CELTA day 5: The Wave Comes in, and Retreats

The weekend brought with it a handsome escape to Mount Falcon, a local mount Katie and I mounted by way of footpaths, all the way summit-side. The week had been hell on me: each day I rise at six or six-thirty and am on the bus not forty minutes later, at the very latest. Most days I wait in the parking lot of the school until 8am, when the doors open for the work-hards.

I've found that by the end of the day I'm too tapped to formulate a coherent lesson plan, read, write, or talk to just about anyone. This program asks for every drop of mind-energy you've got, given in the form of close attention for nigh on ten hours per day. The day officially begins at 9:30 MT, but I am, like I said, in the door at eight. I fill my coffee tin and up the stairs I go to the computer lab. Two of four machines, old Dells, are equipped with MS Office. This means, of course, that there is jockeying for positions between the eleven other students in my class and several other students who are legitimately trying to learn English all day long. There is gracious yielding, thank yous, and curt farewells as people lose and regain their coveted seats. The thing about this is that each of us twelve have paid in $2,500 for the opportunity to be CELTA certified; it clangs on my ear that such production-vital software only sparely exists. Hurdles aside, I haven't failed to finish my lesson planning before lecture begins at 9:30.

Mountain Mahogany

Now, these lectures are valuable. The main instructor has just this year come in from teaching in Hawaii for the last X number of years and before that she was in Italy and Thailand; she speaks Thai and a little of the indigenous Hawaiian language. The secondary instructor lived in Japan for ten years, did a short (very short) stint in Morocco and just returned this month from Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. The tertiary instructor, I forget...she's been to Asia and South America, I think, and maybe French Canada (I could be mixing stories on that front.). These women, they have many stories from The Front, so to speak, and often use their life experiences as framework for lesson-teaching. I like that. From them I've gained the understanding that my field is dynamic and sometimes violent (secondary instructor had to be evacuated out of Morocco when the first Gulf War started) and roundly rewarding, if not TOO enlightening. I sense that these women, all in their 40s and 50s, have seen a good deal in the world; the affect which is thereby produced is a sort of porous carapace, or membrane: theirs is a geniality with promise of NO bullshit to be taken, or else THE TEETH...and good for them. I like each one of them separately, for different reasons, and they function well as a team. First lecture lasts until 10:45 or so, when we get a quarter-hour break. At eleven, lecture resumes and lasts until 12:15, at which point we're awarded an hour's reprieve for lunch. It's at this time that I usually call Savi, and call her again each of the dozen or so times Skype kills our connection. 12:30 here is about the time the bars get interesting in France, and so on occasion we've not spoken at lunch but have instead held off until it's late here, and early in western Europe. Of course I'm no more rested for our habit but what's lost in sleep is payed forward in morale: I'm going to Spain in just over three weeks, to live for eight months with her. 

Red Rocks Amphitheater

To progress onward without paying too much mind to the bizarre formatting mutations happening here: I've not followed anyone before. I mean, this is my first time really putting my hat in the ring for someone and to me, it's huge. I've already bought my plane ticket to Madrid and I'm selling my car and my bike in the interest of helping to keep us afloat awhile. I'm not going broke; far from it, but for me to subsist in Spain I'll have to work illegally for the latter five months. The business plan, or so they call it, is to establish myself quickly as a resource in Zafra. This means business cards, flyers with email addy fringes, and some real snooping for strategic spots to post those things. To my mind, all this must happen in the first month I'm there, coupled with online work originating in Germany and East Asia, and probably others; I have a meeting Wednesday with Bridge's jobs guy about working illegally and what Bridge can do to connect me under the table. It'll be an interesting experience. If what my instructors have said is true, there is more money in tutoring than in contract work, and that'll be all I'm about this round. Next round's on me: preemptively thinking Czech Republic (Hi, Vladimira!) or Costa Rica. There's a good deal more money to be maid in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East but the Caribbean...I mean...palm trees and beaches, and slow island living. Maybe surfing's in the cards. I think I'd like to climb around on some more mountains, too.

After lunch we review our lesson plans for an hour or so, until about quarter past two when students begin to arrive. The most I've taught is 14. My class is largely Mexican, with a light dusting of Bolivia, Zimbabwe, Mongolia, and Belarus. Today I taught vocabulary and a cool thing happened...well, every day a cool thing happens in class but today it was more personal. I was "monitoring", as it's called in this hell of jargon, which means I was hovering over my students, gradually over all of them, and I spied, to my surprise, that one of my students had written my name on the corner of her paper and the word "coolest", as if to distinguish me from my peers. I'm not cooler than anyone; I'M COOLER THAN EVERYONE, BWA HA HA HA HA!!!

Okay. Megalo-freakout concluded. Thanks for keeping up with this rambling. If you haven't got the point of the pictures yet, go ahead and click on them. That will open them in your browser. After that, click the picture once more to see it in its full splendor. Good night!

CELTA, first Friday or "The Height of American Businessman Adventures"

When did it begin? This morning? Sure...it's the middle of the day and I'm sitting in this little room, this boardroom/classroom and life has been difficult today. There is a malaise that has settled over me; mix loneliness, exhaustion, sketchy nourishment, chastity, abstinence from alcohol, and twelve hours per day devoted to listening to exclusive jargon (is that redundant?) and you arrive at me, a place where even I cannot stand to be. I'm unhappy nearly all the day and when I get home, all I can concentrate on is not thinking, which is the very disease I'm running from; my 24-hour ratio is way the fuck out of whack.

Have you ever considered that? Have you ever considered your typical day as a pie chart and then divvied it up into blocks of time you spend doing one activity or another? If so, have you then labeled those slices of time and then determined whether they were things you want to do or things you are made to do, either by others or as a result of decisions you've made? My pie chart is overwhelmed with the latter latter.

This morning I was late getting to the bus stop because I vaguely understood what time to be there and could not be brought to care enough to simply look it up. I boarded the 20 bus. Having stepped off at the proper stop, I casually crossed the street and bidding good morning to a girl who'd soon take the 32, I sat down awaiting the 40. The 32 came for the girl, and soon enough the next bus stopped for me. I read the NYT and the streets passed by in fits and starts. Familiar streets...really familiar streets...FFFFUUUUUUU-

I had re-boarded the 20 going the other way, back toward home. I yanked the stop-cord and ran with my huge backpack a block to 17th, the northbound street upon which I'd caught the original 20. Ages later it came and when we came again to the intersection, the crucial intersection, the 40 was already waiting there. By some cosmic turn its driver, who later I'd find to be Javier, had left his post and hustled up the street to give something, perhaps a transfer card, to a departed passenger. The lights switched in my favor and after making a big left turn through the intersection, my bus let out and I ran across Colorado Boulevard through stopped traffic and as I rapped on the bus door the light turned green. I pressed my hands together to offer a prayer to Javier and unhappily, he opened the door. I didn't quite hear what he said to me as I passed him and took my seat.

At the next stop I approached him with two dollars and he said that no, he couldn't take a tip but could I at least show him my transfer ticket. Yes, of course, and I sat back down and after a while, he motioned that he'd like to talk. If you like you could call the number and leave good feedback about me, he said, and gave me his name and bus number. Of course, and I sat on hold with RTD for 15 minutes, during which I discovered I'd packed my running shoes instead of my dress shoes; at this I hung my head and would have laughed had I not wanted so badly to cry. Just six spots in the call queue away from a human, and had to kill it to disembark. I promised him I'd not forget him.

I don't know what it is about today. As of right now, at lunch on Friday, I can't remember a single thing I was lectured on this morning. I was banking on hearing Savi's voice at lunch, as has happened each day so far, to afford me some time in the sun, but even that fell through today. I shouldn't rely on anyone but myself; I knew that, but of course I still felt disappointed; not with Sav but that I had allowed my expectations to supersede reason and that I had come to rely on an outside element for stability. That has to start with me!

[Saturday begins]

The jobs guy...he has his work cut out for him. His job requires him to have degrees of knowledge about TEFL job prospects all over the world and have his finger on the pulse of the field: understanding both global and country-specific trends is part of that. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm meeting him on Wednesday to talk about working illegally in Spain. The internet is painfully lacking in information on jobs in this field as there at present exists no network for that...maybe I should create one and retire.

That's right: I'll be in Spain for the next eight months, living with Savi in a town I won't name because I'm not interested in giving myself away to la emigre. My work will include private tutoring as well as online learning for students all around the world (via Skype and a facilitator company). We'll live simply but will have a ton of fun (as teaching at present is a sidebar to our passions for new experiences) meaning that we will occasionally travel through Europe and see, well, EVERYTHING. My next job, I'm going to try for Czech Republic, but a lot has yet to be determined about *that* scene. Today, I buy my plane ticket to Spain.

CELTA, Day 2

Hi there; here I am, not but nearly dead! So. Yes. This will be a delirious post because your normally genteel host has a leak at the base of his skull through which the liquefied remnants of his brain are draining down his spine. Yes, it's that kind of exhaustion. Physically I'm not too damaged; I've been at the push-ups and crunches regularly, which is making me wiry, not big ("the point", I call it).

Okay...I'm going to stop trying, here. There's no point.

Today I taught for twenty minutes. Something about a story, and predicting what might happen based on given vocab. My class skews Mexican but includes a Bolivian, a Belorussian, a Mongolian, and a Zimbabwean. The ages range from 18 to 65. I can name them: David, Citlolla, Minerva, Humberto, Socorro, Emma, Zafarina, Blanca, Jara, Angelica, Juan, Humberto, Alejandra, Leonardo, Nina...and that is all, between the ones who came yesterday and the ones who came today.

I washed my camera with my laundry, so I hope you weren't expecting any more pretty pictures. I'll have to order one soon so that I can take it with me to Spain. Then, the pretty pictures will resume.

Anyway, they are an understanding class and dealt well with the students' (our) bumbling through lessons.

Who is my friend? My friend is Tammam, a Syrian whose Gmail is set to "German" so that he is forced to practice German all the time. He knows Arabic and English and German and perhaps a little Japanese. Tammam, he prints my shit out for me because my computer won't connect to the son-of-a-bitchin' printer at school. Such is life.

We learned Japanese numbers and times today.

I bought a bike for $140 from a dude on Craigslist. One block from Katie's its back brakes were gone. The tires were flat when I got the bike. I rode it the five miles down to school and on the way back, about 25 blocks from home, the small derailleur just popped off onto the street and the chain, it just hung there. I was parched when it happened and after walking that bastard 25 blocks back home, spittle had solidified all around my mouth and my hair was plastered in places to my head and generally full of Denver street dirt. When I got home I looked in the mirror and felt ashamed.

This class...is fucking hard. I wake up at six every day. I get on the bus around seven and get to school at eight. Classes start at 9:30, so I have that time to set up a lesson plan and have Tammam print it out. Tammam is one of the sharpest kids I've met in there, by which I mean he's at some Syrian apex of social and educational aptitude that makes sense to my sense of "who are possible friends here?"; likewise, he must smell it on me because we secretly appraise each others' work in the interest of pushing the other forward. The others in our group, they are on their own.

In thirty minutes, Savi will wake up in Marseilles. So will Lindsey Myers. I will talk to Savi even though I'm exhausted. That's how it works; we talk at night and in the morning because those are two times during which we are awake at the same time. I think Marseilles is ten hours different than Denver; I can't ever keep track. We're scanning plans for me to work illegally in Spain. Also, we're scanning ways to scam the Spanish authorities into thinking I've never entered the country when indeed I will have. It's complicated, but involves Gibraltar and England and bets on the attitudes of Spanish border patrol agents.

The lights in here just went off for no apparent reason. The power is on; the lights are off. Such is life.

This class is killing me; I know it. I can feel when some awful blade is sawing away at the sweet cord of life within me. One month, I keep telling myself; one month more.

Tomorrow I teach 12 students for forty minutes. My teaching time will be 1/6 complete. I must read now, before Savi wakes up. I have 26 minutes. I have to do well in order to see her. I will do well.

Oh, and these Koran-burners...small rant here...clearly don't understand that the Bible is written in Arabic, that Muslims serve in the US Military, that NO ONE CARES ABOUT FLORIDA ANYWAY YOU PATHETIC EEJITS and WHY DON'T YOU THROW YOURSELVES IN WHILE YOU'RE AT IT? PEOPLE THAT BURN BOOKS HATE KNOWLEDGE AND BY DINT OF THEIR INCENDIARY IGNORANCE OUGHT TO BE CAST INTO SOME OIL SLICK AND FRY ME UP SOME SHRIMP BURGERS, BUBBA, BECAUSE I LOVE GULF SHRIMP.


It is SO dry here, and I think I'm allergic to the school building.

The sammies I eat are delicious, and by that I mean they are some of the best eatin' this side of the Miss-a-sip.

The Bike Lock pt. 2

I went to Target and got a bike lock. I then spent the afternoon and evening with Pat and Rusty McBride, at their home on Ken Caryl Ranch. Gracious as ever, they welcomed me and after a short while catching up, Pat and Rusty settled into the Notre Dame game, Katie went to visit a potential new home, and I went for a walk with my camera.

This all used to be underwater.

Like arid anemones.

Mountain flowers.

Bounty.

The very definition of "big sky".

The prow of a ship.

Wrinkles McCaskey

Carnivorous! I barely survived.

I imagine dinosaurs milling in this place.

Briscoe Shand, always looking out for the "coming thing".

Majestic red rocks in their back yard.

Pride Rock, Simba.

Up through the crevice (ha)

The Bike Lock - pt. 1

So this morning, having purchased a bike yesterday for $140, I stepped out of the house on a mission to walk to some legit bike shop and find a lock. I brought my camera along with the intention of snapping for this blog and for FB, what you see playing down the left side here is the product. I began in Katie's neighborhood, just picking pretty things out of the air, and moved on down toward where I thought the bike shop ought to be. Clearly, and no one should have to guess (it's my way), I got lost. While I was preoccupied with frames and angles I was fine but the moment my tummy started to protest things started sliding downhill.

Before all of that, though, I had myself a nice tour of the city. I must have been boppin' along, because people were just kind of saying hi to me as a sort of expected courtesy, or exchange when the sun's shining. It's funny; the white people I've passed on the street so far have been kind, giving me the ol' head-nod you'd expect out of everyone in Indiana. The random black people I've met on the street, though, have been like, "What's up, brother?" and "How you doin', man?", and this guy this morning was walking with his friends, and I mean these look like a trio of kids just younger than me and all bagged out with do-rags and hats and all that MTV jazz and we looked at each other and he stopped and it's "what's up with you, man," and a fist-bump and we go our separate ways. They were sort of laughing when I walked up; it's likely they could tell I was new in town, but what the hell; no one's given me any shit so far, rather, everyone's been really cool. People here seem happy to be here, and are generally better disposed than Hoosiers are, which is saying a lot. I'd be happy to wake up here, too.

I found Colfax Street, which I've heard is the place to find dives and safe sketchyness, and oh yes, was it sketchy. Lots of cops on bikes, people kind of milling, leaning against buildings, just...not working seemed to be the order of the day down there. I walked by the City Grille, which proclaims to prepare the best hamburger in all of Denver, and thus it's on my list. I was pleased with the ambiance of that place, especially. It seemed like a local hang-out and perhaps for that less touristy than Capitol Hill.

If you look up bike shops in Denver online, none of them get a particularly good rap, for somewhat of a ubiquitous reason, at least as far as bike shops go: they are populated, bar none, by pretentious bicyclist pricks. I don't question for a moment that these hipsters-on-wheels know their shit; by Christ's first tricycle they do and they aren't afraid to scoff at your ignorance should you commit the cardinal sin of opening your mouth. In manner, I suppose, they're not unlike their clinically technical brethren, the IT maintenance toads. It's the "you should know this because I'm SO BUSY WITH MY LATTE I CAN'T DEIGN TO ADDRESS YOU PROPERLY" vibe, but with the latter it's comics or porn, or better, some Japanese merger of those arts. But the bike geeks, damn them, remain unbearable for the contrast between common conception of what a bicycle is - a tubular frame shod in wheels, with handles anything with thumbs can grasp - and their manner, which would suggest expertise in rocketry or brain science.

Fine. You understand bicycle mechanics. That makes you...a fucking bicycle mechanic. Get over yourself.

But enough bad noise. What I'm telling you is that I convinced myself, perhaps subliminally, with every word I read of these online reviews of these prospective bike shops, that I'd be better off leaving them a mystery. This attitude set me on a course for downtown, somehow, or at least that's where I found myself for before me from nowhere rose the golden dome of the state capitol, through the trees on its grounds. This was the only place where I saw other people taking photographs...well, here and I saw a girl with her camera in the splash zone of this stone-and-water sculpture, but she looked way into it. As I meandered around the heavy iron fencing, I came upon Denver's obligatory "taste" festival, which in appearance looks like Chicago's but I understand it to be even more state-fair-ish than its famous Midwestern counterpart. It costs nothing to enter but to eat you must buy tickets. I wasn't called, so to speak; it was around this time that I realized where I was, sort of: I had been drawn back to the region which houses Nallen's, my first Denver pub.

Peckish is the word, I think, and the bar, being a genuine Irish pub, serves nothing solid. I stepped instead into this little yuppie square: American Apparel, an ice-cream/smoothie place, and this little cafe, something "colore". Italian fare, so perhaps it was named something Italian. The hosts wore jeans and sunglasses, and there were two of them because one was tagging along, in training. I was seated and approached finally by this tall, Nordic-descended waitress, sweet as pie, and then after she brought me a beer and took my order, I was approached by a second waitress, bearing a salad and perhaps baring some UK in her eyes, or some German. Finally, a third waitress, this one perhaps first-generation Indian or at the very least Middle-Eastern, came with whatever I ordered (the special: it was noodles and salmon in pesto, and perhaps was expensive. A male server was on duty, but he perhaps hadn't any recon to run that day. I mean, it's flattering and perhaps I shouldn't have told Savi about it but I thought it was funny that they each had come when with the other patrons they came two deep at once, when it took four hands. Two pints later I needed a box and was off, promising to come back  sometime this month. Right.

Heading home happy. Gave up on the bike lock. Used the compass on my phone rather than Google Maps.

This fellow I met on the way home, he was a panhandler; no doubt about it. 65 year-old black fella, with a sweater and a can of Steel Reserve, had his arm around this young guy, getting his change when he saw me walking by. It was all "hey man!" and "what do you know?" and it was bro-grabs until he looked me in the eye serious as death and started singing. I don't remember the song, but it was your typical Kasey Kesem Top-40 something-or-other and knowing the song, I cast in with him and sang along. He was doing this hobo dance and tossed his hat off in the grass and I grabbed it and fit it back onto his head and the song, at its close, came with a demand for fifty cents. Okay. I had a pocket full of bills and knowing one was a five, I hoped that the one I was fingering was less and it was, finally, a single. He loved the hell out of that and asked my name, and when I told him (stupid, yes), he told me since he was a Virgo he'd call me Leo from here on out, and only we would know. Okay, buddy. He asked and when I told him vaguely where I was going he wanted to follow along, and so here we are strolling up the street and this guy's saying all kinds of things, not one of which follows the thing which preceded it. He pulls me in and our eyes are about six inches apart and he says, "Don't drink nunna that otha shit because you know? I'm a Budweiser man," and I'm like, "You're damn right you are, man. Fucking Budweiser!" This is when we see these kids up on a porch and he starts shushing me, saying "just be cool, shhhhh" and so I clam up and he prepares to work his routine.

These kids, when this guy starts in, roll out their "WTF" faces and Virgo just goes and goes, at one point stepping back into the grass by the street and hopping up and landing in a splits. "I just got outta jail!" he says when he gets back up.

About this time a couple women come up asking where Virgo's been. He looks at the kids up on the porch and points to the older of the two, who's maybe a shade younger than he is, and tells them never to believe a woman when she tells you she ain't got no money. The younger one demands two dollars for a beer and he jealously guards it, but finally peels off the dollar I gave him from...nothing. It was the only dollar in his pocket and she got it and at that point I said "see y'all later" and that, as they say, was that.

Successful Coloradan afternoon. Good nitrogen ratio in the air.

The Digs

Probably best to lay down a little context.

This is the skyline I saw the moment I turned some corner out of the residential area Katie's house is in.

This is Katie's guest room, the one I'll be staying in for the next month. That lamp over there? I'd do well not to break it.

 Old and new!

My roomie Maverick. He's a herding dog, so when I first met him he nipped my fingers and arm because he was trying to herd me somewhere. Now we're pals!

 Some old houses, and finally Katie's place (my temporary home!). More less processed pics to come, on FB.

The Third Age

...began with a tearful goodbye in Springfield, and a tearful goodbye in Nashville, IN. Like beads of water on a griddle my girlfriend Savi (of whom you'll no doubt hear more) and I parted ways, I parted ways with Indiana, and my parents parted ways with their eldest son, all in the space of a month. Savi's gone now to Dublin, the first amazing week of a month-ish long journey around Europe before she settles into her teaching position in Zafra, Spain. Her contract is for eight months there in the Spanish desert, in this little tourist town bedecked with Roman ruins and Moorish architecture. A Spaniard friend of mine affectionately referred to the region, Estremadura, as "the sticks".

Likewise, I am now in Denver a week before my classes begin. What classes? I'm glad you asked. I've enrolled in a CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching - Adult) course, the close of which will see me okayed by Cambridge University to teach English as a foreign language abroad. It's unclear where "abroad" is right now, but that subject is at the fore of my anxieties and concerns and will be cleared up once I've dug into the coursework. I must be trapped in business casual clothing all day (from 9-6, M-F), the good news being that I've already found a delightful Irish pub for the working out of my pint arm and homework face; we'll see how long that lasts. I made announcing my arrival to the patron and crowd there my top priority yesterday, and, as you'd expect, bizarre times ensued.

I walk in and it's just the bartender (a cute brunette) and a fella who gives me the old eye-lock stare-down on my way in. I say, "hi", and decide I'll be drinking a Smithwick's. I enjoy my drink for a moment and somehow become party to their conversation, having noted the bartender's voice carried an Irish lilt. I mention Savi and Dublin and it turns out that Sara, the bartender, is also from Dublin, but in the way that I'm from South Bend; she's not and I'm not, but close enough to know that telling the absolute truth will earn you a blank stare. The fella turns out to be Jason, her husband, and I learn that they were married in Ireland before a 40-person wedding party shipped over from the states, the horde of which weren't enough to stop Jason, three days after his wedding, from getting his face fixed for him by a longshoreman of an Irishman in the queue of some club. The story goes that these locals came up and stood behind them in line, waiting to get in, and upon noticing that Americans preceded them began the heckling. They had taken aim at a woman, particularly, and the men weren't having it so they told the locals, with no little blustering, to fuck off and fuck off they did but the American men, having gained gallons of spice at the sight of the locals' retreat, called after them in mocking tones. The biggest of the locals turned around mid-step, removed his jacket, and made a beeline for our drunken protagonist. The big man connected on the first shot, which stunned poor Jason. The former pinned the latter to a nearby car (and by this time the bouncers and any police in the area have turned their heads, which is how the Irish authorities handle scuffles in the street) and proceeded to affect the aforementioned "work". Jason, in telling this tale, did not refrain to tell me that he didn't fall down through the whole ordeal, but took his medicine and slumped against the car after it was over; good man!

Edit: forgot to mention that Sara revealed that her cousin, Ollie, runs an eponymous pub in Skerries , and that Savi should go there and tell Ollie that Sara in Denver sent her and mention "St. Patty's green-man costumes" and "Ollie's Bar music videos" and from that point on Savi would have friends in Skerries. She plans to go tomorrow!

Of course I was laughing as he revealed this to me, for in trade I revealed to him that Savi had just seen something similar in theme if not in setting during her first night drinking in Dublin. It happened at a little pub she was patronizing, at a point when she had long ago become fast friends with a pair of grandfatherly men who were taking their pints in peace and buying all of hers for her, seeing in her their young daughters and for nostalgia keeping her glass full. A young twat began raving at the bartender over it's-not-clear-what, just throwing up his hands and bellowing, and the barman calmly came from behind the bar and began administering to the offender with a baseball bat. Finally the drunk was heaved out onto the street and the atmosphere again was peaceful. The old men were ashamed into apologizing, saying a pretty young thing needn't see such barbarianism and oh, don't take this as what Ireland's all about, and on and on.

Through exchanges like these the afternoon through I became an instant regular at Nallen's. I remarked upon learning that the clientele was all regulars that the place does have a "Cheers" feel and Jason pointed down to the end of the bar at this big man, saying that I wouldn't believe it but that guy's name is Norm. God dammit, Denver! I listened to the tale of their marriage and two honeymoons (the first of which the whole fucking wedding party attended) and after a good while I was the happy receiver of a pint from Jason and a pint from this other fellow, Dennis.

Dennis, I told him because he had asked (showing incredible memory and listening skills) pointed questions at key points in the story of Savi's plan and my plan, he being seemingly entertained at the way they compliment each other. He asked what I was writing, and so I told him "ethnographies" and also about the story of the book, which, as it does everyone else, blows his mind. I tell him what to look for online, give him the web address of my blog (and by now I'm seven pints in) and Sara calls down to Old Chicago to order me a Reuben. Through all of this I kind of notice that this Dennis, like me, is a seriously good listener and that, unlike me, his pints seem not to be affecting him (likely he had two during his stay at the bar). I go pick up my food and share fries with Sara, this sight having a profound effect on Dennis, who keeps asking me after I mention any woman in my stories if that woman is "hot". He's a meathead, no doubt; one of these pitbull-shaped gym rats but clearly intelligent and an effective conversation partner...anyway, my phone's dead and I voice concern about getting back home as it's my first day in a new city and my only means of navigation won't navigate anyone as long as its screen's blacked, so Sara offers to give me a lift after her shift, which at that point ended in a few minutes. I listen to this Dennis' plan on creating a new kind of media (basically: interactive television on the internet, where the viewer takes part in the plot of show episodes over the period of days or a week. I revealed to him that Trent Reznor had been successful recently with ARGs (alternate-reality games; think LARPers, but more socially acceptable).) and when the time comes to head out the back, he says "don't be freaked out" and plops down onto the bar-top an FBI business card. "Special Agent" it reads, and queue the nervous laughter and out we go.

...

...

I mean, GAHHHHHHHHHH whatifhethinksimacriminalwhythefuckistheFBIinthesamebarasmewhatshismissionhereisherecruitingishealiarwhoisthisfuckerohgodwhataweirdnight

And so concluded my first night in Denver. I told Katie, my host, the whole thing and ate the other half of my Reuben and told a drunken Savi about it and...good morning, Day 2!