Monthly Archives: December 2008

I’ll Be On My Way

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.

Black Superman

It’s a Sunday again. Back to work tomorrow, if only for a few hours. Today has been an odd day weather wise. Quite unseasonably warm. 66 degrees they said.

Last night was more low key than it’s been the past few days. Bill injured his wrist somehow and he thinks he has carpal tunnel syndrome. Or arthritis. I told him it’s probably from using his laptop and straining his wrist without any support.

I watched a very good movie today, The Visitor, directed by Tom McCarthy who also did another very good film, The Station Agent. This starred Richard Jenkins who played the late patriarch on Six Feet Under.

Tom McCarthy is an actor also, and played the reporter named Scott Templeton who was making up stories for his deadline on the last season of The Wire. Highly recommended.
And if you haven’t seen The Station Agent, you really should. That is also a very good film.

I stayed up late reading the John Lennon biography. It’s a library book and I only have 14 days to read it. It’s a fairly recent book so there will be no renewing when the due date arrives. Also have the Sarah Vowell book, The Wordy Shipmates but that’s just a slim volume.

It was around 1:45 when I went to bed. I remember staying up way later than that just a few years ago, being artificially stimulated and sleeping away much of the next day. I’m glad to say I don’t do that anymore.

I was up around 9:30 this morning and when I went out for my morning errands I was surprised at how warm it was.

Got an email from Meghan Taylor about removing the pictures I posted on Facebook. I suppose she doesn’t read the blog. I would remove the pictures if only she’d tell me what pictures to remove. Until then the pictures stay.

Got a text message from Rand. He was at the Crow’s Nest in Hasbrouck Heights. I had to laugh since I’d never been there. Drove past it eight million times, but never so much as graced the place with the sole of my shoe.

I’m sure it’s a decent place and I’m also sure that the chances of running into someone from my past would greatly increase. A few months ago I would have been interested, today- not so much.

Of course it would depend on who it would be and with my luck it would probably be someone who gave me hell for four years in high school who doesn’t live that far away from the Crow’s Nest.

I’m just taking it easy tonight, waiting for 60 Minutes to come on. The Sound of Music was just playing but Bill texted me to tell me the Jets game was ‘ova’, meaning either it’s egg-like or finished.

I changed the channel and didn’t see any big men in tight spandex running around a field and jumping on top of each other. Now why don’t I like football again?