Requium For An Urban McDonalds

      There used to be a couple of McDonalds on this, the 16th Street Pedestrian Mall.  The Mall runs perhaps 15 or 20 blocks (at one time in the past 3 decades it was extended), from the center of downtown Denver at the state Capitol, today all the way northwest to Denver's big deal downtown transit hub where all rail lines converge.  The Mall, as all downtown streets, are at a 45-degree-angle to the surrounding streets which run straight along the north, south, east, west grid.  The other McDonalds closed I don't know how long ago.  It was located somewhere along the middle of the Mall.  The other mentioned below was closed for a spell during a remodel, as all McDonalds were.  I've mostly written about a McDonalds just up my boulevard, which I ended up frequenting at one point during the mornings.  A place with its own collection of homeless.  That was during a period after I stopped riding my bike, around 2008, and before I returned to the bike in October of 2015. And it was shortly after I moved a city block west and a bit south of downtown, from a couple of city blocks east and a bit south of downtown. Those mornings were shortly before 5 am, when I would catch the first of three buses to work.  Was there a short train ride just to the next station in there?  There had to be.  I last did that some eight or nine years ago.  When the schedule for the second connecting bus changed for the first time is years.  And I had to take the first bus, and take it earlier, to another train station, to transfer lines to the same train to the same 3rd connecting bus.  Which then became the 2nd bus.  And before I transferred trains, that station had yet another McDonalds across a highway, which I would attempt to run to and back from.  These are facts which lead to stories in other directions. away from weekend afternoons downtown.

     I don't recall going downtown much before I moved across town in the spring of 2007.  You can always tell what part of which month of the summer it is in downtown Denver according to which outdoor festival is being held in Civic Center Park.  This is the big park between the capitol and the state house.  Not to be confused with City Park, which you would think would be the name of this park, but is actually straight east of downtown, on the side of town where I used to live.  Once I moved, it just felt as if I was much closer to downtown.  It's just a short bike ride now, instead of what used to feel more as a longer bus ride and long walks anywhere there.  There's always plenty of food at the festivals, but you need to pay cash for tickets to get any.  I would always simply stop before or after at this McDonalds, which was right next to the park.  As my memory of three decades fades, I recall that it always hosted a contingent of homeless patrons.  I don't recall at what point the homeless practically took over the place.  It was fun to watch families and executives waiting in line and sitting with characters who appeared to have stepped out of some kind of post-apocalyptic circus.  Some would loiter outside.  I remember a section outside, perhaps originally for patio tables, which was taken over by homeless sitting or sleeping.  At one time, the place hired a homeless guy to do security, rousting particular homeless who had been there too long or fell asleep in the men's room.  The Westword did a story about him some time ago.

     During the Democratic National Convention in 2008, it was convention types and homeless together in here.  I don't recall either Obama or Clinton dropping by here.  I was there with my homemade Pat Paulsen shirt.  There was a local organization which called itself Recreate 1968.  1968 was the year that comedian Pat Paulsen first ran for president.  During the Pride Fest, it was LGBTQ folk and homeless sharing the dining room.  There was the occasional homeless customer who tried to talk their way into getting food with no money at all, while a line of paying stretched out behind them.  I worked for a company for almost a decade which was then taken over by a crazy man, for whom I worked another two and a half years.  When he shut the company down, I worked for him another year and a half, way up in North Denver.  Two buses and a bike ride there and back.  Craziest thing I ever did.  During the couple of years with him in Denver, he fired the mechanic we had, hired another before firing him, and then instead hired a couple of homeless guys, one after the other.  The first homeless moved into one of our stores for a while.  The last one claimed he had studied HVAC.  At the time, my schedule was such as it was the previous decade.  I worked five days a week with a day off during the week.  One Tuesday, I had the day off and I came down here for lunch.  There was our HVAC guy.  He was sitting at a table reading the newspaper, having ordered no food or anything to drink.  I wondered what the hell he was doing here instead of being at work?

     Once the remodel happened, it appeared that the place just didn't have the business that it used to.  It wasn't as inviting as it used to be, less of a place to spend any time in.  I understand that the entire mall is shutting down for a remodel, due to reopen sometime next year.  The city, true to form, has hired some big deal out-of-town project manager superstar to whip up a better pedestrian mall.  The Westword has written about her as well.  Will there be a new McDonalds?  And will the homeless hold court there?

January 2023, Mr. "Regardless" and Weird-Ass Niggas

      New Year's Day.  I take the first tentative steps outside with my bike in three days.  As I like to put it, I'm riding the line between traction and insanity.  If there's no traction for my tires, then there's no sane reason to be out here.  I have to get in the zone, where I'm aware as possible of what's underneath me.  And being in the zone is no guarantee of anything.  But the ground appears negotiable.  I navigate the ice and snow and occasional patches of street and sidewalk, all the way down to my bank.  The sister needs some cash.  Then it's a few blocks to a bus stop for a bus down my boulevard.  This bus on Sundays always gives me something called a day pass for my fare, instead of the usual transfer which only lasts three hours.  I wonder if this is the case now on all Sunday transportation.  I doubt it.  This driver says something about my giving him a transit system ride coupon, about today being the start of 2023.  Since the beginning of last year, the transit system's ride coupons have both 2022 and 2023 on them.  I can't make out what the driver says, but i wonder if he doesn't know realize this.  I get out a few short blocks away from the sister's place.  More ice, snow, and roadway.  After lunch with her, it's off to a nearby supermarket where I get the bulk of my weekly shopping done.  From there, I make my way over more ice and snow, down to a series of parking lots which are clear of precipitation.  From the last lot, I hook up with the trail, which I ride all the way home.  The trail is relatively clear.  Once I exit, it's yet more ice and snow along the way home.  I drop off the groceries and take down the Christmas lights before it gets dark.  I don't want to wait until tomorrow.  The forecast is freezing rain turning to snow.  A curious nightmare beginning to the new year.  I elect to have dinner at my trusty pizza place, which appears to be open after being closed for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the day after.  I decide not to ride this trip.  I'm not especially encouraged by the bike ride.  The side streets, my modus operandi, have yet to be nearly as clear as the main streets.  It's twilight by the time I'm at the stop for a crosstown bus.    I'm not usually going someplace after sundown, except back home.  Traffic is heavy here toward the end of the first early winter afternoon, the first Sunday of the new year after dark.

Mr. "Regardless" and Weird-Ass Niggas

     The crosstown bus arrives and scoops me up.  I take a seat across from a homeless guy in white shorts.  He's thin, his face appears sunken, like someone in their 70s, and he has the reddest skin of anyone I've ever seen.  At the next stop, he gets up and gets out where a couple of young guys come aboard.  The first one tells the driver that he "just got thrown out of the house."  He wants to know if he can ride without any fare.  I don't hear what the driver tells him.  I don't know why being thrown out of your house precludes you from paying for anything.  Perhaps he was thrown out for not paying his bills?  His response to the driver is, "Well, regardless of what you say, I'm getting on."  I hear no protest from the driver.  He doesn't need this horseshit from a passenger who sounds as if he has more lines from supermarket novels than he does the motivation to be on a bus before it's light.  There's no day pass for this guy.  What a way to begin the new year.  He takes a seat in back with the other guy, who has been on the phone since the first one uttered his first lines to the driver.  Every other word from the one on the phone is "nigga."  He talking to his nigga on the other end about a guy who wants to kill him.  Of course, what else?  Talk about a New Year's resolution.  Yet there's a tired familiarity to this moldering street violence, which has yet to moor it to any particular age or circumstance.  It has always been, as long as there have been streets.  The "regardless" guy is silent while the other continues with his tale.  "I don't associate with weird-ass niggas."  The one guy hasn't had the chance to look in a mirror because he's persona non grata at home, but what's this guy's excuse.  He refers to someone who shot "at" him, someone who he's convinced doesn't want to go back to prison.  This is what I'm listening to as evening approaches on New Year's Day.  The weird-ass nigga accused him of having sex with Mrs. Weird-Ass Nigga "in front of his kids and all this other shit.  I'm on the bus now, and I'm out here every day.  And I've seen him, in his car.  He hasn't been pulled over or anything.  If I have to I'll beat the shit out of him.  'Let's see how gangsta you really are.'  He served 2 years out of a 6 -ear mandatory."  Hmm.  Sounds as if he had either good behavior, or a good lawyer.

     The bus gets me to the train station in jig time.  The pair get out and wander off.  I'm hanging out at a gate for a bus which will take me a couple of blocks from my pizza place.  I'm surveying the rest of the station as I wait to make my connection.  I watch a homeless cyclist, of course with no helmet, ride lazily into the station from the south.  He briefly rides up onto the platform, as if he's looking to see if there's anyone there whom he may recognize.  He rides to the north end of the station where he makes a circle.  There are people waiting for trains downtown as they do during special events or evenings out.  I see a pair of arms helping someone else on a bench on the platform, pulling a sleeping bag up around their shoulders   My bus arrives and we just as soon take off.  It's mostly empty.  A young couple comes on at a stop and takes a seat.  She's sporting her stylin' winter gear.  He has his jeans slung low, holding a small box from Cinnabon and sounds as if he's complaining about something.  They get out at a stop where an elderly guy dressed in black steps on.  He takes small, slow steps one at a time, until he gets to the seat behind me.  I'm soon off the bus and headed for a pizza slice.  I wait to cross a complex intersection of three busy streets.  Flashes go off atop a traffic light pole as cameras snap shots of license plates, on cars which run the light.  This happens constantly both now and when I come back across here, as if drivers don't care if the get tickets in the mail.  I eat fast and head back to the boulevard.  I want to get to the supermarket and get my one item and get back home.  A fog has settled in.  It's just now 6 PM, the first evening of the new year.  I know because I pass a pedestrian with a watch alarm which goes off.  I don't know when the next bus comes back this way.  It's nine blocks to the supermarket, and after 3 days off the bike I can use the exercise.  This boulevard is a main artery into and out of downtown.  It's also a repository, a collection of what few remaining shops there are of the past several decades.  If any.  I think you can still feel the past here.  It's also a kind of hipster tourist trap.  On my side of the street is a yoga studio.  A young woman inside looks good in ger yoga gear.  There are restaurants such as "Dave's Hot Chicken" with dedicated young employees inside.  A storage facility is closed for the evening.  An elderly guy sits on a walker in the doorway, having a smoke.  He says to me, "Night."  I'm sure he means good evening.  There's a bank branch which has been vacated. Along the way, in a dark alcove, are a couple of bundled up homeless on the ground.  A third homeless guy comes along. He stares at his reflection in a glass door and says out loud, "You'd think it was cheaper to live downtown.  That's just not the case."  Just beyond, what's this, another pizza by the slice place?  I must check them out.  Perhaps tomorrow.  It will be a weather adventure.  Hemmingway goes out for pizza.

     The following day is the last day off my company will hand out until Memorial Day.  I'm encouraged by yesterday's adventure to get out on the bike again today.  My rec center does not pick up their phone, but they were open last Monday.  So I ride to the same bus stop where I caught the bus yesterday at twilight.  There are no passengers this late morning who claim to have been thrown out of their house.  There are no passengers claiming to be chased by gangstas.  There is fresh snow on the ground.  The freezing rain is more like a frozen mist.  I've encountered much worse, on a Christmas four decades past during my years in Oklahoma.  All the children were home at our late mom's place there.  The power lines went down, heavy with raining ice.  Weird shit out on the prairie.  The bus takes me and the bike to the train.  As I wait for it, I notice a middle-aged woman on a bench under a shelter, across the track.  She's wearing a couple of disheveled fleece jackets under a blanket around her shoulders, sweat pants, and unbuckled snow boots.  Just about a century ago, women with unbuckled boots were referred to as "flappers".  Her extreme overweight does not bode well for the fact that she is also smoking, and coughing as if she is sick.  She rises and comes onto the platform.  I notice a pair of other homeless, two guys.  They are perhaps the first who I've seen so far, who appear upbeat about the new year.  Good for you guys.  I then promptly get on the wrong train.  ...again.  It may be a new year, but my habits remain the same.  Some guys get thrown out of the house.  Others chased by gangstas.  Myself, I take the wrong train.  As far as the first guy, perhaps the trick is not living with anyone.  Which I suppose is what you do when your homeless anyway.  When I get back here, all three homeless are gone.  Now on the correct train, I am one stop away from the one I want when I look out the window.  The pair of homeless guys have come down here and are just hanging out.  Smiling.  I hit the gym and decide to see if the Chilis is open across the highway.  They are!  It's pasta for lunch, then back onto the train, and out at a station where a bus waits for me.  After all that, I'm too tired to go back downtown to try dinner at the New York Style pizza by the slice place.  But I am determined to get back out on the bike to work tomorrow.

     Tuesday.  I didn't get to the pizza place for dinner yesterday.  I decided to stay closer to home.  And I elect to take one more day out on the transit system to and from work.  The streets appear to be manageable. Wednesday I venture out onto the frozen snow and ice expanses and tire ruts.  I end up doing just fine.  Along the way to work on the trail, I even stop to take off a layer as the temperature climbs.  In the process, I'm surrounded by a flock of geese who think I have food for them.  Is it on Thursday morning?  I'm coming under the pair of overpasses on the trail, where a popular homeless camping spot may be found.  A young homeless couple are walking their dog, headed my way.  The girl asks me how my day is going.  I reply that I am off to work.  Saturday I decide to make a break for the bus.  I head crosstown and am making my way through a residential neighborhood.  The residents surely either work for or are students at the private university just to the north.  Coming my way in the street is a grey-haired homeless guy.  As with so many homeless, his winter coat is unzipped all the way, though his hood is over his head.  He's pulling a folding canvas cart with a guitar case inside.  He speaks to no one as he hauls his cart over a frozen white patch in the street.  "Goddamned neighborhood watches.  Calling the cops for stolen cars..."  I get to the stop for my bus early and stick my head into the diner just across the street.  I order a hot chocolate to go and get it for free.  The collects me and drops me at the shopping center where I work, again in time to hit the breakfast place first.  Shortly after I get a table, a character comes in as if out of a movie.  He's elderly, and each time his cane makes contact with the ground, it shakes the entire time before he raises it again.  I'm sitting behind a husband in a black T-shirt.  On the back are a pair of assault rifles framing a pair of eyes.

     ...she worked on the revitalization of downtown Dallas for nearly two decades, pushing public-private partnerships...  ...countering the naysayers proclaiming that...the Mile High City...was in decay...  ...the reopening of the [downtown pedestrian] mall in 2024.  "I don't think you see that in many cities in the country."  ...people have asked how they can be supportive or part of the solution.  "We have such a positive story to tell."

     "We have to have a regional approach at a minimum.  People experiencing homelessness in Denver don't just stay in Denver all the time."  The rate of people falling into homelessness has outpaced the rate of people getting out of homelessness in recent years...  "I would put our park system up against any park system on the planet."  The [city's] population has just grown.  ...complaints from that population...from...dog behavior to clashed with pickleball players to...homelessness in parks.  - Westword, 1/5-11/2023

     ...new year...consists of new diets, gym memberships, and fresh journals...  ...organization is a journey, not a destination.  We even have an acronym called SPACE: sorting, purging, assigning, consolidating, and embellishing, and educating.  ...we only wear 20 percent of the clothes we own.  "Disorganization decreases good feelings such as efficiency, productivity, and relaxation..."  - Colorado Parent, 1/2023

     Whether you're developing new rhythms with your family, jumping back into the workforce postpartum, experiencing a new aspect of being a parent, or trying to create a routine of self-care...  You talk to yourself more than anyone else does... - Coach Carli Ward   You are a powerful, electromagnetic being.  Your thoughts and intentions are electric signals that you send out into the world.  Your feelings and emotions are magnetic vibrations...  - Coach Sophia Rose, MCLC  You are what you think you are, no exceptions.  Become your best stream of consciousness every day in 2023...  - Coach Steve Reinhart, Energy Healer, RMI, ARC  When you have more money, you have more choices.  ...develop more supportive money habits.  - Coach Jen Nash   - OUT FRONT Magazine, 1/2023

     "Depends on what you mean by 'soul'.  We don't use the word.  We say 'plasma field composed of tightly interwoven subatomic particles, capable of recording its host's sensory input.'  And capable of traveling from body to body, evolving psychically so that species survival  is more likely.  It's not religion.  It's a function of the first law of thermodynamics, but we use certain 'mystical' techniques to work with it.  Training for seeing life patterns, that sort of thing.  Karma-buildup release.  But if we use words like 'karma' and 'soul' in our reports to the National Academy of Sciences, we'll lose our funding.  It took us twelve years or regressing people, and tracing facts, to get them to admit it was a bone fide science."  - "Triggering", by J. Shirley, OMNI Magazine, 1/1982

     ...a supervised psilocybin or psilocin experience.  ...personal growth, spirituality, or...psychedelic-assisted therapy...  ...medical professions...associated with the...healing-center model.   ...a limitation on ingesting natural medicines in public places...  ...a multi-day retreat where one of those days includes psilocybin.  ...wet mushrooms...dry mushrooms...chocolates, or psilocybin in pill form.  - Westword, 1/12-18/2023

     ...behind pawn shops...gas stations...used tire traders...body shops along South Broadway, on a former used car lot...an urban [hydroponic] farming revolution.  ...growing the equivalent of a 10-acre farm...  One trailer with 365 days optimal growing conditions can produce the equivalent of a 5-acre seasonal farm...  Employing a closed loop...each trailer uses up only five gallons of water a day...  "I didn't want to deal with super-rich people's problems with real estate anymore."  - Washington Park Profile, 1/2023

     The goal of maximizing net good for a population has its roots in the utilitarian philosophy developed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. ...if applied to lifesaving medical care in disasters may require an unacceptable level of sacrifice from those most in need...  ...in...philosophy journals from a decade beginning in the late 1970s. ...rejected [was] the idea that the number of lives saved should be a central consideration when providing rescues.  [And accepted was the idea] that suffering is not cumulative between individuals...  - Five Days at Memorial, by S. Fink, 2013

     It's the following week. The days have been up above freezing.  The snow and ice continues to melt.  The homeless here and there have their favorite spots along the way to work.  The camp under the pair of overpasses has been reoccupied for a couple of months.  I don't recall which day, but I am on the way to work, just under the overpass beyond the waterpark.  Just five more months until it's waterpark time again.  Ahead of me is an oncoming pedestrian walking a dog.  I stop to let them pass as in front of me is a swath of ice.  Just behind the pedestrian is a guy in his 30s.  He's on a razor scooter.  (?)  He alerts me to "a lot of ice" ahead of me.  Once I pass him, it's completely clear for some distance.  Wednesday.  The gravel parking lot, where I turn off onto another trail toward work, has been a popular place for one or a handful of homeless vehicles.  This morning there's a van parked here, with a sunshade in the windshield.  This is hardly unusual.  Instead of the usual blank silver cover, this van has an image from a famous movie.  Four characters from the original Star Wars, Luke, Leia, Han, and Obi-Wan are facing the camera from the spacecraft the Milleniuym Falcon.  Making it appear of course that the four of them are sitting in the front seat.  The following day, I'm right back at the spot where I saw the guy on the razor scooter. He's here once again.  Last time he had the hood of a jacket on.  This morning, I can see his hair.  It's lavender.  Friday night, I pull into my parking lot at the same time as my next-door neighbor, who also happens to be our HOA president.  I thank him for the cookies his siter made and which he brought me for Christmas.  He asks me if I want a slice of pizza he just brought for his family.  This guy is ruining my diet.  He mentions that he found a pizza place he hadn't heard of before.  It turns out to be the place I go every Sunday for dinner.

     Wednesday.  It began snowing yesterday, early evening.  This morning, I elect again to take the transit system to work.  The snow is light, but it's expected to continue until early evening today.  I'm at the train station, where I watch a young guy on the train platform.  He's saying hi to people who I'm not convinced  he knows.  I notice his jacket and hoodie underneath are both unzippered.  It in the mid 20s F. out here.  When I see him depart just before my train arrives, this is the final clue which convinces me he's homeless.  The train drops me at a station for a bus to work's doorstep. I just miss the previous bus.  So I walk the relatively short distance to a diner next to another stop for the same bus.  I grab a cup of fruit, and when I'm done, an elderly guy in a booth asks me if I will help him cross the street.  I tell him that I would, but that I'm trying to catch a bus.  He replies, "That's important."  Out at the stop, I spot my gay waiter helping across the intersection of a busy avenue and boulevard.  After work, I'm back at the train station for a bus home.  Someone homeless has hung their coat on a historical monument at the station.  I'm at a bus gate for one of a couple of buses which will get me home.  I notice a tall guy in a deep blue hoodie and baseball cap.  He'll do for this evening's nut job.  Often, when I catch the transit system home, I end up here for the last connecting bus.  And for some reason, there is always one passenger, or someone waiting who never gets on a bus, who stands out from the others. Who do not appear as familiar with the transit system, or often with this world.  Tonight, it's this guy, who saunters over to me and asks, "Hey brother, you got the time?"  I point to a clock mounted below the sign with the name of the station.  He claims he never noticed it.  Asking the time is a tactic used by street folk.  If you answer, they will take this as a sign that they can ask you for something.  I walk to the other side of both gates to keep my distance.  My bus arrives, and he asks the driver if he's going to "the Moser block?"  The driver doesn't know what he's talking about.  I'm sure he's asking if this bus goes to Moser Place, which the last runs on this route indeed do go to.  The driver directs him to the other bus, which does go past Moser Place.  But this bus will take him within walking distance.  But the guy doesn't ask him this.  He appears to be satisfied.

     Thursday.  I'm giving the streets and trail another day to melt.  I have the option not to ride, only because awoke too early.  And as I got a call last night to work open to close today, I won't lose the advantage of not going back to sleep.  It's a phrase which strikes me as something which shouldn't be, not going back to sleep as some kind of advantage.  Just what kind of life am I living anyway?  I haven't taken the transit system this early since I was doing it on a regular basis.  That was before I was on the cushy closing shift, which I've been on for a good eight years for three different owners and two different companies.  And back then, I did it every day.  I caught my first bus catty corner to the stop where I stand this morning at 4:30 AM.  I used to catch one of the first buses, if not the first of the day, going the opposite direction.  Even at this hour, the speeding pickups can't resist coming out.  The bus comes quick and deposits me just across the street from a stop for another.  It's only a 20-minute wait.  Not bad.  I'm not at either of the closest buses which will take me across town.  One of those actually will take me all the way to the connecting bus, which will drop me at work's doorstep.  And it comes a half hour later.  But the connection from that route depends on it being right on time, with just a minute to spare.  And I have plenty of time to catch this one, which will take me to the very same connecting bus with amore of a time margin.  In the shelter here, sitting on a bench hunched over with a shoulder against a pole, is someone homeless.  Whatever walls used to be on the shelter are long gone.  They are bundled up in the 18-degree F. air, and under a blanket.  A guy walks over from a gas station and goes past to a 7-Eleven.  In a few minutes, he returns stirring a cup of coffee.  He asks me if I will buy him some kind of book.  Did he say book of coupons?  Does he mean a book of ten transit system tickets, each worth one fare on any local route, others for any regional route, and still others at a discounted price?  Uh-oh.  Insane in the membrane.  I shrug my shoulders each of the two times he asks me.  I watch him return to the 7-Eleven and go back inside.  I can see him through a window.  He appears to be rummaging through a backpack he carries.  He comes back outside and stays over there, never returning to the bus when it comes.  Even with a couple of hours before sunrise, with plowed snow still on the streets, I make it to work.

     And just like that, another ten-hour shift is done.  I admit, the early afternoon slowed down.  I did some cleaning.  I did some reading.  I was drifting off.  Rare these days.  I have dinner at the bakery next to work.  For the second time in a week or two, the same middle-aged minister is in here around 5 PM.  He's doing a quiet one-on-one with another male, at sundown, when the night crew is here and the crowds have all gone home.  He's telling the guy the same thing as he did the other male last week, how abundant his life is and how he's changed in the past weeks or months.  I may have heard this minister at the breakfast place across the parking lot.  I catch the bus home, this time to the train to the station where I ended up yesterday.  Early in the morning, the train does not run as frequently as it does now.  To get to work, I must go directly from bus to bus.  I'm back at the same pair of bus gates as last night.  This evening's nut job is a girl who acts as if she's on a Bluetooth, but may in fact be speaking to no one.  She does the same thing on the bus when it comes.

     ...an area once studded with small homes, storefronts and warehouses.  No original homes are left a block away...just two duplexes and a single two-story...and a few more old residences...before Five Points melts into a gentrifying sea of pop-ups and scrape-offs and new builds...  ...turning over from street corners inward...  The rowhouses...which started out...for working-class Denver...remain that way today...  ...for a working man or a young family to rent while getting a leg up, close to jobs and public transportation.  The yards out back are used for...sharing of beers, passing of joints, storytelling.  It's all a little messy, a little muddy, and well-loved in evidentiary fashion.  The current occupants who could lose their homes are cut from the same cloth as many of the residents who lived here through the decades.  ...a Myanmar refugee...  The middle apartment...a poet and a chef. On the other end is...a chef by day but a rap artist, too...  Together, they are and aren't a family...  They are united, for now, by place, both geographically and in life.  [One tenant] was able to move in because the previous tenant anticipated that the rowhouse would soon be sold and relocated...  "Before that"...nine-story "multifamily project"..."up to its third floor now was just a hole in the ground.  Before that, my neighbors say it was just old houses with squatters, homeless people living there.  It's all going up so incredibly fast...making everything around it change just as quickly.  ...it's everywhere.  The people right here next door in the condominiums with the Tesla chargers and the chrome gates and everything, everything, everything - they throw away stuff that we couldn't afford with a month's pay.  ...a kind of lifestyle [is] going away."  Shared yards, incidental communal living...your neighbors...become your friends.  Most buyers and...renters...are looking for their own space, not one that they share.  ...it's the opposite of what American life used to be, before six-foot backyard fences and divided patios.  ..."trying to enjoy the time we have left here.  Live moment to moment."

     ..."made a terrine and it was delicious.  ...it was like, that's not what this is going to be.  That's not working-class people.  It's meat and sides in dog bowls, essentially."  ...in an era of chef-driven fine dining.  "It feels like we're part of breaking that down."  ...a service that operates like a NASCAR pit crew...housed in a small shipping container...  ...he's not exactly thrilled with the RiNo of today, and the way it draws people...mostly concerned with being in the hottest neighborhood.  ..."when someone...is like, 'What's the name of this place?'  Like, you don't even know why you're here?  Look at downtowns of any city anywhere in the country.  ...no people in the offices, they're not as desirable places, there's not as much traffic, but rent keeps going up.  The farther away from downtown, the better.  ...around here...we know the direction that this is going.  You work so hard to get nothing at the end of the day, you just become a paycheck factory."  - Westword, 1/19-25/2023

     The month has turned into mornings of skies which perpetually threaten snow.  Monday, it did snow for perhaps an hour.  The overnights are in the low 20s F. and the days don't appear to get above freezing.  Yet still the snow slowly continues to melt.  Monday is the first time this winter I go down on my ass over ice.  There was a dusting of fresh snow on an incline, where I knew for a fact there was ice.  At least the Saturday before.  I thought perhaps it had melted, or that I could get traction.  Nature is stubborn.  Saturday's experience was such that the ice was visible, and I dismounted to walk up from under an overpass.  I reached a spot near the top where I couldn't make a single move.  I was surrounded by ice.  If I took another step, I began to slip.  I successfully made my way to the side.  I was out on the trail to work after hitting the clinic to order a prescription refill.  This was followed by a swing by the bank, which I couldn't do last week for reasons I can't remember.  Probably because I was called into work early.  After work I swing back past the clinic on the way home, to pick up the prescription.  Tuesday, I was originally scheduled to go in early, but I get called in to work the entire day.  I'm out of an item with which I need to make lunch and dinner, at the Vietnamese grocery next to where I live.  Which is closed both Monday and Tuesday for the lunar New Year.  It's not until Wednesday that I am able to pick up what I need, make both meals to take to work, and then finally have time to hit the gym before work.  It begins to snow on the way, and continues when I come out of the gym.  It's not so bad and actually helps cover some ice along the way, eventually stopping before I get to work.  It's good to be back to commuting without the transit system again.  It should be called lunacy New Year.  A sign posted on the grocery door claims that they were opening at 8 AM this morning.  I was the only one there at 8, with the exception of the driver behind the wheel of the tractor trailer in the parking lot, with the engine running, waiting to unload.  ...at 8.  I watched employees trickle in, waiting outside with myself for the guy with a key.  He arrived shortly thereafter.  The employees made it inside.  I stood there for a few minutes before I asked the key master, still outside, if the place is open.  "Eight-thirty," he replied.  I reminded him that the posted sign reads 8.  He answered, "Thank you."  Happy lunar New Year.

     Was it last year?  The year before?  I don't recall the last time I saw a homeless camper along the long street, a block from my home.  But on this chilly morning in the upper teens F, there is a newly arrived camper here on my ride to work.  Just before turning onto this street, I stopped at the bus stop across the street from my place, to drop some trash into the trash can.  When I turn back toward the corner, I see a young guy on a BMX bike.  It's c to the old out here, and this guy is in just a hoodie.  His hood isn't even on, but instead he has a ball cap.  I stay at work just late enough to catch the bus home.  Earlier this week, I was last at this stop just after sundown with another passenger.  He sat on the bench, as he does this evening, in a jumpsuit and knit cap.  He has a pair of big headphones over his long white hair, and sport a long white beard.  Last time, the ride to the train station with him was entirely uneventful.  Suddenly, this evening, he shifts upon the bus bench.  He pulls out his phone and looks at it.  A car pulls into the turn lane right next to the sidewalk where we sit.  It's blinker flashes brightly in the dark.  He stands up and extends his arm at the passing car.  He opens and closes his fist, apparently imitating the blinker.  I wonder if it's his ride, as he follows the car toward the corner.  But he returns when the bus arrives.  Then, just as unexpectedly, he pulls the bike rack down for my bike.  On the ride to the station, he sits in silence.  I jump out at the station and take my bike off the rack.  Before I can stow the rack, he's right there to do it for me.  I will see this same guy late Friday afternoon after work.  He will come into the bakery next to where I work to pick up an order.  I will be in there for a quick salad for dinner.  I'll ask an employee if he's a regular here, and her reply will be, "...kind of."  But for now, it's Friday morning.  I'm out the door to work.  I'm around the corner and along the long street a block from my own.  The streets are for the most part mercifully free of ice and snow and the sun is out.  It's been...more than a year?  This long street has been clear of any kind of homeless vehicle for months now.  Until this morning.  There be a newly arrived camper here.  I'm up a hill, down a long hill, and around another couple of corners before I'm onto the trail.  All the way past the last golf course to work is a roundabout on the trail.  Entering it from the opposite direction are a pair of slow-moving homeless cyclists.  They are bundled up, helmetless, and each hanging onto a stolen shopping cart with his right hand.  The carts are both loaded with stuff.

     Sunday.  Good God, what a day.  After work yesterday, I stayed late enough to catch the bus, and decided to transfer to a crosstown bus directly to my supermarket.  For a day or two, I've felt a cold coming on.  When I got to the store, it was in high gear.  The pharmacy was still open, and I could ask the pharmacist about a 24-hour decongestant interfering with my blood pressure medicine.  I decided to ride home, and had some pho for dinner at a place behind my home.  Just what the doctor ordered.  After, I took the meds, and almost immediately felt better.  I had a message from a lady I am dating.  She wants to have dinner Sunday.  It's going to be one ridiculous day.  And it is.  But I got so much accomplished, it worked for me.  Today and tomorrow are supposed to be a high of 8 degrees F.  Light snow is falling, and slowly accumulating.  Instead of lunch, I have breakfast with the sister.  She's doing well with her brand-new shoulder, installed with the help of a laser.  Along the way, I elect to take the bus.  There are few patches of ice and frozen snow under a dusting of the new stuff.  I connect with the bus, and a short distance down the road, we pick up a senior couple.  The woman claims that she has a "discount card."  I suspect this is a card which identifies her as disabled.  She tells the driver she put in a discounted ride coupon, for passengers 65 and older.  She claims that with such a fare, she may receive something called a "day pass."  This is a transfer which, instead of expiring after 3 hours upon being issued, lasts until 2:59 AM the following morning.  If I had to guess, though I can't hear the driver, it appears as if she was denied her day pass.  And let me tell you, there is nothing disabled with her voice.  She beings yelling at him over and over.  "YOU OWE ME A DAY PASS.  Go ahead and CALL THE POLICE.  I WANT A SUPERVISOR TO MEET US [at the train station where the end of the line is].  "YOU HAVE TO DO THIS IF I REQUEST IT."  My stop isn't far, but she keeps going right up until I get off.

     I spend the morning debating whether or not I should make the trek to an eastern suburb of the metro area.  There's yet another library used book sale.  It's the furthest library from home.  A decade ago, I worked for an owner who had a store out here.  I decide to go ahead, and I ride to the train, which takes me back up north.  I pull a common ploy, which is to take the train on one line north, and transfer to another line south, thereby getting across town faster that I could on a crosstown bus.  The train I want splits off onto a line which goes east before turning north.  Two trains for the same line arrive one after the other.  My train is supposed to be between these.  I elect for the train which is here.  I can always disembark at the stop before the other trains turns to split off this line.  In fact, that particular stop has a Chilis where I can grab lunch.  On the train, I decide against this as I don't have time.  As soon as I disembark, my train is directly behind it.  It whips me out to a station where can catch a bus to the library.  The platform at this station is a story above the bus gates. The two elevators appear to be out of service.  Below freezing temps?  Snow and wind?  Down with a cold?  Hey, no problem.  I can carry this bike which I ride on the weekends, and is heavy because it's made of real metal instead of composites, down the stairs.  I get on a different bus, which has posted on its sign the same destination as my bus.  It simply takes a different route.  The driver appears to be new on this route.  We end up at a transfer station which actually is not far from the library at all.  And I have arrived  not far from the library about the same time my original bus would only now be leaving the station. Had I taken the other bus, it would have dropped me at the library before ending up here.  I remember a morning before sunrise, taking the bus I just did to get to a store out here.  But today, between here and the library, there turns out to be a deathburger where I grab lunch.  This is just another crazy journey in my travels of the metro area, where I have no idea what I will face.  And though some snow has frozen into drifts across the sidewalk, I am for the most part able to ride alongside a busy thoroughfare in this suburban edge of the metropolis.  On a day when flakes are blowing in a wind chill well below zero, figure out where I am, and get where I'm going.  And there's even lunch.  Part of my debating whether or not to make the trip is I wasn't sure the event hadn't been cancelled due to inclement weather.  When I get there, the place is hoppin'.  This is what residents decided to do on the last day of a used library book sale.  I find five or six more books, and I'm outta there within an hour.  I catch the bus I originally planned on taking here.  The same driver is now driving this route.  She must be getting familiar with the handful of different routes on this side of town.

     Back at the train station, it's now up the stairs with the bike.  The train arrives soon after.  The train operator makes an announcement.  Whover is "smoking drugs," she would prefer they cease.  Or else she will call security.  One of the stops on this line is where I can catch a bus to work.  We stop there for longer than is usual.  I wonder if security has met us here.  We then proceed the two stops to where I get out for home.  I glance toward the clock at the station.  I decide to wait for the bus.  A middle-aged woman is at the gate for my next bus.  She breaks into conversation.  She wants to know if I'm warm.  I reply that I am.  She says, "Well, I'm cold!"  I neglect to mention that I'm in long underwear and ski pants, and a long-sleeved shirt and a nylon fleece jacket under my coat.  She can see I'm in a [new] balaclava and thick neck gator under my helmet.  As for her, her winter gear almost looks like a housecoat.  And she's in sweatpants.  In 8 degrees F.?  I decide to ride home.

     By Tuesday, I feel as though I'm beating the cold.  I decide to ride to work.  The morning warms up fast to a high above freezing.  I hope to hit the gym sometime this week.  But...is this really the end of another month?  the end of January?  It's almost as if there's not much of the winter left.  It's already staying light a bit longer toward the end of the afternoon.  And yet, it's the next two months during which the worst snows fall.  And the first of these months begins tomorrow.