Monthly Archives: February 2008

Windowsill

2 Replies

It’s Tuesday and it’s alright. I’m full of love. Not being factitious. Just this afternoon I was listening to Arcade Fire, Neon Bible and it reminded me of the trouble I had been in that night at Radio City last May, and I was overwhelmed by love for my brother Frank. I really hope he gets better, I’ll wait for it. I think the chat I had with my brother Brian last week was founded upon basic worries. I had the same worries for my parents when they were getting up in age. Let’s face it, I’m a worrier. Bill will tell you that. He’ll also tell you it’s part of being a Virgo, which doesn’t mean that much to me, but it works for him so we’ll just let it lie.

And of course I have love for Bill, and the trials and tribulations that he is presently going through. The hospital is ready to discharge his father, but his father is too far gone to go home, so it’s off to the Veteran’s Administration home in St. Albans. Apparently no one told the hospital. And this is all affecting his work. He can’t leave the apartment until the housekeeper shows up to take care of Bill’s mom. And the housekeeper doesn’t show up until 9:30, a half hour after he should be at his desk. Luckily Bill’s boss is going through something similar with his 90 year old mother. Bill is picking up the slack, working later. Tonight he should be at work until 8:15, then it’s home to collect his mother from his cousin, Elsie, to start the same thing all over again tomorrow.

121307-skadden-party-013a.jpg

And I look at the picture I had from December at Bill’s company’s holiday party, the one where he is leaning against the wall, looking into the camera with a look that is childlike, yet masking emotional torment inside. At least that’s what I see, and I was the photographer on that one.

Last night I came home, had some dinner, watched Scrubs, A Daily Show and the Colbert Report, all very funny and all seen before. No surprises there. I then watched the last minutes of A Hard Day’s Night, no longer feeling sad when they fly away at the end. Mike Myers said that when he saw it as a kid he felt the same way. And I thought I was the only one.

Also did some reading on some ecological and political issues written by my nephew Earl. I was mighty impressed by his prose and even sent him a message on his MySpace page. He claimed genetics, since I write this blog everyday. That was a nice thing to say. If he keeps at it, he could be a very good writer, the kind that people will pay money to read, not just turning on a computer and reading something while the porn downloads. I also met up with Julio and Stine. She’s due in about 2 months, and she looks great. Not fat at all, just a basketball under her shirt. I had picked up a Keith Haring print for them at a really good price.

keithharing.jpg

I was thinking about what to get them for a long time and each time I thought of something I thought, They’re going to have a baby and won’t have time to read the New Yorker, won’t have time to go to the movies, won’t have time for anything really. So a nice print, with two adult figures, holding a child figure under a heart would do. I thought they could probably hang it in the baby’s room when they get a room for the baby. I was able to get a suit that I had ordered online and had delivered to Julio’s place of work since I wasn’t going to be home to sign for it. A nice two button, gray pinstriped (of course) suit that I plan to wear to my cousin Neil’s wedding next month. We hung out in their third floor apartment, talking politics.

Julio expressed surprise that I wasn’t rooting for Obama. I was surprised and it got me thinking. I wasn’t planning on voting today but I thought about it and decided to throw my lot in with Barack Obama. I’m all about changing things up so that was the direction I headed in. I slept in a little later, hitting the snooze button three times before rousing myself to action. Then I was at the polling place, casting my vote and heading to work, winding up sitting outside the Lincoln Tunnel for 45 minutes while I read about Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, and a friend of Barack Obama. So there you have it, my endorsement for the President of the United States, Barack Obama. So there!

obama.jpg

Loudmouth

Leave a reply

Well it’s Monday yet again. Not thrilled about it but I feel I have a new lease on life job-wise. And I’m also convinced Tom Chin is a stupid asshole. But that’s neither here nor there. Last night, came home after wandering aimlessly around Fun City. Had some ravioli and watched a few seconds of the Super Bowl. Scrubs was on and I decided to watch that instead. Though I’ve probably seen most of the episodes, I preferred it to watching football.

Never enjoyed watching it, though I used to play in the street on Gunther Avenue in Lodi. Just touch football, counting Mississippi, and no clearly defined boundaries, as well as an occasional timeout so that cars could pass, but besides looking at big men in tights, there was little else to hold my interest while watching a game on TV or at Giants Stadium where I was often dragged to. And I always hear about the commercials during the Super Bowl but they’re never on when I watch, or they’re on, and the fact that they are commercials, I tune them right out. I’m sure they will be repeated ad infinitum, though I did try watching a few of them online, but they were pulled off whatever website I was attempting to watch.

I did watch Pioneers of Television a series of shows about the history of television. It’s been very entertaining, and a good way to lead up to The Wire. That was good, things are falling into place or falling all over the place, depending on what plot you are following. I was surprised that throughout the show, my sister Annemarie called me up with, ‘Did you see that play?’ I told her that I was watching The Wire. That didn’t stop her from calling every time something happened during the big game. It was a big deal around these parts since this is Giants country and Annemarie comes from a family of Giants fans it was justified I guess.

I tried watching via the Picture in Picture program on the TV screen but it was too distracting, especially when Omar got caught and almost killed if it weren’t for his sudden leap from a balcony 5 stories up. Somehow he got away, so we’ll see what happened to him next week. Watching the show you do hope Omar kills Marlo and soon since there’s only a handful of episodes left. After The Wire I finally tuned into the last 10 seconds of the Super Bowl.

The Giants were winning, the coach of the New England Patriots left the field and was headed to the locker room. A bunch of congratulatory speeches were made, a god was thanked a few times, because it would not have been possible if the god didn’t favor a football team from East Rutherford New Jersey, though labeled a New York team over a football team from Massachusetts. Yes, some god was on the side of the Mara family, not smiting the opposition, just sending them to the showers earlier than they had hoped. Then it was off to bed, falling asleep and waking up 6.5 hours later to go to work.

I was busy all day trying to find restaurants near the Hamptons so Greg Stevens could host a business lunch near one of his homes. It took a while since I don’t know the difference between Nassau and Suffolk counties, not that there is much difference between them. Found a few for Greg, did some inane tasks for Tom Chin and was hoping to get out early today only to have Vivek ask me to help him out with something that I offered to help him out with last week.

I didn’t leave the office until after 6:00, in time to get on a long line at the bus terminal. I didn’t mind much. The bus had only fifteen people on it when the driver was told to leave the gate. That made for a comfortable ride home, which is where I am at now. And I’m happy.

Yes We Can Can