Monday, Labor Day. Finally a nice day, blue skies, nice breezes. Bill finally arrived last night, around 6:00 with the California King sized bed, and getting it up four flights of stairs wasn’t easy. Luckily we got it up two flights and crashed right outside of Julio’s apartment. Julio came out and offered to help and with an extra pair of hands we were able to get everything upstairs in no time. Bill and I were sweating up a storm and the handles on the bed started to disintegrate as we lifted but Julio helped with all that. More muscles, you see.

Getting the twenty year old bed and box spring originally from Lodi down the four flights of stairs was easy as pie. We were lucky in the fact that it wasn’t raining and causing the mattress to become a giant full size sponge. Bill and I were drenched in sweat, and it was noticeable to Julio how much garlic Bill eats. A lot apparently maybe too much. He drove away to park the U Haul truck in a legal parking spot somewhere on Washington Street, I walked off to buy some food for dinner, some lettuce, and some Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy for dessert.

I offered to take Julio and Bill to Arthur’s Steakhouse for dinner since they did most of the heavy work in moving the California King sized bed up the stairs. Neither one took me up on the offer which was a relief last night with tentative plans made for tonight. Julio came upstairs after I made a burger for myself around 9:00 to watch Syriana with Bill and myself. I was midway through a documentary about the 1960’s and Julio and Bill watched how that tumultuous decade ended. I entertained them with the bold face lie that at 6 years old I was on the barricades plotting to blow up Armed Forces recruitment centers.

Who was I kidding? I was routinely being beaten up by various classmates and teachers at 6 years old. I was going to bed at 7:30 more than likely. Not much time in my day to protest the Vietnam War or American Foreign Policy. Even when the sixties ended around 1972 or 3, I was still totally self involved, unlike now when I write most every little detail down to publish on the web. My how far I’ve gone!

It was a good bed that Bill’s cousin gave us, very large. Bill and I didn’t even come close to each other last night. He had his sheet and I had mine. Plenty of room to stretch and very good support. Not the type of bed that you can toss a bowling ball on it while there is a glass of water standing on the mattress, but strong enough to support two behemoths like Bill and myself.

Just got back from walking around Hoboken with Julio and tossing a Frisbee with Julio on Steven’s campus. Lot’s of crazy breezes that created a supernatural effect on the Frisbee with the disc severely going up and down on the cross breezes. After about an hour of that we walked over to Pier A and chilled out. Very crowded. Julio has way better Gaydar than I do that’s for sure. Not bad for a straight guy. After Pier A, we walked back and got a six pack of Heineken and sat on the stoop, both of us having three beers each, passing comment on just about everyone that crossed our line of vision. Back to work tomorrow, oddly enough no sinking feeling about it being the unofficial end of summer. We finished the beers and I extinguished the cigar I was smoking and came up the stairs and now, hanging out with Bill.

Sunday will never be the same. That I guess is an absolute truth since no two days are alike. Sitting around the apartment waiting for Bill to arrive with the California King Size bed that we are getting from his cousin. Ernesto has come and gone, everything is pretty much dry now. On the fifth floor there is a very pleasant breeze. Autumnal almost. Watching a Herbie Hancock DVD that I got Bill for his birthday back in June. As usual it remained unopened. Most of the time, once he gets a gift, he doesn’t open it or use it. It’s frustrating but I’ve finally gotten somewhat used to it.

This seemed like a good present though, I got him some Dave Chappelle videos and Herbie Hancock ‘Possibilities’, luckily all things I could enjoy watching on my own like I am now. The DVD features Herbie playing with different musicians, too many to mention here, except for Brian Eno who is always interesting. He’s only there for a few minutes but having sat through everyone before him, I was still entertained by the various performances. Another video that was quite cool was ‘When the Deal Goes Down’ by Bob Dylan, featuring Scarlett Johanssen in what seems to be super 8 movies from about 40 or 50 years ago. Almost like a home movie of sorts of an ingénue’s return home. Or not.

I do like Herbie Hancock though. I remember back in the day, early 1980’s driving around all red eyed with Rand, listening to ‘Rock It’ on WBLS after buying records and comic books on St. Mark’s Place. I took Bill to see Herbie Hancock once at the Blue Note a few years ago, and once when he was a featured guest with Wayne Shorter at Carnegie Hall. Now that’s a present Bill can use, tickets to something. He’d be forced to use them and go and would relieve me of the “what should I get him” stress.

Juan came over last night with some jazz instrumentals. Nice to see him contributing a lick here and there. It was a mellow evening with an expectation of Julio coming up and hanging out with Juan, Bill and myself but he bagged. We are all pretty much fine with that, well I was since I was the only one who knew that he may or may not be coming upstairs. So we watched Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, which is the movie that was so ‘severe’ to watch with Bill a few months ago on 42nd Street.

It was a lot more fun to watch it last night on the couch at home with Juan in attendance, but towards the end I could not keep my eyes open, being so heavily lidded. Bill crashed and soon enough I going to follow. Hung out with Juan, drinking some more wine and getting all jazzy. It wasn’t too long before I was showing him to the door and going to bed myself.

Slept ok with an instance of me pushing Bill around in the bed. I do remember that and apologized when Bill told me to stop it. Got up and got the bagels and the papers, a beautiful day. Almost a perfect beach day, but I wouldn’t be able to go since Bill was getting the bed and I need to help him bring it up four flights of stairs. So it’s been pretty much a mellow day, watching Dvd’s and music and watching the odd movie on TV. Bill and I watched Spalding Gray’s ‘Monster In A Box’ and set the dvd-r to record it next time it’s on. I do hope all goes well with moving the bed.