Hello from Denver. I’m back in the Hilton Garden Inn in Lone Tree, and I forgot the days are way longer here, so I woke in a panic about an hour ago, when it was pure daylight outside. It’s also pretty damn hot here, even compared to LA – in the high 90s. Yesterday, I left my carry-on in the car, and when I got home from work and opened it, all of the clothes were STEAMING like I just took them off a drycleaner’s press.
Travel yesterday was uneventful, aside from having to wake at 4 AM and hustle it to LAX. I got here, got an Aveo, and then the weirdness started. Nothing specific, but it’s just weird to be here again, to drive on 225 and think that this exit is where we bought the Toyota and the Subaru, this exit is where we adopted the cats, this exit goes to Stapeleton, where we saw a million movies and spent a million dollars at that Super Target. And then I took the end of the same drive I took every day, pulled into the old parking lot, and walked into the building like nothing changed, except everything has changed.
I worked all day, and not much there except a lot of small technical disasters (my wifi won’t work, my mini-DVI to DVI doesn’t work on the projectors, I don’t have a desk, and so on.) I planned to go check in after work, collapse for a few hours, maybe go to the hotel restaurant and get a bite, then flip channels and dick around on the computer. But I got done at 5, and I was thinking about the Rockies. I checked in, changed into shorts and my 2007 wild card shirt, and hit 25 north for Coors Field.
I parked in the lot across from my old apartment for $10, then hustled to the box office at about 6:30. There were more people in line than before a playoff game, I guess because it was the Dodgers. I got a ticket in 132 about 20 rows up, the section just to the left of the plate. I wanted club, but it was sold out. Anyway, I got done at the hot dog stand (and I went to the “hot dogs of the world” stand by accident, where they have Chicago Dog, Denver Dog, Tucson Dog, Uzbekistan Dog, whatever, and got a New York Dog, which had the least amount of bad shit on it) and got toward my section just as the national anthem ended (hot dog and right hand over heart.) I HATE getting there late, because I like to be able to soak it in and see the players warm up and the groundsmen work on the field. That sounds stupid, but it’s cathartic.
This game was bad. Kip Wells was fresh off the DL and was pitching about like a kiddie batting cage machine. An hour and nine runs into the first inning, Hurdle finally pulled him, and I was thinking I would be there until midnight to watch a 22-1 slaughter. Tulowitzki was off the DL though, and I was very happy to see him play. Holliday got an incredible homer into the duck pond fountain. But I vowed that by 9:00, if it was a 10-run difference, I would call it a wash and leave. And at about 9:30, in the 6th inning, I gave up and started heading out.
Nobody was outside at that point, and it was relatively nice out. I walked back to my old apartment, the same walk I took every time I came home from Coors, except this time I didn’t stop at 2200, unlock the door, and go upstairs to #340. Instead, I walked to my car, and I saw my old apartment lit up with different furniture in the front window, and for whatever reason, that really hit me. I don’t want to move back to Denver, I don’t want to live here anymore, and I love living in LA. But the nostalgia – it’s like when I lived in Seattle and loved it, but I would go back to Bloomington, and the memories really punched me in the gut. Maybe they make medication for this. I don’t know. Maybe I just need more sleep.
Drove to Safeway, then back to the hotel, listening to 850 KOA. The game eventually got to 16-8, and Tulo went 5 for 5, which was a new personal best.
Tired. I need to get to work by 8, so I have to hustle now. I’m coming back to sea level and humidity on Wednesday. Another game tonight, but I will get a jump on it this time, and not get a hot dog either.
