Thursday. Quite a clammy day. So humid. On my break I decided to forego my usual walk up Broadway for my cigar puffery. I went down Broadway. I usually dress in blue jeans and a collared shirt, untucked.

Today I wore black trousers and a black collared shirt, tucked in. I received a few compliments on my appearance and that’s always nice to hear. As I walked down Broadway, avoiding tourists and the mob scene around the Bull near Wall Street my clothes were weighed down with my sweat.

By the time I got to Bowling Green, I figured that I could walk back along the river where it would be cooler. No, it was not cooled. I guess the Hudson River waters were warm which added to the humidity. Nevertheless, I shed my jacket and walked.

The humidity was good for the cigar. But it proved to be unbearable and uncomfortable so I ended the cigar earlier than I wanted to and headed back to my desk where the shirt I wore this morning was hanging and while not quite fully dry, would be more comfortable than the wet shirt and undershirt I was wearing.

But it was a WFMU t-shirt and since there are no t-shirts allowed during working hours I had to wear a company hoodie on top. That wasn’t so bad as it was not humid in the office and I do have a small desk fan that sometimes provided relief.

Despite all that, it was not a bad day. I was done with the majority of my tasks before noon and the rest of the day I sat and waited for the piecemeal work that would pop up from time to time.

I did meet a young man who had transitioned. I sort of knew that he did, there was an otherness to him. We had a good talk while he waited to see someone in the company. It seems that he does good work on behalf of unions and looked like he was in his early twenties, so he’ll have even more good work to do as he goes through life. I was more comfortable talking with him than I am with those in the same age group in my office. Liam Lynch is intelligent!

Bill is still out on the road and is supposed to come back tomorrow. He has the time frame all worked out, I know that it is always subject to change. I certainly can’t wait to see him. He’s been worried about me, what with the subject matter I posted the other day, the bleakness of it all. It got better but still he has hugs in his arsenal and wants to give them to me.

And I want those hugs.

Tomorrow being Friday means that those who can work from home, will work from home. And that would be the majority of the office staff. It’s almost like a holiday, I tell myself that it feels like a four day work week with Friday being something different. This could all go sideways so I suppose we’ll see how it went when I post again tomorrow.

“And after all this, woncha give me a smile?” What a difference a day makes. Yes, yesterday I was crestfallen. All I saw was bleak. It was ot good and it was mainly financial. Something I don’t want to talk about much less write about. You don’t want to know mine, I don’t want to know yours.

Things improved greatly overnight. Assistance was asked for and given and a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Not totally, but enough to relax a bit. I didn’t want to tell Bill who is on the road, lest he would worry, and being away, he would be unable to offer a hug.

We talked on the phone and I was reluctant to tell him what was going on, but I needed to talk to someone. And he found out mostly. I didn’t show all my tarot cards.

Work was easier today. My supervisor was able to explain a few things that I did not know about. Apparently, it was in an email but obviously, I didn’t read the whole thing. If there is another employee evaluation, that would likely be brought up. Even though I knock it out of the box 99% of the time, it’s the cracks that they go after, sticking their noses into wherever they’d like.

I think people were more or less helpful and friendly today. There is one woman though who I respected and last week asked her if she was afraid of me. She hesitated which showed me that yes, she was afraid of me. That is her problem and not mine and like Bill says, I freeze her out.

It may be an Irish thing. This isn’t like The Banshees of Inisherin where she is Colin Farrell and I’m Brendan Gleeson. And I can’t say it’s permanent, perhaps there will be a thawing out. And she’s not exactly coming forward to chat anyway.

I slept nicely last night though at 5:20 AM the carbon monoxide detector went off, not due to carbon monoxide in the air but because the battery needs to be changed. There’s a mechanical voice in the detector announcing ‘Warning! The battery in the carbon monoxide detector needs to be replaced!’.

You can’t ignore it and it just repeats. It’s not a calm voice like HAL 9000 either. So I got out of bed at 5:20 AM and got the stepladder and started to climb in the dark with no glasses on. Even in my groggy state, I knew that it was not a good idea.

I turned on the light and removed the detector and removed the battery which silenced the mechanical voice. I did go back to sleep but not to the depths of slumber where I had been earlier. I knew I’d be getting up roughly ninety minutes later so that thought was doing it’s jumping jacks in my head.

I got up earlier than usual, not by much, and proceeded to start my day again, only not so forlorn.