There's a 40% chance that my underwear is on inside out.

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://feeds.pandora.com/styles/feeds/stations-buttons-gray.css" />
<script src="http://feeds.pandora.com/feeds/people/AHPOETICA/stations.js?max=3"></script>

I have this desire to give all the back story on the last one to six years of my life, as that has been the time since I have kept with some of you, but I won't. It's just like when I was a kid--I'd always want to have a journal, but would write in it only once every six months or so, and the beginnings of every entry would be the same, "Dear Diary," (I hope you're imagining an Aire kid voice narrating) "it's been a while, and a lot has happened--Danny still doesn't know I exist but his brother has a big crush on me!! Oh my God!"

Anyway, I suppose I'll start with Denver.

I've lived in Denver, CO for going on 14 months now. I came here by chance, on a whim, and stayed because, well, I'm too lazy to move again, either back to Philly (as had been the original plan) or back to Campo, CA (the plan of desperation).

The first place I stayed in this city was a La Quinta Inn, at the intersection of two major freeways, the I-70 (west-east) and the I-25 (north-south). It was also adjacent to the major railway running through this city and I discovered the first distinctive characteristic about Denver: train horns are an integral part of the aural landscape, as much as fuckin' birds chirping in a forest or something. Three in the morning, drunk off your ass, brushing your teeth and mostly missing, the soundtrack will be the running water, and a long bleat as a train passes through the poor neighborhoods without sound barriers. Two in the afternoon, crossing 6th Avenue to get a Starbucks, and cutting through the sound of the traffic, a train horn.

Now, when I hear train horns, though, I think of the first person I dated out here. He lived in a "bad" neighborhood-working class, mostly African-American and Latinos. His house was six blocks away from the Purina dog food plant, four from the Coca Cola plant, and five from the train tracks. There is no wrong side of the tracks anymore; "wrongness" is proximity. I would be lying in his bed, almost asleep, and the horn would sound. I slept over a lot, after bowling or drinking coffee with friends (what we seemed to do together), and since the horn was so much louder and longer there, or so it seemed, I came to associate this with our relationship. Kind of troublesome, when it ended on a less than satisfactory-lets-be-friends-way note (as romantic relationships often do, though).

It became maddening--six months after the break-up, I had cycled into an entirely new group of friends, filled my nights and weekends up with volunteering, chatting, drinking, dancing, kareoake-ing, trivia-ing, pool-playing, movie-watching, show-going, party-throwing--a busy life for a bored person in her early twenties. Yet, there would be times, when, having a quiet cigarette in the evening on my porch (another entry in the blog--how I started smoking and why I should fucking quit), a train horn would sound, I would think of quiet nights at his house, listening to him play guitar, or engaging in some political debate, or talking about writing and I would realize, with regret, that I missed one of my first friends in this city I think of as my limbo.

So, yada yada yada, we have gotten back in touch and I hope that there’s the beginning of a quirky and feisty friendship--not that I don't have so many of those already. And hopefully, when I hear trains in this city, I don't think of anything.

Well, that was a nice, post-therapy, reflective Aire entry. Next entry: drunken, arrogant, argumentative, pain-in-the-ass, making-an-ass-of-herself Aire.

I can't wait.