Monthly Archives: April 2012

I Just Fall In Love Again

Home again. A long day but wasn’t so bad. I did have to take a Xanax such was my anxiety. I was working with Zack and Thomas and Zack has been alright, and Thomas is becoming easier to ignore, but I am sure the Xanax helped. Yesterday Thomas told me of a very fine pineapple upside down Vegan cake which was good. Then he told me again about 2 hours later, and I reminded him that he had told me about it already. He seemed put off but though I do like repetition in music and art, in conversation I do not like it at all.

The same goes for religion. When I was growing up I couldn’t stand the fact that they told the same old stories over and over again. It seemed so pointless and stupid though it did point the way out of the hole that religion is to me. I did have bouts of religious fervor growing up, but not enough. In Fifth grade, when the priests came to my class trying to recruit altar boys, all the boys raised their hands but me.

I had two older brothers who were altar boys and seeing the schedules that they had, having to get up dreadfully early on Sundays did not make sense to me. Plus the fact that my mother would toil in the basement making sure their cassocks where cleaned and pressed did not appeal to me in the slightest.

Getting a few dollars for standing next to a priest for weddings for funerals wasn’t worth it for me, so I opted out. My classmates who did raise their hands asked why didn’t I join them and I explained that I like to sleep in on weekends. I don’t know how many made it through the year and frankly, I didn’t care.

In the 1970’s my father saw the Exorcist and forbade anyone in the family from seeing it. A few years later he saw The Omen and that seemed to be alright. I was too young to get into an R rated movie, but I did sneak in once after another movie, and saw Lee Remick take a tumble off a balcony at the top of the stairs thanks to her devil child on a tricycle.

I did read the book and was captivated and terrified. One Saturday evening I was so taken by the book I convinced my mother that we needed to go to confession as soon as possible.

We hopped in the car and drove to Sacred Heart church in Rochelle Park and got in line for confession. I went first and said my usual, ‘Bless me father, I have lied and I and have sinned and I swore’. Same reasons every time. I did my penance, Holy Mary’s, Our Fathers and whatever else and waited for my mother.

Apparently she told the priest in the confessional that it was my idea to go to confession which got the priest all excited as well as my mother. Perhaps they thought I would be a priest. On the way home my mother asked me what made me want to go to confession so badly and I told her about The Omen book which was a big letdown for her.

She must have thought I received the call to the priesthood and here I was in the grip of a Hollywood adaptation of a second rate novel. No priesthood for me, the call went unanswered and went straight to voicemail. Still haven’t checked it, but why bother? I changed that number ages ago.



she took my picture so I took hers


Last Goodbye

I Just Can’t Stop Loving You

“Are they REALLY like that Mommy? All of Them?” the little girl asked her mother. Her mother responded, “Yes Lisa. They are ALL idiots” Just a conversation I heard on the way in to work a while back. Little did I know how often Lisa’s mother’s response would have an effect on how things are seen and unseen throughout the day, throughout the week and even throughout the month.

I don’t know how a conversation I overheard last year plays into this, but I did write it down on the moleskine that dear old Jimmy Seltzer gave me, around the same time as the little girl and her mother had that little chat. I have to admit hearing the chat did bring a smile to my face.

Glad to be home, it’s been a long day. Four guys on the floor makes for a feeding frenzy. I sidestepped it and decided to take care of my section of the humidor as well as polishing up some very expensive pens that looked like shit.

I had a customer the other day who was looking at the pens and I have to admit I was embarrassed at how they looked. A bit tarnished and covered with fingerprints. So elbow grease was my initial method of cleaning and I thought I had done a good job.

Sales went on behind me, Jerry Vale and Thomas getting the sales mainly. Bradley lurked in the background, doing his very best to be the guy in charge. I was the guy polishing. A few customers had come in and mainly hung out by the registers chatting with whomever was behind the counter. If I wasn’t on the floor polishing pens, I would be in the humidor, stocking the shelves, making sure all the cigar labels were facing the correct way.

For some reason, no one told Thomas that his zipper was open and it was open for about an hour. He’s usually so careful about how he looks, the fact that he overlooked this one very small detail brought a few giggles among the customers. I don’t think anyone told him anything and I don’t think he brought it up, but after leaving the bathroom things were as they should be, relatively speaking.

Jerry Vale has been great lately. Personable as ever, the customers have taken a shine to him and he engages them in very long conversations most of the time. I can only guess that Jerry Vale talks about cigars mainly since he usually winds up selling them the very cigars that were talked about.

For me, today it was another day back at the cigar shack. No more Mister Nice Guy. If I hit my goal and a co-worker is struggling, that’s just too damn bad. I never minded helping out my co-workers in the past, but that has passed. It seems my kindness was mistaken for weakness. That isn’t going to happen anymore.

Yesterday was basking in the afterglow of the wonderful Maxwells trip. And a trip it was, at least tales told of tripping occurred. How psilocybin was all over the place one night in the 1980’s. How Martin was behind the bar with a choice stem in his mouth, how Ben was flying that night while working the door. Though I had the supply I was not indulging, just allowing everyone else to get their fill.




1-02 It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Diffe