Presently on hold with Apple Support. In the mean time I’ll tell you about my day as I usually do, but this might have interruptions from the support team at Apple. Last night I bought the new Bob Dylan record, Modern Times from iTunes. Not as subversive as you might think eh? There were extras that were enticing, extra songs and videos and I couldn’t resist. I could’ve walked to Tower Records or at least another store, perhaps an independent retailer, but I wanted it then and there so I bought it. I decided to play it on the way to work this morning and it sounded quite good.

After the usual flirtiness with Plantain Man, who was wearing loose shorts this morning so wood was as prominent as it usually is, I got on the Path train and stood near the door and decided to fast forward and watch the video for Love Sick, from the Grammy’s about ten years ago. This was when the guy wearing Soy Bomb jumped onstage and started doing an interpretive dance, much to Bob’s consternation. For some reason there was no sign of the soy bomber, which I found to be disappointing. I thought the guy was odd, but would’ve been fun to see it again. He probably didn’t sign a release for video, or they couldn’t find him so he wound up on the cutting room floor.

There’s a great, killer version of Cold Irons Bound along with Down in the Flood, both from Masked and Anonymous so since I had gotten off the train, I decided to play both tracks. They sounded great as I walked down Sixth Avenue to Carmine Street. It was going to be a busy day and I found that Felicia was going to be in. (Apple is now on the line. ‘Wonderful’ is the phrase this neckbone keeps repeating on the other end when he gets information from me that I have to say slowly and repeat even slower the second and occasionally third time. Now they are having trouble finding me in the system. My online
support is in India. Wonderful. His name is Rogis. It’s 7AM in India with me being on the phone with Apple for 1:01:36. I’m off the phone now and still don’t know if it’s been fixed, but I have a case number in any event.)

Last night, before I left work, I set up a conference room so I wouldn’t have to run around this morning, all I’d have to do was put out food and coffee. I came into the office and walked past the conference room, to find no plates, cups, utensils and whatnot. I walked into the kitchen and there was Felicia happy to see me. She didn’t know what happened to aforementioned items. Apparently the cleaning crew at night put them all away. Nice but set me back a little, for Felicia started putting the items together to get into the room. She also put the food together and we put it on the cart and brought it in.

The clients came in earlier than expected as well as Linda, the British woman. Felicia joined in and sat down. I did my usual routines of running around. It was very busy. I rarely sat down, one thing after another and I loved it. It made the day go faster and there was an edginess to most everything I did. Edginess meaning I was really quick witted. People laughed at my comments and I continued on my merry way. After a few hours of that, I was going to sit down when Linda came up to me.

“I don’t know why you’re so angry, but maybe you should go and take a nice lunch.” “Actually, I’m fine. Just really very busy. I’ll go get a salad in a few minutes.” “Pissy? I don’t why you’re pissy, whatever that means.” she said, mishearing ‘busy’ as ‘pissy’. “No, I think you’re angry.” “I’m not angry. Believe me, if I was angry you’d know” Anyone who knows me well, knows that if I’m angry with someone I freeze them out. Not a good thing I suppose, but it beats the alternative.

She kept insisting that I should go, being angry which in reality was making me angry. There’s a strange thing going on between Linda and Felicia, with Linda once having my job and willing to volunteer and jump in if need be. She also complains that it’s not her job anymore, she being the assistant to the CEO, Heinz Hasselblad. Felicia seems to resent her and both talking charmingly to each other most of the time, each disparaging the other to me at various moments.

So where I was previously too busy to be angry about anything that according to Linda, should be pissing me off, I went out for an hour and sat in the park talking on the cell phone to Bill, relating my tale of woe. Having the time to sit down and reflect gave me the anger that seemed to be missing. I sat and stewed and went back to the office being all nice to everyone like I was previously, even towards Linda. I think it’s her that’s crazy, not me. Why do the loonies always find me?

I was out the door at 6:00 and lit up a cigar for my walk. Decided to walk down Broadway, and listen to the new Bob Dylan record, mp3, download, whatevs. Got through the first song when the iPod froze. No problem, a simple restart, then again, then again. Every other song from different downloads worked, but not the new Dylan. Humbug! I played Ray Charles instead. Bob would have approved, but I wanted to hear what I paid for the night before. That’s when I called India, and spoke to Rogis. And here we are.