From Last Night: I just had a thought. Yes, I know, how odd. I was thinking of how the nation is at the moment, and it seems to be getting worse. A civil war has been mentioned more than once. I was thinking what if this was Putin’s plan, to have the US tear itself apart, and while that is happening, Russia would invade Europe, leaving NATO in a somewhat weakened state due to the problems in the US and unable to fully join the alliance. I’m sure the states in NATO have formidable weaponry but not the gravitas of the US.

Fucking microphone doesn’t work again. Each day a disappointment…still not working an hour later.
First world problems.

Now it’s working.

It’s been a crazy 48 hours for lack of a better time frame. Yesterday was the bike ride to Liberty State Park, which went well. It was after a phone call with Mike, who felt I was punishing him, and I had to reassure him that I was not punishing him, I was looking out for myself. I’m sure he had plans for the weekend to come to Hoboken and hang out, but the timing wasn’t right, and after all, it had been two weeks since I last saw him, and I think I needed a little more time to heal.

Then I went for a ride, and one of my breakpoints we texted back and forth and he was like It’s over, goodbye. This is it finale, and I tried to reassure him that that’s not what I wanted, but he’s pulled this shit before; he always had an eye on the door.

So when I got home, I tried contacting him, but he didn’t want to talk, and then finally I mentioned that, well, if this is over, let me know because there are accounts that I have to close, and that’s when he came around. So I think he realizes that having a really good data plan with his Google Gmail is worth putting up with me for.

Once again, I am reluctant to mention how well I slept last night, but there I go saying it out loud and hopefully not jinxing it for this evening. I went to bed earlier than usual and slept soundly & got to work on time to find that there was a session going on that nobody bothered to inform me about, so I was caught short.

Luckily, they took care of things themselves, but it would have been nice to know. Then I had a meeting with my counselor from Seattle, but I had tremendous difficulty getting on camera for this meeting, and she wasn’t about to meet me halfway; she was basically selling me rope to hang myself with.

The meeting went well; it was only 9 minutes after all, instead of 30 minutes, which was scheduled because I was trying to log in. And once again, I was reassured that I’m doing a good job and everyone loves me. As usual, everyone loves me except for me.

Liberty State Park was pleasant. I was able to sit underneath my friend, the tree for a little while and that was nice. I came back through Hoboken through a different route since the route that I would have taken was sealed off, which is what I found out on Friday afternoon.

And doing that, I rode past Newark Street and Washington Street, where the art and music festival was going on, and whereas in previous years there would be hundreds of people there, there were maybe a couple of dozen people standing around for cover bands, including this year’s headliner, imported from Toronto.

I accidentally let somebody through the turnstile on my dime this morning at the PATH train. I wasn’t happy about this inadvertent deposit in the karma bank.

This is the second attempt at posting something today. Earlier, when walking to the supermarket, I had Top of the World by the Carpenters playing in my head, not a bad song, very uplifting and positive.

I posted a few other things that I had to type because the microphone was not working earlier, and now it is, and now that it is working, I cannot access the previous post, so here I am.

I am at the train station catching a train out to Garfield to have lunch with my sister-in-law. It’s been a few months since I’ve seen her once or twice, and I postponed it on behalf of something else that was going on in my life.

Yesterday it was a bit of a nightmare starting out with the shower problem and then realizing that I would have to go to Home Depot afterwards, which I did. That was a nightmare because there weren’t many people around to help, and I wound up getting lost in the store. And I did find someone to help.

She remarked that it was a small store, and couldn’t understand how I got lost. But she did direct me or allowed me to enter the men’s room to pass some water. Then I bought an inexpensive shower head and dope tape, and I was able to install and shower head all by myself with no blood took less than 15 minutes.

The walk backwards was arduous, painfully sentimental. I left past the shelter where Mike used to work and where we used to meet up and then walk over to my crib to do whatever it was that we did. Then I inadvertently found myself walking down the same streets where we initially walked last November. I’m sentimental, he is not. I think he thinks he’s coming over tomorrow. I’m pretty sure that it’s not going to happen. A reason must be told.

I finally heard from Frankie. Things were not going well for him, a bad breakup after a 10-year relationship. Naturally, he’s despondent. I can relate that the Mike finale was 10 years, it was not even 10 months. But it was more than 10 weeks.

Now I sit at the train station waiting for the train to start moving. Bill is driving tonight and tomorrow, and so I will not see him until tomorrow. Believe it or not, I am looking forward to being alone tonight. I’m also looking forward to taking a shower tomorrow morning with the new shower head.

It worked well this morning, and I don’t see why it would not work well tomorrow. A bike ride is in order for tomorrow. Both Elaine and RoDa thought I rode my bike on Saturdays, even though I’ve been posting on Sundays. Some connections cannot be made I suppose. Since I walked through that sad, heartbroken land yesterday, I know not to do it tomorrow when I’m riding back on my bicycle.

This morning I had a dream where I was at Skyline Studios with Julio, Bill, myself, and Bob Dylan. There was a blizzard going on outside, and we had to get downtown. We all had cross-country skis and we’re trying to figure out if we should jump out the window from the third floor into the snow with our skis on. I’ve dreamt about Bob Dylan before.

Hamburger deluxe with a chocolate shake, standard diner fare for the past 50 or so years. I have no problem with it. Elaine mentioned a few years ago that she had problems with it, at least the problem with regarding the same thing each time, but I think she’s gotten over it because she really had to.