Author Archives: johnozed

About johnozed

I'm 50+ years old, 210-ish#, 6'2", reddish blonde, blue eyes with glasses (and without) masculine, funny, relatively intelligent, enjoy the company of assorted friends and family especially sordid friends and family. I love music, reading, writing, conversing, laughing, going to films, shows, concerts and smoking cigars. And I also enjoy looking nice in a suit and tie. Looking more like Lewis Lapham than Tom Wolfe. I'm sure there is more, but we'll just have to find out when I write about it. In a lifetime relationship with partner Bill Vila.

Who Has Seen the Wind?

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Oh what a weird bus ride home. First off, the bus was crawling back to Hoboken through the Lincoln Tunnel. I thought we were going to breakdown. It was like the driver had the emergency brake on. There was also a priest on the bus and I should have sat next to him, if only I had a Christopher Hitchens/Sam Harris/Richard Dawkins book on me. They wrote books in the past year or so in favor of atheism. I could have engaged the priest in a discussion on the existence of god.

It might have been fun, but no, I took an empty seat behind a cat lady with one of her cats, a white cat with hair all over the place. The cat or the cat lady was heavily medicated, you can smell it. Oh it was a nasty pharmaceutical odor. It started to turn my stomach, enough that I almost got off the bus at the first opportunity.

I have nothing against cat people or people on medications, this was just a foul odor. I’m glad I’m not allergic to cats since there was cat hair all over the seats. And there was another cat person on the bus but she had her cat in a carrier, whereas cat lady had her white cat in a duffel bag that she alternately murmured to and cursed at. I did get off the bus at the usual stop.

Work once again was dreadfully slow. Just three of us in the office out of eight. Greg Stevens one of the three, left the office at 12:00 to head out to the Hamptons. Then Marty Allen left at 3:00, leaving me solo. I stayed until 4:30. I’m taking off tomorrow to get my crap ready for the gate sale on Saturday. Bought some dot stickers so I could price things properly.

Some things were gifts from friends and family that I have absolutely no use for, and I could use the money. I would rather sell these items rather than lugging them back up five flights of stairs. If you’re in the neighborhood, I’ll be out from 10:00-4:00. In theory that is. If nothing is happening and it gets too hot then I might just quit early and call it a day. Who knows? Maybe I’ll sell everything really quick. That would be nice.

I just got an invitation to a wedding party in Walton NY. My friend Lois just married her guy, Fred. They’ve been going out for more than twenty years, so I guess the time is right. The party is August 2, which may be doable, but I am also trying to finagle an invitation to go down the Jersey Shore and stay with my brother Frank and his family. I was invited last year and couldn’t go, so this year might be possible. I’ll find out more this weekend when I see the Garfield contingent on Sunday.

I can still smell the meds from the bus ride. I also got the latest Mojo Magazine with the Sex Pistols on the cover, looking their age, fifty something and Uncut Magazine with CSNY on the cover not looking their age with a snapshot from 1969. I guess if it was a shot of CSNY today, people might get confused and think they were picking up an issue from AARP. I really shouldn’t talk. In five years I’ll be eligible for a subscription to AARP.

Just got back from an errand. Went to the library and picked up ‘We All Shine On: The Stories Behind Every John Lennon song from 1970-1980’ by Paul Du Noyer, a Mojo/Uncut writer. Also picked up ‘Tweaked’ by Nic Sheff, the son of David Sheff, who wrote the last book I read, ‘Beautiful Boy’ about his son’s methamphetamine addiction. This is the son’s side of the story. And 2 slices of pizza at $3.00 per slice. It’s that price all over Hoboken, blaming the cost of shipping flour.

There’s no escape.

Taxi

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Well today is a weird day. I had to leave work early to get some paperwork from my dentist at the dental school. I was in and out of there in 10 minutes. I left my office at 2:15, telling Tom Chin that I had a 3:00 appointment. I chatted with Rand on the phone, lot’s of larfs with Rand.

We talked about the weather forecast on Saturday, 40% chance of thunderstorms on the day of our respective gate sales. We also talked about Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell, a Rock Classic and the Pretenders 1st album which is still a fantastic debut that they’ve yet to top or equal.

I decided to head back to the office when I looked at my watch, it was 3:30 and figured ‘what the hell, I’d be leaving in an hour anyhow’, so I just walked across town to the bus terminal instead. I checked my voice mail at work while walking down 42nd street. And there were no messages. Came home, changed my clothes and checked my office email.

There was a message from Vivek asking me to book a flight from San Francisco to Seattle. I checked my office voice mail again and there was Vivek asking me the same thing, leaving his credit card info so I could make the reservation. Of course as I am researching from home, there’s another message asking about flights from San Jose to Seattle.

So I research that when Vivek calls. I tell him if he flies from San Jose he won’t be getting to Seattle until 2:30 in the morning due to a transfer and plane change in Las Vegas. He says to go ahead with the San Francisco research. I get him three flights, all under $200.00, going one way which is what he wanted. As far as I know now, Vivek is in the San Francisco airport waiting for one of three flights.

He’s doing the booking himself. I’m tethered to the computer just in case. I hope he doesn’t insist on my getting a blackberry. Today was a lot cooler than it’s been the past 4 days. It’s been in the 80 degree range. I walked down to the dental school and back and I wasn’t nearly as sweaty as I would have been yesterday just walking around the block.

Last night, after watching Keith Olbermann and The Daily Show/Colbert Report I watched back to back episodes of the Office, which was just as uncomfortable on TBS as it is on NBC. The first episode was all about a joint found in the parking lot and Michael convincing Dwight to pee in a cup for him, forcing Dwight to betray his morals and resign as an auxiliary police officer. That was strangely sad to watch since Dwight is generally an unlikable buffoon.

The 2nd episode was all about complaints in the office that were given to sad sack Toby. After that it was time to sleep and I didn’t hit Bill at all while we slept. Which was good for the both of us I suppose. I was also fired up after reading someone’s blog last night which got me to write some more. I don’t do that often obviously but decided to post rather than leave it floating around somewhere like a managing director in the San Francisco airport.

Harpy, keep the change.