Saturday, August 30.
I’m in Tribeca. In the same spot I used to spend my lunch break on Thomas Street, once again, I sit and smoke a cigar. No anxiety that used to occur back in the day.
I was hoping that the Pixel 6a microphone would work. So I sit and type and smoke.
Mike is out of the picture due to things that he has to deal with.
Bill is preparing for the afternoon matinee of Postal Madness.
I am going to the Pleasure Chest.
The line for the Oasis pop-up shop is around the block
It was just said that I’m a ‘smooth nigga‘

Santiago Cohen
I knew you
35 years ago
For less than an hour
Yet your flame burns
In my heart
As I pass
Your former residence

It was a four day work week for me, and since I took a personal time off from work, I also did the same for writing. Yet, today I found myself somehow wanting to write. Or as Truman Capote said of Jack Kerouac, ‘That’s not writing, that’s typing.’ Perhaps in that sense, I am akin to Jack Kerouac.

I walked about 10 miles, though one or two miles was spent being transported on the ferry from the mainland to Manhattan. The PATH station is closed this weekend in Hoboken, and the ferry was just $3.00. I call that a bargain.

I walked through the neighborhood of Bratty McGrotty and I was tempted before heading out to make some anti-Joselito Semana stickers but I thought better of it and continued to think even less of it.

I saw an AVL3 post on social media smoking an Oliva cigar and decided that I, too, would enjoy an Oliva cigar. I lit up outside the store where I used to sometimes buy a cigar at lunc,h and walked to Thomas Street where this post started.

It was a leisurely walk through some former stomping grounds. No emotional attachments, just memories of jobs and shops where friends used to work 40 years ago. I strolled and enjoyed my cigar, not sticking around long enough to see if anyone was bothered by the smoke. I myself was a bit concerned with looking like a tourist, of which there were many.

I made it to the Pleasure Chest just as I was finished with the Oliva cigar. I walked in, it was narrower than last time I was there and I was certain I was there before, possibly with dear Pedro whom I am fondly missing today for some reason. Oh, the hard time he would give me for associating with Mike.

The Pleasure Chest did not have what I wanted, and their suggestions were out of my price range. I did find an item which might have satisfied my curiosity, but only time will reveal that.

40 years ago, or even 30 years ago, walking around Manhattan on a pleasant summer afternoon would not have been too much of a big deal. Today I am feeling it.