Monday is the 1st. I'm coming home after work. I'm just off the trail and crossing a busy thoroughfare. Off on the side of one entrance to this thoroughfare is a homeless camper with its flashers on. An SUV is parked nose to nose with it, giving it a jump.
I don't have TV anymore. I don't have any devices hooked up to the internet either. I get my news on a search engine service. I saw a local story about the deathburger up the street from where I live. Was it last month? Three males, ages 14 to 18, were out for a drive in stolen car. They ended up there and fired shots into the place in an argument with a drive through employee. Which of course is what you do in an argument with a drive through employee, is fire a fucking gun at their store. There has been gunfire in that parking lot before, just not at employees. The next part is what made the New York Post. The following evening, they were west of downtown in the same vehicle. A 14-year-old exited said vehicle, and approached the vehicle of a 32-year-old real estate agent and mother of a six-year-old. He emptied a pistol into her windshield, blowing off the top of her skull and exposing her brain, before returning to the vehicle. It's not clear that she was anyone but a completely random victim, or that there was any motive whatsoever. The vehicle they were driving was recognized was recognized by a police officer investigating the deathburger gunfire, after it passed along my boulevard right where I live. After a chase, the vehicle crashed into a pole, ran over a fire hydrant, and went through a fence. Two AR-15 semiautomatic machine guns were found in their vehicle, in plain sight. All three teenagers, having fled the vehicle, were apprehended after a search. I was curious about her real estate career. I found a professional Facebook page she had just set up on February 10th. She was dead less two weeks later.
On Wednesday, I'm waiting to cross my intersection on the way to work. I spot yet another Caucasian cyclist in my neighborhood. (I will see another headed toward this same intersection back here this evening after work.) This morning, I watch this guy do what I've done before. He's making his way into the new turn lane so he can make a left going my direction. His apparent consciousness of traffic lanes makes it unlikely that he's homeless. He passes me along my street. He's in a dirty orange safety vest. Printed on the top of his jacket is, "Courtesy Patrol". I have no idea what this is. At the residential street where I make a turn, I go one way and he goes another. An hour later, I'm pedaling past the dog park along the connecting trail. On the side of the trail opposite the park, up a hill are perhaps four or so city employees from a couple of pickup trucks. It appears that they are cleaning out a small homeless camp. This is the first time I've seen this happen along the trail. And this week, or perhaps last week. I've begun to see more and more people walking their dogs out on the bike trails which I take to and from work. On Thursday after work, I ride home in the first rain of the year. It's a nice, pre-spring rain. There are people in coats or in soaked hoodies. They are walking their dogs in the fucking rain. On Friday the rain is gone and there's blue sky. This week has begun a tricky part of the year. We've just come out of a long period of below freezing overnight low temperatures. I've stopped riding in my winter jacket. Even in winter, it's not usually necessary most of the time. During my ride to work, as the temperature approaches the mid-fifties F., I end up stopping to remove a windbreaker, neck gator, balaclava and gloves. That's how I forgot my damned shoulder bag, by leaving it on the ground and out of sight during the process...which I don't do anymore. And on colder days, I only need put sunscreen on the part of my face outside of my balaclava, per my doctor's orders. (The last doctor I spoke with about it.) As I anticipate removing headgear and gloves, I must remember to apply sunscreen to all those areas before leaving the house. This being a recent edict from my doctor, if you will, it's an issue new to this winter. And I continue to ride past the waterpark both to and from work. And the time having flown past, it seems not that long ago when it shut down for the season. Since last month, their marquee has been advertising that they are already hiring for all positions in preparation for this summer.
This morning, along the way to work, I'm across my boulevard and turning onto the street just down from my own. Along with the two campers and long silver 1950s trailer, all parked on the same side and spread out along the long length of this lane, I pass a newly arrived tiny trailer. It has a generator running. I'm around and across, around again and down, and up and finally down a long steep hill. I make my turn onto the street next to the open field. Along with a pair of trailers, each with "in tow" spray-painted on the top back, is the not so old guy's minivan. On the rear now is a makeshift wooden flatbed covered with a tarp. On the back left corner is, as the last time I saw it, a handmade sign which reads "hungry homeless gulf war vet". Saturday. It's become a recent habit to get breakfast on Saturdays before work, at the pancake house in the shopping center where I work. The place has gotten busier in the last couple of weeks. Lots of grey-haired patrons, moms with their grown sons, extended families. I don't see the same kind of familial middle class communing back across town, in my own neighborhood. Last night, I was across my street at the Chinese place, standing in a long line with the usual riff raff. I was behind a mom and her wound up small daughter. When we got inside, I asked her daughter in Spanish what her name is, what grade she's in. She had to think about the latter, finally asking her mom. She's in kindergarten. On the way to work Saturday, I pass a couple of guys in a tent on the other side of an underpass, down the trail from where the homeless camp was dismantled. On the way home, I pass the same guys and tent, but now with a shopping cart alongside the trail. Back on the other side of the underpass, a young mom laughs outside with her child at a condominium playground. Off the trail, I'm turning up the steep hill off the street with the campers. Next to the closest one is a trio of young adults. Like the way to work, the trip home is back up and around, and along and around and along and around. Across and around and along, and then I turn up a street an old friend and former coworker lives on. It's just after sunset. A guy shuffles down the sidewalk. He wants to know if I have a cigarette.
Sunday was quite a day. There's a small theater chain which shows art films. One of its theaters has reopened, but none of the three films it was showing looked any good. For the first time in almost a year, I've started checking theater showtimes. It turns out that a handful of multiplexes have reopened. For the hell of it, I decided to scroll down a list of films currently running. I have nothing to do today for a change. It's a calm before a storm kind of weekend. I spot one released last month I hadn't heard of. On a lark, I purchase my first ticket through Fandango. I haven't heard good things about Fandango, but I take a chance. Seating is reserved and I don't know how many patrons are clamoring for a movie now that restrictions are just being lifted. And I know right where this theatre is. It's just south of a business loop around the metro area, and in a small shopping center where a former employer had a store where I would work on and off. It had a contract post office in a corner of the store, with a crazy and infamous employee of ours running it. Those days are an whole other story. I remember the trip there taking longer than it now takes me to get to work, though. Though the film does not begin for almost two hours, I hustle out the door. Today is short sleeved weather. I haven't been down this way since at least the first half of 2017. I hightail it to the train and make one which gets me to the end of the line with more than an hour to spare before the film starts. I used to come this way when I worked for said company. This was the jumping off point for any one of three or four different stores we had at the time. Two were another hour's bike ride west. The two east were somewhat closer. I remember taking the first train running in the weekday morning back then. I was briefly coming down here again when the ownership of the company changed hands.
From the train I ride down to the sidewalk along a busy thoroughfare, then cross the street to a bike lane. Back then I wasn't going to any gym and I must be in better shape now, because what I remember as a hill I never looked forward to is no big deal this afternoon. When I stumble onto a horse trail, it hits me that I need to follow it. I'd completely forgotten. Around a bend is a gorgeous view of the Rockies across a pond. Soon I'm alongside the business loop ad I can see the theater across the highway. When I pull into the tiny shopping center, i stop at the old store. It's now a small bakery shop. The owner is just locking up for the day. I ask her if she leased the place from my old boss. She said it was empty for a year when she moved in. She still gets mail for them, ads for cigars. No one asks about the cleaners, she says. They were all coming in looking for the post office, begging her to renew the contract. She finally convinced a business a few doors down to take it. It's fascinating to hear about what happened to the place. Across the drive is the theatre. I go inside and have twenty minutes before it starts. I made jig time. I mention to a teenaged female employee that the last time I was at this theatre was to see a movie released in 2009. She welcomes me back and wants me to have a fabulous time. After the show, the sun is headed toward the mountains. The ride back is even more beautiful. My train home awaits at the station. I take it to a supermarket which is the only place I can get a couple of products I need. I head home from there. At a gas station across the street, a group of guys are arguing with a tall guy with no shirt. Soon I'm home again.
Monday. It's not a great start to the day. I wake up early without enough sleep. And I'm headed to the gym before work. By the time I get out of the door, I decide my best chance of getting to work on time today is the train. I get there in plenty of time to watch my train arrive...and I'm too tired to realize my train. Until another train pull into the station, between myself and my bike, and my train. Just then I realize my mistake. Do I have the time to haul my bike up the steps and inside the wrong train, run through the doors on both sides of the car, to get to the platform where the right one is? No. A transit system employee, in a name tag and orange vest and personal tote bag, watches all this a few yards away. he asks me which train I want and lets me know which door is for bikes. I tell him I know. Not today, okay pal? Been coming here for fourteen years. I remember one morning some twenty-six years ago. Unbeknownst to myself, a second train line opened. This changed particular bus schedules...including the one I was taking to work. I remember walking down the street before sunrise and watching it arrive early without any hope of catching it. But the next one is only fifteen minutes behind it. I may not, for once, have some rare breathing space between finishing my workout and having to put the literal pedal to the metal to arrive at work on time. But it isn't any worse. And on they way to the trail, I'm riding through a residential neighborhood. A mom-aged woman is out for a run. With her particular gait, she almost floats along this quiet street. And she's hauling ass. She has a ponytail down to her butt. She's an emissary, sent to let me know to not despair.
Tuesday. On my trip to work, I'm coming down a long hill. I'm passing an electrical substation. Earlier this winter, the long silver trailer from the 1950s has parked on the curb at one end of the station. It's been at the curb of the open field at the bottom of the hill. This morning, a camper wrapped in tarps with cords is opposite the station. In front of it is one of the Starcraft pop up trailers, converted into a flatbed trailer full of scrap metal. Standing in the field next to the camper and trailer is a guy covered head to toe in camouflage. He will be there again two mornings from this one. About an hour later, I roll into work with time to spare. I go and grab a quick lunch to go at the pancake house. At one table is a trio of guys who appear as if they are my age. One is a Caucasian, who could pass for homeless. An African American is in a leather hat. The third is Hispanic, and wars an NRA cap with pins. All are silently eating their meals. On my way home after work, I'm just off the trail and preparing to turn down the street with the couple of campers, or camper and trailer, or whatever is there at the moment. A kid on a motorcycle, backwards cap instead of helmet, comes roaring along and turns up the same street. As I prepare to turn up a steep hill, I notice a couple of guys at the only RV here now. The hood over the engine is up. One of them is...this kid? A motorcycle is there as well. I remember that I always see a motorcycle parked in front of this camper.
...opponents...last summer, argued that...a massive overhaul to the group-living aspects of the Denver Zoning Code...would decrease public safety, chip away at the neighborhood character of certain parts [?] of Denver, and lead to overcrowding. "I'm sure that...councilmembers voted...against the will of...many registered neighborhood organizations..." "That's one of the most important pieces of legislation that Denver City Council has passed in the last five years...to create and preserve naturally affordable housing in our city. ...places for people of all income levels, of all races and ethnicities to be able to thrive, regardless of the way they...are forced to live together..." - Westword, 3/11-17/2021
It's hard to imagine that day in anything but a medieval context...in a hot, grey mist. The buildings are ashen, the red roofs dull and depleted of color. ...vegetation had obscured all but simple chimneys...spilling oily smoke that ran together in the desultory haze. The people themselves looked and moved like tree trunks... [On the other hand,] the Muslims who were assembled...as prisoners must have looked harrowingly modern, dressed in Levis, T-shirts, floral spring skirts, Nike sneakers. - Campbell
...my job (Marketing Boss babes 4ever)... ...when I wake up a little sore from yesterday's run... Transdermal CBD creams hit the spot - literally. ...before I can say "smoothie bowl and school run." Back at the office... I turn off my phone, grab a sparkling water, and reach for a cannabis product designed specifically to enhance mental clarity... In 20 minutes I'm sharp and undistracted, taking names and making progress. After dinner (how did we ever live without our air fryers?)...when I want to get giggly these days, I'm all gummies all the time. ...to feel pleasantly social without the aftereffects of alcohol. I keep the good feelings going with a relaxing bath bomb. And to...get a good night's sleep...I might indulge in just a square of a cannabis-infused chocolate. - Westword High Style 2021\
Friday. I'm on the way to work, turning onto the street at the bottom of a long hill and next to an open field. The camper and the not so old guy's minivan and flatbed have disappeared. All that's left is the motorcycle parked in front of where a camper used to be. I wonder if this has anything to do with the two feet of accumulated snow predicted over the next four days. Some eight hours later, I'm out of work and on the way home. I'm out on the trail, and I shouldn't be feeling the spaces between the concrete blocks. My front tire is going flat. A short distance along and it's gone completely flat. I can tell this because a flat tire makes it much more difficult to turn the front wheel with the handlebars. I exit the trail along with a homeless cyclist pulling a bike trailer. I'm walking toward a major avenue when I stumble upon a small homeless trailer in the small parking lot tucked away on the other side of the drive from the river. Sitting in a pickup truck next to the trailer is a guy who appears as if he could be homeless. I hike up and across the bridge over the interstate. Toward the other side, I can see down onto an access road, on the other side of the train tracks and beneath a highway off ramp. The side of the hidden road is lined with homeless tents. At the bottom of the hill is a train station. Along the way here, I've just missed a bus to my boulevard. I wait for the train which arrives shortly thereafter. I take it to the next stop, where I have a twenty minute wait for a bus home. Not altogether bad for a guy with a flat. Off the train, I'm waiting at the stop when a little disheveled guy comes shuffling along. His jeans are falling down. He has one full backpack on his shoulders and carries another in one hand, as he appears to be using both hands to hold up his pants. He glances at me with a face which looks like Popeye. He has the largest cyst on his cheek I've ever seen. Rather than ask me if I have a cigarette, he asks me if I have any rolling papers. Close enough I guess. He wanders to the other side of the bus stop before coming back the same way. I watch him wander over to a bench on the train platform and look for anything he may be able to use. He goes over to the trash and pulls out an energy drink can. he attempts to balance it on top of the trash can as he reads it, before discarding it again. And just like that, he vanishes into thin air. A second, much younger homeless guy comes along. He looks familiar. He carries a giant square bag with a handle. he pauses to pick up a cigarette butt off the ground. We pile onto the bus and are on our way in no time. The bus pulls out of the station and turns onto a busy avenue. Half a block down this street, we pass a homeless camper parked next to a condominium development site. As we near my stop, a passenger we picked up along the way asks me if I'm ready for the cold. He asks another passenger, "My woman stopped talking to me. She's mad at me. What do I do?" There's nothing like that old city bus passenger advice. I dunno, ask her if she has any rolling papers?
Saturday. There's a light drizzle of rain. Hardly the death snow predicted. While I'm at work, it turns to snow and continues off and on. With any luck, I can pickup a new tube after work. Yesterday, the last of the two tubes which came with the bike originally gave out. They both were supposed to already have sealant inside. The pair only lasted two and a half months. The first tube I replaced, however, is the first Presta valve tube in which I put sealant myself. It's still going strong. I intend to do the same with the next tube I get. I call the sporting goods super canter, where my bike shop is. Will they be open regular hours I ask? "Weather permitting. Chou." And they hang up. Yeah, chou. When I close, the snow is still light and melting on the street. I ride to the train. It collects me and I get out at the station where I was last night, before I board a train to the end of downtown where lies my destination. We pass crumbling lots along the tracks. Somewhere on the south side of the 6th Street bridge is what appears to be a homeless camper and a van. I've seen more homeless camper locations, unbeknownst to myself, in the past couple of days. I'm off the train and climbing granite steps with my bike. Soon I'm at the sporting goods super center. The clerk who sells me my tube alerts me that "it's getting thick out there." In fact, it's nothing but flurries. The streets are still clear, as is the trail home. I'm off toward home. Coming up a last hill a couple blocks from my street, i watch what appears as if it could be a homeless camper. It pulls into a the driveway of a home, where the front window had a drape which has seen better decades and a piece of broken wood leans against an outside wall. After a minute, the driver honks the horn, presumably for someone inside. Several doors down is a brand new mini-condo. When I get home, what do I find in my mailbox, but a mailer from the sporting goods super center. "Your member coupons are here!" it reads. two 20% off coupons good for the next two weeks and two days. I'm don't mind if I don't have any more flats before they expire.
Sunday. I get up and decide to put on my new bike tube. I discover that I was sold a tube with a valve stem which cannot be removed. I call the sporting goods super center. They have the kind I want, but they are kept behind the counter. They suggest I arrive today sooner rather than later. The snow is piling up. I wasn't happy to discover that I have the wrong tube, and at the suggestion of the tech at the other end of the phone, I reply that I expect someone to be there when I get there. I take my bike in the hope of finding some potential spots upon which to ride. I also want to make a point to them about my determination to meet inclement weather where it is, however unsuccessfully. The snow gusts and blows. Visibility is perhaps ten yards. I haul myself and my bike along snow drift-covered sidewalks, up the street to a corner where I can catch either of two buses. It's a corner popular with panhandlers, and out in the blizzard someone is flying a sign. It's around noon, and I had a late breakfast, late according to this morning's time change according to Daylight Savings. I spot a bus, and make it across snow ruts to the stop. I get up the street to a train station. I wait for the train with a little woman and a security guy. The guy talks about how he's expected to come back down to work security at this station at midnight. he also mentions that the city may close down. I'm sitting on a bench, wearing what I would otherwise ride in, which is a short sleeved shirt under my winter coat, and my lined polyester pants. It isn't until now that I realize my coat and pants are soaked. I don't feel cold. The train comes along, and it's slow going, stops and starts as the operator waits for aggregated train traffic to clear ahead of us. The little women on the train keeps hopping on and off at stops, looking for someone who want's to purchase a transit system coupon for two dollars. I'm afraid to imagine what she plans to do with two dollars. Then I'm off the train, trudging up and then down staircases over the train tracks. On the walk over the track, between the two staircases, a guy tells me what a great day for a ride it is. (?) With more trudging, I'm soon at the sporting goods place. I can hear female voices participating in something gleeful in a big park in front of a condominium complex along the way. When I arrive at the sporting goods place, it's closed. I have a conversation through the front door with a manager who appears as if he should be in middle school. He calls himself Jimmy. I get somewhat heated with Jimmy. He lets me know that it's okay if I ride on the tube I have, even if it gets a flat with no sealant. I will still be able to exchange it. And with that, I trudge back to the train station. I stand there for an hour, during which I see no movement in either of the two trains present. I don't recall the last time I saw anything like this. I later discover that the city shut down at 1 PM, and I'm here shortly before 2. I watch as other passengers drift away for other modes of transportation. I hear a woman on her phone mention to someone that the two trains are not moving. I watch gusts blow clouds of snow off the platform rooftop. I consider whether I'm beginning to feel cold from my damp gear. A pair of young guys arrive and wait for some minutes before they depart. Three more young guys arrive and spend the entire time talking about how cold it is, before they take off.
And you can't curse the snow. Or nature. The city operates or not at the pleasure of the environment. And after proceeding from this station, I don't see nature as an impediment to my own expectations. I recognize I am in the same city as always. And I'm about to board a pedestrian mall shuttle with a load not usually allowed onboard. And the driver is going to take care of her passengers because it's also her city.
I take a peek inside the train station, which is full of people. The schedule board lists every train and bus on the list as "cancelled." I'd better head out of here under my own recognizance. The bike I have with me is small, with 26 inch wheels. Bikes are not allowed on the shuttles which go up and down the downtown pedestrian mall. I ask one driver, who tells me that due to inclement weather, she will pretend she doesn't see it. Off we are down the mall. The shuttle wheels are slipping on the snow. The back of the shuttle where I am smells like urine. The shuttle drops me at a corner where I can catch either of two buses down major arteries out of downtown. I'm soon convinced that this is not an option. I mostly hike rather than ride to our downtown store, where I use the bathroom. Then it's a further mostly hike to the supermarket where I pick a few odds and ends. I run into a guy with a shovel while I'm still downtown. He tells me my bike tires are to skinny for the snow. I wonder if he's homeless. Along the way there, the mostly hike with the bike is through a residential neighborhood, just outside of downtown. There are people out walking the snow covered streets, kids in a park, people out enjoying the snow. On the way down a major avenue, I pass a train station, where I spot a bus which may be headed my way. I decide to keep trudging along to the next stop, instead of attempting to catch it at the station. It passes me anyway, just before I reach the stop. It's more trudging down streets. The residential sidewalks appear uncleared since the first snowflake. I turn down a street as a snowmobile goes past me. It comes back again from up the street. He stops where I am, and a Caucasian voice asks me if I'm" cool?" I say "sure." Especially for a guy who essentially walked south out of the north end of downtown during a snowstorm which threatens to shut down the metro area. What's he going to do, give me a lift? He's the third snowmobile I've seen since coming out of downtown. There are now snowmobile tracks in my extended neighborhood for the first time since I moved here fourteen years ago, and perhaps ever. The winter of our gentrification. I trudge over more streets. A snow plow turns a corner. It hasn't plowed the street it just came down. But I notice the driver dropped off someone at a home. More trudging. I pass a woman shoveling her sidewalk. I'm not expecting to see a Caucasian face, though I shouldn't be anymore. She says "hi." I ask her why her husband isn't shoveling. She tells me he has the stomach flu. "I'm dying out here," she tells me. My instinct is to ask her if she wants a hand. Then I remember I just hiked through a blizzard. I arrive home some seven hours after I left.
Monday, my boss decides not to open. Tuesday, I'm back on my new bike with current tube installed. The journey there takes me across a collection of ice patches. Although, along the trail to the gym, I end up entering a rare fog bank. This works for me as, in another rare event, I accidently leave my sunglasses at home. At the end of my day, when I'm locking up at work, I notice that my new tube is low. I break out the hand pump and figure out at this moment how to use it. The tire appears then to be successfully filled, and the journey home is nothing worse than slush. The following morning, the same tire is again low. I break out the floor pump. The tube takes 80 psi before it's full. I've never pumped a tire past 50. Down the trail, past the furthest golf course along the way to work, I hear someone yelling what sounds like a name. I look across the river to see a guy with a dog which has wandered off into a field of snow. He wants it to return, and it just stares at him. The tire pressure lasts all the way to work, all day there, and all the way home again.
[There is] a darling of the street art world and developers alike. For more than a decade, he bridged the gap between testosterone-fueled graffiti crews around Denver and officials who were trying to stop an explosion of vandalism... ...in 2019[, the] Crush Walls...festival attracted an estimated 150,000 people to RiNo. City boosters started touting the neighborhood as "the Street Art Capital of the United States"...quickly shot down by...Detroit or Brooklyn or Miami. - Westword, 3/18-24/2021
I was completely along, sweating in the dust... ...a swarm of strange black flies and a shrieking chorus of summer locusts. I drove slowly, not daring to risk a flat tire here. From time to time, I passed the hollow shell of a car that had been shoved off the road, peppered with rusting bullet holes. And then I passed a woman's bra hoisted onto a stick like a victory flag. The route had most likely been a main thoroughfare for soldiers and weapons... - Campbell
Friday. I'm leaving work. My front tire is slightly lower. This tube is pissing air somewhere. If there isn't a tiny hole somewhere, it must be the valve. I will be replacing it Sunday. The following day after work, I decide to head over and swap out my tube now. I head for a train station to transport me downtown. Along the way, I encounter many cyclists out on the trail. Something about late Saturday afternoon I suppose. I'm on the connecting trail home, making my way along a line of trees between the trail and the river. There are cyclists passing me from behind, cyclists approaching from ahead, and pedestrians and dogs out on the trail. Suddenly, a lanky guy in worn black clothes appears on the trail, slowly making his way on foot. He has stringy shoulder length strands from a receding hairline. He has just enough time before I pass him to quickly hold up a bicycle headlamp, and speak a single word sales pitch, "Cheap!" Soon I turn off to the station and grab a train. I decide to disembark downtown and ride the trail the rest of the way to the sporting goods super center, instead of ride another train to the end of the line and haul my bike up and down the freaking staircase over the tracks. The train I'm on takes me past the station I usually go to from home to downtown. Between here and into the city, I spot another line of tents and campers along a dead end against the tracks. I get out just before the train goes into the city center and hook up with the bike trail. It's not long before I'm at the juncture of two rivers, called the Confluence, or Confluence Park. The spot is full of families and couples enjoying the weekend. I must navigate past the public over a bridge across one river, and over to the sporting goods place. Indeed they o swap out my tube. I also want to pick up some chain oil, the kind I used to use. I've been using the stuff recommended by the ideologically purist bike shop, on the way home from work, which I used to frequent before I realized that this place had a freaking bike shop. And that it's open on Sundays...at 10 AM! Jesus Christ, the drama I could have avoided. To think how excited I was that this previous shop was open again after the shut down. Twenty twenty was some kind of ruse, but I digress from the issue at hand. The chain lube pitched by the previous shop is a "dry" lube, because they claim Denver is semi-arid and bike chains need a lube which won't evaporate. Never mind that I never had that problem with any bike here in the mayor's "world class city." And lately, after oiling the chain on my new bike, it begins squeaking again a week later. At home, I have a couple of coupons from the sporting goods place which came in the mail. Which would be nice to use on the purchase of some real chain oil. So, tomorrow I have a big day in store. I will come back here. I have to drop off and pick up more film at the camera shop across town. And the sister needs some Money, so it would be to my advantage to stop at a branch of my bank. It also would be nice if I could swing by a certain grocery chain for some particular odds and ends. Somewhere in there is lunch. My dad was right. Everyone wants my money.
This being the case, I'm out the door somewhere around 11:30 AM. I won't be back home until after 6 PM. No sooner do I begin to cross my corner after the cross traffic stops at a red light, the fire truck is coming out of the firehouse. My light never turns green. I look up to see my signal still red and cross traffic is suddenly green again. Somehow, I make it to the other side before the fire department is successful in getting me killed. Along the way to the train station, I take a look at the line in front of one of my favorite short order places. I decide to make for other hubs of grub. Whoever sleeps under the train bridge has left a rolled carpet all the way across the walkway along the underpass. It's pretty flat and not difficult to get over. I'm at the station where I jump on a train into downtown. I will change trains back here in a few hours, when a guy entering the car I get out of turns to ask me if this train will take him to a hospital in a particular municipality. I reply that he can take one train the opposite direction into downtown, where one hospital is not far from one station. Or he can take the other line south, where the new end of the line is in fact at another hospital, at the southern edge of the metro area. Then I recall another hospital in fact in the county he mentions, down the street from where I work. He wants to know which bus to take. He's fortunate that, as I've said, I know more about the transit system than anyone should be familiar with. I suggest a bus route, unsure if it even runs on Sunday. Jesus, I've worked too many places across the metro area. Most of them for a single company for twelve years. But late this morning I'm off to the pedestrian mall. I step off the train and prepare to turn onto the mall. A woman and a little child are next to a tent. She asks me, hands clasped, "Do you want a free Covid test?" Actually, I will be standing in line tomorrow with 600 others at a Jesuit university campus for part one of my Covid vaccine. It's across my busy boulevard from where I used to change buses on the way to and from work. One morning on my way to work, a woman texted me to let me know she was breaking up with me. If it wasn't for her I wouldn't even have a phone. But again I digress. As I've said, I've been too many places in this town, and there are too many memories. Today I ride along the loose stone blocks which line the mall, I'm navigating around pedestrians stepping in and out of the path of mall shuttles and cyclists. One short week ago I was pushing this same bike through drifts as a gale blew around me. Today, across the concrete blocks, my metal water bottle rattles against the handlebars. I grab lunch at Chilis, and put away an entire salad at an establishment where I'm told no one finishes the salad. I would have locked my bike along a street where I usually do, but the pair of inverted metal u-shaped tubes usually there appear to have been either broken or cut off. They're both completely gone. A casualty of the blizzard? Instead I lock the bike up at a rack along the mall. When I come out after lunch, I'm unlocking it when I notice a trio of contracted security personnel in uniform. I suddenly hear laughter. They are rousting a young guy with shaggy blonde hair and a beard from his slumber inside a sleeping bag along a storefront. He's pulling up his pants and gathers his sleeping bag in his arms before he's on his way. He's wearing a hoodie, on the back of which reads, "I am human." He should go down to the northbound train and get a free Covid test. By the time I'm back on my bike, I'm headed that direction. The security folks are already approaching another homeless guy with a sleeping bag. I stop at one branch of my bank on the mall, just across the street from Chilis. The screen on the outdoor ATM informs me that it' out of order. I must continue down to the end of the mall, to another branch of my bank, where the ATM is in working order.
I decide after a withdrawal that the hour is already late, the camera shop is open not as late as the sporting goods place, and I jump on a train across town. I disembark at a connecting station. I watch as a young homeless trio come out of one end of a car. They carry down a stroller full of junk which a female pushes. One guy has a BMX bike which he gets on and another guy is on foot. He kicks the door of the train car. The two guys head toward a supermarket, where in fact I will be again in another few hours. The woman pushes the stroller along the train platform and past me, before I catch a train down the line other than the one I just came from. Four short stops and I'm out again. I follow a small map I drew myself. Right around here is an office where I have an appointment for free volunteer tax help on Wednesday. I discovered out of nowhere, during a phone conversation with the IRS if I recall correctly, that I qualify for free tax help. That in fact I've always qualified, but have only discovered so this year. But with my online tax service telling me I owe money for tax credits on insurance which I was disqualified for, unbeknownst to myself until I stumbled into the fact during yet another six-hour series of phone calls, this is one year I need the help. One bridge and a couple of turns back here on my old boulevard, and here's where Wednesday's appointment is tucked away. An office complete with revolving door. Okay, now that I know where I'm going, I head up the street to the camera shop. I'm in and out, and I decide not to backtrack to the train station. As general Patton said, I don't like to pay for the same ground twice. I connect with another bike trail, which takes me past a shopping mall down the street from where I used to live. I decide to go in for another snack and am surprised. There a line in a foyer for a parking validation kiosk, and inside, the place is full of shoppers again. I would once in a while stop in here over the past year, for some yogurt. The entire time, it's been like a ghost ship. The shoppers are back. Lots of stylish Caucasian shoppers in a stylish neighborhood. I have a Japanese Poke bowl before I take a short walk through the small to a confectionary shop. I purchase a single truffle from a girl behind the counter. I don't recall the last time, two years, since I walked anywhere in this mall? Once again there are people everywhere in here, rushing past each other unaware of anyone else, like the pickup trucks and street racers on my own boulevard. Along the way here I've been passing by the wastelands of the urban dead, and now I'm standing in a brightly lit and spotless candy shop with white walls and wrapped packages of chocolate arranged along rows of shelves. Behind the girl is a sink with a gold-plated faucet and handles. After my purchase, she tells another girl she's going on break but won't be more than 20 minutes. Then I'm back out on the trail from here straight to the sporting goods super center. Ever since I came out of downtown it's been spitting snow off and on. I find my old chain oil, but there are people in line at the bike shop cashier waiting for service and a longer line at the checkout for the rest of the store. I spot a clerk who agrees to check me out at another register. I mention my oil dilemma to her. She tells me she's had the exact same experience with dry lube. Ha! My own travail validated. And she tells me my old oil is also her favorite. It's the oil of choice from what I understand from other shops. Well, this weekend has turned out to be much more productive that the last. I continue my wild back and forth trip down the trail to a busy avenue back to the supermarket. Again, I'm in and out, and decide I'm tired. I take the train again, to the next stop, where I run into the aforementioned passenger in search of his hospital. The bus arrives just then and I have a twenty minute layover to eat a snack I picked up from the grocery. I board the bus and sit behind a guy with his head in his hands leaning against the seat in front of him. Once we get going I hear him snoring.
This week, new campers appear upon the streets I take to work. A covered motorcycle is replaced by a couple of scooters. A small black trailer shows up. Bicycles. Along the way to this street, the RV camper covered with a tarp is still across from the electrical substation. On Monday, the sister picks me up in the morning for a date with the first half of a Covid vaccine. I'm headed to a Jesuit university, upon a corner where i would changes buses to and from work some four years ago. This is my first time actually on campus. She got a tip from a friend who teaches there. I don't know if this means that we are cheating. She's been pretty serous about staying as safe as possible from this virus. The vaccine goes like clockwork, and I am effectively in and out. Wednesday is another morning appointment before work. This time, just up the street at a local community resource center which has recently relocated to my neighborhood. I've only last month discovered that I have qualified for free tax help for the past three decades. This morning I take my various tax documents in, to be photographed and sent to a volunteer tax preparer who will contact me in the following two weeks. Someone comes out from behind a desk. He laughs when he comes out of the door and sees me sitting on the concrete, my eyes closed to the falling snowflakes. He invites me inside to "have a seat." I sit in the only chair in the lobby besides his own. I listen to the guy at the front desk on the phone. He's talking about the number of these volunteer tax help locations were previously ten. They have been reduced to seven. He mentions another resource center with an office phone which is currently unoccupied. The office communicates only by email. He used to see a client who would come to that center for her own tax assistance, over the past twelve years he claims. She's bind. She contacted him after the last time she tried to return there, as their office appears to be no longer open. He was able to put her in touch with some help only through email contact with them. he gets up to bring out two or three more chairs. They are plastic and colorful. Very 1970s, like this entire interior. A young woman with her long hair in a single big braid comes from down a hallway to bring me back to a big room, to verify that I was familiar with English and to record my pile of papers. Another volunteer brings in a couple, who have no documents at all. The female mentions that they are primarily interested in getting both stimulus payments, the original "opportunity" to do so she claims they missed.
I have lived across the street from a private prison-run halfway house my entire life. I had family members who lived there...and my own brother cycled in and out of prisons and halfway houses most of my life. Never did anyone...make us feel like we had to add extra layers of safety to our neighborhood. The residents were not allowed to have cars... Sometimes the bored residents would pick up odd jobs in the neighborhoods... ...in November 2019, I attended my first Group Living Advisory Committee (GLAC) Community Corrections Subgroup meeting. [There was] a vote to divest all Denver Commuity Corrections from private prison operators. ...the city had allowed community corrections to essentially only exist on parcels already owned by private prison operators. We needed to expand where halfway houses were allowed in order to truly divest...from private prisons. ...I had not realized until this meeting...community corrections facilities in the city were not allowed in residential neighborhoods. Most were segregated to warehouse areas far...from transit...resources and other people. ...segregating communities with Denver's zoning code. [In the zoning code, why have these] subgroups (i.e., senior housing, college dorms, assisted living, hospice or boarding houses)... ...a zoning code...should...deal strictly with the land-use impacts - never with the types of people using the land. Zoning for "people types"...is: SEGREGATION. During a recent public hearing on group living, we heard...histories of being targeted by code enforcement... - Washington Park Profile, 3/2021
...if...journalism doesn't represent the people of [my neighborhood], Montbello, Globeville or Green Valley Ranch, the journalism doesn't have the power to ...give life to a cause, a platform to a problem and an answer to a question. ...for those people. ...I was instructed not to wear my hair in a bun with a middle part......I received a written warning for interacting on Twitter with...my...mentors. I would go on to organize my colleagues of color...recommending more representation in our...coverage of the racial justice movement. I was put on an "improvement plan" the next week. ...biweekly meetings for months thereafter. For two years... I was "too close" to the issues, to passionate, to emotional, too aggressive. "We're just trying to figure out if you're worth keeping," my manager told me... - Westword, 3/25-31/2021
