...where grape arbors offered shade... ...he...slashed its throat to the neck bone... ...chucked the meat, the organs, the windpipe, even the eyes...and made a Bedouin pilaf. ...I'll never forget that moment...wood smoke and roasted meat in the air while these men of the desert sang an outlaw ballad and the wind moved through olive trees planted a hundred years before Columbus sailed for Spain. The Bedouin mounted up...with generators thumping and tractors growling only a hundred yards away... ...two of a breed...threatened... ...through the great lonely places. - Caputo
[Dr. Lionel] Tiger: ...a prominent executive of a massive corporation. ...he spent more time dealing with the divorces of...four...vice presidents...than dealing with the tremendous amount of oil for which he was responsible... ...he had to pay systematic attention to private lives...they made an enormous impact on cash flow... Omni: It's very unnatural that this wedge should be driven between the reproductive and the productive functions... Tiger: ...the sanctity of the productive sphere... The social sphere has its own autonomy, and that's its failing. It has become denatured. - OMNI Magazine, 4/1982
Colorado is personal, a great place to build your sense of self. ...greed...creating...the have and the have nots. Daytime human vultures riding the train towards "nowhere." Folks talking to themselves and scratching, lost, purpose on mute. A nation of tents... - Westword (letters), 8/3-9/2023
She...was able to annoy a detective... The detective told her...if she kept his name a secret...he'd tell her where [a homeless relative of her client] might be. [The homeless relative, when he was found,] "was more shocked than anything that people had been looking for him." ...he decided to stay on the streets. ..." his case prompted me to take a look...in Denver at this rising homeless population." ...organizations that help..."families looking for loved ones on the streets" [are limited to] "pass along the contact information for whoever is looking for them." "The homeless community, they're usually very...cooperative if they can be. I've always been amazed how receptive people in the homeless community are." ...six months after she located [the client's relative...] "he was in ten times worse shape..." He handed her his phone and asked if she could fix it... - Westword, 8/10-16/2023
...'Oh, you're homeless. You don't have to do anything.' ...it's a...battle. Hour by hour... "The narrative...was that the homeless were a drain on Civic Center... But we knew the unhoused community were some of the park's biggest advocates. - Denver Herald Dispatch, 8/10/2023
Saturday is the end of the first week of August. If I'm not mistaken, next week is the last one for the pools to be open. Already. My birthday came and went. The sister took me to dinner with a friend of hers. I got an interesting book as a gift. Friday morning she took me to breakfast, followed by a used book sale she discovered at her new rec center, all before work. After work I was able to hit the gym. Saturday morning, I ride the entire way to work. The last time I rode down the block with the open field, it was void of homeless vehicles. I think it was Thursday. This morning, a couple of homeless cars are parked closely behind a small camper. This is the last day at work in this location. The move out is like a whirlwind. Like that, we're out. I get a swim in after work, stop at one grocery for one product, and then ride to my regular supermarket for the rest. Sunday I awake to some kind of strange chilly overcast day. I thought we left those behind in June. It doesn't appear that I am going swimming. The day immediately becomes an opportunity to complete, or almost complete, a project I need to finish with a trip to the copy shop. I then make the decision to go down to work, off the clock, and move clothes from some rolling racks back onto the conveyor. The copy shop has a parking lot connected to a train station. I ride the train a short way to a stop for the bus right to work. The bus is late enough that I take the train back the other way and catch another train to a station from where I am able to ride the rest of the chilly way. Latei into the afternoon, there is a little rain. I get the clothes racked. The following day, the owner will tell me he got a laugh out of the fact that I came down just to get the clothes on the rack, where I wanted them.
Overnight is chilly, but by the time I leave the following morning, it's begun to warm up. The death clouds are gone and it's blue sky. I forget I'm supposed to be at work an hour early and I get a swim in. I hit the bank and decide to take a route to intercept the trail, past a detour on the trail. I'm on a street with a bike lane...and a couple of serious hills. I'm retracing a route I took home last night, only this morning I'm doing it in reverse. It's a straight street with a bike lane. Last night there was no signal men stopping traffic. This morning there are two. Each is at the bottom of a hill, which means I must brake all the way down each one. At the end of the street, I turn onto the sidewalk along another busy street. At the end of this sidewalk is a sign which claims the sidewalk is closed. I cross through the intersection and sneak across the other street and onto the trail. Since the beginning of this month, there have been bikes everywhere out on the trail. Along the connecting trail is a small stone path to a bridge, across which is the waterpark. This path has been blocked by more construction since last week. Everyone must exit the trail onto the grass to access the bridge. In line for the waterpark, I'm behind a family with a dad who has dreadlocks tied in a top knot. One single dreadlock is green. He has a medieval cross tattoo on his calf...and another on his face. It makes his wife's tiny nose ring and her own calf tattoo appear tame. She's telling him something about speaking to a lawyer. It sounds as if at least one of their kids isn't his.
In our new location at work, it's interesting being across the street, looking back at a shopping mall I'm intimate with. I began working at the mall back in 2005, off and on as a floater. I now work at a place where the parking lot isn't big enough for vehicles to come whipping directly off the boulevard with brakes squealing right into the parking space. Vehicles must slow down, making some drivers anxious to get from here to somewhere else. One pickup was going slow enough, I could see the U.S. flag sleeve tattoo on the grey-haired driver. On Tuesday, I get called into work early. I forgot I was supposed to go in an hour early yesterday, but I'm going in two hours early today. Yesterday I had a nice swim before work. I run out of the house without any breakfast. I have no time to stop at the deathburger on one boulevard. The next boulevard has the stop for my bus straight to work. A clock tower on a private university campus suggests I have just enough time for an order to go. from the cafe across the avenue from the stop. The clocks inside the cafe are running ten minutes faster. All I have time to do is grab a drink before I run out to the stop. The bus shows up in no time. I end up grabbing breakfast at the small strip of shops where I work. I go online to the site for the waterpark. They must have a big budget this year. They claim on their site that they're open every day right up to Labor Day. During the day, I spot a homeless guy pushing a rollaway suitcase around one end of our strip. I quietly open our back door. We have a back door now. And I peek out. The suitcase is standing in the middle of the back lot. The guy moves around behind a tiny shed in a corner of the lot. After a little while, i walk back around the shed. Suitcase and guy are gone. One board of a wooden fence is loose. A bath towel hangs in the crack. The following day, I get a late start, too late to get to the waterpark. Instead, I ride to the cafe next to the stop for my bus straight to work. I'm seated across from a couple of guys in a booth. I believe they work construction, and that one on his phone is a foreman. He keeps getting calls from one of his employees. This is what I glean from his side of the conversation. He tells his worker that he needs to sign a document, agreeing to appear in court. The signing of this document will allow his employee to come to work. I can hear his employee on the speaker. He doesn't want to sign it. He claims he doesn't have to sign it. What I have to do to be able to work is pay my bill and catch a bus. After work, I've turned onto my last trail home. Not long after, a cyclist comes over a hill. He whistles at me, as a guy would at a shapely woman, because I have my shirt off. Clearly he's old enough to know a time when such were the cultural norms. He was wearing a helmet. The cyclist right after him was not. This other cyclist appears to have come from a tanning booth and had his hair done. It's quite a gender fluid ride home along the river. I through a couple of underpasses and across a bridge. I'm coming up on my last bridge. A homeless guy struggles with his bike. A bike trailer is hitched to the back, and the trailer has a flat left tire. I don't know what's in the trailer, but he's having a hell of a time at this end of the bridge, trying to push bike and trailer even as much as an inch.
Thursday, I finally get to the waterpark again this week. I make it there when they open. In the pool are four high school seniors. Two guys and two girls. The girls are adorable. One is in a hot pink kind of sports bikini. The other has model features. The first girl makes a comment toward the social status of one guy, when she tells him, "Dude, you're Tyler, bro.." Meanwhile, at work, I stay an hour and 15 minutes after close. I take the bus up the street to an avenue, which I ride to an outdoor concert venue. This venue I pass to and from work on the trail. I believe this venue opened for outdoor concerts in 2017. This is the very first time I've seen a show here. I catch the end of a set by Native American singer Samantha Crain. I'm outside a chain link fence enclosing a big swath of the park in front of the stage. I'm sitting next to a homeless guy, on his scooter on the grass. He's talking to himself, he lights up a bong pipe, and he turns on other music on a device he has. This is all while she's performing. I move down the fence. After her set, someone comes onstage to mention the sponsors of the show. Four young people come out, each with five-gallon buckets to take into the audience, for donations. When I get home, my coworker calls to ask me to work for her tomorrow. The following morning, I'm up and out the door. I get to work when it's still dark. As I turn the corner, I'm almost blinded by all the bulbs lighting up the shopping strip. I've never seen a collection of shops so illuminated. Not a single bulb is out, or even dim. It's so bright outside, inside my store, if I so desired I could sit down and read with the inside lights off. No problem. The day after, I will step into a doughnut place at the opposite end of the strip, and speak to the owner, telling her of my shock at the light. She said they have no crime on this side of the street, but that her husband sees "all kinds of stuff going on" across the boulevard.
The day begins with myself up early and out the door, headed for the bus to work. When I step off this bus now, I don't have to cross the street to get to work. The bus literally stops in front of the entrance where I work. There's a regular i see at the stop in front of work. He's a big guy in his thirties. He carries a big umbrella like a cane, and he paces both the stop and parking lot while talking to himself. Shortly after I leave this morning, I'm along the block with the open field. Both homeless vehicles and camper are gone. A newly arrived homeless camper is parked directly opposite the previous vehicles. This other camper is backed half into the lot of an office. The driver is at the wheel, and speaking to another guy through the open window. I enter the trail and almost immediately exit, headed crosstown for the bus stop. I'm at the stop when the bus comes along. The bike rack, with spaces for two bicycles, is full. I'm counting on at least one passenger with one of the bikes to disembark, as this is a popular stop in front of a private university. Both passengers with the bikes get out, clearing the way for mine. After work, I am so damned tired that I forego swimming. I get a full night's sleep and wake up Sunday with 2 hours until the sister picks me up. I hang up the load of wash I forgot about last night and put in another. I do dishes and boil pasta for lunch and dinner this week. As last Sunday, it's a weird chilly morning. The sister and I go to breakfast, which she wants me to pay for when I ask her to drive me to the pool after the gym. At the rec center, she swims while I work out. Then she takes a half hour shower as I swim and soak in an outdoor hot tub. Then we head for this city pool where I used to swim, back when I lived across town from where the sister and I now live. This is the last Sunday it's open for the season. Along the way, we stop and have an early lunch at a place on the boulevard where I used to live. She claims that we were here before, but I don't remember it. It's a fine lunch, and she drops me at the pool. I'm there an hour before open swim begins. I have time to do what I never have time to do. I sit under a tree in the park with the pool, and write this. I swim during what I decide is the best part of the day, when the sun comes out. The rest of the day appears to be one where the clouds roll in to stay. Again, I decide against riding down to the waterpark from here. Though it would have been an interesting ride. I head back across town, stopping at the camera shop along the way. My film is still out. I make it home where I drop my towel, swimsuit and gym stuff. I do a shorter ride back out to the copy shop, where I make the final few copies to finish a project I've been trying to get caught up with. I ride straight back down a single avenue to my boulevard. I hit a Mexican place for dinner which I haven't been to in a few years. A young kid is taking drink orders. I ask him in English for a diet soda. He looks at me, completely lost. I ask for a Coca de dieta. He's got it.
Monday. I'm across the street from work, at a post office. My photocopy project is complete, and is going off in the mail. And I can use more stamps. I'm at the counter when a tall, grey-haired shows up behind me. I hear him breathing with some effort. I've seen my share of residents like this. He must have spotted my helmet, and asks me, "You aren't doing all this on a bike, are you?" The clerk tells him that he's breathing hard just thinking about it. I run over to a grocery for bananas and some chopped vegetables. I haven't had time to chop any. I've been working for my coworker. I'm here as usual, an hour early on Monday. This is why I can't swim before work on Mondays and Fridays. She will ask me tomorrow if I can come in an hour and a half early. Now, speaking of my schedule before work, I discovered something Sunday which I didn't process until Tuesday. Tuesday I wake up too early and elect not to go back to sleep. I head for the train to ensure I get to the waterpark when they open. I'm headed for the entrance and toward a four-way stop. I stop at my sign and I notice another cyclists coming through her stop sign. I go before she makes it through the intersection. As i do, she says to me, "Look up look up!" I respond with, "STOP SIGN!" The train whips me a couple of stops along, and it's a short ride to the waterpark. Before I finish climbing the steep parking lot, I see the electric sign. "Open on weekends only." This must mean beginning this week. Instead, I ride the rest of the way to work. Along the way, I'm approaching a cul de sac where I enter a horse trail. There's a couple walking a pair of toddlers. The female appears to recognize me, and I remember her noticing this summer that I didn't have a shirt on. Neither do I have one on today. She says, "There he is. He's naked." I like this kid. Again I ran out of the house without breakfast. I grab it across the street from work. Back on my new side of the boulevard, I'm mulling over my options for swimming before work...when it finally dawns on me. There is a pool on a boulevard where I used to live. It's in the same municipality with the other pool where I used to swim. I know I can make it there inside an hour. Right at close, a customer comes in and drops off. She wants to know prices. She wants to have it for a particular day, which means I can't leave it for my coworker. I leave 15 minutes late. I'm riding up the boulevard on the sidewalk, facing rush hour traffic. It extends over the hill and also in the other direction. I don't remember it being this busy after work since before last week. Traffic is stopped for the light. I roll past a young, bearded guy in his convertible hot rod. I make it to this pool in a half hour. I have an hour and 15 minutes before they close. I stay a short while and head for the train home. Not bad for a guy with 5 hours sleep.
Like the seventeenth century, the nineteenth century yields many utopias - [Edward Bellamy wrote of] theories...somewhat more than the aesthetic object; they are its very existence. [In one of his novels, a] socialist utopia unfolds... But his optimism got in the way.. The human animal, forced to operate within a non-human scheme of affairs, will always defy the rationalist. ...we are nowhere - even the nowhere of utopia - unless out writers aspire. - Aldiss
SAIGON, April 28[, 1975] ...Saigon had a functioning American Legion post, Post 34. ...I went to the interview with...Hunter S. Thompson. {He was] on assignment for Rolling Stone. ..Thompson...would have to stay straight. I didn't want...Merry Prankster antics. Hunter promised...even...not to ask a single question. [Inside the post,] under spinning fans [were] a dozen...bar girls... [The post was manned by a pair of American men], whipcord lean, and ravaged-looking. "...the VC...comin' in. If they do, they'll welcome us." "They'll welcome back Americans. They want dollars and our know-how." Thompson...said, can you imagine [this pair] standing at the gates of Saigon with their resumes in hand? What do you guys pay an hour? - Caputo
I can nearly taste the freedom from...the sideways looks cast toward the solo woman traveler. The chaos of the city...never-ending in its choking clamor of logistics. But did I feel safe sleeping in a stranger's home? The answer was a resounding no (several comments had raised red flags). [A rare experience]; community-driven storytelling around a common cause... ...these collective voices...dissolved tension lurking within the culture of single-minded dominance. The push and pull between self and other, personal goals and external demands... ...down a gravel country road in our new home...a red pickup... The stranger tailed me, filming... My existence would always...threaten, somebody... "Caring for myself...is an act of political warfare." Our stories as humans...focused so narrowly on the individual in much of outdoor media. ...what being "outside" means... - Elevation Outdoors, Sommer 2023
The summertime is...a...way to reacquaint ourselves with reading... ...to grow...professionally. We all have our...genres... a faith-based book...history...business...personal development...fictional book. ...affords...the opportunity to engage...people regardless of their own reading preferences. ...a new paradigm...a new place mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. - Denver Herald Dispatch, 8/10/2023
...British Anglicans...developed religious "raves"...to...attract more youth. The Reverend Doctor Matthew Fox...began...his own "Techno Cosmic Masses"... "Post-modern times require post-modern rituals and worship." ...on the Cosmic Mass website. "Getting high on beauty and on dancing (and sweating) hard is ancient wisdom." "...my learning from indigenous teachers and ceremonies and wisdom teachers... ...also...post-modern science." - Westword, 8/17-23/2023
"Dad, I've just dropped acid. Will you sit with me and guide me through the trip?" ...it seemed best to shift the dialogue to his frame of reference. 'His?' Which was ['his'] scene? [Perhaps this is] (seen as energy...the soul/body distinction...seriously modified...) [His son was] drinking on the iridescent beauty of his visions. [Describing a kind of allegory for both life and death. He eventually committed suicide.] If he had had a psychotic break, was it perhaps better this way? [As for his son's ghost,] energy fields could have been...left unsettled, or in...imbalance. ...we were...picking up and reflecting undirected energies. Mrs. Ena Twigg [a spirit medium, invited us into her home.] ...already I was sure there were no dark rooms, red lights, incense pots or heavy curtains. ...fringed silk lampshades, exotic ornaments, cluttered semidarkness... Had our hostess know literally nothing about me it would have been...a little insulting. [The author preached at several famous English churches, been on TV there, been in British magazines, and was photographed with Queen Elizabeth's husband.] "She'll want to [get] a feeling for...your 'vibrations.'" "Do you happen to have something of your son's? It would help." It was much later that I began to develop some sophistication as to how identification can be checked during a seance. - The Other Side, by Bishop J. A. Pike, 1968
Tuesday. A homeless camper is parked opposite the block with the open field, in the lot of a business. The overnights cool off but the days are back to being hot. The high today reaches 100 degrees F. When I'm at a stop for a bus or a train, I need to take off my helmet. This week, the umbrella guy is outside of work. Tuesday, he's standing next to a trash can along our strip. I approach the can to toss some trash and he moves away from it. When I leave, he returns to the can. The following afternoon, after work, I'm back at the pool. The head lifeguard is taking payment when she lets me know that I have a $75 credit in my "account." She suggests it may have something to do with the pandemic. I reply that I'm inclined not to ask too many questions. I'm back there 24 hours later, when both the lifeguard who took my card on Tuesday, and the head lifeguard, are there together. the one from Tuesday asks me how I'm paying. I reply that "I understand I have a credit." The head lifeguard hears this and walks her through the software to get to "credit." She's just learning this here during the last week the city pools are open.
...I got an e-mountain-bike to test ride. I thought it would be...cycling impurity... I still...like to [pedal] on my own. ...I rode my bike more when it was an e-bike. ...to the store, the gym... [E-]bikes are banned on Boulder trails... ...e-bikes are not cheating... They don't go too fast... They simply are a new way to flow...
Vanlife - as in truly fulltime this-is-my-only-abode - isn't for everybody. When I take a lap around my neighborhood...there are...a handful of modern conversion vans on each block. - Elevation Outdoors, Summer 2023
Friday. This is the last week the city pools are open during the weekday. I have the waterpark to go to on the next three weekends. I pull my last ace in the hole. The only rec center I know of with an outdoor pool, which isn't sixty blocks north, is a place the sister used to go when she live out that direction. I give them a call. They are open next week, during the weekdays, at 8 AM. It's lap swim only. But I could have been swimming there first in the mornings and hit the waterpark after 10, all before work, followed by the city pool after work. But that would have been insane. But, there's always next season. And this other rec center will attempt to stay open as long as possible past Labor Day. I've written about this before, but all these different places I used to go, going there now is as if it's a journey through various times in my life here in the big city. Saturday, coming back from my last swim of season at the furthest city pool. I was riding a trail I used to ride back and forth to work when I first began commuting by bike, some 20 plus years ago. Sunday, I had a great swim at the waterpark. I actually stayed for an hour and a half, as opposed to 15 minutes before or after work. I get depressed if I don't get the call to work at least one shift open to close in a two-week period. Sunday night, I get the call. Monday morning, I'm out the door before 4:30 AM. Out on both trails, before 5:30 AM, shortly before I get to work. I'm passed by six or seven cyclists and electric scooter riders. All of them with their headlamps and some with lights on their helmets. This is one busy trail this morning before the sun comes up. One of them I meet in a roundabout on the first trail. He's coming off a bridge and turns the wrong way. When he spots me, he says, "Man, I can't even cheat the turns." The following morning, I'm on my way to a rec center where I don't remember going to since perhaps 2017. They have an outdoor pool which is not yet closed. And it opens at 8 AM. It's lap swim only, but it's a swim. I stop by my clinic down the street to schedule a couple of appointments. At 8 AM, there's no lines, and I'm in and out with enough time to catch a bus I haven't caught since I was going to this rec center. I step aboard and sit across from a couple of very young women. One has a young child. The mom sits with one shoe off, and is telling the other about getting a great deal on cable TV. She tells her she's tired and is going home to rest. She asks the child if she's tired. Didn't the child just get up? Didn't they all just get up. Is the child in school? Do the women work? I step out at the rec center and have a fine swim. It's warm, the sun is out, and the sky is blue. The bus back the other direction will take me all the way to the bus to work's doorstep. I wait for this bus at a stop which used to be next to an open field. I vaguely remember condos under construction in the field. Every square inch of the field is now full of condos. I wonder how the residents feel about me sitting on the grass, in the shade in front of their digs?
When I get home after work, though I am beat, I chop vegetables which I bought earlier in the week. Finally. The following morning, I've had a decent sleep. Which means I have to rush, to mix the chopped veggies with the past I boiled also earlier in the week, and also add the basil pesto sauce. I put some of the chopped veggies in a pan with some mustard plant for an omelet. I turn on the burner, whip through a shower, and come down to put the omelet in a baggie. I'm out the door and headed down the sidewalk along my boulevard. This is my new route to the stop for the bus to my old rec center. between home and the stop, I'm navigating Hispanic students walking to school, homeless gathering at a Walgreens, and Caucasians walking their little dogs. Not to mention dodging between rush hour traffic, all to get to a stop on time. So I can wait for a bus which appears to be routinely late. The days may get over 100 degrees F, but it's nice right now, a little after 8 AM. And it's nice at the pool. Unlocking my bike outside, a guy with an oxygen tank approaches me. He wants to know where I live. "Where's home?" I tell him, and ask him if he's going inside the rec center. He says he is. On the bus back the other way, I sit across from a young bald guy with a long goatee, and sunglasses. He keeps dozing off, and he drops his phone on the floor every minute. It lands with a thud. He gets out on the corner where the production plant for my company is. I see out a window a small cafe. An elderly woman is carrying out a table and sets it down with a couple others. She takes a leaf blower and blows the dust off the tables.
This rec center where I'm swimming on weekdays. Even before the pandemic. I was used to any pool anywhere simply shutting down after Labor Day. Their mission to stay open through September is, for myself, an adventure into the unknown. Once in a while, a local institution will do something like this. Thursday morning, and I'm back at the stop for the bus there. It pulls up with two bikes on the bike rack. A full rack. I stand and hope that the owner of one of these at least will disembark. And one indeed does. Now, all I need is to make my way around a homeless guy who has shown up out of nowhere. He's blocking way to the bike rack. I make my way around him while he slowly crushes out his lit cigarette against the stone wall of the building next to the stop. He looks familiar, a face from long ago. He comes aboard behind me and takes a seat across from mine. He has a black lab in a harness with "service dog" spelled out on the side. I don't see any leash. The dog walks toward the back of the bus. The driver tells him it has to stay with him. You know, like a real service dog. We proceed along the avenue to a corner, where a couple of middle-aged woman sit on a bus bench. We pull up and one of the women stands up. The driver opens the door and she says something in Spanish, before she says "schedule" in English. The driver closes the door and pulls out. Back out on the avenue, we stop for a mom and her son, who may be in middle school. The son with some trepidation steps aboard. He tells the driver where he's going. He sits next to me as his mom watches him closely through the window. This is clearly new to both of them. She isn't sure what to do next before she inconspicuously waves to him. He returns the same wave. We go a distance which I suspect he could easily traverse by foot. He gets out at a school, where there is no bus stop. A short few feet beyond is the bus stop. I step out here.
I'm securing my bag to the back rack on my bike as I spot someone running for the bus. He's some distance and I don't alert the driver. When the guy reaches me, he asks me when the next bus will come this way. I reply that I don't know, forgetting that I have a schedule in my bag. He has a phone, and at least should be able to call the transit system customer service, who can answer any question he has about buses coming through here. He asks me which direction is...someplace I don't comprehend with his drawl. Is he asking about a transfer hub? He inquires about a bus for the other route which comes this way. I'm not sure about that one either. Again, a call to customer service can tell him. At the rec center, it's another fine swim. I pick up a printed schedule for next week's hours. The bus headed back the opposite way comes and collects me. Soon, we're back across my boulevard, stopped in front of my bank. A guy steps aboard and asks the driver if he knows where a particular rehab center is. The guy has an address. He takes a seat across from me and has a conversation with someone on his Bluetooth. He confesses he's in the process of trying to get his car back. First he needs his license back. This means that he needs a job. It feels good to be on a bus where something actually makes sense. He tells the person on the other end, "That's the whole get down. Let me get off the phone so I can GPS this shit." He also mentions the military and Sportsbook. "I was in Florence USP," he adds. If I'm not mistaken, that's a federal prison west of the city. The bus pulls into a train station. I hear someone outside yelling. It appears to be a street person. I watch this guy reach into a trash can and pullout a coffee cup. It's empty, so he tosses it on the ground. We pull out of the station and return to the busy avenue. We stop to pick up a different street guy. He's short and on the elderly side. His long hair is swept back on one side of his face. I don't see where the other half of his hair is. He's in a bright green tie-dyed T-shirt. After he takes a seat, he gets up and disembarks at the very next stop. We pull up to the boulevard for my bus and I step out. The stop for the connecting bus to work is just around the corner. I'm not there long when a golf cart pulls up on the sidewalk. An elderly woman steps out. She has a pole with a handle at one end and a claw on the other. She's searching the ground, picking up tiny individual pieces of trash. I can't see around her to keep an eye out for the bus. I stand up to see my bus in a far lane, attempting to get over to the stop. I wave him down and he pulls up ahead of the golf cart.
I step out right in front of work. Yet another street guy steps out with me. He moves slowly, bent over. He may be high. I watch him wander through the small parking lot before he runs across the busy boulevard. I cross the street as well and grab lunch at the old bakery there. I'm in line behind a couple of coffeed up moms. One asks about the BLT. One of the bakers recommends another sandwich. She replies, "Why, is the BLT bad?" They both sit down and converse loudly. When I'm done, I head back across the street to work where my coworker points to the same guy, back here in our parking lot. She's been watching him panhandle and "tripping out." He's out there for about an hour until the next bus comes along. He steps aboard headed he same direction which brought him here. I stay late enough at work that I catch the bus back up the avenue. I get out on a street, with a bus to the supermarket back in my neighborhood. In the parking lot of the supermarket is some why cruising the lot on his bicycle. He has sunglasses on with an overcast sky, and a mask over his nose and mouth. As I'm locking up my bike, he cruises over to ask me how it's going. I don't reply. Friday. It's the first day this week since Monday in which I ride all the way to work. I turn down a short block on the way to the trail. I notice a broken-down pickup truck, with the interior and bed full of junk, hitched to a broken-down trailer. It's not long before I'm out on the trail, and rolling past a former VFW hall. I don't know what it became. A wine bar? I've seen mechanics repairing bicycles under a tent next to the building, last year? The parking lot here has been a popular spot for homeless campers and vehicles. Through it all, the old neon VFW sign has remained, coming on according to some timer with programming I never understood. This morning, the metal pole and sign are gone. The place where I now work, I notice more of what goes on in the parking lot. Like the pair of guys coming from across the boulevard. This afternoon it's raining. One of the guys is in a pink hoodie, the other a short-sleeved shirt. I watch out the front window as they move toward the back lot. I walk to the back door and peek outside. They walk to a hole in the fence and climb through. Instead of walking around the fence, which stops at an entrance to an adjoining lot. A few minutes later, I'm back inside at the front window. I see the pair crossing back across the boulevard.
Let's talk about Sunday. The latest adventure in dating, between myself and my lady, is the most recent attempt to stay in touch with her Sunday morning. I think it's Saturday, she lets me know that she requires my presence Sunday. She tells me that we're going to the zoo. We tried that last summer. If memory serves, they only sell tickets online, and we couldn't get in. We also got there too late, they were closing. This turns out not to be the case this afternoon, but I'm getting what feels as if is way ahead of myself. I didn't hear from her before I went to bed Saturday evening. I told her I was going out with my sister early in the morning for our usual breakfast and rec center visit. This message she would later tell me she read. From then on, the only means I had to contact her was by voicemail on my mobile phone. I thought surely she would recognize the number, as I used to text her from this very phone. The only reason I got this phone was at her suggestion. I no longer send her texts, but instead write to her over Messenger through social media. I don't want to go back to texting, as I don't want to confuse her. If she otherwise responds to me by text to this phone, I never check this phone. I always check social media. So I let her know that I will not have access to my social media until I return home. I workout at the rec center. I let my lady know where I am through voicemail. My sister bids me farewell, as it's a short ride to the water park. I have a swim. I let her know I am on my way home. The sister and I get done with breakfast so early, that I get done with my workout early enough to get to the waterpark just when they open. I'm home by noon. I let my lady know I'm home. She answers that she will pick me up at 2 PM. On her time, this means 2:45 PM. On the way to the zoo, she explains. She didn't recognize my voice on the voicemail because her voicemails are translated into texts. She didn't know who I was as I didn't use my name. She gets many strange voicemails for people other than herself, she knows not why. This has resulted, not so much in a comedy of errors, but a galaxy of errors. We get into the zoo, no problem. I would never go there by myself. But she likes it. And we are celebrating my birthday, which was two days into the month, but celebrating four days before the end of the month. We stay until close, we walk the entire zoo, we ride a train, we go inside some exhibits. We have the best time, as we always do. We then have dinner back on our side of town, at our favorite place. Another two hours. I watch various homeless wander past the window as the sun sets. One guy pulls up in a hearse and parks. Before he leaves, he opens the back door. Instead of a coffin, there sone junk. It's a scene out of The Munsters. Meanwhile, my lady pays for everything. What a lady.
She talks about her daughter's plans to buy her own place. Her daughter makes twice as much as I do. She talks about a homeless guy who comes into the 7_Eleven where she works. He asked for a coffee which he couldn't pay for. He didn't like her telling him he couldn't get it for free. He threw it on the wall...the same wall they work hard to keep clean, which gets inspected by the owner. He came back again. He's filthy. He pulls out some filthy bills. Can be purchase one cigarette. She tells him that if he doesn't leave, she will call the police. He throws his filthy money at her. She says he just wants something to throw. On Monday, again I'm riding all the way to work. I'm coming down the long street a block from my own. Stopped at a curb is a young guy on a bicycle. A black pack lay on the ground next to him. He has no helmet or shirt, and black jeans and blackwork boots. He's talking to himself. The following morning, again I am racing past traffic and pedestrians, to get to a stop for a bus which is routinely 15to 20 minutes late. I'm coming down the sidewalk along my busy boulevard. I'm approaching, on my right, a gas station popular with homeless. It across from a Walgreens, and the bus stop out front is also a homeless hangout. On my left, if I recall correctly, a homeless SUV is pulled to the curb and parked. There's no parking anywhere along this boulevard, which is also a US highway. If this isn't crazy enough, it's facing the wrong way. Are they from Great Britain? The reason for this madness? Well, it appears as if one homeless guy has just been dropped off at the gas station. A handful of homeless are swarmed around the SUV, which has another SUV hitched to the first. One guy is frantically trying to either tighten or untie a rope attached to the front steering underneath.
I navigate traffic and pedestrians to reach the bus stop. The bus is so late, I have time to floss my teeth. When it arrives, it's not a long ride to the rec center. I walk in to discover that the outdoor pool is closed this particular morning. I did not check the printed schedule at home closely enough. It will be pen tomorrow. Well, besides the homeless SUVs parked the wrong way waiting to get clobbered by oncoming traffic, nothing else has happened yet this morning. So some snafu is required to turn my life into an adventure. The next bus back won't be here for another 45 minutes. I decide to ride toward the bus to work's doorstep. I go flying down three city blocks worth of sidewalks. At my own boulevard, I check the time once again. The next bus is still a ways off. I realize that I have time to ride all the way to work. It culminates in a two-hour ride. And I still have time for a snack before work. The morning after, I get a late start out the door. As a result, the bus to the rec center appears to come right on time. The breakfast I made and threw into a Ziploc bag is still hot. To get here, I decided to take a street a couple blocks down from the boulevard. It has no bike lane, but is a designated bike route. This morning, at * AM, the designation makes no difference whatsoever. The street, for more than ten blocks, turns out to be bumper to bumper traffic in both lanes. Parents dropping off their kids at multiple schools on the same street. For the simple reason that I'm going swimming before work, I'm navigating sidewalks made of holes with the occasional piece of concrete. I circumvent a couple of students walking to school. I must stop for a refrigerator block my path, detour out onto a sliver of street between parked cars and stopped traffic. I sneak between two bumpers to get onto the sidewalk on the other side. After a couple of four way stops, I break out onto open street. I'm at my stop with not much time to spare.
The bus collects me and drops me at a stop for the rec center. It's another lovely swim. On my way back to the stop for a bus back the other way, I decide I would like a hot chocolate. I cross the avenue because I have a green light. I follow an asphalt path around one side of a lake in a park. I can't get away from having to navigate dog walkers and moms with strollers. The path takes me to the parking lot of an apartment complex. I find my way around a minivan backing up and a pickup truck turning onto the street. I make my way to the gas station and grab a hot chocolate. I put it in a pouch on my handlebars. I cross the street and ride to a bus stop with some shade. I pass through a couple of street corners, each with two or three workers in yellow mesh vests. They have poles with handles and claws, picking up trash. At the bus stop, I notice that the lid has come off the hot chocolate, and it spilled in the pouch. The pouch will still have hot chocolate, no longer hot, at the bottom when I'm ready to leave work at the end of the day. Oh, but the morning is far from done. I'm sitting in the shade of a couple of telephone poles. Across the street from the stop is one end of the park. I watch a young guy on a bicycle make his way along the asphalt trail to a stop. He's texting and riding, and it almost appears that his front fork is loose. he appears to tighten the nut above the front for before he proceeds. Following him are five or six of the yellow vests. Behind them are another bicycle, and a grey-haired woman walking with a wooden staff. It strikes me that my bus should be here by now. I turn on my phone, which informs me that my battery is "critically low", despite that fact that I charged it last week. It lets me call the transit system customer service. The bus I've been waiting for, it turns out, is 33 minutes late. The next scheduled bus will be here before that. I drink hot chocolate from a sticky cup and begin preparing to ride the rest of the way to catch a connecting bus to work. Just then I spot the bus. On the bus are no stranded people from the last bus. It's empty, except for a single rogue yellow vest. We make our way close to my stop. A tall, lanky, grey-haired guy struggles to lift his bicycle onto the bike rack. He steps aboard, unsure of his balance. He has no helmet. he does have a silk, short-sleeved, button-down shirt with a flame design down the front.
Thursday is the last day of the month. How we got here is lost in a nonstop pursuit of summer events before and after work. Labor Day, the sister plans to take me to Boulder. I wonder if September will be a time to decompress from the rest of the summer months...
