...because insurgents strike supply routes so often, it's...the non-infantry soldiers...with fewer up-armored vehicles - also end up in engaging in combat. I speak Arabic, so I participated in interrogations. I had to...do battle with...the locals... i pointed my weapon at a child. ...night of the mountains west of Mosul, no moon, no stars... The smell of dead animals being burned. How the faces of local women, and especially little girls, just "lit up"...at the sight of a female soldier... Saddam's policies - marble, multiple colors...designs and layered, incredibly beautiful... I asked Rick sometimes about Islam. ...their end-of-time beliefs... In the end of days...all Muslims would rise up and kill all non-believers. "Would you kill me?" And he said, "I don't know." - Love My Rifle More Than You, K. Williams, 2005
It's Bingo Night at the American Legion Post 111 in Louisville [, Colorado]. I stop in...to talk about...guns and Trump. But all the veterans - and their sons and wives and daughters - want to talk about is fireworks. "Since 1991 the American legion hs run the fireworks for the City of Louisville. One member has their pyro license. We're there from 6 a.m. until midnight. ...everybody thinks the City of Louisville puts it on. ...the person who has the pyro license is an American Legion member and...a lot of the people...on the course...are all American Legion people...in their donation hours." "And we are veterans," the bartender says. "If we used the Louisville money," a voice from the other side of the bar calls, "That shit would be 15 minutes. Ours is 30." ...Gastronauts, a restaurant that uses the Legion kitchen,..serves the Legion members their meals. "We have not seen the influx of new members...from the Gulf War and Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't think they even know what American Legions of VFWs are... We just got a new young couple...in the Marines...and they didn't know what it stands for." - Boulder Weekly, 6/28/2018
Not to be confused with people who actually work to make a difference in the world, the Ecosexual...is mindful. He'll surely tell you about his mindfulness. His monologues will be so infused with the word mindful that you'll soon want to give him a piece of your mind. And don't even get him started on composting. The Ecosexual is very present. Mindfully present in the moment. You can find him grazing Whole Foods...proselytizing to unsuspecting customers. ...out for dinner, he'll take forever to order his special-dietary needs meal - but at least your bone broth will be safe. ...he'll speak to you [about] the issues he's acquired despite a whole staff of therapists, life coaches, healers, guides, visionaries, etc. He strives to be edgy... Hopefully he will be able to work through it all at his next...journaling course, where he'll be sure to be mindfully present. - Elevation Outdoors, 7/2018
...Satan and the demons will motivate human governments to assemble their armies, thus issuing a defiant challenge to God's interests. The attack will result in the death of millions of people when God defeats the invaders. ...God will defend good people from those who would crush them. The aggressors in this conflict are "the kings of the entire inhabited earth." ...like a puppet master, Satan will maneuver both governmental and military agencies. If the aggressors managed to do away with His people, it would make Jehovah appear to be unloving, unjust, or helpless. Such an outcome is impossible! ...when Satan and his human puppets attack God's people, Jehovah will...meet force with force. ...there will be no doubt...that they have picked a fight with the Almighty himself. - The Watchtower, 2/1/2012
Monday. I just miss a bus and therefore have time to stop into the gas station across the street from where I live...before heading over to the bus stop across the street from where I live. Inside, a little guy comes in with a walker. He's wearing an open red flannel shirt, and he has a green flannel shirt on the front of his walker. Tucked into a side of the walker are an umbrella and a disassembled fishing pole. He asks the clerk if he can have some ice water for free. The clerk gives him the OK. When I get out to the bus stop, he's there sitting on his walker. A younger guy comes along and gives him a cigarette or something. The pair begin comparing notes about being out on parole from prison. I notice that the younger guy is wearing an ankle monitor. He's telling the other guy about working a couple of jobs to afford an efficiency apartment. His rent is just under $900 a month. Listening to the younger guy, he has a youthful voice and looks like a nice guy. I have trouble picturing him as a criminal. My bus collects me and deposits me to catch a connecting bus. At a stop along the way to work, a couple of young guys get on. One is in a camouflaged coat and speaks with difficulty. He tells the driver that they have been walking for several city blocks and have no money. Could the driver see his way to letting them go a short distance more? Again today, a passenger gets the OK from someone in a position of authority. The second guy is hauling a big bundle on a dolly. Just a few stops later, the first guy tells the other that they "can get off here." He points out the sign for the bus stop. I disembark at the end of the line and pedal my way up a hill and down again to the rec center, for a workout and a swim. As I am leaving, inside are kids in bright yellow T-shirts with the rec center logo. Outside, sitting in the shade of a shack, are a handful of Mexican workers. Each is wearing a bright yellow T-shirt with the name of the company for which they work. After work, I arrive at the stop for my first bus home. This evening's lone random weirdo is a little woman in her thirties. She's in a plaid tank top and denim shorts, with a lavender bandana around her head. She could be Workout Daisy Duke from the 1980s. Before the bus arrives, she picks up a pair of jeans and leaves. My bus arrives, and sown the route, I hear a hustle I haven't heard before. A passenger at a stop tells the driver that she has last month's monthly transit system pass, not yet 48 hours expired. Can he see his way to allowing her to use it this evening, as she "was only able to use it a couple of times last month?" Then why get a monthly pass for two trips in a month? At $99 per monthly pass, that's $49.50 per trip.
The following day is the day before July 4th. I'm on a late morning connecting bus to work. Our route is blocked along a short stretch of road by construction. For the first time in my 27 years on this transit system, I am on a bus which makes a 3 point turn. And then it's the 4th. I am downtown on the pedestrian mall, at a bar and grill for lunch. Outside, at the front entrance, is a twentysomething girl. She's unkempt but not dirty. She is panhandling with an attitude. "Anyone...have...spare...cash? ...change?" Her demeanor makes me doubt that she is serious. I finish lunch and am making my way to the train. She is just down the mall. A guy she has past claims that she yelled at him. I spot a vendor for the local homeless newspaper. I ask him if he can break a twenty if I draw it out of an ATM a few steps away. He laughs and tells me that I am the first person who has spoken to him all day. Not even the girl with the panhandling attitude. This means he has no change. I hit the ATM and run into a drug store for change, and soon have a copy of his paper in hand. We're on a corner for the train to the waterpark. Pacing the length of this block and back again is a bald guy with a long beard. He's in a camouflaged winter jacket, and no shirt. I jump on a train and jump out at my stop. At the trailhead for the bike path to the pool, a truck is parked. The windshield has a sunshade. Written on each side is, "Believe in heroes."
I awoke outside of Las Vegas...to the sound of engines braking...and the smell of cheap breakfast burritos... ...time to hit the road again... Adventure via vehicle is...sitting in interstate traffic jams, worrying where you'll sleep that night... In the south, I learned how to slow down... Life revolved around butter and bouldering. ...in...a...blizzard...post-holing through the carless streets in search of sled-worthy hills. ...a puppy...teaching me how to hang my head out the window of a speeding car, to smell the earth... Out in the Western mountain states...I would fold camp [and] pray my baby-wipe shower rendered me socially acceptable for meetings with outdoor executives... ...in Kentucky...baked crust wafting through wet summer air after a long day of clipping bolts in Red River Gorge. ...each of these...memories...belong to...every human who ambles down highways in pursuit of America. I spent a year living out of a...Sprinter van, summers in Honda Pilots and borrowed Nissan NV campers, weekends in rentals, a month [in] back of a...Jeep with three dirty boys, 33 days sleeping in the hatchback of a Scion. - Elevation Outdoors, 7/2018
..."reward" retreats are very different from "planning" or "project specific" off-site getaways. ...working/relaxing ratio; focus group of sessions; and depth of commitment... Rewards are more likely to include non-associate guests, but warm weather retreats may have simultaneous working sessions and entertainment for non-associates with the two merging for social events. Combine simple, proven, interactive casual group-appropriate activities like hamburger grilling, Frisbee...bowling, or trivia, with...simple personality tests... - American Drycleaner, 6/2018
Travel Channel' "Booze Traveler"... "Travel should be about inspiration...enjoying a drink with a stranger." ...drinking is a universal language shared by many. ...drink with the Taiwanese ghostbusters...and...zen at a private spa with a slightly intoxicated monk. ...fascinating to walk the same areas as the "killing fields" of Cambodia. "It's a wonderful and surprising country." ...a selfie moment...at the DMZ (Korean Demilitarized Zone). - asian avenue, 4/2018
I usually smoke [marijuana] at least three times a day: before I run or go to yoga... ...it's not holding me back from the life that I want to live. ...I miss...being too high too function. ...in college...it only took a couple of bowl hits... And that's...East Coast...mediocre mids [sic]... ...some of my...income comes from writing [marijuana] strain reviews, and turning down work...would be financially irresponsible of me. ...I can't remember the last time I've gone...without consuming weed... ...a...break will...be a challenge...pushing me out of my comfort zone. Will I look forward to trail running if I am completely sober? Is it going to be as enjoyable? Will I get bored or develop social anxiety...? How am I going to fall asleep at night without getting high...? ...I'm going to write about my...side effects... - Boulder Weekly, 7/12/2018
Friday. I'm looking forward to the weekend. A new movie is showing at a mall which I have recently reconnected with. Or rather connected with in a way for the first time, even though I used to live up the street for sixteen years. I've discovered a new health-conscious-fusion-carbon footprint-love not hate restaurant there, in that old money neighborhood where trendy was trendy before it was trendy, in a city which has thrown its lot in with those who drank the Kool Aid; where existence has become the message. And this weekend is that neighborhood's art festival, the metro area's original art festival to end all festivals. I haven't been to this festival since I lived there. The place comes with baggage. That I have returned as a result of my new relationship with a camera store not far from it, and a swimming pool along the way, reminds me of my own advice to others: never say never. But I get ahead of myself, as usual. This morning, I am at the bus stop across from where I have been living since moving from said neighborhood, eleven years ago. I am waiting for the same bus as a Mexican guy. I realize this because we both decline two buses which arrive on one route, and a third bus on yet another route. And we both continue to watch down the boulevard. He's in a sky blue T-shirt with white letters on the front. It reads in English, "Never been cool." He finally gives up and crosses the street. Then the Jehovah's Witnesses are back. The bastards sneak around and park behind me, in front of the fire station. This must be their favorite summer bus stop. I won't mention the two young Latter Day Saints who live in the new Caucasian apartments just across the street. The next thing I know, there is a guy standing next to me, shirt and tie, his grey hair blow dried. He otherwise looks like a high school guidance counselor from my middle school in the late 1970s. He hands me a Watchtower magazine with "ARMAGEDDON" across the front. "Goin' to work?" he meekly asks, his voice so weak it makes it sound as if he has beaten by thugs out to steal his Paul Mitchell hair product. I tell him that I would love to read about ARMAGEDDON. "Actually," he replies as if asked, "it's positive." Thank Jehovah the bus is here.
Saturday. I am indeed at the aforementioned indoor shopping mall, for lunch among the neighborhood's eclectic, hip, and moneyed residents. I was a younger man during the times I was last here. Ten, twenty, some twenty-five years younger. It was not so much animosity I had for the people of this neighborhood when I lived here. Perhaps it was more a lack of patience for the same old apparent stereotypical kind of person I saw here. I don't feel that way since I have been returning here this summer. Then again, I don't live here anymore. And the people in the neighborhood where I live now are, shall we say, less susceptible to criticism. Of course, all the parents appear twenty years younger now. On my way here, I turned a corner on a sidewalk to find myself suddenly behind a young Caucasian couple. I had to slow down until I decided to go around them by moving onto the grass. It looked like they weren't as interested as I in making the green light through the intersection. When I hit the grass, I toppled off the bike. They had no idea I was there, so to them I must have dropped out of the sky. It was the usual drawing in of breath and, "Are...you...okaaaaay?" I was little the worse for wear and more worried that my bike was still functioning. Ya know, so I could eventually get back home. "Bikes can be fixed," the female points out. I proceed to straighten the handlebars with my bare hands. So they can be. I point out the virtues of a $99 bike. Wrong neighborhood for the dissemination of my own experience. The guy is unimpressed that I don't want any help, and they are on their way. So am I fortunately. Not far at all from here, I had to drive my car with a flat tire the few blocks home from the supermarket. A decade or so ago. Perhaps when they were in high school, or younger. I wonder what they would think of the fact that I no longer own a car, haven't for more than a decade. It eventually quit here in this neighborhood as well. My weekend bike, I recently discovered, has a bent back wheel which continues to operate. If anyone is successful in stealing this one, they will make off with a falling apart machine.
After lunch, I head over to the camera shop to drop off some film, but not before sticking my head into another business. A girl I used to work with, for another company, manages a store here. I tell her employee to tell her I said high. My friend is now about the age I was when I was her manager, when I first became a store manager. Too many memories. I then head to the pool. I missed the bus which would have brought me all the way out here, and could only take one half the distance. It's a blazingly hot day to ride. I make it to the pool just as clouds from an approaching storm turn down the sun. After my swim I am back out on the bike trail. I used to ride home on this trail, from the store with the girl I worked with. Perhaps even less than a year ago, I wouldn't ride my bike if I didn't get enough sleep of if there was inclement weather. Such things no longer influence my decision making. Before I get to the art fest, I decide to stop into a deathburger for an early dinner. As I eat, I watch a guy panhandle with his dog, on the median strip of a busy avenue. There is another street guy inside. He has bushy grey hair and a busy beard. He asks me where the nearest Target is. It's right next to us. He's from the street...right outside...right? He wants to know also where a Best Buy is. If it's still open, it's further down the boulevard across from the interstate. He tells me he wants to get a phone, "I figure it's the best thing," he admits. Sure. If you happen to know other people with phones.
Then it's onto the festival. I lock my bike next to a big new bank building where a deathburger used to be. What I otherwise remember about this festival is it being blazingly hot. But clouds have rolled it and the temperature has dropped. It's a fest infamous for its entrance fee of multiple hundreds of dollars, pricing out all but the money-making artists. It's interesting to see a couple of booths with flags above them, which read "emerging artist." A marketing concession to the unwashed artist masses? One of the first booths I stop to look at has southwestern landscapes with intense color. I speak a bit to the artist about painting. She quickly can tell that I have some experience, but we are interrupted by a wannabe buyer. I take the opportunity to slip away. The fest is enormous, going on for street after street. I spot a collection of cloudscapes done with amazing command of pastel. The following late afternoon, I am off the bus on my corner, back from a swim and a movie. I hear a voice at the apartments across the street from where I live. i recognize it as Caucasian. I glance over to see...a guy in a kilt and a woman dressed as a wench. They must have returned from the renaissance Festival. In...my...neighborhood.
Monday. This is one hot month. I'm on a crosstown bus to work with a driver who is a trip. He is from Africa and he's constantly stopping the bus and opening the front door to say hi to someone, or to tease another. We stop next to a parked dump truck. The driver has his door open and is drinking coffee. Our own driver opens the door and asks the other driver for some coffee. Down the route, we happen upon a street closed for construction. Through his window, he tells one Public Service guy that there should be a detour sign. Then he tells another guy who tells him, "I'm trying to reach traffic control right now." Then we turn a tight corner past a parked motorcycle and an oncoming truck. We stop next to a Public Service vehicle. The driver opens the door and complains to a third Public Service guy, this one in the truck, about no detour sign. The guy in the truck claims that detour signs are "permanent. This is a temporary job." (?) Down the street, our driver stops and opens the door to tell a young woman walking her dog what a beautiful German shepherd she has. Even though we are now late. At least she is happy. When we arrive at the transfer station, he converses with a transit supervisor in an African dialect.
...increased tax bill[s] plus rising rents. [They may] destabilize many...established neighborhoods. ...rents are...quadrupling...encouraging...owners to unload properties, adding to the...upward spiral. ...spaces...are turning over more frequently. In..."Congress Park, Capitol Hill, Cherry Creek," the "Golden Triangle, Wash[ington] Park" and...more... Shoppers...prize...walkability. Many if not most...smaller ventures likely cannot survive...higher and higher property tax rates plus rising rents. - Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle, 4/2018
History of area important
Before it was known as Restaurant Row, East 17th was also known as Lavender Row... ...having...businesses friendly to the LGBTQ community. "It just seemed to have an expiration date." - Denver Herald, 7/12/2018
[The mayor of Denver said] "we should...keep families...from being displaced." ...the city would soon unveil a Neighborhood Equity and Stabilization Team, or NEST, that will...get ahead of new construction that could alter the character of neighborhoods... "The team will deploy resources...to neighborhoods...under the threat of gentrification...and blunt any threatened loss of culture...that investment can cause. Denver is on the rise," [the mayor said.] - The Denver Post, 7/27/2018
An image... He was...against a wall... ...a jukebox next to him. Where had that been? In Georgetown [Washington, D.C.] on weekend liberties... We had picked up...government secretaries - all the girls in Washington seemed to be government secretaries. We danced...late autumn... We sat down and filled...glasses, all of us laughing... ...we were all laughing very hard... ...Levy took out his pipe... ...in Georgetown, a long time ago, before Vietnam. ...I was having a hard time remembering anything that happened before Vietnam. - Caputo
Tuesday. On my last bus home. A pair of twentysomethings, or early thirtysomethings, are sitting up front. One is in a tube top and magenta shorts, and has a small dog in her arms. The other has her legs crossed across a seat for two people, while she does her makeup in a compact mirror. A passenger gets onboard with his own small dog. The woman's dog begins barking before she hide's it's vision from the other dog. A third young woman gets onboard. She knows the other two. The first two young women disembark at a stop, and the third at another. Down the boulevard, a fourth woman gets onboard with her own dog. The following day, I am at the deathburger next to work. Through the window, I watch a guy in his seventies. He's on his phone, on speaker, gesturing with one arm fully extended. On the back on his neon lime T-shirt is "Frisbee Golf." This morning I was out the door early for an outdoor swim and my first workout at the brand new rec center. I end up getting there so early, I'm done working out with 45 minutes before the pool opens. I suddenly have something which I never have. Time. I have some time to relax. This rec center is so new there appears to be no hot water in the shower as yet. I stick my head under for a cold shower. Then I ventured to a patch of shade outside, next to a North Denver residential street. Down the road from here is the town of Golden, and just across the highway from there are the mountains. I sit and wait for 9 AM to arrive. The sun is climbing into a clear sky. It sparkles on bright green tree leaves. This is an old but a beautiful neighborhood. I realize how lucky I am to be up around these parts. Against the wall of a brick home, between a pair of bushes, are a collection of bicycle tires. Under a Neighborhood Watch sign are a collection of plastic sunflowers on metal stakes.
The coming weekend is a busy one; two festivals and another library used booksale, and possibly a swim. Before my coworker leaves work on Friday, she tells me that I must work the beginning of her shift on Saturday. But she will be in at noon that day, because she is getting an early start on a delivery at 8 AM. As Saturday goes along, I am trying to decide how I am going to arrange these events into a shrinking time frame. When Saturday comes, I am at work at 8 AM, two hours before we open, to help my coworker assemble her delivery. She does not show up until 11 AM, telling me that she "got a late start." But she promises to be back by 1:30 PM. I don't see her until again. I don't have time today to make it to the booksale. Then I get a brainstorm. I will go grocery shopping tonight, instead of tomorrow morning.
In the meantime, I am on my last bus home after work. In a handicapped seat is an overweight woman who is alternately dozing off and lifting her head. Her eyes are red and there are bags under them. Someone behind me declares that the air conditioning will work better if the open windows, of which there are more than a few, are closed. The high today was 103 degrees F. It's currently 93. Another passenger begins closing them. A female passenger complains that he hit her by mistake. An argument ensues. A couple of guys get onboard. One tells the driver that he is the caregiver for the other [and therefore is not required to pay fare for himself.] The two have a seat in back and themselves begin arguing as well. I'm halfway home and the bus is getting crowded on this hot midsummer afternoon. A young mom and her daughter get onboard and take a seat next to an elderly guy, and across from the dozing woman. The mom has a cap on which reads "Good vibes only" on the front. The guy next to her asks the dozing woman if she is on drugs. The woman denies this. The mom asks the guy not to mention drugs in front of her daughter. The other woman in back, who claims to have been mistakenly hit, now announces that "It stinks in here." She gets up to open the window above a passenger who just came onboard and took a seat. I recognize the guy. I took his photo perhaps the week before, when he was in lime skinny jeans and knee-high boots. He tries to tell her that the air conditioning will escape through the open window, and eventually gets up to close it. The passenger sitting in front of me says, "Well, it is a city bus." The mom says, "Maybe someone needs to take a shower?" The bumped into/it stinks woman in back tells the guy she's arguing with to shut up. He tells her, "Make me." She begins to call the authorities to notify them...of the entire story, or how it stinks in there and how someone asked her to make them shut up. The guy she's making a complaint about disembarks from the bus.
Sunday. There is also an Irish festival which I will not make, though it isn't far from the waterpark. I'm out of the door at 9:30 AM. I ride to a 24-hour diner for breakfast. Then it's on to the nearby train, and out at the stop for the trail to the waterpark. Yesterday was 103 degrees F. Today, it's overcast and...67. And it's spitting the occasional raindrop. But the sun is attempting to peek through the clouds. I hit the pool for a short swim and slide on the slide. Then its off to the booksale.at a library I haven't been to. I know my way around these parts. I worked up the street from here for 2 1/2 years and down the street from here for almost 10. I grab lunch at a Whole Foods, where the third person I ask is able to direct me toward the library. The clock in the library is an hour fast. After the sale I use the men's room, which is so secluded behind a door and long empty hallway that I feel like I'm in an episode of Get Smart. I use one of their computers to check the bus schedule and find one going to a train. I ride there and grab it. The train whisks me downtown. By the time I get out, it's pouring rain, which it will continue to do until shortly after 7.PM. I wait under an awning outside of a high end clothing store, with indigent passengers attempting to stay dry until the bus arrives. We pile on when it arrives. Sitting in one seat are a pair of drunk Caucasian young women. One is passed out and hiccups. This bus takes me up to the first festival, the Denver County Fair. There are carnival rides and games outside which closed at one point because of the rain. Inside I spot a woman I've never met but used to see on the 4 AM bus to work every morning, some five years ago. There are scantily costumed young women making a pitch for the "freak show" part of the fair. One is a sexy fairy and the other is a character who appears to be a sexy LSD fabrication of Alice in Wonderland. It's a laid back mellow organic farm kind of fair.
I hop on the bus back to downtown. It continues to pour. I have the time, I think, to head over to the Black Arts Fest, the second festival. But I would get soaked. And with only an hour and a half to go in the three day event, they are probably rained out anyhow. Catch you next year. I get out on the pedestrian mall and ride down the mall in the rain. I happen upon a train, which takes me to an intersection where I also happen upon a bus home right away. Regardless, when I get back to my own corner, I am soaked. I deposit the bike and pair of used books, which somehow remain dry, at home and head across the street with both dry clothes and an umbrella. From the firehouse on the other corner come a firetruck. It crawls across the boulevard, into the parking lot on the northwest corner, and probes its way across my avenue into the lot on the southwest corner. All the time, the lights and siren are going. It returns to the boulevard and makes its way back into the lot of the gas station on the northwest corner. Iv'e never seen a firetruck go to an emergency so slowly, but Sunday evening traffic at 6:30 PM is its customary bumper to bumper quantity. An ambulance has joined the firetruck. I wonder if the person put in the ambulance is a victim of malfeasance inside the gas station, or perhaps someone who passed out or fell asleep in the parking lot. In the pouring rain.
Monday. According to the transit system customer service, I have a four minute wait until my crosstown bus to work. I catch it on the busiest sidewalk where i have ever waited for a bus. I am constantly having to get out of the way for dog-walkers, runners, and assorted residents. I can see on the horizon a pedestrian coming along. As he passes the bus bench, I can see he's in a neon yellow T-shirt with "Pump it up" on the back. The sum peeks through the clouds and I move onto a shady part of the sidewalk. From the same direction, but across the street, comes a guy in a kilt. He crosses the street and begins coming down this sidewalk, and I move out of the way. The following day is overcast and threatening rain, and cool. Yes, this is a blog about the month of July, and we are smack in the middle of the summer. I don't know what this weather stuff is all about. I get north and have a short swim just before the sun comes out. After, I'm headed to work through a quiet residential neighborhood. Headed my direction on the sidewalk is a young woman with her earbuds in. She's wearing a National Geographic T-shirt.
Wednesday evening. After work, I'm at the stop for my first bus home. I watch a guy come across the middle of the avenue with a bike. I recognize this nimrod. I believe that it was a few months ago I first saw this guy. It was in the morning and he was waiting for this same bus coming up here. He was waiting for the bus standing in the fucking street. The driver yelled at him for being in the street. he told her to "settle down." He couldn't reach the back of the bike rack, so he put his on the front and told me that I would have to work my bike around his. His earbuds are in and he has a lit cigarette between his lips. The bus comes along and collects us. He doesn't go far, perhaps eight blocks one way and the same distance on a perpendicular street. He stands to get out and I examine his backpack. He has a small plastic bottle on the side, a pack of smokes in a mesh pocket, and a pair of rolled up gloves in another pouch. I ride with my gloves in the summer. I guess he carries his. The following morning is Thursday already. The summer is half over. Another weird overcast day. I step out of the bus up the street, at the Sinclair station. Standing in front of the exit from the parking lot is a middle-aged woman. She has her hands on her hips, and she's in a matching red flowered print top and bottom. Is she waiting for the gasoline tanker truck? I get onto the crosstown bus. In a seat is a guy in his thirties. He's wearing a dirty denim shorts and a worn sports team T-shirt and cap. I don't think he's homeless. He's missing that nowhere-to-go-vibe. It's something else about him. He's on streaming video over his phone with a woman the same age. Wherever she is the light is flattering on her face. It looks soft, almost Renaissance. When he stands up to get out, I see an ankle monitor on his leg. After work, I am at the stop for the same bus, headed back the other way. On the bench is a guy asking me in Spanish if the bus goes to a particular intersection. I tell him that it goes to a transfer station where he can catch the bus he wants. But I don't know how to say "transfer station." I say "location of many buses." he asks about another intersection which will work for him. Yes, I say, this bus goes there. The bus arrives with a driver who speaks more Spanish than I do.
Friday. I'm on a bus up the street. A guy a couple of seats behind me gets on his phone. "Yeah, this is Randy. I'm from store 2658. I'm on the bus this morning. I'm on the bus now. I'll be ten or fifteen minutes late. ...cool." I couldn't begin to guess which chain store brand has 2658 locations in the metro area. He hangs up and the guy sitting between us begins giggling intermittently. Randy gets back on the phone. He tells someone at his job that he's ready to come back to work after an accident. However his company requires a docter's "letter" from any employee returning to work after an accident. The penalty, according to him, is the potential for termination.
...The Island, a beach volleyball facility in southeast Denver. Beach vollyball is booming around the Denver area, with sand courts at bars, clubs, and parks. ...has six indoor sand courts... ...the owner...also owns The Oasis...in Broomfield. ...the popular two-on-two doubles that is seen on television and at the Olympics. There is no ocean...and players don't have to worry about elements like the wind off the shore. "Sand in Colorado is sometimes called "jumpers sand"...sand on genuine beaches is deeper, which makes it harder to jump. "You can play with [both] men and women on a court. It has a high degree of immediate gratification.
Pedestrians and bicyclists in Denver are facing a "public health crisis"... ...the transportation options...healthiest and most affordable are the most deadly in Denver... ..the...the city's priorities are. ...new sidewalks...on the city's "high-injury network"... At least $5 million for safety improvements on [my] Boulevard, which has a traffic fatality rate 20 times the average for urban streets in Colorado... ...the city...at its current pace...will take more than 100 years before all the necessary improvements are complete. - Denver Herald, 7/19/2018
Denver has launched a major reconstruction project on [my] Boulevard... Areas of focus in the action plan were determined by "looking for...overlap between our high-injury network and our communities of concern. [My street] is one of the corridors where you begin to see trends...a lot more fatalities and serious-injury crashes." And it's been happening for ages... The first...corridor plan dates back to 1995. "The public's patience and cooperation are greatly appreciated." - Westword, 7/26 - 8/1/2018
The solution to...food sovereignty is to dismantle the global industrial agri-food system...(the 'industrial food chain)... Many fair trade producers are...indigenous communities that have long histories of...exploitation through colonialism.
...the keys to success... Products from democratic small producer nations. ...a risk to survival... ...the structures of production costs and the organization of a large-scale private company... ...and...large-scale transnational companies. ...Nestle', Dole...(Cadbury, Nabisco)...one more product in the conventional free market trade system.
...indigenous authors...are...looking...at...navigating the class dynamics surrounding access to...food... ...the Right, and those who are confused by their rhetoric will...continue to expand colonialism and exploitation. ...it is not...a matter of...land...we can lease for five years...but a place where we can actually build our identity. Capitalism is...maintained through slavery all over the planet, and through the enslavement of the planet itself. - For A Better World, Spring - Summer 2018
...the ARISE Festival...has always been...the spitting-image grandchild of...Monterey Pop and Woodstock... These are "dangerous times"...there's...urgency around the community building that is...this homegrown festival. "Art is the perfect forum for a reflection of the time we are in. Community has to be strengthened."
...at VisionQuest Brewery's StarWater Wednesday...hug-loving, smile-wearing, hairy eccentrics...reading poetry...making anti-establishment political statements and utering..."we are all one" with no irony... ...billed as..."live magick!"... The current venue...doesn't seem to need to impress someone's rich parents with sleek decor. ...on one wall...flyers for "sustainable dog treats"... The...main organizer, Zoe Clare StarWater...looks the part, with purple semidreads, dark witchy outfits... Her intentions are to create a community...a regular counterweight to social media... She sees...those in power write off the group. "'Oh, they're just on drugs,' or whatever." - Boulder Weekly, 7/26 - 8/1/2018
Now, in 1900...the foreign powers...had been carving up China's major cities like some communal pie. ...also...the uprising was anti-Christian. The religion...demanded change throughout the whole structure of society... In the fall of 1912...into Shanghai harbour. ...warships flying the flags of Britain, France, and Japan. They looked...threatening, which was their intent. The republican revolution [in south China] was only a few months old, but...already...China was...building, looking outward to the West. ...a new political party under Sat Yun-sen. It's aim was to achieve nationalist ends by using Western technology to create a new China. ...the "People's National Party," the "Kuomintang." - McClure, M. Scott, 1977
If there is a theme...it's...possibilities... Not...another 10 miles out of the...gas in your tank or...avoid a bank fee...on your debit card... ...the kind of bigger thinking that spawned a...Bill gates. Dichotomies...spell genius. Thinking big is new thinking.
...Yoga Among the Dolphins class...beneath...the underwater viewing area of...Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat. Yoga on the High Roller. The High Roller, taller than the London Eye or Singapore Flyer...28 pod-like cabins...
"We do a lot of tending to the community. We look at how we're integrated into the community, providing jobs for people of different ages, responding to people's need to talk about their issues." ...there isn't a standard... ...a slight pay differential to employees who bike to work, encouraging exercise and relieving a former parking problem. "We get children on their way home from school. We get people with walkers in their 80s or 90s, with their caregivers. We try to be nurturing...to people of all ethnicities". ...embedded in communal relationships... "I'm staying local - I'm not motivated to have strong internet sales." - Discover Life, Spring 2018
It's the last full week of the month. The mornings have been in the sixties, the sun rising through forest fire smoke. Thursday morning. I'm at the stop for my connecting bus to work. I'm passed by a young guy with a long blonde perm under a Pizza Hut cap, walking his dog. he gives me a smile and a half wave before ambling on his way. In the evening, I roll up to the stop for my last bus home. As the bus arrives, a young woman with hair shorter than mine, skin tanned from the street, and dressed in black approaches me. I have to ask her more than once what she is saying. She is asking me, not in so many words, if there is a power source up in the mountains which may be utilized in the tattoo process. The following morning, I am on a bus up the street to work. A passenger gets onboard. He's a young Caucasian male. More Caucasians have been trickling onto the streets and buses in my neighborhood. This one almost appears as if he wants to be identified as a street person. He's in Capri-length pants which are torn off at the cuffs. His skin has no grime. His clothes are not limited to local sports team jerseys. I like how is left shoe is untied. I don't recall ever seeing anyone homeless with untied shoes. I've seen socks with no shoes, but his foot gear appears hip enough. In fact, his dreadlocks are not matted and his bushy beard is so clean that its auburn color shines. The brand of his backpack is neither Hello Kitty or Disney, but gender-appropriate to anyone with the money to choose. Rather than slumped in the seat or passed out, he sits with a coffee in hand looking relaxed, not harried or in despair or worn out and used up. He has instead an air of confidence, rather than an air of confusion or resignation or disconnection. He occasionally looks over his shoulder, not as if he is without any social identity, but indeed as if he is assessing his place on the bus from an understanding of his identity. I can't say who he is or where he is from. I don't believe that he sleeps on the street or digs through trash cans. He has no cane, as does another guy his age who gets onboard. I can instead see him behind a desk in one of the metro area's technology centers., or lounging at a pool for singles, or cruising a bar in Lower Downtown.
I get out at the corner for my connecting bus to work. The Sinclair station there is not busy with vehicles getting gas, but inside there are more people than I have ever seen. They all appear to be getting something to eat. One middle-aged woman wants to use the ladies' room. Instead of the usual riff raff, delivery drivers and construction guys, these are mostly student-age patrons. A couple of tall blonde guys in baseball uniforms come inside. They search the aisles for a snack. This is a far cry from the revolving drivers asking for specific dollar amounts on their pumps. What a weird Friday. Down the way, at my bus stop, a guy on a ten-speed comes out of the alley, stopping at the entrance. I watch him put his phone to his ear. he crossed the street and stops in the bike lane to send a text. I wouldn't park in any bike lane. He turns and heads back the way he came. On Saturday, I am on the way to swim and pick up photos. I stop into the 24-hour diner along the way. I'm sitting behind a trio of middle-aged guys. The other two are listening to the one next to me. This guy is an expert on everything: military drone operations, Korea and Chinese troop movements, Russian snipers. He's like a one-man episode of Homeland...in a grey camouflaged T-shirt. Saturday is grey and not warm at all all day. Sunday is different. By the time I make it to the waterpark, the sun comes out, and it feels warm enough to swim. It's the first day this year that I am here, and I don't want to leave. In spite of the fact that i bought a small cup of ice cream and by mistake sat in a section reserved for a birthday party, before of course I was asked to leave the table. After I get home, I head out for some Vietnamese crepes for dinner. On the walk back through an alley, the sun throws its long summer shadows in a shade of orange as it sines through the forest fire smoke. I pass one elderly Vietnamese guy with his right foot bent out at an odd angle. He points to a piece of trash, and it sounds as if he tells me that it is my wallet which I dropped. The next guy coming through the alley is a Hispanic guy with white hair. He's hobbling along on a crutch, carrying dinner from the Chinese place. He's in Cuervo T-shirt. I pass through an intersection of two alleys, down which I immediately spot a Caucasian guy in his thirties. He's walking his dog. I am so surprised to see one out on the street, both a Caucasian and a dog on a leash, that I say out loud, "Hes white. He's white." I follow him to see where he lives, if there is a new residence which has been built. He appears to live in the building renovated into new apartments, across the street from where I live.
Monday. Yesterday was my late dad's birthday. Tomorrow is my sister-in-law's. This morning, it's 59 fucking degrees at the end of July, and I'm at the Sinclair station to grab some breakfast. A clerk there always tells me the same thing in her monotone voice. "Be careful out there honey. People don't watch for bikes." Yeah? Well...I've got new bike shorts. And new gloves. Early birthday presents to myself, my own birthday arriving on Thursday. But that's another month. I catch my connecting bus to work. Sitting in the back is a young woman asking another passenger where her stop is. She mentions that she must complete 300 hours of community service. "But that's okay," she claims. As she goes on, it sounds as if she doesn't know much. I wonder what she was like in high school. She mentions something about her grandma. What little I can make out from where I sit includes, "Thanks for everything," "Fuck you," and "I didn't mean to get a ticket." I'm sure that a judge, or perhaps a prosecutor dispensing with pleas, has heard this already. I never hear her mention a defense attorney. After work, I get home as the sun is disappearing behind a romantic cloud of forest fire smoke. I run into my next door neighbor, who also happens to be the HOA president. Whenever this happens, we end up talking about the townhome complex. This evening, he mentions something which I wasn't sure I was correct about. He's Vietnamese, and he says to me, "I'm not sure if you want to go here, but let's go here." I knew what he was going to say. More Caucasian residents are moving into our little slice of the greater metro area. He also verified my suspicion that new homes are being built here and there. He mentioned a new clinic/hospital down the boulevard as a part of the greater neighborhood rise in value. He likes the place, he doesn't like the street racing pickup trucks. He's looking forward to a rise in property values. I think he is tuned into such changes as he informs me that these new residents are coming here out of downtown. The most interesting conversation about my neighborhood I've just has with a gay Vietnamese man. His name is Tam. I wonder, should the current character of this neighborhood eventually Caucasianize, who will be the next Tam; the next resident tuned in to its heartbeat? What an interesting way to end a month.
There's one more evening in the month however. Tuesday. I am at the bus stop in front of the Muslim doughnut shop. Underneath the bench inside the shelter, curled up asleep, is an attractive young woman. The first bus to come along has a full bike rack. I have thirty minutes before the next. I go grab some deathburger chicken and come back. Before the bus arrives, a police car pulls up. I don't believe anyone spotted her from a passing car, so I'm convinced someone called this one in. A male office comes around to me to ask me if I am doing okay. A female officer has to prod toe woman before she wakes up. She appeared to be sleeping peacefully. The officer asks her if she is doing okay. The officer asks me how log she's been there, takes my name and birth date. i expect him to take my address, but my doctor always asks me the same thing, what's my birth date. Two days from now. I tell him that she's cute. He laughs and says, "Fair enough." She rouses herself. She must have been sound asleep. She puts on a flannel shirt and makes her way down the sidewalk. The police return to their car and leave. I see my bus coming. This one has an empty bike rack. I step on board, and along the way, we pick up a grey-haired guy who is moving awkwardly and speaking with much difficulty. He attempts to strike up a conversation with a couple sitting in front of him. He asks the woman where she's from, asks her about a completely different state (She's from Florida, He asks her if she's been to Hollywood. I wonder if he thinks Hollywood is in Florida, perhaps confusing it with one of the Disney theme parks?), and then he reaches over to fist bump some guy with a walker who gets on. The guy wit the walker gets out and i move to sit in his seat. The guy taps my knee and wants to fist bump me. I stare at him. He asks me what's wrong, and becomes the second person this evening to ask me if everything in OK. When he speaks, he sounds like a child. i want to ask him the same questions which I imagine a life coach would ask, "Are you on this bus because you're going somewhere?" Because, and this is important, I'm on the very same bus. It makes me wonder where I am going.
