...the co-owners of...the Globeville Riverfront Art Center - purchased the property...renovating the motel rooms into into...housing for creatives...offering rentals to any people who can prove they're artists...as long as the would-be tenant has a portfolio. There's...a common area for shared meals and sketching circles...and walls where artists scribble information about themselves and their favorite restaurants and bars in the area. When...the property manager...was in her twenties [she] moved into...an anarchist housing collective and venue. Twelve years ago, she moved to Denver, then on the brink of an economic explosion. ...massive projects - such as Zeppelin Development's Zeppelin Station and the Source Hotel - Market Hall...in working-class neighborhoods...where artists lived and worked became prohibitively expensive. [Back] in the Midwest...artists [were] inspired by the strong union presence... A...painter...mixes her own paints 9and has found herself tripping after inhaling fumes)… Westword, 3/5-11/2020
We've waited decades for private developers to provide solutions, placing wildly unrealistic expectations on for-profit actors whose primary goal is...not to provide affordable housing... [Denver needs] Large, mixed-income housing developments that operate as public enterprises. A municipal bank to help finance...affordable home loans. ...more street-level services like public trash cans, restrooms... A tenant's bill of rights... ...put the power of city planning, budgeting/spending and decision-making into the hands of our residents, where it belongs. - Life On Capital Hill, 3/2020
...Haight-Ashbury... By the early sixties, the old Irish and Russian neighborhood had become dilapidated...slated for demolition...to make room for a freeway extension... But the Haight was now populated by...black homeowners...already pushed out of one neighborhood...artists and bohemians squeezed out of North Beach by tourists and rising rents: gays...and San Francisco State College students, who...needed cheap living quarters...young civil rights activists...a battle-hardened corps. This time the redevelopment agency's bulldozers were stopped. - Season of the Witch, D. Talbot, 2012
...close your eyes and picture your dream home... Do you see...a trendy, downtown loft inside a modern-meets-retro high-rise, or...a beautiful, crafty home near Sloan's Lake with hardwood floors and a spacious yard? "Do you love the city you live in...and who is on your team?" ...folks and families clarify their vague visions... - Out Front Magazine, 2/19/2020
Sunday is the 1st. For I don't know how long, at least a couple of years, my previous bike has been sitting in my basement. I had intended to take it a few blocks south, to a bike shop, to donate it. It strikes me as that kind of shop. But the truth is, I don't know if they in fact take donated bicycles and fix them up. The reason I'm just getting to it now is not Spring cleaning, in spite of the fact that Spring will be here in just another couple of weeks. The dustings of snow continues, though it now melts at the end of the day, and Daylight Saving begins in another week. No, the house cleaning appears to be coming to completion. My austerity measures, as a result of the increase in my health care monthly premium, are essentially halting my previous and many trips eating out. As well as a severe curtailing of shopping, or spending of money on anything beyond groceries. This has resulted in my spending a lot more time at home. Hence the inventory, sorting, rearranging, ad cleaning. My newfound free time has been compounded this month by the new policy at work. Employees now have an extra day off each week, in an attempt to reign in (in my case) 15 years of a relative glut in overtime. This weekend was my turn to have Saturday off, as well as the previous Friday.
Sunday, I have done so much cleaning in the basement that I've reached the old bike. I go online to find anyplace which will accept donated bikes. I find Randy's Recycled Cycles, and I give them a call. They will accept donated used bikes in exchange for store credit...including credit for bike maintenance. I put air in the tires for one last ride, over to Randy's. I drop it there with instructions to wait for a call from the owner. The following Wednesday is this week's day off. I decide to make my usual Wednesday trip to the gym, to grab lunch, and head over to the bike shop to inquire about my bike exchange. The owner is there and informs me he will look at it and give a call with an offer. When I get home, his message is on my land line. All told, $80 in store credit. I tell him it sounds great. I will return this Sunday to sign paperwork. Later on, I'm coming back from dinner across the street when I run into a Vietnamese neighbor. We discuss the new Vietnamese grocery building, the steel skeleton of which is coming together right next door to our townhome complex. She tells me it will be complete by September.
Spring appears to be suddenly on the way. February's below freezing mornings have given way to days in the 60s F. At the end of the week, I'm rolling down the street past the big park in the neighborhood across my boulevard. I'm leaving for work a half hour earlier than before, from now on. For more than four months at work in our new location, we've been open during the hours of our previous location, not the hours posted on our door. Just like that, on Monday we got the word we are now following the hours on the door, and closing a half hour earlier. Friday morning, I'm just past the park where new Caucasian arrivals to the neighborhood walk their dogs. Coming down the street are a lesbian couple. The taller one has half her hair dyed pastel purple, and the other bright yellow.
Upon the following Monday, I'm at work with the coworker who has friends and relatives coming in, who appear as if they otherwise would be random street people. Today, it's a guy with a damaged voice and missing teeth. He comes through the door and asks for "Pete? Is there a Pete here?" He also has face piercings. My coworker realizes that this guy is looking for him, even though his name isn't Pete. The guy hands my coworker a card with money, or something for a phone, or some such item. After work, I'm on my way home. I'm rolling past a long and abandoned building. Sitting cross-legged in front of an alcove along this building is a very young woman. She's in a spot popular with homeless folks. Seated upon something soft, she does not otherwise appear homeless. As I roll past, she asks me if I have a minute. I reply that I'm on my way home.
The workers were all so stoned all the time they walked around in a cloud of smoke...like Pigpen from "Peanuts". They were on...disability... They had the bleak haunted look of men who had never eaten...outside...the hamburger, mayonnaise, and Dorito food categories. They had long straggly hair and beards and...they could have been twenty-five or seventy-five - but they all looked seventy-five. ...with their gnarled, gaunt faces and their wide, stark eyes - were all...more interesting - than the "sculptors" and "artists" and "actors" in New York hustling...and trying to impress...with what restaurant they had eaten at or who was showing their work or what movies they were going to be in. These men were broke, they were crippled, they were angry, they were stoned, they were illiterate... - Janowitz
Beacon is one of a dozen new churches...in the Mile High City... ...Beacon's pastor...rocks an undercut and works out. ...he wears a hip button-up, sleeves rolled back to show...tattoos... ...a megachurch...pastor...in southeast Denver...encouraged to try preaching... ...Brave, a Cherry Hills church [Cherry Hills is a hyper-wealthy Denver suburb], decided to help [him] plant his first church. …"something really unique for Denver, for people who are like me"... ...Michael Walker...was raised Jewish...and..."saved" by the Jesus freak movement of the '70s... "I've seen churches cave to the culture...and I'm not going to name names...there's a pressure to put people in the seats to pay the bills, and our bills are high. You have to be [more than] just culturally relevant. ...just as drunkenness or gay marriage." ...explains...Pastor Charles Gilford III...at Potter's House. …"this market forces...churches to rent rather than buy. Maintaining a building can simply be too costly for a congregation. [A church which I pass during bike rides on] South Clay Street...recently sold its property...to the charismatic [obnoxious long, platinum-haired freaks who once in a blue moon stand in a crowd with a bullhorn on my corner,] for $1.9 million. ...some of the things the church has collected and can't keep, but can't seem to give away, like a grand piano and boxes of hymnals. "For us, it's, 'Hey, you're having a hard time at work, let's grab some food and talk.'" "There has been a call for a long time, as people moved to urban centers." ...last summer, the [Hermes'] moved with their four kids to Stapleton. [Stapleton is a huge complex with condos in the $ millions. One director of a youth and college ministry believes that the pair] "have that pioneering spirit...of the West." Every Tuesday, [Beacon's pastor] opens a tab at Hooked on Colfax...coffeehouse, where he counsels congregants...from a (legal) drug dealer considering a career switch to a lesbian couple struggling to square their love with Leviticus. "You know, if you sort of pay attention to what's on the wall, a lot of this messaging is not celebratory of the biblical values... ...I'm...for the opportunity to come out and demonstrate. I pray that God changes culture." Covering his bases, he then adds, "All of that stuff." - Westword, 3/19-25/2020
Globe Memorial, a venerable Methodist church in [San Francisco] had been taken over by a group of young clerical reformers who took down the cross and turned the church over to...billowing clouds of dope, a pulsating light show, belly dancers, and writhing naked bodies in the basement game room. Meanwhile, clerical San Francisco renegades like...the Episcopal bishop of California, compared the passion of Christ to the revolutionary struggles of the Vietcong... - Talbot
People whose comfort is based on ratiocination and conferred status naturally feel threatened. They support one another in the precept that somewhere, somehow there "is" an unchanging world, despite the fact that the world has never been one. A constantly changing world...is the stuff of...terror, and of...fascination with attempts to contain it. Speculative fiction expands on ideas. [Some attempt] to rationalize them to the point where they are manageable, without the reader's learning anything new. …"Frankenstein," with its thought that humankind might someday learn to trespass on divine prerogatives. ...Jules Verne. ...no "Invisible Man" to allegorize thorny aspects of the industrial revolution, no "Time Machine" to explore its furthest implications - no Wells at all, thank you. ...no Aldous Huxley. Kipling's..."As Easy as A.B.C."...ought to have been required reading for every social theorist from Pericles of Athens to Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago. I the actual world, there are not two cultures. You can walk about on any campus for a mere five minutes and see for yourself that there aren't. But there are people who,,,maintain restricted enclaves within our one culture. Unfortunately you can walk onto any campus and see that, too. - OMNI, 10/1981
It is, I think, Tuesday of the following week. Things have changed. The coronavirus has come to the United States in what appears to be jig time. Everyone's hours at work have been reduced. This week, I will be working six days and a much fuller schedule, also covering for a sick employee. Sick with what, I know not at this point. At the end of the week, the owner will reevaluate reducing business hours in order to maintain the company for the longer term. I'm filing for unemployment, more specifically reduced hours, and only able to do so in the morning before the entire state site crashes. Family has been contributing. Restaurants have gone to takeout-only my order of the Mayor. Both the Chinese place appears to have gone dark, and the Mexican place on my corner is doing take-out on reduced hours. The ride home this evening is noticeably emptier of traffic. Shortly after work, I'm rolling past the parking lot of a downtown high school. Walking down the sidewalk is a homeless guy carrying a blender. On the way out of downtown, on open ground next to the interstate is a tent. Sitting up inside are a couple of homeless guys I their 40s. One has a red afro which appears as if it may have come from 1973. The three of us meet each other's gazes from across the street, as I wheel past them. The following morning I am rolling past the park in the neighborhood across the boulevard. On this temperate morning, it's full of Caucasians, dogs on leashes, strollers, and women in black and pink nylon fleece. On the way home after work, I'm headed past the same homeless tent where the two guys sat yesterday. This evening, only the one without the afro is there. On the side of the open space opposite the interstate is a busy thoroughfare. Preparing to cross this traffic gauntlet are a pair of geese. I've read recent print stories about managing the metro area's local goose population. Not far past the geese is a young guy standing out in the middle of the sidewalk along the street. He's obviously watching the geese with some apprehension. I don't think he's homeless from any of the several surrounding tent and bicycle camps. He may be from the marijuana dispensary next door. Just after I pas him, it sounds as if he is speaking to the geese.
By the end of the weekend, I have unemployment and food assistance and Medicaid applications in place. I've mailed off checks for the mortgage, HOA monthly fee, and monthly health insurance premium with the help of Friday's paycheck; the last one with anything close to full hours. I'm paid for April. A sibling suggested I send her the three bills for May, pending the outcome of my assistance applications. All balls are rolling. I even have my first new email account in some twenty years or more. My current one has already been used in a separate attempt to secure similar assistance by my late mom, rendering it problematic. I begin my first week of reduced hours at work tomorrow, and we all wait to see if the owner can keep the company up and running. I stay informed of the owner's thoughts by way of a driver, who's in the know. As it happens, the owner's thoughts currently tend toward the possible suspension of operations at the slowest of our five locations. My own feelings about this are that I am extremely lucky to have someone willing to help me pay my expenses. I don't know how many renters and homeowners are so fortunate. I was once before on unemployment, for three months. It must have been the very beginning of 2005. At the time, information was collected over the phone. At one point, I had been informed that all the answers I gave to an automated system were recorded as the opposite of what I said. Most recently, the first year of the Health Care Law was 2014, during which I did not apply for health insurance as I had been told I qualified for Medicaid. I even went to a dentist once who accepted Medicaid. Late in that year, I was informed that this was a computer mistake. Again, another "automated system" qualified everyone who should not have been, and disqualified everyone who should have. I ended up paying the fine on my Federal Income Tax for not having had health insurance coverage during 2014. Six years later, we shall see what happens.
I can't say that, as I understand why what is happening is happening, I'm at all surprised at what is happening. I'm putting the extra time at home to good use, sorting through the house from top to bottom for the first time in 13 years come next month. Thirteen years is the time I rented my last place before I had to sort through it. This morning, I exercised with cinderblocks, as all recreation centers in the greater metro area are closed until further notice. I wonder what it says about my priorities that, the final week my own rec center was still open, I finally laid the money down to renew my annual gym membership? This morning, I made the second trip in two days to the supermarket. I have a newly minted routine instead of having a meal with a book before shopping. Any restaurants still open are take-out only. I get lunch from 7-Eleven and sit on a nearby bus bench with a book. This afternoon, the bus came by and dropped off a guy who exited through the front door. He walked to the back door and yelled at another passenger that he has his bag. The other passenger, a drunk, stepped out and asked me, "Waddya readin' bro?" The day before, I had stepped into a Walmart across from the supermarket, on the chance that they had any toilet paper. I was just in time to get into a very short line. I was handed a package at perhaps the only place left in the neighborhood with any at all. Toilet paper is the new Cabbage Patch Kids.
During the recession a decade ago, service industry professions such as my own were written about in periodicals as akin to saviors of the nation's economy. That was fun. Today, Monday, the Mayor ordered non-essential employees to "shelter at home." Once again, my profession is on the essential list. I suppose this increases my exposure. But riding a commuter bicycle year round carries its own risk. If I don't catch this virus, once again it's going to be fun. Therefore, I'm on my way to work past the park. I roll by a young Caucasian guy in a baseball cap. He's on his Bluetooth, "...she's doing her social distancing thing..." he mentions. Not long after I get to work, sometime during the afternoon, I watch across the street. At first, it appears as if a handful of random people are dispersed in front of a marijuana dispensary. Were they not almost to a person all absorbed with their phones, I would swear that this was some kind of protest. I realize after some time that 1) only one customer is allowed inside at a time, and 2) everyone in line is keeping 3 to 6 feet distance between each other. After some more time, this line punctuated with gaps extends around the block. I move to the front windows and snap a couple of shots. After yet some more time, passersby are taking their own snapshots from my side of the avenue. One of them is a customer of ours who does not come inside our shop. A car even slows down as the driver takes a picture. At the start of rush hour, the occasional passing car honks at the line of people. Someone who appears to be a journalist comes along. He points one of two cameras, which he has over his shoulder, at the dispersed line before jotting down some notes. When I close up, there are still people in line. More than one of the women are in print spandex pants Some appear as if they may be modern day stoners while others not so much. The odd member of the line is disheveled and/or moving nonstop in an animated pattern.
Tuesday. I'm calling today Day 1. After I get up, I'm preparing to finally head over to my doctor's office, to get blood work done in preparation for an overdue checkup with my doctor. I'm supposed to have today off, one day of the week off, one day on. That's the new plan at work. As I am headed out of the door, I get a call from the manager. Can I come in? I'm confused. The other guy isn't due to show up for another hour. But the manager tried to call him and can't reach him. Call him for what? He wants to give me his shift. Okay by me. I then call my doctor to attempt to get a straight answer as to how close I can cut my blood work and have the results back to my doctor in one short week. After another fruitless conversation with the appointment desk, I hang up and prepare to head off to work. I then get another call from the manager. The other guy arrived at work. The manager tells me that the owner is shutting the company down for the immediate future. I think he wanted to give me the last hours before they did. Again I am headed to my doctor's office. And then I have food to pick up from the fridge at work. I ride to the train, which whips me out to my doctor. The street the office is on has a brand new bike lane. Now the only thing my doctor needs is bike parking. On the train, it hit me that I forgot to fast before my blood work. I ate breakfast without even thinking about it. When I get there, I ask the tech, who tells me I do need to fast for this particular workup. I can wait until 4 pm, though 12 hours fasting would be better than 8. And it would mean not eating until dinnertime. It's going to be easier to come back tomorrow. It's not a wasted trip. There was a time when, after my appointments, I stopped into the nearby IHOP. These days, it's the truck stop-like gas station across the street. I can't eat my food even at the outside bench, because of the "sickness." The train whips me downtown. I stop in to say "until we meet again" to friends at the restaurant next door to our old location. It's across the street from the city's local CBS television station. Yards from their front door, on the sidewalk beneath a raised parking lot for the station, is a sizeable homeless camp. It's the first such camp I've seen right next to a bus stop. The station has its own homeless city.
Day 2 of my company's shut down. I remember to fast. The menagerie of state and occasional municipal services which I am suddenly navigating, along with the entire population of said state, includes the following. As shall be revealed, this is an old fashioned maze of acronyms. The state unemployment office has a customer service phone number, as well as a website titled MyUI. I mention their phone number as I have since filed a claim with this office over the phone. Filing by phone is recommended, as filing a claim online is a less complete process. This office sent me an email, notifying me that my claim with them has been accepted. The next step in opening an account on their website. I have been attempting to do this, but their site continues to tell me that my attempt to proceed past some cursory information is an "invalid entry." Thus my attempt to hook up with my brand new peeps at MyUI by phone. I want to ask someone from this office how I may proceed signing into their site to complete the processing of my claim. For the past couple of days, this phone number has been eternally busy. Another state agency provides food assistance. This office shall hereafter referred to as PEAK. I was unsuccessful reaching them as well, as they communicate only by text, and I use my smartphone as little as possible. It was suggested to me that I apply to PEAK over the phone, by a group titled Hunger Free Colorado. These guys are the bomb. Shortly after they filed my application for me, I received information in the mail concerning the completion of this application to PEAK. Before I leave to get blood work done in preparation for my overdue checkup with my doctor, I decide to see if a local municipal information number may be of any help in contacting a representative from MyUI. I reach someone on this line who reminds me, with apologies, that 1) I am speaking with a city government service and 2) I am attempting to ask questions about a state government agency. Though they are unable to answer my questions about state government, they are able to give me information about a municipal government program offering temporary rent and/or utility assistance, which is referred to with the acronym TRUA. I am given a phone number to contact Brothers Redevelopment Group, who apparently is in the know when it comes to TRUA. I don't know if Brothers Redevelopment Group is a construction company or a monastery. I ask if they plan on reconstructing my life. Along with questions about state government, neither are they qualified to answer questions about private industry nor efforts of the lay faithful. Speaking about private industry, I have a call into my mortgage company. They sent me an email, asking me to call them about help with financial hardship directly related to the Coronavirus.
That's where I'm at on the morning of Day 2. With the phone number to the monastic construction company on my desk, I'm now ready to head out to my doctor's lab. I'm taking the same route past the park as I did going to work. The weather has been growing steadily more temperate with the arrival of Spring, and residents are out with dogs and with strollers. I am riding along a residential one way street. Walking toward me out in the street are a white-haired couple. They are circumnavigated successfully. I'm back at the train and whisked back out to my doctor's office. Once inside, I'm told that their blood work lab has shut down until further notice. I am directed to another blood work lab just down the street. I walk into this other lab, and am directed to check in on a kiosk. The receptionist is chatting with someone out in the waiting room. It sounds as if the two know each other. The former is asking the latter about her kids. I mention to the receptionist that I am a patient from another office, with a now closed blood lab. My statement is met with silence. I will have an identical experience here in the waiting room in just a few minutes. Meanwhile, the receptionist hands me a bill. My regular lab always sends me a bill. I mention this to her. I ask if this payment for this bill is due now. She replies that it is. "We do things differently here," she mentions. I tell her that I don't have the money with me. She replies, "Oh, then we'll bill you [through the mail]." I ask her if there will be any kind of penalty fee for not paying the bill now. "Could the bill be more?" She replies, "It could be less." That's exactly how my regular lab works. They end the processing out to be bid for the lowest cost, before I am sent a statement for what I owe. Rather than "differently," this is exactly the same process as the other office. This is as it should be, I would think, because both labs have exactly the same company name. I decide not to ask any more about it. I'm told to go to a particular room number. She continues asking her friend about her kids. I take a seat in this room. Out at the other end of the office, I see a young woman putting on a lab coat. A minute later she comes in to take my blood. I repeat my story to her about coming from another office up the street. She tells me that this explains why they have been so busy this morning. No one here knew anything about it until her supervisor mentioned that my regular lab had closed. My blood is drawn. I'm headed back out through the waiting room when I see a grey-haired lady checking in at the front desk. She mentions her doctor's name. I say to her, "That's my doctor. She's a wonderful doctor." Dead silence. I exit stage left.
Day 3. I contact the PEAK office by phone. Hunger Free Colorado sent me a copy of my application with PEAK's number. It appears that my application to PEAK is incomplete, so I give them a call to complete it. Someone answers who lets me know that they have my application, and someone there will contact me by phone with any questions about it. Well...thank you Hunger Free Colorado. At least it appears I may be hunger free. I tell them, I realize they may not know anything about MyUI, but do they happen to know who else I may be able to contact, besides the impenetrable MyUI website and phone number? This morning I learn that, besides a general info line for municipal agencies (which I am familiar with), there is also a similar phone line for general info about state agencies. As impersonators of the late Johnny Carson have said, "Ah...I did not know that." I thank PEAK and hang up. I dial the state info line. I inform someone there about my trouble successfully establishing my account with MyUI. Well folks, the state agency info line has never heard of MyUI. I am informed by them that my troubles with them may be the result of fraud. She will ask her supervisor about it. In fact, she even calls me back to get the web address for MyUI. No one from any info line has ever called me for information before. In the meantime, as I am unable to reach MyUI over the phone number which they provide, she suggests I attempt to call my local unemployment office for help. Ah...I did not know that...either. When I'm not on the phone chasing government agencies, I'm trying to workout at home with cinderblocks and two pairs of small weights to adjust the weight of the cinderblocks. I do a semblance of this before I realize that I'm out of AA batteries. One of my ridiculous number of battery operated clocks is slow. I now have an excuse to get out on my bike today. I'm rolling down a main residential street to the supermarket. I pass a woman saying goodbye to a friend, who appears to have come to visit along with her kids. I stop at a corner. This is the location of an old stone home where a crazy man resides. I first saw him here a handful of years past. He talks to himself, or to nonexistent people. As I approach the stop sign, he's outside and announces his presence by yelling, "HEY STEVE! TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF! THEY ALL WANT TO BE LAWYERS NOW! GET YOURSELF A TWO BY FOUR, OR ESLE YOU CAN USE THAT GUN...1"
In a few minutes, I'm at the supermarket, and out with my batteries. I stop across the street for a 2 for 2 slices 7 Eleven pizza, brookie, and refreshing fountain drink. Then I am headed back up the same street. The woman saying good bye to her friend and kids is still saying goodbye. I approach the intersection of my own street. I can see some guy on the corner ahead. He's standing and gesturing as he holds a dog on a leash. The dog has a plastic grocery bag tied to its collar, probably for its poop. But I am approaching from an angle which makes it appear as if the bag is over the dog's head. Soon, I can hear him bellowing, this time at a real person, a middle-aged woman holding a basketball. She stands in the middle of the street, as if he surprised her as she was crossing the street to the park. He shouts advice to her concerning staying safe from the virus. "THE SURGEON GENERAL MADE A DEAL WITH THE FDA! AND YOU KNOW WHO THEY WORK FOR?" There is a pause as she says nothing. I don't blame her. "YOU DON'T KNOW WHO THEY WORK FOR? YOU HAVE TO LEARN THESE THINGS! THEY ALL WORK FOR MONSANTO, EVERY BASTARD ONE OF THEM!" I stop at the stop sign before I turn around him, down my street. I hear him shout, "OH, YOU'RE A DEMOCRAT! HAVE A NICE DAY!" When I get home, I make another call to the main number to the state unemployment office. I try a department other than claims, selecting the fraud branch. The woman who answers tells me that, though she normally addresses questions of unemployment fraud, all other departments have been pressed into completing basic unemployment claims. At last, someone untangles my attempts to log into my MyUI online account, and I'm in.
Day 7. This is the first day which I dedicated purely to waiting on hold for someone from the state unemployment insurance line to answer. That someone did, who told me how to request funds on my account. Over the weekend, I got a debit card onto which my funds will be transferred. The rep I'm on the phone with also tells me I request the money be deposited into my checking instead of the card. I think I've completed this. If I did so successfully, it's the first thing I've done right on MyUI by myself. I decide to grab dinner from the gas station across the street. Leaning over from the other side of a chain link fence, separating the liquor store and gas station, are a couple of middle-aged guys. When I come out of the station, one asks, "Hey Big Brother, you wouldn't happen to have two dollars?"
I've been collecting my thoughts about the past week. Perhaps more specifically about this land of economic prosperity. This virus has made me wonder who we are, with our work schedules and our social proximity, our devotion to mobility? I'm fortunate to have family to help me out. I've been venturing out to the supermarket and to my regular checkup with my doctor. I also have plenty to do at home. I have more than one stack of used books to read, and a stack of magazines, the complete set of which is a collector's item. I read them once beginning in 8th grade and through to the middle of the 1990s, when publication was discontinued. I read them through once again during a five year stint at a slow store, where I had time on my hands. Two decades ago. Just like now. I am, like others, looking up some old favorite TV series online. I have an ongoing music recording project I continue to work on. I've been cleaning out my home for the first time in 13 years, come less than a month from now. I've dug out some old acrylic and oil paint. Weeds need pulling out of my back patio. And, I haven't had a vacation since 2009. I worked for a company for almost ten years under a previous owner. After a year, I got a week paid vacation. After two years, I got 2 weeks paid. Had I made it to a full ten years before the owner sold to someone else, I would have had my first 3 weeks paid vacation. Well, I'm going to get it now, and more. If it turns into 3 months, I haven't had that since the old college days. Yet beyond my neighborhood, people all over the world are dying by the thousands. This sentence I just typed isn't something out of any number of killer virus movies. Many are ending up with permanent vacations...for the rest of their lives.
Once upon a time, I was unemployed. It was for three months. But it was exactly fifteen years ago. And it was the result of circumstances surrounding myself. My communication with the state unemployment insurance office was over the phone, and was at the time a comparatively Byzantine process. This year, I'm currently out of work along with I don't know how many millions. And I soon came to realize that, was I more online savvy, I wouldn't have needed any help at all setting up an online unemployment account. It turns out to be no trouble at all. My unemployment check may even be deposited directly into my account. For the coming weeks, residents in this land of economic prosperity will all be socialists for the time being. This is my first pandemic. I haven't seen how one of these ends yet. And with my forays down to the supermarket, I wonder how seriously I'm taking the danger. Day 8. I make another trip down to the supermarket for a couple of odds and ends. The restaurants which are not shut down are only doing take out orders. The Mexican place across the street from me appears to have given up as the Chinese place did, and gone dark. To satisfy my compulsion for eating out and reading, I've been using an old homeless trick. I grab an inexpensive lunch at 7-Eleven and sitting down at a bus stop. As I approach 7-Eleven, I see a Caucasian guy on his phone pacing the parking lot. I hear him complaining about what "we've been told," or rather what we haven't been told. No doubt told by the government about the virus. I'm inside and in line when a homeless guy comes in. He has long, grey disheveled hair under hi sideways cap, and two chains around his neck, each with a crucifix. A minute later, rather than socially distant, he's directly behind me. I'm the one who interjects distance. I'm gathering my bike when he makes his own exit. I'm riding away when I hear, "Hey!" A kid is approaching on his own bike. I realize he's speaking to the virally social stranger.
When I get back home, I'm back on the phone. I realized today that I made a mistake on requesting my first unemployment payment. I took the recycle cans out yesterday, because I thought yesterday was the Monday of the week prior. I realized this morning, when I noticed no one else had their recycle cans out. The recycle cans go out one every 2 weeks. I don't know how long I was on hold. I remember picking up the phone around 1:30 PM, and someone finally answered right at 4 PM, when the office is supposed to close. I explained my mistake. The young woman at the other end of the line told me that she had a certain amount of work to do before she was "forced off the phone." She asked me to be patient while she worked in silence, so she could concentrate. It's interesting. There I was with some kind of almost ecclesiastical representative, from the Church of the Unemployment Tax. Yesterday and today, I was waiting in reverence for an algorithm to deal me out, so I could speak with the single person who could give me the answers to allow my life to find its salvation. Just like so many of us. When she was done, she asked me if I had any other questions. I asked her about what I do next, and she replied that she had to hang up, because she was "now officially on overtime. Good bye, sir." I'd better close out this month, folks. If someone can find a way to end up on overtime without actually being employed for the moment, that's me
