"...I just drove from the other side of town, and [my boulevard] is beat up. No coffee shops, but I can't tell you how many pawn shops and liquor stores. ...no grocery stores. The streets are all jacked up. Damn, those tags have been on that wall forever. ...the worst thing is...people walking around with their heads held low. ...If there ever was a physical manifestation of the discrimination in which we live, here it is. ...a place...where we can mail a ballot. We've gone to homeless camps... It can literally be 'the corner of Colfax'... That can be your home. We need to meet with the elders in the Vietnamese community. You can't expect people to come to the government. I fought like hell for my [and my] district... We barely moved the needle. If you don't vote, if your turnout's low, they ain't gonna spend the money where you're at."
In 2012...I wrote a lot about potholes and traffic; that part of [my boulevard] hasn't changed much despite years of construction to add lanes, build medians and improve intersections. - Westword, 8/4-10/2022
...the focus of a June "Washington Post" story [was someone] who drives the 15 bus on the [infamous] Colfax Avenue for [the transit system, and] whose face is featured on the side of some buses... {The author noticed] that crime on public transportation was increasing around the country. "Denver is struggling...with the opioid pandemic, rising homelessness...up by 50 percent since before the pandemic...rising crime rates." When [the featured driver must] call paramedics...other riders yell at her because they're delayed. Sometimes she feels like she's a community help wagon on wheels... ...in April [the transit system] realigned its security personnel into...community engagement, and mental health and unhoused outreach. "Following a data-driven approach...allows [the transit system] to deploy security personnel in the areas of greatest need. ...the agency is...upgrading its onboard cameras..." [Before this month,] all [transit system] drivers got training on how to identify and assist people with mental health problems. - Westword, 8/25-31/2022
I read online the WP story mentioned above. It could have been a page from this blog, complete with the story's photos. Monday. Coming home from work. This summer, I haven't been riding to work as much as taking the transit system, because of a time crunch. I've been doing the ride all the way home much more. I'm coming up the block with the open field. The last homeless vehicle here was a single pickup truck piled high with junk. This evening, it's gone, again leaving a block empty of homeless dwellings. The following morning is my birthday. I board a train with a homeless guy carrying a rolled-up carpet. The day goes past in a blur. I have not enough sleep and it's a busy one at work. I'm pulling into my parking lot after work to find a drunk woman on the curb in front of my courtyard. I put my bike onto my porch and go back out to the mailbox. As I return, the woman has pulled down her pants. She turns over to stand up and her butt is exposed. I wonder if this is her way of asking the world to kiss her ass, as she proceeds to wader the parking lot saying "Fuck you," with long pauses in between. The following morning, I've had plenty of sleep. The sun is out. I do a swim before work. It's the ride home which reveals a mix of characters out on the trail. There's the guy with his toddler daughter, out on the first trail home. Around the bend is a guy doing pushups in my lane of the trail. Ahead a homeless guy comes up onto a bridge from below. Underneath an overpass is a pair of guys with another female child. The trio are all looking up at something. I approach the junction with a connecting trail. A guy is walking along as if he's busting out hip hop moves. Just before he realizes I'm behind him, I hear him say to no one, "You fucking trying to get somebody killed?" Onto the connecting trail home is another rollerblading couple. Friday. On the way home. I'm out on the trail passing under the second to last overpass before I exit the trail. Leaning up against the wall below the overpass is an electric bike. It appears abandoned., obviously having run out of charge. I wonder if it's passenger was homeless? Saturday. My new favorite way to work on Saturdays is the train. It the station this morning, it's just about 7 AM. On the far platform is a homeless guy with an electric guitar. He's dressed in black and looks like a punk rocker from 40 years ago. He appears to have a couple of small amplifiers, and even has his own homeless roadie helping with one of the amps. The guitar guy gets onto the high block and boards the train when it arrives. After work, I detour to the waterpark. I run into someone I worked with for a decade, and I haven't seen in seven years. She lives in my neighborhood.
Peoplegotnocommonsense
Sunday. I jump on the train for a few stops along the way back to the waterpark. Then it's off to the sister's place to celebrate my birthday which was on Tuesday. Then it's back to the waterpark for another swim. Then it's back to the train for a trip to the pizza joint next to the yogurt place. Then a ride home before I go back out to the bus stop. I still have grocery shopping to do. The bus pulls up. Someone gets out. I step through the front door. I've been an audience member to fifteen years of drama out on this broken-down boulevard. This Sunday summer early evening, I just stepped into the middle of it. Suddenly, there's a guy with a fucking German Sheppard on a harness trying to get around me. I step back off as the young driver is telling me, "Peopletryingtogetoff. Peoplegotnocommonsense. Peoplegotnocommonsense." He sounds just like the street people with mental issues who ride these very buses. Is one of them driving this one? I decide not to ask. A week ago, I was coming home on my bike from the very same supermarket. I was on a sidewalk to avoid traffic. I carefully watched to see when I could enter traffic, which I then did. I checked my rearview and then ahead before making a U-turn. A minivan stopped in the opposite lane. A Caucasian asks through the driver's side window, "Waddya doin'?" Well, if you ask the transit system sir, apparently peoplegotnocommonsense... If there was no common sense yesterday evening, there somehow is less than none the following morning. After a nice overnight rain fell, on the flowers I planted in my garden which I planted to replace the ones which died, I get a call to come in to work early. I realize that I may just make a bus which will take me directly to the shopping center where I work, and do so with time to get breakfast even before I begin my shift early. Never mind sense, anything for money, right? I can make this bus...if I can beat my best speed from my door to the bus stop. This means running every stop sign all the way to the trail, on the trail, off the trail, over the highway and up to the next boulevard beyond my own. I don't even hit the brakes once. My path still takes me past the block along an open field. A newly arrived solitary camper sits smack in the middle of the block. I make the bus. When I get on board, I take off my helmet. My hair is still wet from my shower earlier this morning. I don't get time to hit the gym before work, but I get there after work. I'm digging in my bag on a bench at the front door when a young guy comes out. He stops and says, "Look at that moon!" I look around to determine if he's speaking to me. He appears to be. The moon is as ordinary-looking as any I've ever seen. He tells me it looks "fucking amazing." He explains the importance of "appreciating these little moments in life." Workout complete, I'm soon across the street for a train home. A homeless guy on the platform comes tunning up to me. He wants to know the time. I glanced at the clock at the gym. It's probably ten after 8 PM. Five minutes later, he asks me again what time it is. I reply that it's five minutes later. "Five minutes later than what?" he queries. His train arrives and he says to me, "See?" (?)
Mondays, the waterpark has been closed this season. Yesterday I didn't make it there before work either. I did so Wednesday morning. I also had to hit the bank first, and I'm lucky I did. When I get to work, I discover that my coworker is out. She calls me later on to ask me if I can cover for her the rest of the week. This is the last week that the waterpark will be open on weekdays. It will then be open on weekends only until Labor Day. I always sit and lament at the beginning of the week that I won't get any extra hours, then the extra hours drop into my lap. So, it's goodbye to my weekday swims until next summer. After work, I stop by a Chipotle for a quick dinner. I sit and eat, and watch a couple of homeless on the median of the boulevard outside the window. An older panhandler is speaking to a younger little homeless guy. The panhandler is moving slowly. The little guy has a restless gait, moving out into the street, over to Chipotle's patio where he has his bicycle stashed, and back across to the opposite side of the street. He has a plastic bottle of soda in a back pocket and an unlit cigarette which moved around between his lips and two fingers. Soon I'm back out on the bike trail home. Just after I connect with another trail, I pass through something which I've never seen there. It's a brand new big metal gate and post. I look around at a sign on the other side of the gate. "Trail closed," it reads. The following day, I notice another gate some yards past this one. Thursday morning is day one of two days in a row in which I am working for my coworker. Open to close. Yesterday was my last day of the season swimming during the week. This morning before sunrise, I encounter ghostly apparitions out on the trail to work. I'm climbing an incline out of an underpass in the dark. There's the guy coming down and silently waving at me in an attempt to get my attention. He does this instead of move out of the way. Further along, I can make out a female in a sleeveless blouse and shorts. Her body appears pitch black in the dark as she slowly shuffles along. When I get down along a big golf course, I hear a woman screaming and ranting off in some bushes along the river. I turn onto the connecting tail, where a think individual in a black 3/4 length coat makes his way down the trail. I'm riding shirtless to enjoy the cool morning before sunrise. Not this pedestrian. Yesterday afternoon, I passed out on the trail two separate young guys in hoodies with their hoods on, in 90 degree F heat.
On Saturday I'm just onto the trail to work. I'm down along the bank of trees by the river. At the spot where I always see him in the Park Ranger. He's walking his bike and has his sunglasses on before the sun is up. After work, I'm on the way home. I'm turning onto the block with the open field. I believe that the lone camper was here this morning. By the afternoon, it's gone. Sunday. Yesterday afternoon and this morning, I grab a swim at the waterpark. After another lunch at the sister's, I ride to the nearest train station where I just miss the train. I make the short ride to the next station, which is also the location for the seat of government for this municipality. An article in the Fall 2022 Englewood City Magazine and Recreation Guide mentions this station, called CityCenter. The article discusses what has worked in this mixed-use complex (the apartment units) and what didn't (the retail shops), and what needs to be revamped. The article makes no mention of the homeless who collect here, such as those this afternoon. I have a busy day today. I'm first headed to drop off some film. I grab a bus which whisks me to another station. From there I catch a train which whips me to the boulevard with the camera shop. I get out and into an elevator with a street guy. We exit at the street level. Right outside the elevator door is a guy on a bike. He asks the street guy if he's okay. The street guy says something to the other, who points and directs him toward a guy in "brown shorts. The guy in brown shorts. Brown shorts." I do the short ride to the camera shop and return right back here again. Back down on the platform is a homeless guy asking a passenger if he wants a beer. "Why not?" replies the passenger. As he takes a swig from a can, the homeless guy tells him, "Kill it. Kill that motherfucker." Next stop is the pizza place for dinner. '90s rock blasts out of the sound system. A couple of dizzy sorority-types pick up a pizza to go, running in giggling and running out again. Next stop is the sporting goods supercenter. I haven't yet done the ride from here to there, and I completely effing forget that all I have to do is hop onto a trail which will take me right there, and the trail is just yards away. Instead I ride back to the train...and take it to the very same trail. Because...peoplegotnocommonsense.
...(including co-running two successful Big Queer Beerfests with Lady Justice Brewing)... ...[to Town Hall Collaborative]...it was nice to really support another female owned business. I'm hiring...the brewer at Ratio, the head brewer at Renagade - total badass. Summit County area. There's...space for breweries that are trying to be more creative and inclusive. ...breweries there...I'm one of the only women there, let alone a queer person. ...when I was bartending...any time a new female drinker would come in, I would have them...experience how dynamic our tap list was. and high-profile food trucks. ...we've hired [a] local designer...just a true badass. - Westword, 8/18-24/2022
The brakes need adjusting again on the bike I take to work, which is why I'm riding it today. And I recently purchased a new pair of cycling shorts. And though they were on sale, XXL is just too large. And this is not the only reason they are falling down. It's time to mention here my new doctor. She's decided that the time has come to do something about the final 20 lbs. I need to lose. For some years now, I've been running around pretending that not eating carbs, but eating as much as I want, is some kind of a diet. My new diet, good old-fashioned portioning according to recommended daily allowances, is working. I now have the digits which I need in my head, how much protein, grains, fruit, veggies, and dairy per day. And I need cycling shorts which fit. When I arrive, I speak with a tech about the brakes. We discuss my bike at some length. He suggests I get a tune up in a month and a half, and a new chain which I decide to get now. He recommends a simple block chain instead of a high performance one, for commuting. And he wants me to oil my chain every week or two, and to clean the chain first with a solvent, which I've never done. It's always something. I ride down a trail back to my boulevard and a bus stop known for its popularity with this street's unique brand of street people. We're some distance physically, and a far greater distance culturally, from the giddy young city-dwellers who frequent the pizza shop and its minimum wage caretakers. This is the corner of aging gang members and young kids making drive up dope connections. I don't see any guns, but someone has a shiny walking cane. Some middle-aged guy next to me keeps whistling at an even more disenfranchised lot of derelicts at the stop directly across the street. The bus gets be back home just after closing time for the lady who cuts my hair. I'm satisfied with what I accomplished.
Monday. This afternoon through tomorrow will see a downpour. After work, I ride home in the rain, wading through waist-deep water below an overpass. I decide to ride in only my shorts and no shirt instead of my poncho. The following morning, I ride through rain to work. Along the thoroughfare next to the river, three different cars appear to honk at me. Because I'm riding in the rain? It's let up on the ride home. At the aforementioned overpass, the water level has dropped a bit. I do another wade only to find that a tree has fallen across the incline out of here. I haul my bike over the trunk and break some branches off to get around it. The branches are brittle and offer no resistance. The mud under the water sucks at my sandals. I get going again and pass a guy going toward the tree. He comes back and passes me again, mentioning something about this being an "adventure." Onto the connecting trail home and up along a bank of trees. I pass one German Sheppard off leash, and approach a second which barks at me as I pass it. I wonder if one or both belong to the occupant of a camper shell in a small parking lot off the trail. Soon, I'm of the trail and approaching the street with the open field. There must be some popular band out at the Levitt Center this early evening. Traffic is backed up looking for a place to park. A big parking lot has a sign I've never seen, offering parking for twenty bucks.
The following morning I decide not to pull out my poncho and ride in only my shirt in the rain. Once I get out on the trail, I consider riding naked. Surely there will be no one else out here in the rain. Then another cyclist, bundled up in rain gear, passes me from behind. Further down the trail, a woman is out running in a soaking T-shirt and shorts. So much for no one else being out on the trail. Wednesday morning the rain has let up. Someone removed and chopped up the tree across the trail. On the way home after work, I climb the hill off the street with the open field. At the top is the most broken down and dented small pickup truck from the 1980s which I've ever seen. The bed is piled high with junk. Thursday at work, I step out of the door to toss some trash. An employee from just a couple doors down is outside. He points to his car with the front passenger side window smashed. He tells me that he ran to the bank at the opposite end of the shopping center. Someone followed him back here after he made a withdrawal. He must have been at the ATM outside. He didn't even get the door to his place unlocked before someone jumped out, smashed his window, and grabbed his $700 from his glove compartment.
We all deserve the freedom to get from [point] A to [point] B safely, no matter how we choose to get there. ...residents should have access to everything they need to survive and thrive within a 20-minute walk, bike or roll. ...we must have places where people want to live, and...businesses and destinations that people want...near those homes. - Denver Herald, Weel of 8/18/2022
"...we have focused on [urban] design and then we ebb away from it." Denver's first chief urban designer. [She is able] to heavily consider " community and social equity" in urban design... [The park between the state house and the capitol in Denver] in September 2021...was closed for...people...during the day dealing and doing drugs. ...now...all Denver parks [are] off limits after 11 p.m. [At the bus station in Denver's central transit hub,] "homeless...who...shelter there [become] prey to drug dealers." - Westword, 8/18-24/2022
...a shaley hilllside...a cave...whirls by. A village on stilts is wading into a lake. A...city with mud walls. A pyramid... A ziggurat. ...fortifications...palisades...temples...mausoleums. Tombs, towers, universities. - Trillion Year Spree, B. W. Aldiss, 1987
Sunday. The sister had her first joint replacement on Thursday. I won't be going to her place this weekend. Actually, it's nice to have the entire day. The morning appears overcast, but I put on sunscreen as I suspect it will burn off. Indeed, I do a swim in blue sky and sunshine before hitting the gym. In between, I ride to a Black Eyed Pea for lunch. It's on my new diet. Then I ride back to the train, to a supermarket to pick up items I forgot yesterday. Then it's off to get a slice of pizza for dinner at my new favorite pizza place, before I top it off with some yogurt from next door. I head home, and before bed, I go for a snack across the street. It's a Mexican seafood place which used to be a long time Mexican grill. I find an item which fits my diet. The following day, at work I don't feel hungry after lunch until close enough toward close, that I decide to return to the Pea for dinner this evening. It's on the way home from work. It strikes me that restaurants around the metro area are like neighborhoods. Each one serves its own socioeconomic class of patrons. Which brings me to my childhood, which I spent from the sixth grade on in Oklahoma. In its third largest city. Stepping into the Black Eyed Pea, at least this one, is to walk through a portal straight back to Oklahoma in the 1980s. The clientele is plain, rural, primarily elderly, and many are heavy-set. I watch a family of four come slowly and quietly in. The eldest is a teenager with his hair parted in the middle and curled bangs. His hair is matched in plainness only by his blank black T-shirt. His face is an expressionless mask. He would fit right in with my high school class four decades ago. Grey-haired women, all in sweaters in the middle of August and polyester slacks, are slowly carrying out Styrofoam take out boxes. I watch a bent over guy in a plaid buttoned down shirt, khaki shorts, white socks and tennis shoes as he makes his way toward the front door. Other women are in sack-shaped summer dresses. These folks could be transplants snatched from my senior year of high school and dropped here now. Except that, on average, four decades ago they would have been in their twenties. How did they turn into carbon copies of their grandparents from a neighboring state?
On Wednesday, I'm on the way to work and turning onto the block with the open field. The street off of which I'm turning has a newly arrived camper toward the top of the hill. The block along the field has newly arrived RV. It's hitched to a used pickup truck. The driver is along the RV, cranking something on the middle of the side. When I come back this way after work, the pickup is gone. I suppose he was unhitching the RV. A closed pop-up trailer is now in front of the RV. The following morning, I'm out before sunrise, headed to work open to close. There is a camper now behind the RV. The camper has a light on inside the back window, behind a curtain. The pop-up is now deployed. A new set of dwellings has yet again returned. A couple of days later, a tent will appear between the back of the camper and the front of the RV. A police cruiser from the traffic division is parked behind the trailer hitched behind the RV. On the sidewalk next to the RV, a child runs around. A female voice tells him to come back inside. At the end of the week, on Saturday we close an hour early so we can all attend the first ever company function. It's a picnic in a park not far from our plant. The following day is a busy one. I'm out on my bike the entire day. I leave around 11 AM and the day is perfect for a swim. But I make the mistake of scheduling this at the end. I decide instead to hit the pizza place for lunch first. I ride the entire way, and a few blocks from there I run smack into an outdoor art festival. I spend some time there before having a slice of pizza. After that, I go next door to the yogurt place. They have new hours this week. They are closed Sunday and Monday. I won't be back here until they reopen on Sundays, if they ever do. Then I'm off to visit the sister after her successful surgery. She's back for a couple of weeks where she was for a couple of months, before the surgery. I'm at the counter of a deathburger, next to the rehab place. A guy comes in to ask to use the bathroom, when he's told he must make a purchase. I purchase a soda on this warm day. I call the sister who wants her own soda. I'm back at the register, where the employee is confused whether I want a refill or another soda. "Are you waiting for something?" she asks me. Another guy comes inside. "What's the code for the bathroom?" he asks. He gets the same answer. He acts surprised. It's these two guys against the world, or in this case, a single bathroom. I watch them walking out in the parking lot. In the lot of the rehab place is a guy asking for change. "I want to get a new inhaler," he tells me. After a quick visit with the sister. I ride down to a shopping mall with a yogurt place which is open on Sundays. I then hightail it to the waterpark. I watch a huge cloud moving in. I make it in an hour, which means I have an hour to swim. As soon as I hit the front gate, I hear lifeguard whistles blow in unison. A flash of lightning was seen. The weather report isn't good and they decide to close an hour early. This place was more consistent a couple summers ago, when COVID shut everything down. I head for the gym, a short ride away. I get there seven minutes after the close. And they won't be open for a week, due to annual cleaning. I hit Chilis for dinner and ride home. I'm crossing the intersection to the corner where I live when I hear a voice through a bullhorn. Something about, "...you can't slow down that fast." I don't know who it is, perhaps the police? Are they speaking to me? I'm the threat?
Monday. I'm opening again for my coworker. I wake up early and am out the door at 4 AM. Lately, the overnight temps are back into the 50s F. Only here in Colorado. After sundown, before sunup, and on overcast days I have been riding shirtless as well as without sunscreen. I do this only because I'm not limited then to being so covered up. I keep with this pattern as I'm out of the door. I don't know the temperature this early morning, but on downhill acceleration, the cold wind actually causes my teeth to chatter. I'm soon out on the trail and down among the riverbank with a line of trees. There is a limited stretch of trail where there are trees on both sides, and the trail is in complete darkness. I decide to remove my bike shorts and ride nude. This is a kind of statement, that not wearing anything is one less thing I have to worry about in my life which more and more appears crowded with details. And it's a response to so many of those out here who all make sure to wear their neon Lycra racing gear. My vehicle is human powered, and my outfit is my body, which isn't an outfit. Oh well... I like riding nude, as long as no one else has to see it and possibly be disturbed by it. Therefore, I put the shorts back on before I break out of the trees and the dark. After work, coming home, I exit the trail and turn the corner onto the block with the open field. All homeless dwellings again are gone, except for the first of the most recent ones to arrive, the camper with the trailer hitched behind. Both Tuesday and Wednesday, I end up staying late again at work after close. And Friday I'm opening again. Another nude ride...?
