Hard Luck Stories

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Friday once more. Trains were not crowded. Streets are not crowded. Limited people at the fruit stand. Mike is at my crib, Bill is driving someone somewhere, though it’s usually me that he is driving crazy. Mike paid me back the other day for the hybrid bed I ordered on his behalf from that maga company. It is supposed to be delivered today.

And today his beloved is supposed to fly in, leaving on Monday. I may or may not finally meet the beloved this weekend. Mike calls me and Bill Dad, and in turn we call him son. And now the beloved calls me Dad and I call him son in law. It is a strange situation, but ultimately harmless.

I do hope the hybrid bed is delivered today, though I know that sometimes these things can go awry. I slept well despite an adjustment to my routine. And a strange dream was had towards the end of my sleeping.

I was in my apartment talking to Julio who had pulled out Kevin Croughn who said he was alive and well after all. That was a surprise but I was more taken aback by Kevin’s humility, which was something that was rarely shown.

The morning creeps along. I was hesitant to write crawls aling so I opted for something else. Mike and I watched Nobody 2, the sequel to Nobody with Bob Odenkirk and Connie Nielsen. Over the top violent, but funny nonetheless.

Last night, Mike asked about Star Wars. He missed the boat on that one, born too late for the first two movies, and the third one was his introduction, but he was not interested.

I did know there was a documentary about George Lucas and the difficulty of bringing Star Wars to life and so for an hour and a half we watched it, though I was the one who was watching mainly. Midway through, Bill returned and Mike went and helped with the luggage which turned out to be a backpack since Bill left his other stuff at the garage where he was setting off from this morning, before I had even gotten out of bed.

And Bill was off to bed within an hour of returning. Mike sat on the couch looking at the phone and I readied myself for bed before 10:30 PM. It’s not even 12 hours later and it feels like the day is an hour behind where it should actually be.

Perhaps it will catch up after lunch. In any event I would be staring down the clock with mere hours to go. It loks like a beautiful day today and that would make for an enjoyable lunch. I have a Camacho cigar which was gifted to me and even though I am not a fan of Camacho, the last one I smoked was maybe 14 years ago, I will smoke this one on my lunch break.

It is now 10:00 AM and awfully quiet. What is that about?

154 is an album by Wire. My brother Frank gave it to me. I liked it a lot, though for the longest time I only played side one. I remember going to see the movie, Neighbors and meeting Stan Bogdansky for the first time. He was friends with Dave Bell somehow.

Stan was impressed with my cassette of 154. That meant something to me back then. 154 pops up every now and then in my life. This morning it turned up showing the floors the elevators were on at the fruit stand. I

’ve been thinking of Stan Bogdansky lately, having read an article on Cocteau Twins in Mojo magazine. The Cocteaus were friends of Stan. 154 was also an album that helped build my friendship with Kevin Wagner. I loaned him a cassette that, to Kevin’s ears, reminded him of Pink Floyd.

I met Wire a few times and interviewed them, which did not go well. Never meet your heroes they say, and it was somewhat true that adage. I was out of my league and they tolerated me to a question of degree. I probably did not get enough sleep the night before. I did record one of their shows at Maxwell’s on VHS but the videotape is lost to the ages. Perhaps left on Jane Street in the kingdon of the Kleinke.

Slight Return

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An end result I reckon. At work, I had a problem with a fruit stand tablet. I noticed it yesterday and tried to do something about it without having to contact Yancy. But as things go, Yancy was in the mix and it did not make anything easier. In fact, it muddled the process.

I can hear his disdain over the phone. Everything he suggested I did, and he would ask if it worked to which I invariably replied, ‘No sir’. Not that it was a way to show respect, it was merely a perfunctory manner of speaking with one’s supervisor.

I did send him a message about it yesterday around 4:25PM and he replied around 8:25 AM this morning, moments before our staph meeting. Dealing with Yancy is exasperating for the both of us though my exasperation is of little or no consequence, the scully wearing supervisor dictates the rules of play, it’s his house and the house always wins.

So it was to no avail with Yancy. An hour or so later, I am in the loo and when I return to my desk, Marcus is on the phone with Yancy discussing what to do about the fruit stand tablet and Marcus and Yancy seemed to have figured it out and got things working nicely. Of course, it went nicely, I wasn’t involved and unavailable to hear Yancy’s eyes rolling back into his head.

Lunch is a few minutes away. I am not hungry having been eating most of the morning. Mike fell asleep on the couch last night. I slept OK for an hour or two, then woke up thinking it was time for me to wake up. It was not of course, I had about 4 or 5 hours to sleep and getting there did not prove to be too easy.

Bill is driving some Dominican women’s lacrosse team around an island off the coast of America. Depending on how they play, he might be back tomorrow if they do not do so well, or Saturday if they succeed in whatever they were trying to do.

I smoked a little cigar at lunch. I had been eating all morning, a bagel, a donut, some cookies and for some reason I simply was not hungry at lunchtime. I knew what I was doing somehow. My self doubts have reared their heads once more.

Marcus & Yancy fixing the problem that I could not get around set things off on that desolate path of self awareness. I decided at lunch to write down all of the requests that I fill. Not that anyone asked me to, just to satisfy my troubled mind. Within a half hour, I filled 5 requests.

I did not plow through them, I took my time, meticulous almost. And checked and double checked and even triple checked. One instance was someone requesting on behalf of their supervisor. A permanent pass was requested, but a photo was required.

I sent the template stating just that and a while later, the person that requested circumvented what I had told them. All the while my green flag was perched upon the emailed request. The circumvention had a smaller photo attached and feeling it was not my place to question their action, I processed the request.

Then going back to the request I found my green flag replaced by Janis’ blue flag. My mind reeled, questioning if I had actually placed my flag on it initially. I called Janis who spoke in hushed tones, that she was in a meeting and noticed the small photo that was attached and forwarded would be considered too small and more than likely returned to us saying just that.

She did change the flag from green to blue, from mine to hers. And now with Janis and her hushed tones, Marcus and Yancy doing what I could not, I feel that my time is running out. They’re tired of me, whatever it is, no matter, each week something happens and they have had just about enough of my work load.

I mentioned this to Mike who stepped up and reassured me that things would be OK, I would at least get a warning. But I think I have gotten a warning a few times, to pay more attention and be careful fulfilling these requests. I thought I was doing that and perhaps they might be thinking otherwise.

The Dominican womens lacross team lost and so Bill will be heading home tonight.