It has been one of those days. It started OK. Bill was gone when I woke up. I am trying to go to bed a little bit earlier than usual so that meant I was waking up a little bit earlier but not getting out of bed. Doing my best to not open my eyes to see the time, I eventually did and saw it was 7:30 so I got out of bed.

The first thing I do when I get out of bed is make the bed. I’ve been doing that for years and read something a few months ago that suggested doing just that to start the day off with an accomplishment. I do it just in case I need to, or decide to go back to bed. That rarely happens but it’s good to know that it’s there and ready for me.

The self-evaluation at work is due on Friday and I keep writing and rewriting and editing. Some things I realize are that there’s no way to get away with posting such things and would hasten my departure if I submitted it. So I write, copy, and delete.

It’s due on Friday and I received a posting on my computer that it is due in 72 hours. I kept myself busy at work dealing with Schlomo the DKB. He had an envelope that had been mislabelled. It was noticed after I left. I apologized for the error.

I also explained to the DKB that this could all be taken care of if only the person who picks up the mail would ask me five words, ‘Do you have any mail’ Most of the day I do have mail but his guy doesn’t ask and will check other spots for mail but not ask me and I could have a pile of mail next to me.

The DKB said, ‘Well you know that’s how so and so is’. I told him that’s ridiculous. Five words to ask. I do not want to be his friend I just want the work to get out. He’s not hurting me at all with his disdain, it’s the clients who are sick and sometimes terminal that might suffer because he does not like me.

These people think I am an idiot and not treating the clients with respect, but I do respect these clients and I have tremendous empathy for what they are going through. Yes, I sometimes use humor to put them at ease, I converse with them, asking where they are coming in from, you know- conversational topics.

And when someone is not used to such things, they mishear and misunderstand and that gets me in hot water. The five stages of grief still apply and I am still in the acceptance phase. Nowhere else to go.

I still have to finish the self-evaluation and that is different from what I write here. I write here not knowing if anyone will read this. It’s been over two months now. The self-evaluation will be read by the inhuman resources directress Barbara Shorten and well as Schlomo the DKB. I am anxious to find out how they don’t understand much of anything I do or write.

A Monday again. They come around too often and only a few people like to see them. Today was also a holiday so like I mentioned last night, the commute was easy, not crowded at all. Most of the office was out, they were working from home, though the day they were allowed to work from home was Fridays.

I don’t know the nitty gritty since I don’t have the opportunity to work from home, my job involves physical things like paper and mail.

On the train home, I saw an ad that said ‘Success’. Every time I have to spell success I remember the first time I learned how. Growing up in my neighborhood it seemed there were more girls than boys so my earliest friends were girls.

I am thinking of Donna Augusto. Donna was a year or two older than me, and her family and mine were good friends. Donna was the youngest of four girls and I was the youngest of two boys and a girl. Boy, girl, boy & me.

I remember playing ‘Talk show’ with Donna sitting in snowbanks and chatting in the winter. I played Mike Douglas and Donna was chunky at the time so she was Totie Fields. In the fall we played ‘school’ in Donna’s backyard.

Donna used to be friends with Eileen Grant who lived down the street and were also friends with my family. Eileen used to playfully beat me up in the Augusto’s front yard and would throw me into their bushes much to the ire of Mr Augusto.

Donna graduated from St. Francis and went to Lodi High School and one of the last times I hung out with her, or rather, around her was when she wanted to be a cheerleader. I remember two cheers she memorized with the movements, one was based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s ‘Paul Revere’s Ride’- “Listen my children and you will hear”.

The other was “S-U-C-C-E-S-S / That’s the way we spell success…” So every time I spell success that is what goes through my mind. Having written that down and put it out there, I wonder if that will continue to run through my head. D

onna grew up and moved away and got married. I never had any contact with her again, though I am friends with her eldest sister Lorraine on the social medias. Lorraine was the brains of the four sisters and sometimes when I post something that might be risque I worry about offending her. Offending a woman that I hadn’t seen in person for almost 50 years. But that’s the respect I have for Lorraine.

It’s a chilly Monday night in October. I don’t like it much but there’s nothing I can do about it. I still wonder why these people are so excited about Autumn. I almost wrote ‘The Fall’ but I will equate the Fall with Mark E. Smith.

And the Fall are no more since Mark E. Smith passed away in 2018. One of these days I will write about my experiences with the Fall. All true and somewhat entertaining. Those 20th century days…