Monthly Archives: February 2011

I Apologize

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So tired. It’s been a long day. Almost an entire 10 hours on my feet. It started out slowly this morning no jobs to send out resumes to. Rainier Castillo at Office Team never responds to my emails. Nothing much happening with postings online.

Joe Padilla, a customer at the cigar shack told me in November that his company bought Robert Half which owns Office Team and that he could help me get a job through him. And also Rainier Castillo was fired.

It turns out Rainier Castillo was not fired and Joe Padilla fabricated his story for some reason. I should have known better. I heard that Joe Padilla was a former coke dealer and I suppose I should have known that coke dealers, whether active or retired really can’t be trusted.

I got myself together this morning after breakfast and coffee and a lack of job postings and headed out for the bus. No usual phone call to Bill, things are a bit frosty lately between us for the past 24 hours. He’s not home right now and I have no idea where he is. And I am fine not knowing.

I am enjoying this time alone after dealing with customers all day. Don’t really feel like talking anyhow. Writing of course is something I also don’t feel like doing, but here I am, doing just that. An uneventful bus ride on a bus with a bicycle rack in front of the bus.

I had seen them in San Francisco years ago and thought it was good and so far I’ve seen a few buses from NJ Transit with them. The other day when I had to take the Path train since the buses weren’t running I saw one of those buses at the Hoboken terminal.

Bill insisted that those buses are not permitted to drive into the Port Authority bus terminal with the bicycle racks in the front of the bus but here I was again, riding one of those buses into the bus terminal.

I made it to the cigar shop at the usual time, early and saw Calvin behind the counter. It was first his first day back from a few days off. Marcus was floating around somewhere as was Thomas the new guy they are hiring.

Marcus left as did Thomas, leaving me & Calvin to run the shop. I took a Xanax at noon. Just didn’t want to deal with any nerves or jitters and felt it would smooth out the day. I was told that my sales for February were outstanding, both Marcus and Calvin were impressed.

Also had to sign a memo with a warning in the details about my taking for granted that I would always be closing the store on weekends. Apparently it wasn’t the drunken mistake made when someone was drinking and putting assigned hours in the wrong cell on the Excel spreadsheet.

Once again I did not get much of a chance to have lunch. Interruptions and stuck inside the cigar shop for basically 10 hours kept me on the sales floor. Marcus returned to teach his sommelier class and Calvin left at his appointed hour.

No one came into the cigar shop for about 90 minutes, then my friend my friend Bruce showed up a few minutes before closing, as did someone else who was buying cigars for a golf outing. Bruce’s timing was off. I really didn’t have time to chat and wanted to get the hell out of there.

It’s my Friday since I actually have off 2 days in a row. I’m too tired to be excited about it. I hopped on a train to the bus terminal and made it to the gate when I looked over at the next gate and there was Hyman Gross.

I decided not to get on the bus that was loading and walked over to Hyman and waited for his bus with him. I wasn’t too communicative.

He was asking about Octavia, a bus driver friend of Hyman’s and Bill. She’s the one who mentioned that Hyman’s absence in December might have been the result of Hyman attempting to take his own life, saying that it wasn’t the first time he tried it.

I think Octavia thrives on drama, both her own and other people like Hyman. I got off at Hyman’s stop a few seconds after he got off, not wanting him to fall and to make sure he got to his building alright. I walked him to his building and ran up the stairs to get his mail.

Then after saying good night to Hyman walked home to Park Avenue, feeling quite light headed for some reason. And now I am home, and quite happy to be home alone.



I think I’ve exhausted the Frank Sinatra song list and now I am using songs done by Elvis Presley. I don’t anyone has noticed or will notice.

I Ain’t About to Sing

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It’s amazing how fast things can go quickly downhill. I was in a pretty good mood coming home, had a fun, heartfelt chat with Lois on the phone, touching on the fact that talking is so much better (& easier) than texting. I wanted to apologize for being a Debbie Downer on the bus a few weeks ago when I saw her and her husband Fred.

I don’t like complaining about the job and it seems that all that I do is complain about the job. I suppose if you go back to the beginning of this here blog, I complained about every job I had from Wanker Banker to McMann & Tate to Golden Staffing to whatever name I gave to the last gig with starring Ashish Sanghrajka, with Ankur Sheth providing a supporting role.

And now with a new job (after 9 months, is it really ‘new’?) I am still complaining. Anyhow, I come home still feeling good. After all, I got out of work and jumped on the train as it got to the station, and made it to the bus a minute before it left the gate.

The nice chat with Lois still in my head as I climb the four flights of stairs and I am taking my work boots off in the hallway when I hear Bill inside making some strange noises and yelling. I quicken my moves and open the door and see the oven open. I figured he might have burned himself somehow.

But no, he was watching the dunking contest from the NBA All Star game the other day and was so excited. That’s one of the charming things about Bill that I love. He acts like a 12 year old boy sometimes. No lovey dovey behavior. He greeted me and went back to the game.

I sussed out that the heater built into the stove was on the fritz again and that’s why the oven was open. We have a really old stove, the kind they don’t make anymore and the kind that if you want parts for it you would be better off getting a new stove since that would be easier.

I see Bill watching the dunking contest and ask if he saw the guy jump over the car. He didn’t see it and didn’t know anything about it. So I ruined it for him. If I knew about it and I dislike sports that much, I figured he would have heard about it at least, but no he didn’t.

I set about getting out of my work clothes and into something a little more comfortable since Bill is fearful of lighting the heater. It requires lying on the floor for a few minutes and pressing the pilot light button inside the heater.

But to get out of my clothes I have to navigate through all of Bill’s stuff and Bill himself who is dumbfounded by the dunking contest and a little bit pissed off by the fact that I gave away the big surprise of the guy jumping over a car to make a dunk.

But he’s not saying he’s pissed off. No he’s eerily quiet. I lay on the floor after changing and moving his very heavy backpack off of my slipper and moving it to the couch where I find my mail, where I would not have found it if I did not move his back pack. I mean really, my New Yorker is in there!

I am able to get the pilot lit, but cannot get the heater to ignite. So we have a pilot light but no heat, except for the oven which I also relit since if I didn’t do that, half the apartment would be cold. I’m still not angry and despite what Bill says, I’m not cruel either.

After being on my feet for 9 hours, dealing with the public, I just wanted to chill out in my quarter of the living room. The other three quarters concerns Bill’s manifest destiny, eyeing my quarter. I think it’s best to let him do what he has to do, rehearse for something tomorrow, something that requires him to be evil. I have no doubt Bill can pull off being evil.

Still in a pretty good mood mind you. Bill and talked, which was when he said that I was acting angry and almost cruel. I just wanted to get my slippers. And my New Yorker.


I just got the heater working again and almost dislocated my shoulder, patting myself on the back. Bill remains quiet, sitting 2 feet away from me, looking at his iPad and memorizing a part of something and practicing being evil.

I’m cool.