Let’s see. It’s Wednesday, that much I know. It’s definitely a lot cooler out. And it’s now 6:00 and I was supposed to call Juan between 4 and 5:00. I just remembered that. What else? I’m sure I’m forgetting something.

Tried going to bed earlier than usual but couldn’t fall asleep so I wound up staying up until the usual time. No it’s not caffeine. I don’t drink caffeine after noon. It wasn’t so bad in any event. I did fall asleep eventually after following my own advice, to get out of bed instead of tossing and turning and my advice proved right.

I’ve taken to going out and getting the paper in the morning, if only to put away the garbage cans I put out the night before. Last week I had a talk with Julio about it. How I put out the garbage most nights, including the recyclables, but no one can put back the empty cans in the morning.

Julio claims he did and I cut him some slack, saying that 9 times out of 10 I’m the one who does it. He is that 1 time. I did not bring that up with Bill since it took a while to get him to stop putting the recyclables in with the trash.

When I was employed, I would leave the building after Bill, I would reach in the garbage cans and pull out empty Vitamin Water bottles that were recently in the kitchen here. In a suit and tie yet. It only took over a half dozen times before he eventually got the message.

Today I decided to go to Shop Rite in Hoboken. The A&P is closer but Shop Rite is much larger and has better selections and generally better prices, though I usually spend more money at Shop Rite. I don’t know how that works. Also ran into Roda and his son Logan, food shopping.

Midway through my shopping experience, I get a phone call from Bill. I suggested that if he has to sing a song for an audition and he’s no so sure, that he should write out the lyrics by hand so he will, in effect own those words and make them more personal by writing them out by hand.

He was calling to thank me for that idea. It’s something I picked up when growing up and had to sit at the dining room table for 2 hours, ostensibly to do homework. Even if I had homework that could be done in 10 minutes, I would still have to sit there for 1 hour and 50 minutes.

My brother Brian would sit opposite me for those 2 hours. It was mainly because we weren’t the top notch students our father encouraged us to be.

That was a joke. Our father never encouraged us to do anything.

So while my father sat about 15 feet away, my mother 9.5 feet away and the TV blaring quite loud since my father was losing his hearing, I would get one of the books from the encyclopedia and start writing out by hand various pages that caught my eye.

Brian, sitting where he was, would try to steal a glance at Johnny Mann’s Stand Up and Cheer.

The 2 hours at the table didn’t achieve much but some improvement did have to be shown in our grades. I don’t know how that worked out, but I certainly benefited from social promotion.

Remember, I’m the guy who wrote an essay on his Algebra final. And I’ve held up my end. Haven’t used Algebra since.