I guess the holiday shopping season has started already because I just bought two items for the Toys for Tots campaign in the office. I got a remote control robot dog and a remote control triceratops. Both are a little over $20 together. I went to look for items for myself and saw those, and figured that it would be better off if I had the box next to my desk, which had been empty for the past couple of days, so I’m doing my bit
Last night was a mellow night at home, no complaints. Mike stated that he wants to take Bill and me out for a nice dinner, and the way of thanking us for all the things that we have done for him in the past year, I’m all for it, as is Bill. You just have to figure out where to go; will it be in Manhattan? Will it be in Hoboken?
It’s a cold, humid afternoon on the street outside my office building as I puff on the mini cigar.
It’s cold, but not that cold. People are dressed up like it’s February, and it most certainly is not. Trains were not crowded this morning, and the office is mostly empty once again on a Friday.
Bill is finishing his gig today and is headed back to the depot. Mike is at his crib getting ready for his gig. I am done with gigs until Monday. And that’s alright with me.
This morning, while sleeping, I had a vivid dream. An old friend, Steve Sapp, was at a party that many of the friends we had in common were at. I looked in the room where they all were and couldn’t make out any of them. But there was Steve with Frank Sinatra, who had placed a wooden matchstick in Steve’s belt loop and was about to set it on fire as a prank. Revenge for a prank Steve had played on Ol’ Blue Eyes previously.
It was the last dream I remembered before waking up from a good night’s sleep. The fruit stand was going to run out of milk, so I took it upon myself to get a quart, which took me out of the usual route to work. I walked down 13th Street, looking at the things I rarely see since I rarely walk down that street.
I did see the Quad Cinema, which I last visited in the 1980s. I think it was a Luis Buñuel film, but I could be mistaken. I do remember that it was a small theater with 3 other small screens. I did see Luis Buñuel’s The Milky Way at the Cinema Village in the 1980s, before that cinema was converted into 3 screens. I also saw Todd Browning’s Freaks even before seeing Bunuel.
Last night was a good phone call with Mike about theology and religion. He seems to be turning into an agnostic which I had to explain to him. Mike prefers the term ‘deconstructed Christian’ from a dude we both follow on the social medias. We made plans for him to come over early this morning and he was going to accompany me on my errands.
I texted soon after waking up and called him a few times to no avail. He wasn’t answering his phone. I went out and did my errands solo. I went to the dispensary on 15th Street in Hoboken to refill my gummy supply. The guy at the front door was too friendly, and it made for an awkward conversation.
I had my gummies in the online cart, but the door guy could not find it despite my telling him it would not be under the name on my ID. He eventually let me in, and said ‘Jesus’ loud enough for me to comment that people always get me & Jesus confused, and I ain’t him.
The sales bloke behind the counter could not find my online cart and asked when I placed the order. I told him last night, and he explained that the carts are wiped out overnight. I guess it made sense, but when I got home, I looked up my car,t and my order from last night was still there.
It was a disappointment since I usually enjoy the 5 minutes I spend in this dispensary.
It turned out Mike was sleeping and did not consider texting me to let me know that the plans we had made last night were not coming to fruition. That was annoying. When he did eventually call me, he was apologetic. I told him that it wasn’t cool to ghost me like that when all it would take was a text to clear the air.
It was all too similar to an earlier occurrence when the plans we had made were just ignored, and the reason was ludicrous. Things have gotten somewhat better. Last week he was here at my crib and slept for hours in bed as he was that tired. His body is accustomed to the 10:45 PM to 7:00 AM so his days are spent taking it down and trying to sleep during the day.
Last night, I signed off around 11:00 PM, whereas he stayed up unable to sleep in his apartment. I do plan on giving him the melatonin I do not take anymore with the advisory not to take it every night or in his case, every day.
A Dorothy Parker essay by way of Google Gemini
## On the Indecent Rush of Things
The calendar, which ought to know better, insists it is merely November. But the stores, with their sickening, determined cheer, tell another tale. The annual fever—which is really nothing more than a desperate, thinly veiled panic—has begun. The office, in its customary gesture toward social grace, has installed a box for those poor little souls destined to receive **Toys for Tots**. I, naturally, did my bit.
One finds oneself in the curious position of looking for trifles one does not need, and instead stumbling upon something that suggests **duty**. I snagged a pair of mechanical pets—a robot dog, if you please, and a triceratops with remote-control pretensions. Twenty dollars, gone. They’re sitting, I imagine, in the box now, performing their small service, justifying the otherwise appalling emptiness of my own week. A charitable gesture is always so much more palatable when it’s merely a side-effect of a failed self-indulgence.
—
### Of Dinner, Dreams, and Deconstructed Faith
Last evening was mercifully quiet. A domestic stupor, disturbed only by the pleasant, if somewhat alarming, generosity of Mike. It seems that he and his conscience are now demanding that Bill and I be taken out for a **nice dinner**. A thank-you, apparently, for having sustained him through another trip around the sun. I am all for it. Bill is all for it. One simply has to decide whether the setting will be Manhattan—which demands a certain performance—or Hoboken, which, bless its heart, demands less. A question, really, of how much energy one wishes to spend on the journey before settling in to drink.
I stepped out just now for a brief communion with a small, ill-advised cigar. The weather, I should tell you, is in its usual state of indecision—**cold, but not *that* cold**—and managing to be humid all at once. People, however, are dressed for February, proving once again that the greatest theatrical performance of the year is often simply the morning commute. The trains were empty, the office is a mausoleum, and so we all drift toward the weekend, exhausted by the mere *idea* of Friday.
Bill is finishing his last chore, Mike is preparing for his, and I am, by the grace of all that is holy, done until Monday. This, as they say, is what one works for.
—
This morning offered a peculiar grace in the form of a vivid dream. It was a party—always the setting for minor cruelty—attended by old friends. I couldn’t distinguish a single face, yet there was Steve Sapp, quite clear, having a marvelous time with **Frank Sinatra**. The climax, I recall, was Ol’ Blue Eyes, his eye gleaming with the malice of the truly bored, preparing to ignite a wooden matchstick tucked into Steve’s belt loop. Revenge, it seems, is a dish best served with a cheap theatrical prop.
After a solid, if slightly absurd, night’s sleep, I was faced with a real-world crisis: the fruit stand would run out of milk. This small domestic urgency rerouted my walk to work, forcing me down 13th Street and into the past. I saw the **Quad Cinema**, that pocket-sized shrine where I once watched, or possibly *tried* to watch, a Luis Buñuel film in the 1980s. Ah, the sheer pretension of the arthouse in one’s youth. I also remember seeing *Freaks*—a film that, frankly, gave one less pause than some of the more serious pronouncements of M. Buñuel.
The evening before had contained another lengthy, pleasant phone call with Mike, wherein he announced he was becoming an **agnostic**. He preferred, however, the more cumbersome, contemporary term of a ‘deconstructed Christian,’ a phrase which suggests that one has merely taken a hammer to one’s spiritual architecture and is calling the resulting rubble *progress*. We made plans for him to come early and accompany me on my weekend errands.
—
### The Anatomy of an Annoyance
I texted, I called. Nothing. One goes out alone.
The first stop was the dispensary in Hoboken, necessitated by a dwindling supply of the only thing that makes the world remotely tolerable. The man at the door was one of those aggressively genial types who make you wish you’d stayed home and stared at the wall. The conversation was an agony of enforced familiarity, culminating in his inability to locate my online order. When he finally let me in, he muttered, “**Jesus**” with a loud sigh.
“Funny,” I said, with what I hoped was withering politeness. “People always seem to get us confused.”
The sales clerk, no more competent than his colleague, informed me that the carts are *wiped clean overnight*. It sounded vaguely reasonable, and I retreated, mildly disappointed that my five minutes of escapism had been spoiled by bureaucratic incompetence. Imagine my chagrin when I returned home to find the entire order, pristine and mocking, still in the virtual cart.
Mike, of course, was merely sleeping. He had not, naturally, considered that a quick text might save someone else from marching down a street in pursuit of an errand now rendered pointless. When he eventually called, his apologies were the usual thin, apologetic film one learns to expect. I told him it was **not cool** to ghost a plan. It reminded me, distressingly, of a previous episode where a ludicrous reason was given for an identical offense.
He’s perpetually tired, you see. His body is still on the schedule of the gig economy—10:45 P.M. to 7:00 A.M.—and so his days are spent attempting to cram the necessities of life into the margins of a schedule built for bats. He was here last week, sleeping for hours in my bed, a great, weary testament to the modern condition. Last night, I signed off at 11:00 P.M., while he lay awake. I shall give him the **melatonin** I no longer take, though I shall first offer the necessary caveat: that even sleep, when taken too earnestly, can become a kind of punishment.
—
Would you care for a small, dry martini to help shake off the day’s petty indignities?