Wednesday. Interesting day. It began raining yesterday and continued all through this morning, finally letting up. And it's been on the chilly side throughout the weekend. So, it's just as well that the waterpark. I got out of work last night an hour and a half after we close, just in time for the bus and train and bus. Back on my boulevard, it was a short and rainy ride home. I sure am getting use out of my rain poncho. This morning, I get a late start, and am out the door. I sling a bag over my shoulder and the piece where the strap attaches to the bag breaks off. I rig it so it will work, as I've done in past races to work, and head for a bus stop where I rarely am. On the corner, I'm looking down the street for my bus when I hear voices calling to me. Stopped at a red light are a couple of high school kids in a small car. The passenger is smiling and saying something I can't understand. About weed? The driver flashes me a sideways peace sign. My bus arrives and drops me at the train. I jump on one which I believe will shuttle me the two stops with enough time to catch a bus directly to work. It shuttles me quick enough, but only in time to watch the bus pulling out of the station. I jump back on the train headed back where I came from, and I do make a bus which will get me south, close to work. I can ride from there. I even grab a snack after I disembark. Make it to work on time, I do. And it's another day when I stay three hours past close. The following day I have off, to get to an afternoon dentist appointment. Before this, I head for the gym, which means going right back to the train station from where I came last night. This morning, there's a couple on a bench at one platform. There's a pair of guys with an open suitcase on a bench at the next platform. They're changing clothes. And a single guy on a bike is riding loops all over the platform with the suitcase guys. He's riding across the studded yellow strips right next to the tracks, which no one is supposed to do. Riding isn't even allowed anywhere on the platform. But a transit security officer asks him to stay off the yellow areas. The bike guy begins to loudly argue with her. Now, I've been on this platform when (earlier this year?) a homeless guy was out on the tracks. He was throwing bread to the pigeons. A transit system security officer was also here then, and asked him to get off the tracks. He completely ignored her. So, to see a homeless guy attempt to engage a security officer is a homeless of a different color.
I look around, and I don't see anyone on the train platforms other than myself and the security officer who don't strike me as street folk. The security officer repeats her request as the bike guy interrupts her with his monologue, something about 'the people.' I can't make it out. What happens next I don't ever recall having seen. The suitcase guys, in various states of dress, tell the security officer to leave the guy alone.. This is followed by more of the same from the female half of the couple on the other platform. The officer asks her not to interfere with her and the bike guy, and this sets the lady off. "No, you came at me like I'm some kind of homeless bitch." Homeless bitch? Interesting. She goes on, "You're a harassing bitch." Is this some kind of attempted legal assessment from this woman with an unlit cigarette in her hand? Is this scene, this cabal of rebelling street folk a political statement? This is the very station where homeless sweeps have been taking place on the trains as they pull in here. The bike guy boards my train. The suitcase guys sit down next to, or on top of, their suitcase. The officer slowly walks over to the lady, who gestures with her hands, perhaps to let her know she has nothing to say to the officer. The yellow areas are clear of cyclists, tattoos, and underwear. I hit the gym, ride to the sister's for lunch, and head back toward the train. Along the way, I stop at an intersection a ways south of my home. I watch as a familiar homeless camper rolls down the street. Soon I'm back at the train station across from my gym. I crossed the street with a middle-aged bow-legged guy in mirrored shades and some kind of motorcycle rally T-shirt. We both end up on the train platform. He's next to a couple of young guys when I smell marijuana. He heads toward the platform exit while on his phone. I hear a lady on speaker who has arrived to pick him up. The train whips me back to the station which has become a revolutionary hotbed, and I ride home before I head to the dentist. I get out with just enough time to run to the bank for a deposit. Out on the boulevard, I see a truck from a dollar store. It's driving around the city picking up shopping carts stolen from its store. Down a residential street near the bank, I see a homeless guy operating a big lawnmower, the kind you stand on. He's riding it slowly down the street. What a day off. These days off go by just as quick as the ones I spend at work. I grab dinner at a Mexican place before heading home. I would love some yogurt, but I don't feel like going downtown. I'm coming down my street when I see one of my neighbor's kids. She must be out of even high school now, but is so tiny she appears as if she could still be in middle school. She's in a blazer and skirt, and looks very nice. So, naturally, there's a middle-aged overweight guy in a T-shirt. He's in the parking lot of the grocery on our corner which she's walking past. I can't hear what he says, but he appears to be propositioning her before he gets in his truck.
Friday. Back to work. But it's another damned late start, and I ride to the train station just in time to miss a bus toward work. My safest bet is to take the train to the bus which takes me most of the way there. I'm happy to ride, but time is not on my side this morning. At the station where this bus arrives, it has a driver who appears to be talking to himself. This is after I put my fare through the slot and he sits motionless until I ask for a transfer. I sit down cross-legged on one of the seats. After a few minutes, I hear him say, "You just going to ignore me?" I look up and he's looking at me from the rearview mirror. He asks me to take my feet off the seat. Which includes between my legs and the seat. There's no passengers as I've seen on bus trips past, who are coming onboard to bring the driver his favorite coffee. We're far from the train station of yesterday's radical discontent. We're rolling down the manicured, tree-lined estates of old money [and I do mean money] estates. Never mind your political uprising, feet off the seats. After work, out at a decent hour, I'm riding home past the waterpark. Since last September, I've been counting down the months. Then the weeks. Then the days. I hear the ship's bell ringing The waterpark is open today.
... I started taking people out to the mountains to break them down physically and build them back up... ...like what the military does, which wasn't what I wanted... ...I...went to rabbi school. ...rabbi school [is not] a good way to build community... [It's] 4,000-year-old laws...debating how to interpret [them.] That's not what I was into. ...the heart of the Kabbalah [recommends you] feel all your emotions as deeply as possible. That is our purpose in the world. ...without guilt, shame or remorse...in a space of community. Ecstatic sound and...movements, psychedelic transcendence, immersion in nature and...art... ...psychedelics...support...connections, and connections...heal us. I think we're seeing...lack of connection as a society. ...the state is asking us to tell them what we do as a religious community. ...if people are actually [on] a spiritual path... ...they're interviewing members and understanding the boxes we fit in. ...medical or therapeutic spaces. ...operate under a different paradigm than the religious space does. The medical space is looking at people who are unwell...who have treatment-resistant PTSD. When they feel called to come to a psychedelic ceremony, they can. ...that includes breath work, singing and things like that. We had a fire department inspection, and [they] ended up calling the police. The police were there within two hours with a search warrant. Our chemist was arrested... - Westword, 6/2-8/2022
...a direct service, empowerment, and advocacy group for LGBTQ families [is expanding its] programming...including...ukulele lessons and morning yoga. ...the Equality Center of the Rocky Mountains...also offers gender-affirming clothing... - colorado parent, 6/2022
...major U.S. cities have robust skate groups... ...more...people using inline skating as a form of fitness. ...said...a customer success manager for a Denver-based tech company..."you can...go just about anywhere." ...during the COVID-19 shutdowns...skating in general did not experience a descent... [She] said...skating is a relatively low-cost and low-impact form of exercise... [Members of a local Denver skating club] ride a skateboard, scooter, or [traditional roller] skates. [Members include] engineers...teachers, musicians, chefs, and many others... "When you share an experience with other people, you inherently have something in common." ..."what really comes out is...the freedom you can get when skating." ...you're not strapped in like on a snowboard or propped up like on a bike. - Life on Capitol Hill, 5/2022
Saturday. Ha! A decent night's sleep. Always in search of breakfast before my Saturday shift, I make for the train station and a bus which will get me close to work. I've been taking this bus the past few days, as the potential is there for myself to get to work faster than the other bus. The one which drops me at work's door. I used to take this bus route to work, when I stopped commuting by bike around the end of the 2000s. For the next handful of years I would do the 35 minute ride. I'm not going quite as far this morning, but the ride brings back memories of a long and slow crawl down the avenue, to every...single...stop. The temperature swing between overnight low and daily high is down to 30 degrees F now. It must be a sign of some kind of hope at least. Coming of days when everyone will spend the day complaining about heat, instead of chill. I just make this bus, which upon a weekend morning doesn't run anywhere near every 15 minutes of the weekday. As soon as I'm onboard, I hear the conversation between elderly male and female. He is acknowledging her faith in the practice of magic. He asks the driver, a guy in his 50s or older, if he will stop at the "Burger King. The Burger King, young man." The magic lady asks the driver if he stops at a major intersection, which strikes me as an odd question. Then it occurs to me, I'm on an accordion bus, which has an extra back section connected to the front by a flexible accordion joint. Most of these are limited buses, which service only limited stops. Such as the intersection she suggested. Which is a roundabout path toward enlightenment, only to end up back at the same question. Which is how Buddhism works, isn't it? Both passengers want a stop which happens to be at a construction zone. This means the "young man" must get the bus as close and straight as possible to a plywood step-off. The woman exits through the front door. She's a senior with a kind of beaded skull cap, and the back of her T-shirt has a message about the practice of magic. It's another couple of major avenues and another train station before we reach my stop. It's about 7:30 AM. I'm just down a street and around a corner before I'm climbing through the old money neighborhood. The rays of the sun are beginning to come down onto the yards unbound by backyard fences. Flowers abound. It's a sea of green. I'm riding through a deluxe edition of Better Homes and Gardens, or surely some kind of fairytale. I get to work at 9. And I end up staying until 7 PM. It was a perfect swimming day, temps in the mid-80s F. But the waterpark is closed, and the last stragglers are all who's left along the creek below it. I head for the train home. I turn off the trail and go up and over a couple of hills among the residential streets. I'm approaching my last turn when I see approaching a pair of homeless women. One is stylin' in a leather outfit. The other is dressed as a man and carries a stick, as I've seen other homeless do. She swings it as she walks along.
Sunday is busy. I must do the grocery shopping I didn't get a chance to do yesterday, and finish the laundry. Then I'm off for another working lunch with the sister. From there it's off to the first waterpark visit of the season. Since they opened late this week, they give me a free combo meal. Then I'm back to the train, headed for yogurt. It's when I disembark at the station closest to the downtown yogurt place that I see a couple of handfuls of homeless gathered, here below the condo. They are a collection of various races and ages. I stop into a nearby supermarket for a product only they carry. Before I leave I use the men's room. I'm at the urinal when I hear someone behind me humming. I turn to see a homeless guy in the corner. It's in the high 80s F. outside and he's in a ragged collection of black long sleeves and long pants. He tells me to have a good day. From there I head for the downtown yogurt place. Along the way, I pass by a local library branch which I hadn't noticed before. There is a banner outside which says something about "adventure." Hanging out in front of the entrance and on the side of the building in the alley, are a handful of homeless. The ones out front appear to be drinking. I take a moment at the yogurt place to catch my breath while having some yogurt. Then I ride back to the station, where I grab a bus back to my neighborhood, for a short ride home. The bus goes past an open lot at a busy highway intersection. The lot is across from a diner which has had homeless campers and tents in its own sizable parking lot. The lot across from the diner has been host to even more homeless dwellings. This afternoon, there is a single flatbed trailer, surrounded by debris. A lone figure sits in a folding chair with his feet up on one end of the trailer. I get out of the bus at a corner of my boulevard, where a group of perhaps ten adults are holding neon-colored placards, printed in English, with the name Jesus. A lone pastor sermonizes in Spanish through a speaker. (?) The speaker has reverb on it. So, the Caucasians read and the Hispanics listen?
It has its own vibe and languorous pace and never seemed to be in sync with society's inexorable march to revolutions in retail, food service, upholstery, auto repair, and flooring. Not so easily categorized and labelled and affixed... ...lively and eccentric crowds day and night. ...to carve a life here out of the matchsticks that remain. ...a life uncomplicated and on his own terms...despite the fact that his house vanished and everything in it isa memory now - Rose
...Generation X...born between 1965 and 1980 growing up in an America that was...falling apart - around them. ...cynicism and apathy...sarcasm and a world-weariness...inherently understood. ...perhaps as old as 57 [as myself this year.] ...the entertainment suggested that "any mistake could lead to total annihilation. We lived every day with that knowledge. As kids. ...and we have to reckon with what society did to us, which was kind of throw us out to the wolves." - Westword, 6/13-22/2022
Monday. It's been a little while since I did the ride all the way to work. Coming down the short block between turns, along the way to the trail, I notice something. The grimy grey camper is gone. Up a hill and down the long incline, and I don't see it with the campers along the open field. The second amendment flag camper is there. There are as many residents of these campers out on the sidewalk as I've ever seen at once. But I'm struck by the absence of homeless out on the trail this morning. I come across a bridge and pass below a big outdoor shopping mall. On a bench is a grey-haired guy with rollerblades on. I pass along the stretch of river where kayakers and river surfers play. Someone has cut a figure out of particleboard and placed it in against the column of an overpass. The figure carries a rainbow-colored surfboard upon which is lettered, "surfin' sasquatch." On the trail along the opposite bank of the river, I see the grey-haired guy rollerblading along. Soon, I turn onto the connecting trail and am climbing past the line of homeless camps along the train underpass. I spot a couple peering into a tent. They both are dressed in black gear and appear as if they could be some kind of volunteers. The female has on a black cap and makeup, and has her hair pulled back.
Tuesday, I have the day off. I have a final appointment with my doctor, who is completing her residency. First, I must drop off film at the camera shop. Since they moved, the former employees have vanished, including my tall photogenic hippie goddess. There is a "help wanted" sign in the window of their new location, and the guy usually behind the register is a weird-looking short, young guy with permed long hair. The train is a big help getting around the metro area today. My days off are never relaxing. From the camera store it's back to the train and north toward downtown. I get out and ride to a Greek short order place I used to frequent when I worked downtown. I grab lunch and see my old pal, the manager. Then I decide to grab a yogurt for my doctor, with no idea if she even likes yogurt. Turns out she "loves all yogurt." We go over my blood pressure numbers. She has on a nylon fleece jacket from the University of Kansas. Turns out she went to medical school there. I mention I did my time in their art department's graduate program. I give her a card. We say our goodbyes. I hit the bank to deposit a rare check before heading back to the train. I hope to hit the waterpark. When I get there, they're closed for today. Short staffed? Perhaps. Back again to the train, out and a ride to the clinic down the street from my home. I pick up a new prescription. Then it's home again.
Some day last week, the owner of the nail salon a couple of doors down from us came in. She wanted to let me know that there were three businesses in the shopping center, around the corner, which has their glass doors smashed. It's the kind of burglary which shopping centers are particularly vulnerable to. But I haven't worked in a shopping center where this happened for perhaps six years. And one of her customers left their car out front of her shop, and walked around the corner to eat. When they came back, their car was gone. This kind of crime, or any crime I've heard of around here, is brand new. The only recent difference between no crime and now is this. Since at least the beginning of the year, I've noticed homeless in this neighborhood, where I've never noticed it before. I watch them pass along the shops. This may have nothing to do with crime. Thursday morning I roll into the parking lot at work. There is a lone figure standing on the grass next to the street. He may be waiting for a ride, standing with his phone in hand. But I then watch him wander off through the lot, with his canvas shopping bags. I work past close just late enough to catch a bus to a train. The train only takes me two stops to a bus home. At the first stop, I notice homeless on the platform, where I haven't noticed them before. have they been rousted from the train cars, and is this their new spot? The following day, I run over to the bakery a few doors down. Sitting on a bench is a middle-aged guy in jeans and cheap tennis shoes. He sits inches from outdoor tables, where neighbor women sit with their dogs and discuss their lives. This guy is with no one else. He has no dog on a leash. He simply stares out into the world. After glance at him, he gets up and does what homeless do. He vanishes into thin air.
This week has been a log jam of doctor appointments. The first of these was actually Thursday of last week. I can't even remember what that was for. Tuesday I said goodbye to another primary care physician and internal medicine specialist. Thursday was my very first MRI exam. I woke up at 3:30 and simply decided to get up and get ready. I have my first MRI at 7 AM. Originally, had I slept until 5, I would have gone and had it, and then come back home for a shower before work. But nature's schedule is hidden in rhyme, and plans shift over its sands. I don't even eat breakfast. I was told that they may want to give me an enema before the exam, to get a less obscured look inside my lower parts. When I arrive, I'm told that they have no enemas in stock. They suggest a bowel movement instead. Another first in this year's slate of medical appointments. I spot metal grommets in my pants and I don't even leave my sandals to chance, and I have an MRI in my riding shorts. The exam only lasts a quick 45 minutes. I have what I never do these days: plenty of time. I seldom ride to work from essentially what is downtown, but tis a route with which I am familiar. I'm on a side street which shadows a main avenue. The avenue I've recently been taking to work by bus. Along the way, I've seen a breakfast place, and breakfast places are few and far between anymore. I spot it from the side street and decide to give it a try. The clientele are closer to bohemian working or middle class, unlike my customers at work, one of whom described the rest as "having a lot of money." This place harkens back to a disappearing class of people I recall from long ago. Simple waitresses who aren't chasing big money tips, discussing their lives with each other. People who have lives rather than schedules. It's a good old place and I hope to come back. I'm back on my way and I eventually run into a street which should not surprise me. But I forgot about it. I've been over too damned may streets. From here, I know exactly where I'm going.
I get to the shopping center early. You see, my coworker told me Wednesday that she no longer needs to watch her grandson as family members are now available to do so. She wants to work an hour later than she currently does. This was her original schedule when we reopened after the pandemic shutdown. This is what I mean by early. If I'm not going to work until noon every day, I may be able to go swimming every day before work. There's a pool not far from work. I wonder when they open. Today, I grab a drink a couple doors down from where we wok. I watch as she comes in to get some food. She tells me I "can come over anytime." Is she telling me I can come in now because she's okay to leave? Indeed, this is the case. She will call me later, when I'm home (at a decent hour!) to ask if I can work her shift the following Friday. The last time I had my dentist appointment, this appointment for Friday morning, she asked me the day before if I could cover her shift. And I accommodated her. Friday morning...I keep my appointment. And when I get to work, at 11 AM, she's fine with going home then. No mention of wanting to stay until noon. This week, the owner came in. He told me he's willing to extend the hours this store is open by one hour, to take care of my coming in an hour later. He says it all depends on how serious she is about staying until noon. And so this week and a half of non-stop doctor appointments comes to an end. My next appointment is currently scheduled not until my birthday at the very beginning of August. We shall see what the MRI scan turns up, and if any further appoints result directly. Heady days. There is some kind of outdoor event happening every weekend, from now until the end of the summer. I don't know if my comparatively insane workhours are the most recent "normal."
Saturday. This is a tough day during this side of Daylight Savings Time. I have one hour less to get to work, and two hours less to get there with time to grab breakfast before it starts. I make a dash for the bus directly to the shopping center, and I make it. Circumventing the train to catch this route, I end up across the private university campus. Yesterday and today, I see graduates wandering on and off campus. This year, I hear graduation music and applause. I get out right after we close and hit the gym before heading home. The guy at the rec center, who sold me my season pass, is there this afternoon. He says that the waterpark was closed Tuesday because new lifeguards were being trained. The past three days have been hot. I laughed because Thursday, I had to put on long sleeves and pants early in the morning. I believe, finally, that that was the final chilly one this season. And it's hot Sunday. It's off to the sister's to hang some pictures, then onto the waterpark. A sign there announces one day out of each week, over this and the next month, which the place will be closed. As I'm leaving the waterpark, a couple of Englewood municipal police officers come inside the gates. Outside are three police cruisers. I head to the train for my weekend yogurt shop. Before I left for the sister's, I took along a two-liter water bottle. From the train window, I see a young, homeless, long-haired and bearded guy. He's sitting on a bench on the train platform. With a marker, he's going over the letters on a sign he flies. A cigarette dangles from his lips. I'm off the train and onto the yogurt place. Inside, a girl sits and listens to her boyfriend droll on about details in his life. On the back of her right upper arm is a tattoo. It's the face of an alien from outer space. At the yogurt place, I suddenly feel beat. I get out my water bottle and drink more than half of the two liters. The yogurt tastes very cold.
I'm soon revitalized and ride back to the train station. Along the way, I pass the library branch between the yogurt shop and the train. Instead of homeless drinking and laughing, they are all doing gardening., pulling weeds out of the lawn. I catch a bus back to my neighborhood and ride home. I turn around and catch another bus to the supermarket. The current state of the neighborhood is on display late this afternoon, inside the store. There are hip, young Caucasian couples who obviously reside in my neighborhood. There are Caucasians unconcerned about being hip. There are homeless. For a month there's been a homeless camper on the curb of the parking lot, at the back of the place. There are Mexicans and Vietnamese. And there are those who appear as if they were in prison not so long ago. A trailer park still sits next door. I get out to the bus stop with my few groceries. A young guy is on the corner, looking down the street for the bus. A small pickup truck goes through the intersection, driver's side window open. The driver points at the guy and yells, "Hey, you. Come here, come here." He walks back to his girlfriend at the stop. He asks her who that guy was. She remarks that the neighborhood gives her the impression of having its share of "crackheads." I watch a white pickup truck with its suspension slung low. It pulls into the supermarket gas station behind us. The driver sits and plays loud hip hop before exiting the lot. Though it pulls up to a fuel pump, I don't know if the driver put any fuel at all in his tank. Now, those are high prices... when you don't even put in a dollar's worth. The driver appears to be a skinny middle-aged guy in a tank top, with a long goatee. When I get home, I grab dinner across the street at a Mexican place. For some time, it was a kind of Mexican short order place. It changed hands, and now it's a Mexican seafood place. There is a crew inside, young people who ride the motorcycles which go 200 mph. Their helmets are all on the table. At least they wear helmets. I get back home and make dinner for the week, lunch for tomorrow, and do dishes, perhaps with an hour to spare before it's bedtime.
It's a good thing I made the decision to get that stuff done. Before my resident doctor left me, she loaded me up with more of my thyroid prescription. I stop at the clinic on the way to work to pick it up. I don't have time to put on sunscreen for what I decide to do, again. Which is ride to the bus which takes me to the doorstep at work. Only I'm not going to work just yet, and I need time to go where I am going. Which is just past work, to a rec center. I want to see if they have an outdoor pool, and when it opens. I'm climbing the bridge over the interstate, along the busy avenue I take to reach my bus. I see the bus on this street go past, and I know it will be stopping at the train station beneath the bridge. So I cross the avenue at a corner and elect to continue along, in the hopes of catching the bus at a stop along the way. I reach a busy street which runs perpendicular. The bus which runs along this street pulls through this intersection and stops right here. I could jump on this one, which is here now, and it would take me as far south as I need to go. But I would still have to ride another city block. And I believe I can catch the bus which runs southbound along the boulevard ahead. Not far past this intersection, I do indeed catch the bus down this street. It drops me at the boulevard for my last connecting bus. When I reach the stop, just around the corner, it's on a part of the street which has a lane blocked off by orange cones. They continue down the boulevard for some blocks. It appears that a section is being resurfaced...beginning here. I ride down the sidewalk until I get past machinery. The cones keep going as far as I can see. I get to a stop and pull out my decade-old 3g network Microsoft phone which I'm told belongs in a museum. "No resale value." I wonder what that would sound like in an advertisement for phones? My service provider let me know by text that it will continue to work until the 1st of next month. I call the handy transit system number, upon which someone will et me know where my bus is along the route. There is an app which will allow you to track buses on your phone. ...just not on my phone. I ask if the bus will pick me up here. I'm asked to wait until the dispatcher attempt to contact the driver, who "is just two stops away." I spot the bus before anyone gets back with me. I wonder if the woman on the other end knows I have a 3g phone? The bus does indeed stop for me.
It's a bit of a messy attempt at applying sunscreen along the short ride to work. I get perhaps half of it on before I disembark. This rec center, just down the way from work, is next to a 'memory loss living center.' Perhaps this is where my phone will end up next month. I go inside and ask the kid with acne behind the desk if the place has an outdoor pool. I'm told first that they have an indoor pool, before he admits that they have no outdoor pool. The first answer does me no good, but the second actually helps me ma e a couple of decisions about where I will be swimming, both before work during the week and after work on Saturdays. It looks like the waterpark will be my jam along the way to my shift. ...that's if they still open at 10 AM. I find some shade under which to apply the rest of my sunscreen. It's not as far a ride from here to work. I left the house without eating breakfast this morning, but I took my omelet with me straight out of the frying pan. I stop into the sandwich place a few doors down from work, get a beverage, and sit and eat my eggs. It's hot outside. Close to 100 degrees F. And the sky is a smooth and even hade of fire smoke. What a fucking morning. The original plan to take my very first blood pressure medicine was yesterday, with the sister, in case I had any side effects. Not that she could do anything about it. But she suggested that I wait and take it when I get to work. She provided a list of cautionary instructions not mentioned by my doctor. These include not going out in the heat after taking this medication. And she suggests I not take it before I go to sleep, as it will make me urinate excessively. I take it when I get to work, and I don't feel dizzy, or have a headache, and I'm actually urinating less than usual. What a fucking morning. My coworker's car won't start when she leaves work. She asks me if I can work her shift tomorrow, and possibly the next three days. I say, "sure." I won't be swimming those days, but I will be earning money... ...and going to bed early this evening. I ride to the train, off the trail and down a main street. Parked along the curb is a vehicle with a pop-up tent hitched on the back. This is not a street known for its homeless campers, and a lone hitched pop-up doth not a homeless vehicle make. I'm on the sidewalk, from which I pass the passenger side windows. One of them has a window air conditioner installed. I don't know if the vehicle's own air conditioner works, but either way, this is one...cool car. Soon I'm on the train. I get out at a station where a bus home is parked at the gate. The driver is taking a break outside during her short layover. She strikes up a conversation, and I relate to her a previous morning when I was on this train platform. I witnessed five homeless/street folk verbally gang up on a single transit system security officer. This driver is sympathetic to the homeless she sees. "They're tired," she says, and there are ways to interact with them in order to achieve compliance.
I get a good night's sleep, which mans I have not much time to get to work. I decide to head back to the train. When I get there, I will board a bus with a driver less sympathetic to homeless. Something about mornings at the train station. Along the way, I stop at the intersection of a highway. At the green light, a homeless heavy metal guy comes across from the other side. I'm through this corner, across the bridge over the river, and across the highway going the other way. Coming up the sidewalk under train overpass is a guy in a black duster, cowboy hat and boots. He carries what appears to be a rawhide kind of messenger bag. Is this a homeless cowboy? I'm soon at the station, at the gate for a bus I pondered taking on my way to work yesterday. At twenty to 6 AM this morning, it's the only transit game in town for this passenger. Rolling into the station, I spotted a little middle-aged guy. He's losing his long, greasy black hair. He wanders the station in a baseball type shirt, jeans cuffed too high, and dress shoes with no socks. He has a sheepish demeanor as he languidly moves from spot to spot. My bus arrives as soon as I stop, and as soon as I'm on board, four twenty/thirtysomething guys congregate at the gate. Through the open door, I hear one ask the other, "She did get on that train?" The sheepish guy steps through the door. The driver asks him for fare, and doesn't even want to hear his story. He asks the guy to leave transit system property. He exits thereafter. There is a transit system security officer on the train flatform a few yards away. She also lets the four guys and the sheepish one know that they must leave the property. The four guys vanish. The sheepish guy lets out a couple of "fuck you"s before briefly mumbling incoherently. He shuffles on his way. The security officer comes over to speak with the driver, telling him that she watched the group of four all board a train smoking fentanyl. "That's now a felony, and they want us to call the police.," she tells the driver. I wonder if she is the "she" who one of the guys mentioned? The two drivers with entirely different attitudes toward the homeless reminds me of another driver. Some ten years ago, I used to catch a bus to work from here, the one I've been taking lately to get me close to work to snatch time from the jaws of defeat. Back then, there was a driver on that route who couldn't have been happier. He spoke about his adopted role as a "kind of sociologist," and described all the various personalities he witnessed getting on and off the bus on this route. Personality appears to have moved from something to be studied, to a threat to be policed.
Wednesday. I'm up early, but get yet another late start. I eat, grab a shower, and throw on some sunscreen. I still have to make use of the train to make up for the time I appear to waste these mornings. At the train station, another train is late. But I take it three stops south, and get out and ride. And for the first time in perhaps five years, I'm at the waterpark on a weekday, before work. Not as long a swim as back then, but a swim nonetheless. Ha! The crowd when the open late in the morning is markedly different than mid-Sunday afternoon. Instead of guys with their name tattooed on their stomach or chest or both, the weekday is for moms and their kids. Good-looking moms. Then I'm off to work. Shit, this is going to work. I stay an hour after close today, and I decide that I've overstayed my time away from riding the full route home. I'm going to both literally and figuratively have to get it in gear, and knock off these late starts in the morning if I want to get a swim in before my shift. Back on the trail, the ride home includes groups of 30 cyclists riding together ("Bike up!" Thank you, Caucasians.) as well as a line of guys carrying kayaks down the trail. But the real surprise comes right after I exit the trail home. There's another band playing the Levitt Pavillion this evening. I don't recall the last time I actually came through here, Saturday? Friday? It isn't until I turn the corner and come out from the line of parked cars that I see it. The block next to the open field. It was filled with campers. It's...been swept again. Only this time, there is a chain link fence which extends out into part of the street. Across the curb which has been swept, a single lone camper sits. The driver's side door is open. I watch as three people go up and look inside. They don't strike me as homeless. Could this one have been abandoned? I don't see any campers around the corner in the distance either. I stop as I'm climbing the hill off that street, up on the sidewalk at a lone space along the curb., to write this down. As I do, another car backs into the space. A 2020's version of a flower child gets out with her boyfriend. She asks him not to forget the lawn chairs and he asks her if he brought enough water. Yes, the block is safe once again for outdoor concert fans...
I'm home after work when my coworker calls me. I need to open again tomorrow. Thursday. No swimming this morning. Instead, I'm headed back to my recently rediscovered bus route. I'm onboard and on the last leg before I disembark. The front bike rack holds two bikes, and I got the last slot. About three stops before mine, is a passenger with his own bike. He's middle-aged, with sunglasses and a bandana around his head. No helmet. He looks like street folk. I recall the days but three years ago, when I would wait for a bus after work, usually in the dark, to take myself and my bike some 60 blocks down my boulevard to home. If there was another passenger with a bike at my usual connecting stop, I would ride some yards to the one before it, giving me the last slot on the bike rack, if there indeed was one. Some evenings, the driver would let those of us out of luck inside with our bikes. Sometimes, I was the third bike inside the bus. On this street, unfortunately for the guy, this ain't happening this morning. The driver pulls t the stop and opens the door. The guy looks inside and then at the driver with silent trepidation. The driver responds, "You can't bring it in, bro." The guy quietly says, "I can't wait for the next bus." The driver tells him, "You got to ride it, bro," before chuckling. After a few seconds, the passenger is resigned. Just three stops away, I'm getting out and taking my bike off the rack. However, there is yet another passenger with his own bike.
Friday. I'm out of the house early, on what I hope will be my summer schedule. Today, I plan to hit the gym. But then, it's off to the waterpark. It should be a brief but happy swim. I'm coming down the street with the long incline. There are three homeless dwelling spaced apart along here. But at the corner, I turn onto the block next to the open field. The chain-link fence is gone. Nothing left of the most recent habitation other than oil spots, some scraps of trash, and a pair of electric scooters to mark the spot a line of homeless dwellings stood. Several feet of curb are covered in white paint, where the female sat attempting to cover the exterior mural on her camper. I'm out on the trail and soon approaching the first bridge over the river. In a small parking lot of a former VFW hall is a single homeless camper, a small flatbed trailer hitched to the back. I reach the gym and do a workout in jig time. I make it to the waterpark just after they open, and the line is already pronounced. With my season pass, I get to go right in. It's a fine swim and drop from a short slide...called the drop slide of course. Lots of kids, but actual room to do some swimming. I like mornings around here. I get to work, and to my coworker, whose car troubles have provided me with an extra eight hours this week. Surely I'm the only one who appreciates her car... She had it towed by her husband's friend, but tells me this morning that he put the key in the ignition today, and it started right up. But it's always an unfinished story with her life. The guy shows up to pick her up, and I just want to pause here to wonder why this guy isn't at work. He's in shorts and a tank top. He comes inside to let her know that he was rear-ended on the way here. Their trip to work brings them down the street with the guy who couldn't bring his bicycle onto the bus. The other driver took off in a pickup with the engine smoking. Her life is like some kind of TV crime drama. She tells me, "The other driver either didn't have insurance, or must have a warrant." I wouldn't know. While the guy who hit her car escaped in a smoking pickup, I was going down a slide into a pool. I don't tell her this.
Saturday. I'm back to commuting to work along the trail, and I hope I'm off my transit system habit. Walking his fat tire bike across the first bridge is the same Park Ranger I've seen a couple of times, right around here. He speaks to me for the first time, in a high-pitched voice. "Morning sir," he says. The following afternoon, I have a date with the girlfriend. She tells me a story about briefly working at a national chain store/gas station not far from where she lives. It's a place I was thrown out of a few years ago because I picked up my own hot dog and put it on a bun before I attempted to pay for it. These days, the employees don't do any work there, and the collaborate with the many homeless who come into the store to steal merchandise. We run around a shopping mall down the street from where I used to live. We end up closing it down before returning to a deathburger back in our neighborhood. I'm back at the same place the next morning, having run out of the house without breakfast. I hear a lot of Spanish in the kitchen, and the dynamic is a mess. There is an Uber delivery customer with a woman who ordered online with a homeless guy with another guy who missed the employee who called his order number and came back for it with another guy waiting for napkins because there are none out in the "dining room." The woman who ordered online is showing her phone to an employee, using her 5G technology as a piece of paper. I'm standing among the throng with a "table tent," which I have for my dine in order, because I don't expect to be served otherwise. The rest of the new week is an intersection of weather, work, and my mission of pre-work swimming. Monday the waterpark is closed, it would appear for the final day of new lifeguard training. Instead, I check on a prescription my email told me I had to pick up, at a nearby clinic. The email is in error. I do successfully make an appointment with a new primary care physician. I also hit the bank. Mondays we close at 6 PM. I stay until 9:30 finishing all the work, a new record since we reopened after COVID. I ride home in the dark and it occurs to me that I could ride home naked. It would be a kind of response to those I see in their neon Lycra outfits. I decide against it, and am glad I didn't freak out a young couple on bicycles. Tuesday, it's chilly. Weird. I head for the train in an attempt to make up for one of my frequent late starts. I'm still on my swimming mission and even leave the house without eating, in order to save time. The particular section of train line I need, and only this section, is closed for maintenance. I head for a nearby avenue to catch a bus, only to see it go past. I turn down the sidewalk. I will see how far I get and how fast. I spot the breakfast place I recently discovered and decide to abort the swim today. Too damned chilly, and I'm hungry. I get to work and again stay until 8:30. Wednesday is a successful swim before work. Thursday I get called in early. Friday, I hit first the gym and then the waterpark.
This is the weekend prior o the July 4th 3-day weekend, and it's more like autumn than the beginning of summer. The mornings are in the 50s F. Too damned cold to swim. I'm up way too early and yet I get another late start. I run out of the house in my warm weather gear. I didn't check the weather and have no time to change clothes. I'm riding through a chill with spitting rain, making yet another mad dash for the train station. I jump on a bus which takes me half the way to work. I carry in a pouch on my bike a pair of rain pants and a poncho. These do the trick this morning. I still have some distance to cover from where the bus drops me off. And the rain picks up. Somehow, I make it to work in time for breakfast. During the day the rain lets up, and I get out on time. It's just warm enough now for shorts and my sleeveless shirt. I head north and to the next boulevard away from where I live, to pick up some photos. I find a route which is more simple than the one I've used before. Along the way, I stop by a pool where I would swim after work on Saturdays last summer. I inquire about a season pass. It's $50, and at this point I don't think I will spend half that amount swimming on Saturdays. The lifeguard behind the desk is missing one of her forearms. It's not a long ride from there to the camera shop. It takes me through my old extended neighborhood. I grab my film, run across the street for dinner, and ride home. The next morning is both cold and what appears to have become a series of late starts. I ride down my boulevard to a stop for a bus which I haven't been on in some years. During the handful of years when I had stopped commuting to work by bike, I would sometimes take a bus home from the train station. I had no way of knowing I would, years later, take the same route to the sister's new home. I hop on a bus which takes me this very direction, and drops me a short ride from her house. I help her unpack and shelve more boxes of books, which her husband brings each week from a storage facility, which they have been renting for the six years they lived in a much smaller house and now hope to soon no longer have to pay for.
And then I'm off to the train station. I first stop for lunch at a bar and grill. I sit behind a pair of couples, one elderly and young pair who mention in conversation that they are engaged. Both couples discuss being Catholic. The elder guy is yacking about being at an event known as the March for Life, and about being downtown during the 2008 Democratic Presidential Convention. I recall a small sign and two protesters just outside the big park downtown. The sign read, "Please don't feed the liberals." He refers to Obama's "coronation" because somewhere, perhaps on the convention stage, were a pair of Greek columns. From there to the train, where a group of festival-goers are gathered around a ticket kiosk. The festival is the Gay Pride Fest. There are a handful of adults and children. One middle-aged guy with a beard is wearing a cape and a hat, and the kids are in hand-painted T-shirts. A train comes along to collect they, myself, and the other passengers. We pick up a few other festival attendees along the way. I jump off the train at the station closest to a yogurt place outside downtown. I reach a street where a bus comes along and delivers me close to the shop. From there I ride to the downtown location where I work and run inside to use the bathroom. Then it's a quick ride to the festival. It does appear to be more crowded than I remember. An online local TV news outlet reports that there are some thousands more here this year. Someone at a microphone onstage thanks the cooler weather for keeping attendees from collapsing from the heat. "The EMTs are bored because they have nothing to do." I do a circuit of the fest, find a marijuana-themed birthday card for my sister-in-law, and then I'm out. I decide to grocery shop at a supermarket close by as I don't need much. From there, I ride to the nearby train station and jump on a bus back to my neighborhood. At a stop right outside the station, a pair of young guys get on, followed by a homeless woman. She sits down without paying, and the driver asks the two guys if she's with them. They have no idea who she is and spend the ride unable to stop laughing at her. The driver asks her where she's going. She claims she's getting off at my boulevard, but ends up disembarking half-way before we get there. I notice she's only wearing socks, and I don't even realize she has any shoes until I watch her decide to put them on. She's mumbling something at the young guys. She mumbles something louder. One passenger who came aboard has his own bike on the rack. He asks the young guys if they want to purchase it. Soon I'm off the bus and home again, where I get a call from my coworker. Can I work for her tomorrow.? Her husband's truck, which recently had a flat, broke down and he had to leave it. Fortunately, she has her own car which she was previously unable to start.
Monday I'm up too early again. I'm working open to close today. I ride back to the train station to catch a bus, but I opt for the train. From the train, it's a longer ride than the bus, but I believe I make better time as the train drops me off much sooner. I'm eventually coming down a residential street just across from work. Walking out in the street along the double yellow line is a guy with a piece of junk in his hand. He has air buds and raises his left hand in a wave. He holds it in the air as I pass. Homeless? I stay at work until 9:30 PM. It's a 14 1/2 hour day. I ride to the train, where one guy is pacing half the length of the platform. Ten minutes before our train shows up, another train comes through. Where the destination is usually displayed, it reads, "out of service" and rolls past us. The pacing guy yells out, "DANG!" Our train arrives and drops me at my station just as my bus home shows up. Two of the passengers are a couple of guys who appear as if they weren't in prison that long ago. They think they are on one particular bus to my boulevard, but they are on the other. The two routes cross my boulevard only five blocks apart, so it isn't a big deal. The following morning I get called into work. I get out at a decent hour and do my first ride all the home in what seems to be several days. I'm coming up to a ramp off the trail. It goes up to a big outdoor shopping mall. Down at this end is a bench at the end of a bridge across the river. A cyclist is taking a break here. He's a cyclist in the sense that he has a bike. He's smoking what appears to be a cigar with a filter. I don't notice a helmet anywhere. In perhaps a half hour or so, I'm off the trail and coming down the short block where the grimy grey camper used to be parked. There is a newly arrived homeless van and a big trailer I recognize. It's been on the news in a neighborhood way up north. It used to be parked right where it is again. Hanging out next to the van is a guy in a Batman T-shirt. The following morning I'm on my way to the waterpark before work. The block next to the open field is still void of homeless dwellings. Out on the first trail, along the riverbank with trees, there's a mixture of both homeless and cyclists and moms pushing strollers. Sitting on a low concrete wall are three people. A young woman is lighting the second cigar out here which I've seen inside 12 hours. It's also the second which I remember seeing out on the trail. Ahead is a mom with a stroller and her child walking alongside. They are taking up both lanes. I make the waterpark a couple of minutes before they open. If you get here now, there is a brief shining moment when the pool is almost empty.
Thursday is the last day of the month. Again I get a swim in at the waterpark before work. Someone in a senior lifeguard position tests one of the lifeguards. He throws a child dummy into the water. She recognizes it's a test and jumps in after it. It's a rainy afternoon on the way home. Along the trail with the bank of trees, one of them has fallen and completely blocks everything. Another project for Parks and Rec. So far, it's been a summer with some weird chilly days. I suspect we should not complain.
