Friday, February 20, 2026. Not a bad day. I took personal time off. Needed a break. Not that the job at the fruit stand is stressful, it isn’t. The staffing agency that placed me there stresses me out though. I’m trying to figure out the sleep system. I’ve been doing well with sleep but I do wake up needing more sleep. So perhaps bedtime should be earlier. That seems to be the way to go. Not sure if I would apply the earlier bedtime tonight. Probably Sunday night.

Mike is here, Bill still south of the Mason Dixon line. It’s been a personal day off yet it was not pleasant outside, not at all. There was a plan to go to the big supermarket with Mike but he opted to stay in and I went out into the rain. It looked bearable looking out the window but when I descended the stairs I looked out the door and noticed that I would need an umbrella. That meant climbing four flights that I just descended. It did not make me happy.

And the umbrella did not do much against the rain. It was raining sideways. And my footwear, nice as it seemed in the apartment, was woefully inadequate. I did not want to climb up the four flights once more so I opted for damp feet to match the damp everywhere outside. I walked, did my usual Saturday errands on Friday. The supermarket was not crowded and I couldn’t tell if it was from the day and time of the week or the weather.

The big supermarket usually floods when it rains. Not so much inside the store but the streets surrounding it turn into canals. It wasn’t so bad though there were spots on the sidewalks and street corners that needed to be negotiated, meaning walking out of the way of this little ponds. It didn’t matter though, as my feet were wet, my socks were wet and the sneakers were wet. I soon made it home, MIke took the bags from me as I set about taking out my wet clothes.

And with a slap of the hand, Mike and I made a tag team as he went to the closer grocery store. He had things that he needed to get and a walk of one block was more amenable for Mike than walking the distance that I did to get to the big supermarket. He came back with plenty of goods and food.

We sat around watching TV, or rather I watched TV, MIke watched his phone. We also shot some video and took photos, for myself. I trust Mike’s direction with the camera and the collaboration works. Occasionally some bumping heads but that’s all part of the process. I tried to find something worthwhile to watch tonight and he wanted to watch something that I’d never seen before. I watched Bugonia twice, once alone and once with Bill and was hoping for a three-peat.

We are watching the Lion King which I had never seen before.

Back at my desk in the fruit stand that I frequent most often. It is Thursday, February 19 2026. I’ve been listening to the Cocteau Twins a lot lately. A few weeks ago, I was offered a chance to load whatever Amazon playlists I had to my YouTube Music account. It wasn’t as good an idea as I hoped, as there was a lot of mislabeled crap that contained things that I owned, but the playlists were not worth it, so I have been deleting every now and then.

I met Liz and Robin years ago when the wonderful Stan Bogdansky brought them to Maxwell’s. I was trying to be cool and asked a few questions about Colourbox, who were label mates to the Cocteau Twins on 4AD. I was more than likely annoying.

And of course Cocteau Twins reminds me of Jet Watley, gone more years than when he was alive.

I am also taking online classes that I’m not paying much attention to as part of the staffing agency that placed me at the fruit stand, and how they are trying to get their fingers into my life, for which I greatly resent them.

I am home now. Eyelids heavy. I nodded off at work once or twice. Just for a few seconds. A closing of my eyes. It could be from the cutback on my coffee consumption. That’s what I like to think. I don’t think it’s anything worse than that, and it makes sense. To me, at least. I probably would have done that on the train home, but I was standing, and that would have been risky.

Bill is still below the Mason-Dixon line, and Mike is on the couch. I am here once again in front of the computer screen, typing. The Watchmen series is on, and I hoped Mike would have been into it, but he’s looking at his phone, and I can’t compete with that. I have been watching intermittently for the past few hours intermittently, so I am guilty as well.

Mike actually called out my hypocrisy a few weeks ago, saying my looking at the computer is the same as him looking at his phone. I countered by saying that the smartphone is held in your hand, and I am somewhat disconnected from the computer. I’m not holding it, and it’s not controlling me. Or is it?

And it’s later than I realized, so I am typing close to my bedtime. Not that it’s a problem, it isn’t. I’m taking it slow and easy. Tomorrow might just be a slow and easy kind of day. Don’t want to say too much about it now, but I suppose I will tomorrow. So you might just have to wait for this here blog tomorrow.

If you waited from 2014 to 2024, then you might just have to wait a few hours, which is not so bad after all. And I’m sure you waited…

And it is almost time for me to take it down, meaning, go to bed.