blonde in a skirt comes out of the front passenger side to hand me a Watchtower. I admitted that I had no idea what Caucasians were doing on this street. When she laughs, I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing. When the van is able to back out onto the boulevard, I flash them a peace sign, and she smiles. With Jehovah on my side, who can be against me? My bus arrives to collect me. At couple of stops along, a mom and her daughter get on. The mom recognizes another mom. This other mom is in a red T-shirt from a car wash. Her hair is the same color as her shirt. She asks the first mom if her daughter missed the bus, and this is why they are on public transportation. The daughter appears embarrassed. If she is sixteen, she appears younger. She's cute, with her hair in braids and a headband. As the moms converse, the daughter watches me as I write these words down into a notebook. The girl's mom gets out at a stop. Only then do I notice another guy, perhaps nineteen. He's siting across from the girl, and he is wearing the same kind of shirt from a car wash. The other mom then begins talking to him, only in Spanish. He moves next to the girl and put his arm around her. Okay, so...she's his girlfriend? She's in school and he's not? She speaks English and he does not?
One doctor compared...the Bible...to...using a textbook from the 1920's... A skeptic might even ask if you would use a manual for an old computer...in using a new...computer. Why...use such an ancient guide in today's modern, high-tech world? ...websites and blogs [blogs indeed...] send out...the latest...guidance. TV pundits and talk shows feature...knowledgeable psychologists, lifestyle gurus, and authors. With...up-to-the-minute information...why turn to the bible... People still want ti find meaning in life...a reasonable measure of happiness and security, good family relations, and rewarding friendships. - The Watchtower, No. 1 2018
When I caught sight of the Koranic library burning - there were flames 30 metres high...I raced to...the U.S. Marines' Civil Affairs... An official shouted..."This guy says some biblical library is on fire." Half an hour later there wasn't an American at the scene... The flames...now shooting 60 metres into the air. ...shards of paper...blowing in the wind... ...a request to protect a camel convoy... ...the cost of...military horses...for the Ottoman armies... ...the opening of the first telephone exchange in the Hejaz - soon to be Saudi Arabia... This...was the tapestry of Arab history - all that was left...which I picked off the road... And I remember those who have died. Margaret Hassan...who distributed medicines to the dying children of Iraq. Kidnapped, videotaped in tears...and then shot in the face... Marla Ruzicka, who would sit by the pool of the Hamra Hotel collating the number of Iraqis...killed since the invasion. Fifty... A hundred thousand...? Marla was roasted alive...a suicide bomber exploded... I have watched many times Ken Bigley's face as he pleads...to Tony Blair. Then comes his...decapitation. - Fisk
Saturday. I'm on my biannual pilgrimage to the central branch of the Denver Public Library. Today is the last day of a four-day used booksale. The first bus to arrive is northbound. I step up behind a short grey-haired guy in a sleeveless jersey, sunglasses, and sucking a toothpick. I can already tell this motherfucker is going to be a pain in the ass. He tells the driver that he didn't see him and his pals waiting for the bus in the shade. The driver tells him that he thought he and the others "were just chillin'" rather than waiting for a bus. Looking at this prick, I can believe it. He's too school for school, fool. He responds to this by suggesting that the driver had better "learn the difference. I'll call [the transit system] on your ass." He takes a seat in the very back. Alone. He doesn't need anything from anyone but his toothpick. I have my bike on the rack and my bike gear on, including a mirror on one wrist. The bus is full and I'm standing up front. Sitting next to be is a guy twenty years younger than myself. He has a couple of kids with him and his wife. Or his mom? She appears to be older than him. He asks me, "Is that a hand mirror?" I acknowledge this. He makes a face as if this is the dumbest thing he's ever heard of. Several hours after the booksale, I'm having a late dinner at the Vietnamese place behind where I live. It's always full of the only Caucasians I see in my neighborhood. A couple of women and a guy take a table, all white. The guy has short hair and a long beard, and a tie-dyed T-shirt with the NASA meatball on the front. A couple of young Caucasian women are at another table. They reek of college. A waiter brings a plate of mint leaves and limes. One of the women makes a face like "ew," and recoils.
Monday. June is waning. Advertisements for July 4th sales abound. It's been alternating between heat and rain. Last Sunday felt like October. In a couple of days, the forecast is for 101 degrees F. It's after work now and I'm at a stop for my first bus home. It's a bit late, and I call the transit system number. They alert me that it's broken down. I take another bus east. This one takes me to a station for a new commuter train running between here and downtown. My bus home is more than a half hour away. I decide that this evening is my chance to step onto a new commuter train for the first time. The interior reminds me of the shutlecraft from Star Trek. The bikes hang from the front wheel on a pole with something to absorb any shocks. It's a short ride into Onion Station. In one fell swoop, thanks to a broken down bus home, I've learned everything I need to know about taking my bike on the new commuter train. Thank you Jesus. I disembark and roll past downtown Denver's swinging Caucasian restaurant nightlife, and catch a train to my boulevard. At my street I decide to ride home, neglecting to so much as glance behind me. I bus which I could easily have caught rolls past. That's fine. I decide to stop along the way at my old deathburger. I'm hungry. behind the counter, a high school goofball chats up a teenage girl on the other side. The computers have been down and there is a bit of a line. An employee takes an order to a table, where sits an elderly guy making loud grunting noises. They converse in Spanish.
A couple of evenings later, I am back rolling up to the stop for my last stop home. I spy a passenger wit his own bike. If the bus arrives with only one open slot for a bike, he was here first and will get the space. I immediately head north to the stop before this one. Every time I do this, no one appears to suspect what I am doing. We could otherwise race each other to be first to the bus. I get to the stop before the other one, and the bus arrives indeed with only one remaining slot for a bike. Which I get to use. We roll up to the next stop, and the other guy doesn't even ask the driver if he can bring his bike in the back door.
The Peace Corps could go off and build dams in India of schools in Bolivia, but it was the War Corps...battling Communist guerrillas... Most [U.S. Marine recruits] came from the ragged fringes of the Great American Dream, from city slums and dirt farms and Appalachian mining towns. ...the words "2 yrs. high school" appeared in...service record books... The scene at the batallion area... Enlisted men were running...in full battle dress [,some] still in civilian clothes...others in only their underwear, odd bits of equipment slung over their naked shoulders. Could it have been only a year since I was discussing..."Tom Jones" and "Joseph Andrews"...since my roommate and I were listening to Bach and Vivaldi... What a waste of time that all seemed now. - A Rumor of War, P. Caputo, 1977
Thursday. This has been a bad week for my first bus home from work. This evening is another no show. It's been a good week to learn how to ride the new commuter trains, and to get to know one driver, who shows up today on another route. My own bus arrives after she does, more then 30 minutes late. I calculate that I may get home sooner on the other bus/train route. I recognize the driver of the bus which is late. She's cute. The other driver tells me that this one was in the transit system class ahead of her. The classes require learning such a volume of information that some drop out. This driver was only one of two graduates in her class. She tells me that she had to be "worked into" the graduates before and after her, and that the transit system has a shortage of drivers. My own bus has been late due, in turns out, to baseball games downtown. The following morning is a cool and beautiful one. Cloudy with a gorgeous view of the tail end of the Rockies from this stop. I watch a little street racer go past. Mounted on his roof is the top half of a shopping cart. The cart car accelerates up the street. I'm out early enough to get a swim in before work. I'm locking up my bike when a woman comes out to unlock hers. She introduces herself. Susie has the same name as my sister. We talk biking before she bids me farewell. After my swim, I'm out on the trail when I come upon a woman walking her dog. She's looking at her phone. She appears perhaps to be a runner; great legs.
...beyond the popularity of brunch in this city. The restaurant feels comfortably hip, with a retro-industrial vibe fueled by cartoonish pop art, a glass-lined mezzanine and light-blue banquettes. It's a great place for groups, and has a full bar... ...one of Open Table's Best Brunch Restaurants in America this spring...picked up by "Forbes" and "Travel & Leisure"... - Westword, 6/28 - 7/4/2018
Saturday. I'm out to get stamps during a brief three-hour window when the post office is open today. It precludes my having breakfast until I have stamps in hand. With my stamps I head from the post office and stumble upon a bus headed toward the camera store, where I need my pdf file changed by magic technological spell into jpegs. The bus will take me as far as a 24-hour diner, where I grab breakfast. The clientele appear to include Caucasian twentysomething hipsters. Among a pair of couples is a guy of intellectual affectation, with long bleached hair and Tivas, and a girl of delicate appearance in a sundress with tattoos. Another young couple takes a seat at the table in front of me. She's in a T-shirt from a local brewing company. From the neck up, he looks like Jesus. The hostess is cute and her accent sounds Russian. She has blue bangs and her name is Lulu. I learn this when the owner shouts at her, "Lulu, any room at the counter?" After breakfast I make the trek across town to the camera store. Pdf is now jpegs. I head out for the swimming pool, a pool where I went swimming when I lived in this neighborhood sixteen years ago. The day has warmed up from the sixties, and is much better than six days ago, when an October rain descended upon late June. It actually has turned into, if a cloudy one, a beautiful day. After a short but refreshing swim I trek back the way I came, stopping at the shopping mall which I lived up the street from, for some sixteen years. I grab a late lunch at Tokyo Joe's, where I hear both an Australian and a Middle Eastern accent. The Aussie is a grey-haired guy who orders wine with his meal. It isn't clear to the employee serving him if the patron understands he is not to take his wine outside the eatery, into the shopping mall. The mall itself appears to be host to a collection of teenage neo-hippie weirdo/wannabes. And guys is athletic shirts with the state flag as a design, and gay men. With a reference to gay men, I ask, where are the gay women? Perhaps they shall appear during another month...
