2005-07-19:counselor - hot day - meat packing

I stopped by the Chelsea clinic before going messengering.
a quick HIV test just to make sure it is all ok.
gotta move some new apt soon -
just try to live in a more organized way
if possible.
the HIV counselor has a postcard from Patagonia on the wall and she tells me I dont look Italian.
she says she knows the ones that are going to be positive.
junkies - prostitutes - bottom homosexuals.
she has been 15 years at this job and she can tell.
she feels like a good grandmother.
I ask her where she hails from.
Chile.
She left it in 1976 because of the Pinochet dictatorship. It was hard to work. Chile got more modern but the money was reaching only the elite class.
She went to Atlanta Georgia and joined the social workers party.
She hung out with Marxists and Socialists.
I ask her if I can come back in the afternoon to get the result rather than wait an hour - and she says yes - but seems a little worried about people not coming back.so I am messengering.
east west - uptown.
it if 95F/ 30 something C. But the humidity must be 90%.
I ride as fast as I can
After all biking is about struggling and suffering and resisting.
ride as fast as you can - keeping enough energy to make it home.
and there is a lot of thinking.
I remember I had to write down the next stops -
now they are all in my mind
352 park av south - then 650 1st av
and I know which one is more uptown.
the girl at brown shoe company gives me a bottle of Fiji water.
usually the fashion people are the worst and the architects are the best - so I am kinda surprised.
it is a good day big SUV slows down when I am riding fast in the middle of the avenue fast passing a bus.
another driver lets me pass his car and winks at me.
get a 99 cent pizza slice by port authority.
drummer William hooker shouts my name and laughs -
he is going to Kansas or somewhere like that to play a show or 2 with Lee R and Allan L.
42 nd st - blocked by the cops - they are putting yellow tape around a starbux.
who knows - Starbucks lowlife? some homeless feud?
2 blocks of 42nd by times sq. no cars - no traffic. just push as hard as I can till I reach 5th ave madness.
meat packing district. old guys unloading meat.
the pavement is slippery from the grease.
I ask them if I could take their picture.
"who knows what is going to happen to this in 5 years"
Sunday I was shooting something and photographer I know took out her camera and put it in the face of some old puertorican guy sitting on the steps.
I was kinda annoyed to see that - I feel it is good to ask -
but who knows whats tight?
I go to get the test results. the Chilean counselor is back from lunch -
it is all good.
and she is so grandmotherly - or motherly -
that I wish I could give her a hug before I leave.
back in the heat.
ride superfast from walker st and bway to 35th and 6th av
and back down
i run into Britta in the east village -
she is just dressed for some audition.
40 miles at the end -
kept pushing as much as I can
-
home resting - listening to Can.