I have been having very vivid dreams lately. Of course, hours later I can’t remember them. Last night though I had a dream where I do remember I yelled at Bill that I should be sleeping. And I was sleeping. It was weird, but then again it was a dream.

I have had some dreams that involved my old friend Pedro. We’d had a falling out five years ago during the pandemic and that was the last we spoke. There were some angry, pointed posts back and forth on social media which left me smelling of kerosene holding a book of matches next to a bridge.

Of course I regret those things. I can’t say he regrets them but in the dream I hugged him and cried as I told him I love him and missed him. That brought me to contact Excer, a mutual friend from those days when we used to run around doing crazy things with powders and cannabis.

The last time I saw Excer was leaving Pedro’s house in Otisville. Excer was giving me a ride to the bus terminal at the George Washington Bridge, and that must’ve been about 10 years ago.

Mutual friends have come and gone. It was good to speak with Excer though. The funny thing is, one night in the 1980s, Pedro and I were working at 2 Park Ave in Manhattan. Pedro asked if I wanted to go outside and smoke some weed with a friend who was pulling up in his car.

Of course I wanted to smoke weed with Pedro; we had done that often enough that he didn’t even have to ask. We met up with his friend, Excer, in his red Honda Civic. We sat in the car outside of 2 Park Ave, a joint being passed around.

This was the first time I met Excer and we seemed to be getting along just fine. Then, two obviously gay guys were walking up Park Avenue past the car and Excer make a derogatory comment about them. That was all I needed to hear and I excused myself and left the car.

I did not know until after the fact that Pedro told Excer off about his mocking the gay guys, stating that I was gay and Pedro’s friend and what Excer did was not cool at all. Here we are years later, Pedro and I have been on the outs and Excer and I are still friends, planning on meeting up for dinner before the winter sets in. An adult plan since neither one of us really drinks such these days, so it’s dinner.

I sit and listen to Compay Segundo once again. Solo por ti, Pedro Ramos. I really miss being your big bro. I hope someday we will reconnect, our wounds turned to scars and a friendship might bloom once again.

Not the same friendship of course, but some kind of friendship. Excer suggested dropping him a line and I just might do that.

I sent a heartfelt email if there is such a thing. I suppose the ball is in his court.

Heart of Stone by the Rolling Stones just popped into my head. It’s a quiet Thursday. I guess a lot of people are still out. Bill is on the road, expected back tonight. Mike was stuck in his crib, his parole officer and four training officers came over a short while ago. 5 people watched him pee. They could have done that by looking at his Twitter page.

The world is a mess. This country is even messier. And don’t get me started about Messi. I don’t know anything about Messi except he’s been in the news the past 48 hours. It might be good or he mmight have done something stupid. Or perhaps a combination of the two.

I am listening to Compay Segundo. Lo Mejor De La Vida. The first Compay Segundo CD I bought back when Julio and I were enthralled by the whole Buena Vista Social Club. That was almost 30 years ago.

It coincided with my suit & tie fetish. I realized if I wanted a good job, I would have to dress the part. For a part of my life I think I tended to dress like the musicians who’s music I had been listening to. There was Punk and New Wave. There was the Indie Underground scene of which Maxwell’s was a landmark. And I worked in the music business and dressed accordingly.

Julio was into Buena Vista Social Club before me and when I got into them, I went whole hog. They were all older Cuban men who dressed in suits and ties. And so I did. Julio and I made it a point to see the various members as they toured in Manhattan and I always went suited up.

And I was able to get a few good jobs where I dressed like an investment banker, more than the investment bankers I was supporting. Braces, OTC TNT socks, pinstriped and chalk striped suits. It was a turn on.

In fact that is how I met Bill, at a Yahoo groups Suit and Tie party. I had gone to a few and always left dejected. In September 2000 I was determined to enjoy myself. Annemarie was very supportive and drove me to the Path train from Weehawken.

I went to a penthouse on Ann Street and mingled, had a few glasses of wine and enjoyed a cigar while out on the veranda. My memory serves, telling me I was the belle of the ball.

Everything I said was so witty and as these suited men chuckled at whatever I had to say, I looked over them to see a brown-eyed handsome man in a mustard colored suit and making eye contact with him.

Soon I was in a PDA with Bill, including a sexual act that I had never done in a ‘public’ setting. Here I am 25 years later, no longer wearing the suits and ties. It used to drive my brother Frank crazy. I think he thought I was a yuppie or trying to be one.

I was still the same iconoclast, just dressed better.