Well the day keeps changing from the original plan
I was supposed to be working in the first office where I started but I could not log in properly in the woman who trained me suggested I go back to the office where I generally work now so I did. And arduous trek of 25 blocks or so.
I was drenched when I got to the first office and drenched when I got to my steady general office. We are in a heatwave and it’s brutal AF. Did not sleep as well as I would have liked the way eventually did the AC on and did its job somewhat.
Last night we helped Mike out with his onboarding for a company down on Maiden Lane and that took him quite a while because the PDFs were not accepted by the company so we had to scramble and find another method to send Mike’s documents and it took so long that we timed out of the company website and could not get back in and by that time it was almost 10:00 in the evening.
Today Bill was able to help Mike and it seems that Mike has gotten a job but we are hesitant since we have been down this road before not popping bottles yet. Bill stated that Mike should take us out to dinner if and when things start rolling. A nice pie at Grimaldi’s will suffice.
Meanwhile, for me, I fear I am in hot water because of what the woman who trained me suggested coming down here and doing my job here, and that might come back and bite me on the tuchis, only time will tell, I suppose.
Mike was supposed to come over tonight, but now there is no need, and I am fine with that. I hope to be in bed by the time Bill gets home, but that remains to be seen. It is a scorcher though…
There’s a Catholic school in the neighborhood here and I’m seeing the boys getting out of their summer sessions. I don’t know if it’s summer school or just some place to go during the summer to keep them off the streets and out of trouble. Doesn’t seem to be a regional school so the boys walk home shanks mare. Hard to believe but 45 years ago I was one of those boys. Maybe it’s not so hard to believe if you look at the white goatee that I currently sport.
I do need to change up my dinner diet and I’m trying to figure out what I will have tonight for supper. I really don’t know. I just want something I could pick up on my way home.
Bill and I have been having deep, enjoyable discussions, and last night was all about Mike being a narcissist. I told Bill he was also a narcissist and quickly backpedaled when I explained that, of course, he’s a narcissist. He’s an actor.
That’s it for now I’m going back in momentarily because it’s too damn hot. Back in the USSR plays endlessly in my head so now I’m playing the entire white album or most of it.
As I was walking to the PATH train this morning, I saw a near collision between a man on a motorcycle, which might have been legitimate, and a large dump truck.
Motorcycle man was in the bicycle lane, and the dump truck was signaling to make a right turn, and motorcycle man was perfectly in the blind spot. It was a near collision that could have been fatal. Still, it ended up with both parties yelling at each other from a distance of 50 ft.
Neither one is going to turn from the direction they were going, but they did have to get it off their chest, calling each other four-letter words. I had a rough enough morning, and that would have set me back even more should the worst have happened..
Gemini AI rewrite like a James Baldwin essay
The day, as so many days are, began to unravel from its intended design, a thread pulling loose from the tapestry of expectation. I had been meant for the first office, the place of my genesis within this particular labyrinth, but the digital gates, those unseen arbiters of access, refused me entry. The woman who had, in another time, guided my initial steps, now offered a suggestion born of practicality and perhaps a quiet weariness: return to the office where I now generally reside. And so, I embarked upon it, an arduous trek of some twenty-five blocks, each step a testament to the capricious nature of plans.
I arrived at that first office, my shirt clinging, drenched in the city’s humid exhalation, and arrived again at my customary post, equally soaked. We are, after all, in the relentless grip of a heatwave, a brutal, suffocating presence that presses down upon the spirit as much as the flesh. Sleep, that elusive balm, had not granted its full measure of solace, the air conditioning, when it finally stirred, offering only a partial, grudging reprieve.
The previous evening had been consumed by the peculiar modern ritual of onboarding, a digital baptism for Mike into the employ of a company nestled on Maiden Lane. It was a protracted affair, a testament to the stubborn resistance of inanimate objects and inflexible systems. The PDFs, those ubiquitous carriers of officialdom, were rejected, forcing us into a frantic scramble for alternative means of transmission. The clock, that indifferent master, ticked on, and in its relentless march, we were cast out, timed out of the company website, unable to re-enter. By then, the evening had deepened into almost ten o’clock, the day’s energy bled dry by the Sisyphean task.
Today, however, Bill, with his quiet persistence, had managed to shepherd Mike through the final hurdles. It appears Mike has secured the position, yet a cautious skepticism lingers, a residue from past disappointments. We have, indeed, traversed this terrain before, and the champagne corks remain unpopped. Bill, ever the pragmatist, suggested that if and when the wheels truly begin to turn, Mike ought to treat us to dinner. A simple, honest pie at Grimaldi’s, he mused, would suffice.
For my own part, a subtle dread begins to coil within me. The woman’s suggestion, that seemingly innocuous directive to work from this office today, may yet prove to be a misstep, a miscalculation that returns to bite me on the tuchis. Only time, that most patient and unforgiving of judges, will reveal the consequences. Mike’s visit, once anticipated for this evening, is now rendered unnecessary, and I find myself surprisingly content with this unforeseen solitude. I harbor the faint hope of being nestled in my bed before Bill’s return, though that, too, remains suspended in the uncertain air of this scorching night.
In this neighborhood, a Catholic school stands, and I watched the boys emerge from their summer sessions, a small diaspora of youth spilling onto the pavement. Whether it is summer school or merely a place to contain their boundless energy, to keep them from the streets’ more perilous temptations, I cannot say. It does not appear to be a regional institution, for they walk home, shanks mare, their own two feet carrying them through the heat. It is a curious thing to witness, and harder still to believe that forty-five years ago, I was one of them. Or perhaps, it is not so hard to believe, given the white goatee that now adorns my chin, a subtle marker of the relentless passage of seasons.
The evening’s sustenance weighs on my mind; a shift in my dinner diet is overdue. I ponder what supper might be, a question without an immediate answer, desiring only something easily acquired on my journey homeward.
Bill and I, in the quiet intimacy of our shared evenings, have been engaged in those deep, enjoyable discussions that nourish the spirit. Last night, the subject was Mike, specifically the unsettling notion of his narcissism. I, in a moment of perhaps ill-advised candor, suggested that Bill, too, possessed this trait, only to backpedal swiftly, clarifying that of course he did—he is, after all, an actor. The complexities of human self-perception, laid bare.
That is all for now. The heat, a palpable weight, calls me back inside momentarily. The refrain of “Back in the USSR” plays endlessly in the silent theater of my mind, a persistent echo, prompting me to immerse myself in the entirety, or at least most, of the White Album.
This morning, on my walk to the PATH train, the mundane routine was shattered by the specter of a near collision. A man on a motorcycle, its legitimacy perhaps questionable, and a large dump truck, a behemoth of the urban landscape. The motorcycle, a fragile presence, occupied the bicycle lane, precisely in the dump truck’s blind spot as it signaled a right turn. It was a moment suspended, fraught with the potential for fatality. Yet, it resolved into a cacophony of shouts, both parties unleashing a torrent of four-letter words across fifty feet of asphalt. Neither, it seemed, would deviate from their chosen trajectory, but the venom had to be expelled, the indignity aired. My morning had already been sufficiently arduous; such an event, had it escalated to its worst conclusion, would have set me back immeasurably.