Posted 6th August 2013 1122

The new job is great, but if I got to my car and realized I forgot my keys I used to be home 2 minutes late, because I would run back to my desk and grab them. Now I catch a 37 minute train ride to my car, realize I forgot my keys, miss the next train back to Denver, fight my way past all the homeless, overdosing con-artist, aggressive pan-handlers that Denver calls “colorful” who check the garbage for cigarettes right in front of you as if that is just normal part of modern life… walking down the street without any shame, with your body full of tattoos, checking the garbage for food or cigarettes, acting like you own the street, without any shame… So I walk past these people who make up more than 50% of the people after 7:00, go to my building, walk past them, and then wait for 40 minutes for my train back out of Denver… 85% of the people are smoking… I watch these two guys who are circling anyone who goes and buys a ticket… It looks like they have a system to get ATM pin numbers or something, but then they just ask the people who are buying their tickets to buy a ticket from them… When the people say no, they argue with them… come on…. this tickets is just as good as yours… why not… and then they get all mad…

Denver doesn’t just have a few colorful people… These aren’t just free spirits who march to the sound of their own drum… this is skid row… these are people who hate you as you give them money… these are people who make absolutely no effort to fit into society…

So I get to have them look me up and down while I stand there… How dare I conform.. How dare I not express my hatred for society by pulling down my paints, taking off my shirt, getting tattoos, hanging stuff from my lip and ears…

I just want to go to and from work without being a victim. Without weirdos talking to me. Without being asked every 15 minutes for change. 16th street is not your ATM. I am not your ATM.

Money is a reward for good behavior. When you reward behavior, you get more of it. I am not going to pretend intimidating little old women into buying your stupid train ticket is good behavior. Stop staring at me. Stop mumbling under your breath because I dare not be in drugs in your presence. Our streets do not exist as a way to provide you with people to take money from, and for you to vent your frustrations with society…

I hate waiting for the train at 16th and Stout.

Parts of Salt Lake seem too clean. To goody-goody. Too conformist. But nothing intelligent was every communicated by people who “expressed” themselves with ant-establishment clothes, tattoos, or piercings. If you have something intelligent to say use your words. The only thing you can say by smoking, begging, conning, staring, pulling down your pants, taking off your shirt, getting yourself tattooed, is that you are too good to confirm to normal suburb life styles. I see TV commercials saying the car is “Anything but normal”. Shut up. Normal moms and dads that try to live their lives are so much more awesome than self righteous self absorbed freaks who try to express themselves with clothes or tattoos. Get a job. Get a life. Use your words. I guess tattoos are fine. Go ahead. Prove how unique you are buy looking like all the other looser who try to prove how unique they are… tattoos are fine, but don’t look so hateful at the normal’s… we have some of the worst upside down self righteousness. I don’t stare at you. I don’t try to make threatening eye contact. I just want to get to my work and get my keys and be left alone, so I can go back to my car without cigarette smoke being blown in my face, without seeing people going through garbage. Is it too much to ask that you try to straighten your life out, get a job, stop using drugs, and get your stuff together? We should have an agreement. If you don’t do these minimum things, I shouldn’t have to see you. You shouldn’t get to share the same space as me. I’m trying to provide for my family. I’m doing things right. I don’t use drugs. I shouldn’t have to see you. You should be taken away from the normal’s. You don’t like us. We don’t like you. You don’t treat us with respect. Why should we?

I take back what I said about Salt Lake. Give me your boring people who get married, and go to work. I understand there are people who have mental disorders. By definition these are the people living on the street. They should be rounded up and castrated, detoxed, institutionalized.

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