Daily Archives: December 18, 2024

Staten Island?

Today was alright. Nothing too heavy. I only thought about the last job briefly, no dwelling on it allowed. I thought about K Amundsen—a nice kid. I was intimidated by him, I thought he had some seniority over me. He didn’t. We worked alongside each other doing wholly unrelated things.

I have to laugh when I think back to when we were first working in the same area. He was wearing clunky black glasses which made him look a lot like Lea DeLaria. The office culture that exists today would not allow an open comparison to say aloud, so I kept it to myself.

We connected on Broadway shows. He was living with his parents on Staten Island so his expenses were low and he could afford to see a Broadway show or two a month. I envied that in him somewhat.

And he had loving parents, younger than mine were. His parents seemed to be understanding and supportive of their obviously queer son. K was of the generation that calls themselves queer, whereas my generation was gay and queer was a slur to us.

It’s a generational thing, Man.

It’s been a good day. Bill was on the road after not being on the road for a while. It stresses him out which in turn, stresses me out. Then it becomes alternate days of the blues and accompanying depression. He’s been handling things fairly well and I do my best to accommodate him when he sinks to the depths of despair.

Despite being a solo act most of the day I met up with Mike. We speak or rather text almost every day and I made it a point to see him this afternoon. He’s moving to his new crib his week, on Friday and Saturday. He needed a few items including an air mattress since an actual mattress is not in his current budget.

I decided to cash in a Target gift card that I had gotten a while ago that was soon to expire and bought him an air mattress. The plan was to meet up and have a walk and talk as he was going to get the Path train at Grove Street in Jersey City.

But the air mattress was in a cumbersome box that was heavy and though the skies had been a little bit cloudy with sun, by the time we were to meet the heavens were going to open. So, no walk and talk, just a handoff for an unwieldy box, and then I sent him on his way.

It was funny when I called Mike about the change of plans. I had to keep reassuring him that nothing was bad, in fact, it was something that he would actually like, but the walk and talk was a no-go.

And though it did not rain on me when I was walking home, Bill reported rain in Staten Island and Mike had it raining on him when he was en route to Newark.