Monthly Archives: July 2010

I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris

It’s another late day, or rather late night. Not much to write about. So I’m doing a recap of previous July 31’s. Deal with it yo.

July 2006. I was working at Wolff Olins (McMann & Tate) and my final attempt at returning to Putnam Lovell NBF (Wanker Banker) was ending. Helen Angelakos put the kibosh on the situation which actually turned out to be a good thing.

It would have been too weird to go back anyhow. I suppose lifting the pox on the house of Angelakos should be lifted but I’m tired and it’s quite a heavy pox. It was a Monday and I think I spent the previous day at the beach with Julio & Stine.

July 31, 2007 was a Tuesday. I rode the bus with a woman who had dragon breath. I wanted to tell her but I didn’t. I guess there was no one in her world that was close enough to tell her that her breath was certain dead.

I heard from my Rasta pal, Marcus just catching up. It was probably the last time I heard from him. I hope he’s doing well.

I wrote about hanging out with Marcus at some West Indian ballroom somewhere on Church Avenue in Brooklyn as well as a brief history of hanging out with Marcus, Jesse and late Poncho.

July 31, 2008 was a Thursday since I guess that 2008 was a leap year. Stine and Alexander were in Denmark, tentative plans to go to the beach with Julio were in the works. I was working at Bio-IB, rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Sweating a lot. I wrote about crossing paths with a rolypoly guy who mirrored my every step. Trying to side step him, I wound up fingering his flabby gut. Not a nice feeling. The wonderful Andres Duque gave me advice via a comment about how you don’t look into the eyes of the person you’re trying to step around.

Useful information which I use to this day and the mirror effect of trying to sidestep someone rarely happens anymore thanks to Andres. Blabbeando indeed!

Last year’s July 31, involved my dear friend Billie getting his car stolen (later recovered I believe, and trashed).

I met an online friend named Tom at the Cigar Inn on Second Avenue. Nice guy, just a chat and a smoke and no funny business. His birthday was just the other day and I wished him a happy bidet.

I was just finishing my first month of being out of work and I guess it still really hadn’t set in. It really wouldn’t until the holidays when there was no work at Farfetched to be had since there was no more Farfetched.

I still had hope that work would be around the corner, I just hadn’t realized how long the block was that I was traveling and the corner would still be about 10 months away.

And now here I am in 2010 and the possibility of a new job looms on the horizon. Just a possibility of course, but hope remains.

John Ozed, July 31, 2007

Still taking Sundays off. No post tomorrow!

I’m Not Down

A long day, and now I am tired. It’s been an interesting day but then again so are most everyone’s days, it’s just that they don’t notice how interesting things can be. Actually they’re probably not so interesting. I was just trying to make them feel better but it went nowhere.

And nowhere’s now here.

Bill was driving yesterday to the Catskills I believe, dropping off young Jewish women to a camp for Jewish women. He didn’t get home until late last night, early this morning while I was fast asleep. It was nice to wake up with his body next to mine.

I was up before Bill this morning which was a switch. He’s usually gone an hour or two before I wake up. I came home last night on the Willow Avenue bus and totally forgot that I needed to buy some coffee at Dunkin Donuts.

That meant I needed to take a shower and somehow deal with humanity without any coffee, and go out and buy some. I walked up to Washington Street and dealt with the idiots on line while joining the queue.

Took longer than I expected and then I walked over to the bagel shop where the line was too long and parrot face was behind the counter. Came home and fried an egg and finally used the new toaster oven then Bill and I had gotten for our civil union. It was decidedly toasteriffic.

Bill had gotten up and soon sat in the room while I watched the Today show and started getting ready for work.

Yesterday I had gotten an email regarding an interview for this upcoming Monday, and this morning she called me while I was on the bus headed into the Lincoln Tunnel. She asked if I had gotten the information that she had sent and wondered if I had any questions.

I do feel good about this position, albeit a little bit nervous. Not for the job, since it’s nothing that I hadn’t gotten before, but for the interview itself. I have to hit the right buttons, be on the mark.

There is still plenty of time to freak out about that. I was early getting to the cigar shop and settled right in. Marcus was in and told me my email was being set up as well as my business cards being prepared.

Oh, the guilt. I couldn’t say anything since I don’t know anything with regards to the other, well paying job. But it felt like I was settling in after 2 months of working at the cigar shop and now I was making moves to get out of there.

A nice discount on cigars is not really a reason to stay at the shop. And also my left knee has been hurting somewhat after having to stand up for 9 hours a day. Having to stand for 9 hours a day has been instrumental on my losing weight and that’s a good thing.

But the hours aren’t so good and the work week changes every week. I miss having a 9 to 5 or an 8:30 to 5:00 job, Monday through Friday.

I don’t enjoy this secrecy that I must maintain. I’m getting along with my co-workers quite well lately. It’s a strange position to be in.

There was an interesting thing that happened at the shop. When I came back from lunch, some live Jazz was being played and it wasn’t exactly melodic. It was quite noisy, discordant Jazz. So much so that I realized that I would be reprimanded if I played the equivalent from the Rock & Roll genre.

Like I said, it was interesting.