Oh, and you best know they were fucking achieved.
I've done this too much. That's a given. Too many cities, too many reasons. I can land homeless in any city, and by Day 2, anyone in services trying to help me gets hushed and jaw-dropped to know what's knocked off the list already. Day 1 for me is Month 1 for everyone else.
Today, I got my knee X-rayed as soon as I arrived because it fucking hurts. By 6:00 AM, I had all the sites saved to my offline maps on both phones. Breakfast was at 8:00 AM, so I headed that way, locking Wi-Fi spots the whole way down. I made a great contact at breakfast—another Chris, lol, go figure. Then social services, food stamps, and health insurance: done and done.
Mail is set up at two locations, and I got a local storage locker for us by the Greyhound Terminal, so that's 20 lbs off my back. Oh, and then I bought this web domain. It's 1:12 PM, and I'm already writing to the pages live before going to get water and bananas at Whole Foods for lunch. I've passed out my website to seven people so far and hope to sell some self-defense tools for a little cash. I'm also going to go paint something today.
And... I lied. I missed lunch, so I'm going to grab dinner, but painting is still on the list, I think. However, between 2:00 PM-ish when I left from typing until now (about 5:45 PM), I made $50. So yeah, this is why I city!
Audio and video notes from Day One: The progress and vibes.
The first couple of hours after touching down were spent going to Whole Foods for my banana obsession and then a hospital visit. Walking as I do gained enough notice and attention to remind me that, though there were no bad interactions, there was plenty of attention and pointed staring that could indicate someone having thoughts to make a matter into a problem.
Before the sun came up, I had wandered around a few places. It's specifically crossing my mind to call this the "Cities' Triplet" because too much of it is Denver. I do fully intend to do a few tours and sightseeing here, and then walk you through step-by-step in Denver to see how freaky "carbon copy" it looks and feels—just the same puzzle pieces, they just shook the box more on one. After breakfast, I met my first street friends/contacts with good information and headed to the streamlined locations to do what needed to be done.
I want to take some time here to talk about the storage situation for the people out here. In Denver, we have Saint Francis, where you get a trash bag and everything must fit into it and tie closed to keep there a month at a time. Here, beneath the downtown location for the Greyhound station on the basement level, is the storage. You get a large plastic tub and must keep a minimum of 10 lbs of stuff in it, checking on it every two weeks from your last visit. As an added plus, you can always just call to keep it going—just be sure to set a reminder for 13 and 14 days out just to be safe.
Along with all that I accomplished, I had the idea to start this blog and got to work within the hour to bring you this whole thing. I've got to say, through all of it, I've met one person. She's amazing, gorgeous, and just such a bright happiness to existence on this planet. Hopefully, everyone knows that joy and amazingness are rare and should be recognized and protected. She said she'd be checking out my sites and my blog specifically, so I hope she does. It's exactly why I'm writing this. I may just find a reason to try to see her every day; it keeps me focused on the greater joy in life, no matter the day.
Forge the Next Path.