duck-shaped pain

28 December 2000
Plink Plonk

I have been one tardy writer as of late, but I have an excuse, since I'm vacation and all. The point of vacation is to go out and do things and not be stuck behind a computer, so I've been out making my point all over the city.

Christmas was nice and peaceful. My mom and I went out for dinner, which is the first time I've ever gone out to dinner for the holiday. We went to this fancy buffet place up on a hill somewhere in Thornton and had lots of oysters, crab, cornbread stuffing, champagne and cheese blintzes. Actually, that's what I had � my mom stuck to a more traditional dinner. Dinner was so overwhelming that the only things I could force myself to do for the rest of the day was nap heartily and watch The Bad Seed on TV.

The next day, I spent money � so original of me. I went to a couple of record stores, the bookstore and some other places. Obtained in the post-Xmas binge were some CDs: the Deltron 3030 CD, Population 1975 by The Butchies, the Badly Drawn Boy CD, and my second copy of the Happy Flowers' Flowers on 45.

My heart melts for gyros, so I went for the best: the gyro sandwich and fry plate at Pete's Kitchen on East Colfax � one of my favorite places to eat in the entire city. I have had maybe hundreds of gyros there, both of the standard and the breakfast variety (breakfast gyros are just standard gyros plus eggs). I have a lot of stories about eating at Pete's � maybe I'll write them down sometime soon.

S. and I then met for coffee. I'd actually been trying to get ahold of him for days, but he had been tied up in the standard family/Xmas stuff and had not been home. He told me about his new job at one of the local radio stations � filing things, getting coffee, punching numbers, being called "Captain" by one of the salespeople � which sounds a lot better than his old job as a telephone reservation agent for the city science museum (which he got fired from, incidentally enough, for refusing to answer the phone for about six months). We talked for about three hours, moving from talk to chat about people we know in common to completely random, unrelated topics to the obligatory Favorite Band discussion. Then, it was time for him to turn in and for me to head back to Arvada.

Today, I thought about going to Boulder for the afternoon, but decided to head downtown instead. I figured that I'd rather spend my day around downtown people than Boulder people, but I was wrong.

I used to hang out in downtown Denver a lot. After I moved two and a half years ago, the people I know started hanging out there less and less, and today I finally knew why � there's nowhere to park down there. It took me about 40 minutes to find a place to park, which is a long time for me, since I know where all the secret, unused cheap parking is, or, at least, parking that used to be secret and cheap. Not anymore. All the cheap places have been converted to $6 city lots and the meters, which used to be 25 cents an hour are now $1 an hour. Those who live in other cities might be thinking, Oh, waaaaaah! right now, but hey � I was irritated.

There's scads of new construction going on downtown. All these buildings are going up where parking lots once were � buildings that are designed to look old and vaguely historic. The bitter irony here lies in the fact that there were once nice old historic buildings in these spots. They were razed to make parking lots a few decades back, in the name of "urban renewal." I bet the old buildings were a lot nicer.

When did downtown become so full of assholes? That's what I want to know. And when did downtown become so mall-like? Who decided that the City and County of Denver was incomplete without a Niketown, anyway?

I left, hurriedly.

Later, I went out for more coffee. My friend J. was working, and he supplied me with all the Americanos I could drink, which is a few. After he got off of work, he invited me out to dinner with his wife and some other people I knew.

We went to the chosen restaurant and stood around outside in the cold for about 40 minutes, waiting for people to show up � S. (again), M. (some guy who used to come over to my apartment and play video games) and T. (unknown to me). We waited and waited and no one showed. The restaurant was packed, so we decided to head somewhere else.

We headed over to a bar, and met up with this guy that J. and his woman knew. The bar was out of food, so we walked a few blocks to Watercourse, this vegetarian restaurant I had wanted to go to.

Oh my god, was it good. I had crispy jerk-spiced tofu with rice, vegetables and grilled sweet potatoes covered with coconut. It was heavenly � easily one of the best things I've eaten in ages. We talked and ate and drank more coffee (I was twitchy by this time from the caffeine). We talked about politics for awhile, and decided that the best possible side effect of the incoming Bush administration would be a sharp increase in the quality of punk rock. We discussed sweet potatoes. We could have received a special viewing of the tattoo J.'s friend had just had done (a Devo tattoo!), but he didn't want to take off the bandage. We talked about possibly moving to other cities, while at the same time J. was trying to talk me into moving back to Denver. After that, we were bushed. J's wife and their friend went off to a club, while I drove J. home.

I drove around for awhile on my way back to the suburbs. One thing I've realized a lot lately � I hate driving. I used to love it and now I hate it. It makes me skittish and nervous and cranky, and those are not qualities you want in someone you're sharing the road with. I've been making my case for getting rid of my car in financial terms when the truth is that I just don't enjoy driving anymore�

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