Moojinorbit

Top ten things I adore about Denver at this moment in mid-July, 2007. (Upon rereading, I realize this is really a list of reasons I’m happier in Denver than New York City, though some of you may think I’m nuts.)

10. Hot dry summer nights–with a frisky breeze. I love sitting on my front porch at 11:00 listening to the wind dance through the trees, in my tank top and boxers. We’re not talking humid-hot with cockroaches gnawing at your door jams, and a car alarm blasting your synapses apart for three hours with no action. No, just dry hot with a few moths and the sweetest ghosts of mountains in the air.

9. Bikeability–I can’t think of a lot of cities I’ve been in that have literally hundreds of miles of cement biking paths spidering throughout the metropolis to the outer edges. No lights, no trauma; only you and your quads and a little ambition.

8. Diverse ‘hoods–People who’ve lived in places like New York talk about Denver as if it’s all Scotch-Irish crackers. But every neighborhood I’ve lived in here has been racially and culturally diverse. From my Latino drag scene on 32nd Avenue (Sundays with the souped up SUVs busting out Ranchero music at deafening decibels, and tamales galore, and oceans of chile verde) to the buttoned up post-WWII black working-class North City Park, to 30th and Williams where the Suns of Darkness, one and only black motorcycle club, let their main man Rough House keep an eye on me, to my daily-changing Whittier neighborhood, mixed as mixed can be. Don’t listen to what the whities say; Denver is full of culturally diverse places to live in peace. Just mind your business.

7. Four, count them, four independent film compexes. New York City has the Angelica, Santa Monica has its 3rd street theatre, but we have the Mayan, the Esquire, Starz complex, and Chez Artiste (aka the “cheesy artist”). Howie Mowchovitz delivers his reviews from here straight to NPR. You can see every indie film you ever wanted to see the week it is released. Don’t take that sh*t for granted.

6. “Queen Soopers” (King Soopers market at 9th and Corona). Good Lord, what cracks in the Universe did these people crawl out of? First of all, the fact that our largest grocery chain is called King Soopers is weird to begin with, and really can’t be explained to outsiders. But at the 9th and Corona store, we’ve got every human category under the sun stumbling around under one set of flourescent lights: drag queens, welfare queens, mentally disabled (okay, koo koo for cocoa puffs), physically disabled, bad fashion, yuppie, buppie, and guppie, lesbians, elderly, and look-what-the-cat-dragged-in. I’ve never felt so at home in a supermarket.

5. I can take light rail to work in 50 minutes, and that includes the walk to the light rail station and from the station to my office. On the way, I don’t get trawled for change, hassled, raped, pillaged (at least not yet), spit on, told I have a moustache (like in NYC) or yelled at through loudspeakers in an indecipherable Staten Island accent. Also, the train doesn’t stop in the middle of a nasty underwater tunnel to stall for 40 minutes for no apparent reason while everybody staves off panic attacks–unlike the G Train in New York. That’s pretty cool. Oh, and did I mention I get to ride free through my ID card at the University?

4. Did someone say food? I mean, no one is trying to claim we’re San Franscisco, but I have not been starving for culinary delights in Denver. Aside from the occasional really, really good three-table Italian restaurant run by somebody’s aunt in a basement on the Lower East Side, I’ve been able to satiate every craving I’ve had. Great Vietnamese on Federal, random awesome Thai food in Broomfield, the killer burger at Mirepoix (thanks to Marshall), French, fusion, family Japanese, New American, soul, Chinese, pizza, even vegan–I’ve not been disappointed by what this city has become in the last decade.

3. Speaking of food: Breakfast burritos. The thing I missed most during the 6 combined years I lived in the East Coast was decent breakfasts. I don’t care what they tell you, they do not know how to do real breakfast on that side of the country. But here we’ve got these high-calorie Mexican hybrid thingies that will stuff your stomach happy for days. Eggs, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, cheese, beans, wrapped in a fresh flour tortilla and smothered with hot spicy green goodness–Is it a crime to feel good, Mami? Give me Pete’s Kitchen, Taco de Mexico, or Mama’s diner any day and I will be a giddy girl. Got a hangover? This binge is for you. Delivered by a waitress that probably kissed Jack Kerouac back in the day, and shows it.

2. This list would be incomplete without some acknowledgement of the view of the mountains. Sure, we take it for granted, we stop looking, kind of forget about it. But every once in awhile I come out of class and walk down the hallway to my office on the fourth floor, and there it appears, out the west-facing window: a breathtaking view of the Rockies, layered with snow and sunshine, forest and foothill, wave upon wave of stunning peaks rising above the lazy plains, saying “yeah, you think what you do matters, but 100, 200, 500 years from now? You punk asses wil be nothing and we’ll still be here.” Worth it.

1. God, I find myself pausing long and hard over this one. Bald eagles (which you occasionally see even from the freeway here)? The Cruise Room bar at the Oxford Hotel, where all grapefruit drinks come fresh-squeezed? The massive amounts of sunshine and blue sky we get? Relatively affordable housing (compared to other places)? The Tattered Cover Bookstore? City Park, where every Sunday in the summer is a free Jazz festival? Sure, all these things are wonderful. But I think I’m going to go with the fact that if you want to get to a bigger, “better” town, L.A. and San Francisco are a mere 2 hours flying time, and New York is just 3. So I’m going to have to go with Frontier Airlines.

Can I have my check now, Mr. Mayor?