Having not really written for about 2 weeks, thereabouts, I don’t think it’s so bad that I’m doing it today or just about every day this week, it’s Friday, it’s January 9th, not really anything to complain about
Had a nice long talk with Mike earlier this morning, over an hour a range of subjects, including religion and the Buddhist monks who are on the walk. Maybe a dozen Buddhist monks are doing a walk for peace, and they’re being hassled by Christians for not believing in Jesus.
That greatly upset Mike. When I came home yesterday, I did ask Mike to leave a window open when he left, and he did. I should have also mentioned to turn off the heat, but he didn’t, and didn’t think about it, so that’s on me.
I turned on my computer and his stuff opened up on my screen, and maybe being a nosy bugger, I took a look, and I saw things that I felt were none of my business, but I looked anyway.
He’s quite a character who has over 10,000 followers on X, formerly known as Twitter, and so many of them want to be his slave, and they come out and say so in writing or in voicemails, and I heard a voicemail, and I read the writings, and it was distressing, and I was thinking to myself, why am I messing around with this guy?
And then I realized I had brought this up to him before, and a lot of these guys are with the other side of the country or another part of the world, and I do have something that they don’t have, and there’s a nice bond between us, so I really can’t say anything about it.
I should have minded my own business, and eventually I did shut it down and did not look at it again
He’s a good kid, and we do have something not necessarily physical but more like emotional and fraternal, for lack of a better phrase, perhaps parental would be the better phrase.
It’s January 9th, Friday, and the temperature is in the 50s. Mark has given me an assignment which I will start on Monday morning and should take less than a minute to do. It is an important task, and I don’t mind doing it.
It’s that time of year when cousin Neil will be sending out an invite for a pizza party down in central Jersey? South Jersey? Nothing yet, it’s probably too soon, but it’s probably in the works if it’s going to happen at all.
I slept really well last night. The past couple of weeks, Mike has been in bed with me, not doing anything, just sleeping and hanging out with me for dear life. He needs to be hugged, but sometimes his need is so great that after a few minutes, I start to lose circulation, and whatever led me, he’s hanging on to what should let you know that it’s definitely not sexual if that’s the case
Joan Baez was born in Staten Island today in 1941
Goil Benti, Charity Williams, and Kate Miller are three bots that have started following me today online.
Fell down the rabbit hole of my past once again, looking up John Nesselt, who lives somewhere in New Jersey, wherever that is. John and I went to high school together, and there was a third, Jim Carley, who dropped out of a heart attack in 1997 while jogging.
Let that be a lesson to you, jogging is not good for your health.
John has maintained a zero internet presence, which is fine. I went to the high school reunion in the year 2000 and hoped that I would see him or Jim, but neither one was there. I did not know Jim had died.
John and I had playful arguments about who is better, Elton, whom I preferred to Billy Joel, whom John preferred. I haven’t seen them since graduation night in 1980, and I suppose that’s fine. We have changed since then, I think Jim Carley the most since he’s dead. John is a registered Republican, which is disconcerting, but then again, it’s been close to 40 years now, and I have no idea what he’s like, and I’m sure he has no idea what I’m like
Sometimes I think of the only person who pays a fare to get on the PATH train
Google Gemini rewrite as a Sarah Vowell essay:
It is Friday, January 9th—a date most notable in the secular calendar for being the day Joan Baez was born in Staten Island in 1941. It’s also fifty degrees outside, a temperature that feels less like a winter thaw and more like a clerical error on the part of the atmosphere.
I haven’t written in two weeks. In the grand timeline of the American experiment, two weeks is a mere blink—the length of a particularly contentious Congressional recess—but in the life of a person who is supposed to be “productive,” it feels like a silent, growing monument to sloth. I’m breaking that silence today, mostly because the world outside is too weird to ignore.
### The Peace Walk and the Thermostat
Earlier, I had a long, rambling conversation with Mike. We covered the usual ground, but eventually hit on the Buddhist monks currently conducting a peace walk. There are about a dozen of them, wandering through the landscape like a gentle, saffron-robed anachronism. Apparently, they are being relentlessly heckled by Christians who are offended by their lack of Jesus.
It’s a very American scene: a group of people walking quietly to promote the absence of violence, only to be shouted at by people who ostensibly follow a man who said “blessed are the peacemakers.” Mike was deeply upset by this. I was mostly thinking about the thermostat.
Yesterday, I asked Mike to leave a window open, which he did—God bless his literal mind. However, I forgot to tell him to turn off the heat. When I walked in, the apartment was a battleground of competing climates:
* **The Window:** A portal to the unseasonable fifties.
* **The Radiator:** A relentless engine of 19th-century industrial heat.
I suppose that’s on me. In any diplomatic negotiation, the failure to specify the withdrawal of resources—in this case, ConEd’s finest BTUs—is a rookie mistake.
—
### The Digital Serfdom of Mike
Then, because I am a nosy person by nature and a voyeur by circumstance, I looked at his computer. Mike is a “character” on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter, and currently known as a digital shouting match in a basement). He has ten thousand followers.
What I discovered is that a terrifyingly large percentage of these followers want to be his slave. I don’t mean that metaphorically. They send voicemails. They write manifestos of subservience. It was distressing. I sat there wondering why I was “messing around” with a man who has a literal digital infantry of willing servants.
But then I realized: those guys are in Ohio or Singapore. I’m the one here. We have a bond that is less “Master and Commander” and more “Parent and Erratic Teenager.” It’s an emotional, fraternal thing. He sleeps in my bed sometimes—not for sex, but for dear life. He clings to me with the desperate intensity of a shipwreck survivor, often to the point where I lose circulation in my left arm. It’s hard to feel like a romantic lead when you’re worried about gangrene.
### A Lesson in Mortality (and Jogging)
I spent the rest of the afternoon falling down a rabbit hole of my own history, specifically looking up **John Nesselt**.
* **The Backdrop:** Graduation, 1980.
* **The Conflict:** I was an Elton John partisan; he was a Billy Joel loyalist. It was the Cold War of soft rock.
I haven’t seen him since the night we threw our caps in the air. I found out today he’s a registered Republican in New Jersey, which is a particular kind of heartbreak, like finding out your favorite childhood park has been paved over to build a Chick-fil-A.
Then there was our third friend, **Jim Carley**. Jim dropped dead of a heart attack in 1997 while jogging. Let that be a grim lesson to the health-conscious: the road to physical fitness is often just a shortcut to the morgue. I went to our reunion in the year 2000 hoping to see them. I didn’t know Jim was dead; I just thought he was late. Jim has changed the most of all of us, primarily by becoming a ghost.
—
### The Lone Citizen
Today, three bots named Goil Benti, Charity Williams, and Kate Miller started following me. They aren’t real, of course. They’re just lines of code designed to mimic human interest, which honestly makes them the perfect audience for the modern age.
On Monday, I start a task for Mark. It’s “important,” yet takes less than a minute. This is the ideal American labor: high stakes, low effort. And soon, there will be an invite for a pizza party from Cousin Neil in Jersey. Central Jersey? South Jersey? The geography is irrelevant; the grease is the point.
I ended the day thinking about the PATH train. Sometimes I feel like I am the only person left in this city who actually pays the fare. I stand there, feeding my card into the slot like a chump, while everyone else vaults over the turnstile. I am the last vestige of the social contract, standing on a platform, waiting for a train that is probably late, while the Buddhist monks are being yelled at and my friends are either Republicans or dead.
> “The only thing more exhausting than following the rules is watching everyone else break them for free.”