Governor Polis, Colorado

I am waiting for the pizza guy to give him ten dollars. He is bringing a pizza for people we cannot see. He cannot see them either, and they cannot see him.

A woman is wearing a mask and waiting between a door and a window and another door, for someone to come out so that she can either go in and take their place, or join them going out. I don't know if she is coming or going.

She is alone there under her mask, waiting. One lonely soul in temporary suspension, within the city's period of suspension, waiting for her moment within that waiting through a pandemic period for returning to work.

Alone.

I too am alone.

I charmed her. Poured it right on. No warning. No warm up.

I was also wearing a mask. Try that sometime. Charm a woman who is wearing a mask while you are wearing a mask. Two random souls alone connect. Point blank. Go for it.

"I listened to Governor Polis today for only the second time. Larger in the frame was his sign language interpreter. I listened carefully and watched very carefully."

The woman's eyes lit up. Her face came to life. She looked directly at me. She made sounds. She said something under her mask.

"Nobody says anything the way that I'd say it. Every time I watch them they do things differently. Nobody ever matches me.

It's just one of those things that leaves me self-questioning. Am I really this idiosyncratic?

Polis is exceedingly glib. He rattles off the names of state agencies like they're all close family friends. He is extremely detailed and dry. I felt sorry for the interpreter. He must listen to that crap then show it and so very much of it is precise but adds nothing to the picture that's appreciable. The hearing version can put you to sleep. The sign language version of that is worse. The man did poorly. But his material was hardly visualize-able. It was just legal-schmegal Byzantine bureaucracy talking to itself in careful skillful legal-eze. Polis is very smart and times like this he gives the smart answers. It is not useful to most listeners. "

The woman said, "plerf nerf nerf glerf dilt zindit inst munxt intisitic." I think. I'm not really sure.

I continued, "Then Polis switched to Spanish.

The interpreter does not speak Spanish. He just stood there nonplussed.

Boy, did he ever look stew-pid. Because he is larger in the t.v. frame than Polis.

He could have just said in sign language, [I said to the woman in sign language] 'speaking Spanish' but I did not see that.

Polis speaks Spanish like such a gringo. He naturally uses higher-level English vocabulary put to English / Spanish cognitives. The whole thing sounds like gringo reading a textbook. I think he sounds the way I do. His pronunciation is very good but there is still that original white guy speaking through everything. He is very easy to understand because of the cognitives. Very easy. But it all adds up the the same legalese. Honestly, I don't know why the interpreter was stumped.

That job would have been perfect for me. I could have kept right on going because Polis' Spanish sounds so much like English that's how I would be hearing and picturing him. But I am very glad it was not for me because this particular Polis speech about what the state is doing to open back up is boring as f."

The woman became animated just as the pizza guy arrived. Her arms flipped around somewhat excitedly. The driver thinks at first that she is talking about pizza. She was signaling to me attitude with a hand on her hip and the other hand waving around. The pizza guy needs to know who this pizza and salads are for. The woman makes clear she is Democrat. She voted for Polis. She likes Polis. She thinks that he's great. She did not know that he speaks Spanish. That was new to her. It makes her like him more. She thought that was funny. She pictured the scene and followed the interpreter was stumped. A worker came in from the back and another woman came forward from the back so the lobby was suddenly filled with people coming and going and pizza delivery sorted and tipped. The woman laughed under her mask and fogged up her glasses. The woman I am speaking to and the last woman to come forward joined then left together through yet another door. The pizza guy left. The employee left. I left, and suddenly the lobby was empty. And that answered, she was going, not coming.