Monthly Archives: September 2010

I and I

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I neglected to mention that while working at the cigar shop what may have been an apparition of Rand & Lisa appeared while I was in the humidor. I saw them just for a second and when I finally emerged from the humidor they were gone.

I also spoke to Bill as I ambled my way down to the Path train and enjoying a cigar. He was planning on stopping by the cigar shop to surprise me. The surprise would have been on him since I would have been gone, having left Calvin to close up the shop.

It was a good thing I called and thwarted his surprise visit.

Last night we watched Broadcast News we started to watch This is England which is a good movie, a bit disturbing though. It was too heavy after the wit and banter of Broadcast News. We wound up watching a repeat of Laura Linney in the Big C, then Bill went to bed and I stayed up a little while longer.

Had an interesting dream which concerned me being on Route 875 (which does not exist). Also in the dream was a Nicholas Lattanzio who I once worked with and with the benefit of 32 years of hindsight, turns out I had a little crush on him.

I vaguely knew him when he was in a grade above me in elementary school, and it turned out we both started work on the same day at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, in the college book department.

He was taken under the wing of Dave Manzo, professional Newport smoker and failed bowler and became fast friends with John Carroll who was quite a funny and intelligent guy who thought I was an idiot. Guess he wasn’t so intelligent after all.

It was a strange dream. No Maria Scarano, Debbie Pless or Paul Rigby sightings in the dream either.

Slept really well and woke up refreshed somewhat. Occasionally the pit in my stomach flares up, bringing back memories of having to go back to school. Perhaps it’s because there’s a school on the corner from my building which brings back that feeling of dread, but it’s more than likely because it is September.

Bill kissed me goodbye once again and I soon roused myself and got into the shower after setting up a bowl of cereal and making some coffee. I usually wait for the 10:30 bus but I caught the earlier bus because it stopped and I didn’t flag it down.

It was the 10:30 driver anyhow and I got on the bus. I was early again for work and sat in the shadow of a skyscraper and killed time. Talked to Bill on the phone for a quick minute before I headed into the cigar shop.

Calvin, Don Birch and Raymond were my co-workers for the day, Marcus making yet another hasty exit. Calvin made a joke or two about my attitude yesterday, mentioning that it was because I had to work on a holiday when it was actually because I had to wake up so goddamned early.

The day progressed nicely mainly because it was a good staff to work with. A quick walk down from the cigar shop to the bus terminal, sans earphones.

I left them at home this morning and though it wasn’t so bad I’d still rather hear Devo ‘Q: Are We Not Men? A: We are Devo!’ than listen to the inanities of people. But even that wasn’t so bad. I did make sure that I will have the headphones tomorrow.

Not going through that again. That sinking feeling.

I Am A Lonesome Hobo

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It’s Labor Day. I used to have off on Labor Day but not any more. Insert ‘At least you have a job mantra’ here. Yes yes, at least I have a job. But oh so tired.

Had to get up earlier than usual since the buses were running on a Sunday schedule and I was scheduled to be at the cigar shop at 9:30. Bill was coming in as I was going out and repeated the mantra which didn’t do me any good.

He was home for the day whereas I was going to work. Early. The 9:00 bus would have gotten me to the bus terminal at 9:25. So I had to catch an 8:00 bus which dropped me off at around 8:20.

Decided to have some sort of breakfast in midtown Manhattan. Thought about the Cosmic Diner which used to be at 58th Street and Broadway, now it’s at 53rd and Eight Avenue. I looked at the menu and decided not to pay $7.00 for bacon and eggs.

Instead I walked another block and got a bacon and egg sandwich with a coffee for about $4.00. Still after that I had about 45 minutes to kill. Hardly anyone on the streets besides tourists.

I got to the cigar shop about 15 minutes early and took off my sneakers (it’s a casual day) and put on my dress shoes that I leave at the store for the weekend shifts.

I opened the store before Calvin and Don Birch made it in. Calvin is accustomed to working on holidays that everyone has off and was happy go lucky. He gently mocked my pessimistic attitude which was more in regards to being there so early, not so much the holiday since I had known about it for about a week already.

This part of the day crawled. It was quite slow, not much business going on. No bomb scares, no sanitation depot fires. Just ennui.

I did get a very nice cigar from Jorge Padron, of Padron Cigars. He’s in town for a special dinner tomorrow night and was kind enough to give me a 1926 Anniversario cigar which is quite good and a bit expensive, but free is good.

It was an early day nonetheless. The store was closing at 6:00 and I had an early lunch at 1:00. I called Annemarie who was busy making brownies and burning CD’s for some reason. Or making CD’s and burning brownies.

I came back from lunch, and found that I had all the difficult and pissy customers. Really irritating people who didn’t spend much money. As luck would have it, the next couple of hours flew by, not very fast but fast enough.

Calvin closed the store which allowed me to leave a little bit after 6:00. The sun was still out as I lit up a cigar and opted to walk to the Path train figuring the Lincoln Tunnel would be pack with cars all coming home from the Labor day weekend.

The Path wasn’t too crowded as I thought and listened to The Name of This Band is Talking Heads. The car did fill up by the time we got to Christopher Street and I buried my nose in the Andy Warhol biography.

When I was back in Hoboken I phoned Bill and suggested we order a pizza from Napoli’s since Grimaldi’s have fallen out of favor with us. And we just devoured it. It was quite good.

Now we’re watching Broadcast News which Bill had never seen before. It’s still a good movie and it holds up for me after repeated viewings.