The other side of the day
Tuesday afternoon, 1:51, October 4th…no November 4th election day. That’s what it was a year ago today Barry McGarry let me go.
It was a shock but then again it was not a shop I was on thin ice and working with babies not in a maternity ward but millennials and they were nightmarish I’m still working with millennials but they’re not as sensitive or as spoiled as they used to be at 11 Park Place.
It’s a beautiful autumn day which is sort of a misnomer for me but what can you do here we are it’s pleasant it’s not too cold it’s a beautiful blue sky.
I just exchanged pleasantries with a DJ from Hot 97 here in New York who was on X this morning it was very funny he asked a question of Andrew Cuomo in New York who Trump has claimed as his number one pick and this DJ brought it up again a few times and then Cuomo just hung up the phone cuz he knew he couldn’t win
Being in the tri-state area you get inundated with advertisements for all candidates in this area and we will be glad it is over tomorrow.
I sit and smoke a small cigar as I am known to do. I just had some halal food which wasn’t bad but it wasn’t necessarily feeling and I wasn’t hungry I only ate because it was time to eat which is something I have to work on.
I did the open enrollment for health insurance yesterday and instead of sweating the cost I remembered and told myself all for good in case I get sick etc etc
Yancy is expected in the office tomorrow morning with Lex Luthor so it’s all hands on deck and preparations for the visit go on this afternoon. It did not happen since Lex Luthor has been out all week.
I spoke to my sister-in-law last night please going through her things as everyone goes through their own thing she invited us to Thanksgiving dinner and I inquired about Mike and she said he could come.
So when I mentioned it to Bill a week or so ago he was dead set against it as was Jimmy Chile when I brought it up this morning. I have hope that things will turn out but anything is really possible and Mike does not know.
I am going to run it by Bill once again see if he’s changed his mind since they both enjoyed each other’s company over the weekend and if we lay down ground rules for Mike’s behavior and could work out for everyone. Or I could just be wildly off days that could be a complete disaster. That in and of itself could be a problem but only time will tell.
Mike has ordered a chair for me and my computer which is supposed to be tomorrow delivery. Bill will be home to accept it and hopefully put it together because I am hopelessly inept with that type of thing. This is Mike’s birthday present to me.
The chair was delivered last night. I carried it up the four flights of steps and left the box unopened in the kitchen. Things had gone sideways for me and Bill. He has the van from Pennsylvania bus company and parked it next to our neighbor’s driveway and they were okay with it though I was concerned with the angle that they’d have to go in and out of their driveway and discuss that with Bill over the phone and he lost his shit and went off on me.
That left me hesitant to go home last night but I went home anyway. He was most uncommunicative until I ate even though I wasn’t hungry and yet I was in a good mood it but did not go well. I did eat and after I ate he found the time to tell me all the things that I had done wrong and what a bad person I am.
I didn’t say much I just took it all and communicated with Mike via a text who is heartbroken about the uncomfortableness between me and Bill.
After an hour or so of silence they’ll ask if I was still angry with him. I replied that I was not angry with him I was never angry with him he was angry with me and I also expressed how afraid I was to come home last night.
Things are a bit cold between us right now no communication whatsoever neither one of us is following the other online which is okay I suppose.
He explained that he does a lot for me and I don’t do nearly enough which is a surprise to me but he’s about to find out how little I actually can do.
Now It’s Wednesday October 5th I am on lunch smoking the rest of my little cigar. I walked down to Housing Works and bought a vape device what’s at the moment seems to be quite satisfactory.
It is actually a very nice afternoon not too cold not too warm pleasant all around This is the autumn days that people sport wood for. I can understand it but they’re few and far between and you have to go through some rotten conditions to get to a day like this.
The young man at Housing Works name was Aiden and he was quite helpful.
Yesterday was election day. Bill and I voted on Sunday when things were better between us seems so long ago. My mayoral candidate in Hoboken did not win although she did get 2,000 plus votes. The governor I voted for did win.
Living in the tri-state area we were inundated with ads for the New York City mayoral candidacy and though we couldn’t vote we did have a favorite and he actually won. He’s a Muslim and they were trying to stoke that islamophobia because he’s also a democratic socialist. But he won by quite a large margin, Mamdani.
I’ve been thinking about getting a haircut but walking around the village at lunch time seeing so many other haircuts I decided to let my hair grow cuz everyone else is getting shorter cuts
I’ve been lax in posting only because I’ve been distracted. Head butting with Bill and generally not head butting with Bill in that order.
Bill asked me on Tuesday after unloading on me if I was still angry with him. The thing is, I was not angry. I was in a good mood and stepped aside so he could say what he needed to say. And after saying that and me not saying anything he seems to have realized that he was a bit on the wrong side.
Things improved. Whereas the night before it was a kiss good night, the night after we fell back into our good night routine, loving silliness. We’re better together than at loggerheads.
So my job at least part of it is dealing with the artists and their people and making sure they’re comfortable and set up with whatever they need generally the people have been nice Young Jeezy Ghostface Killa etc.
Today’s so-called artist last hit the charts 13 years ago. Today he walks in I say hello and he gives me the finger.
Daniel Sewell or as he was known 13 years ago, Danny Brown.
The only thing his gesture meant to me was how little I would do for him. Not that I do anything extraordinary, just pleasantries, a fist bump and showing where the green room is. This green haired punk ass got nothing.
Bill is on the road, won’t be back till Sunday. Mike was planning on coming over tonight but we moved that to tomorrow. All is well.
google gemini rewrite as a Joan Didion essay
The Angle of Entry
It was Tuesday, November 4th, or perhaps it was October. The dates had begun to run together, a kind of fluid accounting that only matters when you need a fixed point to mark an absence. A year ago, on an election day just like this one, Barry McGarry had let me go. I remember the shock, which was not shock at all, only the inevitable collision with an anticipated velocity. I had been working with the babies, with the eternally sensitive and perpetually spoiled millennials of 11 Park Place. It was not a maternity ward, merely a theatre of small, daily emotional injuries.
Now it is a year later. The air is beautiful, an autumnal deceit—blue, clean, and carrying a sharp clarity. A beautiful day, which is always, in this context, a kind of misnomer.
I sat then and I sit now. Smoking the small cigar I am known to smoke. I had just consumed the halal, which was, as these things often are, neither bad nor good, only sufficient. I ate because it was time to eat, an act of sheer, unexamined discipline. This is a point of personal economy, something to work on, like the annual health insurance sign-up where you sweat the cost until you simply remember the point: all for good, in case one gets sick, which is to say, in case one finally breaks.
The election noise was everywhere, unavoidable, a low, persistent thrum across the tri-state area. The candidates, desperate, filling the airspace with warnings and promises. I exchanged pleasantries with a DJ—a figure from the digital current, who had, earlier, pushed Andrew Cuomo into silence on X. Cuomo, claimed by Trump, unable to find the correct inflection, finally hung up. It was a failure of rhetoric, easily observed, quickly forgotten. Tomorrow, the noise would stop.
But the real landscape was closer to home, and far less easily fixed.
I had mentioned Thanksgiving to Bill. A simple inquiry: my sister-in-law was cleaning out her life, making space, extending an invitation. Would Mike—his presence being the crucial variable, the point of possible fracture—be welcome? She said he could come. Bill was dead set against it. Jimmy Chile was dead set against it. I had hope. This is often the point where the narrative collapses. Hope, like the chair Mike had ordered as a birthday gift, was supposed to arrive tomorrow.
But the chair came last night.
It sat, an unopened box, after I had carried it up the four flights of steps. The failure had already occurred, the thing already gone sideways. It began with the van, parked by Bill, adjacent to the neighbor’s driveway. I called to mention the angle of entry, the potential difficulty for them to maneuver. And Bill lost his shit. A clean, total loss of temper over a geometric impossibility.
The hesitation to go home was a pure, physical reflex. I went anyway. The subsequent uncommunicative coldness, the silence until I ate (despite not being hungry), was only the prelude. Once I had completed the necessary domestic act, he found the time, the voice, to itemize my offenses. He told me all the things I had done wrong. He told me what a bad person I was.
I did not say much. I took it all in. I noted, via text, the heartbreaking uncomfortableness to Mike. When he finally asked if I was still angry, I told him the truth, which is often mistaken for a lie: I was not angry. I was never angry. He was angry. I merely expressed the depth of my fear in returning home.
Now, a day later, the coldness persists. The digital relationship is also suspended—neither following the other online, a final, small cessation of communication. He explained that he does a lot for me, and I do not do nearly enough. This is a surprise, but perhaps I will let him discover just how little I actually can do.
It is Wednesday. I am on lunch. I am finishing the small cigar and contemplating the new vape device, purchased from the young man named Aiden at Housing Works, which seems, for the moment, quite satisfactory. This weather—the days people sport wood for, as the vulgarity goes—comes at the price of the rotten conditions necessary to birth it.
I am dealing, as is my job, with the artists. The pleasantries, the fist bump, the showing of the green room. Young Jeezy, Ghostface Killa—these were fine. Today’s artist, Daniel Sewell, last charted thirteen years ago. He walked in, I said hello, and he gave me the finger. A green-haired punk-ass. The only thing his gesture confirmed was the absolute minimum I would do for him. No more than the minimum.
Bill is on the road until Sunday. Mike is coming tomorrow. The coldness is simply the air we breathe right now, waiting for the loving silliness to resume, waiting for the eventual, inevitable next shift. We are better together than at loggerheads. This is the truth we operate on. All is well, or rather, all is precisely as it is.