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.

Fly Me To The Moon

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It’s Thursday. No big deal. Last night was no big deal either. There was the dental appointment which went well. Only spent $90.00 for that visit. Spoke to my sister Annemarie on the phone. Her son Earl is sick with the flu and that sucks. But it’s the flu, he’s healthy so he’ll rebound with no problem. Came home, watched Law and Order Criminal Investigation and that was good. It was a repeat and it didn’t get hairy until the last ten minutes. After that was Law and Order the original that Bill was supposed to be in as an extra but they cut his scene. Nevertheless it was a very good episode and dealt with Jack McCoy in the second half, ending with a Bobby Kennedy tie pin from 1968 which touched Jack greatly.

Then it was bedtime for me. Slept really well, woke up on time too. Of course the first instinct was, ‘I don’t wanna go to work today’, but I had to. Many things to do today. Clients coming in, and I had to set up Greg Stevens conference call. I swear, if Greg ever figured out keyboard shortcuts I’d likely be out of a job. At least several times a day, he calls me into his office to fix something on his computer. This morning he needed to get the Microsoft Office helper off his screen. It just popped up and made Greg feel distracted.

There were a few other tasks that I had to do, and one of them was staying the hell out of Tom Chin’s way. He was on the warpath, but it didn’t have anything to do with me. Today is Valentine’s day. I ordered some flowers on Saturday to be delivered yesterday to Bill’s office. Of course they were delivered after Bill left for the day. But technically they were delivered on time. Apparently Bill ordered flowers for me on Tuesday, for a Wednesday delivery before I went to the dental appointment. By the end of the day today, Thursday, they still hadn’t arrived.

We made plans to go to Arthur’s for steaks for Valentine’s day, a nice idea since Bill and I haven’t seen each other in weeks, but somewhere down the line the plan changed and we’re staying here, Bill sleeping over, and having Grimaldi’s pizza which is how my birthday wound up last year. At least then we made it to Arthur’s, and since their credit card machine wasn’t working we bailed and came home for Grimaldi’s pizza on my suggestion. Today it was all Bill’s suggestion. Arthur’s, no Arthur’s, pizza instead. I don’t mind I’m pretty tired but I must confess I was looking forward to having a pint or two of Guinness, a juicy steak and perhaps a cigar while walking around Hoboken.

Still, now I’m in slippers, housecoat and curlers and I’m not going anywhere. Definitely looking forward to a three day weekend, have some dvd’s to watch. I have The Namesake, The Bourne Ultimatum and Hard Eight. I heard good things about all three, and I do enjoy the Jason Bourne movies. Hard Eight was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson so that should be interesting at least. And The Namesake is directed by Mira Nair so let’s hear it for Indian Chick directors! Namaste bitches!

And here is a pic of me in my Valentine’s Day finery. A red tie basically.
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And what is going on with the school shootings? Lawrence King, 15 years old killed at his middle school the other day in Oxnard, today a shooter goes shooting at Northern Illinois University. Crazy.

Let It Shine

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Well it’s Wednesday and it was a bloody wet Wednesday at that. Woke up to Help Me Rhonda by the Beach Boys. I sort of gave up on the new wave old rock station. I can depend on WCBS to give me something recognizable and if not that, then Mr. G’s weather forecasts will get me out of bed fast enough. This morning was water water water. Last night was snow, freezing rain. It was a mess this morning, that’s for sure. I wound up walking in the street since they were clearer than the sidewalks and I didn’t want to land on my tuchis like I had on past winter mornings. The bus stop was crowded with people which meant the buses were running late.

I didn’t mind, the bus pulled up in front of me and I jumped on, settled in and read the New Yorker, about a murder in Poland which resembled a murder mystery written by a Polish intellectual. It’s interesting enough but eventually I had to get off the bus and head to the office. The office was empty again, no one in. Long distance commuters working from home, less interaction meant more time for myself and my work and time to get anxious about my dental appointment tonight. I felt like I was a dead man walking.

I knew my teeth were in rotten shape but not so bad. I was worried since my brother Frank had a stroke due to a dental infection, and my smoking could not have helped matters. Yes I plan on giving up the fags this year, and by fags I mean cigarettes. The occasional cigar should be ok, but the cigarettes are going to have to go. And now that I have put that in writing I guess I’m going to have to do it. I walked down to NYU Dental School after work, smoke free though it was stressful enough to warrant a smoke. Almost got run over by a Hampton Jitney bis and all I was doing was standing on the corner waiting for the light to change.

I got to the school, sat down and started filling out forms. SO far so good. A woman who worked there offered to help me with the paperwork so I said sure. I went with her and we sat at her tiny desk, and showed her my passport and a PSE&G bill. She looked at what I wrote on the forms and her head was moving side to side. I thought I had done something or written something wrong, but as I watched her it appeared that she had a mild case of Parkinson’s disease, causing her head to move in the side to side direction. That was a relief to me and we were done in no time flat.

I sat down waiting to be called and the same woman walked up to a few other people offering to help them out with their paperwork. They all said no, one said like a snot, ‘I don’t need your help filling out paperwork.’ Really mean. So the woman who helped me went back to her desk alone to do whatever else she had to do. It was strange, she got me through the paperwork in no time, while the other people she offered to help struggled with answers they really had to think about, like what day it was. It was basically an intake and they’re going to start me off with periodontics since my teeth are rotten. I have to call up and make an appointment tomorrow and start the long road to dental recovery.

The periodontics school is open from 9:00 to 5:00.

I’m calling at 8:59.

Hello to Francisco Xavier Venegas Ramírez, Santo Munafo, Jim Carley and John Nesselt.