Things have been an adventure, as always. Van repairs set me back a few thousand thanks to the fact that the issues with the climate control system also busted the radiator fan. Things are fixed now, except for the a/c, which still doesn’t blow cold because the shop didn’t have time to resolve the problem before Labor Day (an American holiday nominally celebrating labor rights, although of course it’s generally white-collar workers who get to take the day off while actual working people have to report to work as usual – except for some groups, such as auto mechanics, and more power to them). This might be a good time to point out that I’m open for commissions, manuscript critique, editorial guidance, translation services, etc. Go to the menu and click “commissions” if you have a need.
Despite financial woes, Denver was a nice time. Mutiny and I got to stretch out in a guest bedroom while the van was in the shop. It was a house we’d stayed at before, and she made herself right at home, reclaiming her favorite chair and her favorite basement closet to be a little goblin in, pretty much right off the bat. Most of my family is in Denver, including both parents, and my brother, who I was seeing for the first time since he bought a house and got engaged. So I spend some time doing dad stuff (go to a baseball game – he’s a diehard Guardians fan, and they were in town to utterly decimate the Rockies), mom stuff (go to dance showcase at the theater where she ushers and talk about performance art theory afterwards), brother stuff (see the new house and dig into my storage-unit’d library to help populate the bookshelf wall), and future-sister-in-law stuff (talk talk talktalktalk, jesus fuck it’s good to finally have another extrovert at the dinner table). There was also a surprise appearance by my uncle and his two sons, who are Gen Z enough that we can mostly communicate, more or less.
I, of course, lived in Arvada, a town NW of Denver, for longer than I’ve lived in any other single place as an adult, and I still have a lot of friends in the Denver area. After kicking it in the middle of goddamn nowhere all spring and most of the summer, my social calendar was suddenly very, very busy. I used to have a lot of trouble getting my social needs met when I was stationary; making my time the severely limited commodity that it is seems to have done wonders for that. Things got a little shaken up by my former neighbor crashing his bike and breaking his hip, and then by me going to the wrong hospital in an attempt to visit him, but even that little blunder on my part made for a nice walk. I’m told the summer heat in Denver is unbearable, and I have no choice but to trust the people who tell me so. Courtesy of NC summer, I’m still used to similarly hot temperatures with the added burden of 90%+ humidity. When I lived in Arvada, I worked nights, so I never caught all that much of the heat. I dunno, man, I thought it was nice. I love the dry air and the high elevation, even if it means having to drink water constantly and still pee orange despite.
My NC hosts for the previous seasons were also former Denverites and very beloved community members, so aside from general socializing I had a lot of reporting to do about the state of things out on the farm, especially with the pretty earth-shaking changes that went down over the past 5 months. I’m in the bizarre of position of being the only eyewitness to it all without necessarily having a horse in any of the various races that ensued. “And I alone am survived to tell thee,” etc. It helps that the tale isn’t so unbelievable, regardless of how it felt to live through it.
Maybe I’m on my way back to NC in the near future, maybe not. I know where I am right now, and I know where I’m going to be after the new year (west coast, see you soon) but it’s pretty up-in-the-air what the plan will be between now and then. If I don’t get word from the farm soon, I’ll need to flip a coin between starting back west and trying to find a workaway host or something closer to where I am now. Or something totally different. Nomadic life is full of surprises, and certainly I’ll end up somewhere.
Anyway, now I’m in Chicago for a few days, where I aim to catch up with some folks and check out Printers Row Lit Fest, which I’m told is “the people’s lit fest.” I adore Chicago. It’s the city I’ve spent the most time in without ever actually living there, starting back in 2002 when I stayed in Hyde Park for a month for baby’s first writing workshop. If you know anything about Chicago in the 21st century, it’s probably no news to you that that was a very different Hyde Park than the one that exists now.
This time around, I’m staying in Humboldt Park and eating a lot of fried plantains, courtesy of the large Puerto Rican community. This isn’t a neighborhood I had previously known all that much about. On one hand it’s different vibe from what I’m used to, but on the other hand it’s not different at all, because it is still very obviously and very distinctly Chicago. This is something that’s hard to explain if you haven’t spent a lot of time in a variety of large cities; if you have, then it probably makes sense right away. You could teleport me to just about any random block in Chicago, or Seattle, or Denver, NYC, Atlanta, Berlin, Amsterdam, London etc. and I’d be able to tell pretty quick which one it was based on the general shape of the street, the buildings, the flora, the feel of the air, and a hundred other things too small to go into detail about. Unless, of course, it’s a city I’ve never been to before, in which case I’d be totally lost. Unless that city was Tokyo or Osaka, which I’m still reasonably confident I could spot. Or New Orleans. There’s no mistaking that one.
Mutiny has fallen into her typical urban-location pattern of napping all day and going into silly mode at night. She doesn’t get to roam freely in strange cities for obvious reasons, but she’s also never really needed or wanted to. Once the sun goes down, every little thing is fascinating to her. The smells, sounds, sights, the little bits she gets to see from the safety of her leash and harness. The world looks different for a cat. I’ll probably go to the Museum of Science and Industry later (I have a lifetime membership at COSI, the Columbus, Ohio science museum, which is an ASTC member museum, meaning I can get into just about any science museum in North America for free as long as they keep doing reciprocal membership); Mutiny would find it overstimulating if she came with me, but the alley in Humboldt Park where we’re ensconced is a smorgasbord of fun new sensations.
I have to say, though, the weirdest thing about being in urban environments after all that time in the country is being able to go to the grocery store every single day, if I want to. Some people, I’m aware, think this is a weird habit. I, on the other hand, know not to take such luxury for granted. Speaking of, it’s time to go round up some lunch.