It’s Monday and it’s a weird Monday. Some people are back at work, some people have off from work, and then there’s me. I could have stayed home but no I went to work. At first when the alarm clock went off at 6:00 I got out of bed, made some coffee and poured some cereal then I asked myself, ‘What am I doing?’

I knew hardly anyone from my company would be in and decided to go back to bed for some more sleep. No need to deal with the rush hour rush this morning. I turned off the alarm on the cellphone as well as the alarm clock and slept another hour or two.

Felt good, like I needed to sleep more. A different world at 10:00 than at 8:00. Walked down 42nd street surrounded more by tourists than office workers.

Got to the office, saw an email from Steve who I used to work with. He got married in September and went off to the Greek isles for his honeymoon. When he came back he found out that he was unemployed.

He is still able to use the office for whatever tasks he might need for looking for a new job. His wife gave him a gift certificate for the Cigar Inn, a new cigar store with a nice plush lounge in the back.

Steve asked me if I wanted to join him and I said yes. After creating about one hundred new files for the year 2009 and doing whatever odds and sods needed to be done I walked over to 52nd Street and Second Avenue where I met Steve outside.

We chatted with the owners before walking into the humidor. Steve left everything up to me since it seems I am known for smoking cigars. I tried to keep things on the cheap end and selected two Padron cigars.

Steve brought a bottle of Glenfiddich which is allowed and we got two glasses from the proprietor and we sat on very comfortable furniture and drank and smoked and shot the shit.

He’s unemployed now and felt he could sit there all day. I still had to show my face at work after a few glasses of scotch.

Steve and I finished up after a little over an hour and made plans to do this again next week, this time I’ll get the cigars. He can still bring the scotch though.

Got back to the office, nicely buzzed. Vivek was in and looking boyish. He’s going to be a dad in nine months. He told me to keep it a secret, but Steve told me while smoking our cigars.

I was only stopping by to pick up my stuff before heading to the Path train. Vivek said if I was in the neighborhood later this week to let him know so that we too can have some cocktails.

After all that I was on the Path train heading home, reading the John Lennon biography, which is quite good so far. Low key evening on the cards for tonight.

I told Vivek that I’d probably be off for the rest of the week but I may stop by. I don’t plan to get up at 6:00 tomorrow morning, in fact I just turned off my cellphone alarm just to make sure.