Friday night, watching The Day After Tomorrow with Bill and Julio. Wine has been imbibed, Pizza has been ingested and a jazz cigarette consumed. Laughter ensues, despite the serious message of the movie. It’s a nice night. Good times, fuzzy edges. All rather pleasant.

The working day was book ended by weirdness. Mercury in retrograde type of cosmic thang. The Osama Bin Laden tape was all the rage the past few days so memories of panic and fear started to register on a low level. Just when you start to think everything is going all right, whammo.

I made it to the bus after a short jog to catch it and settled into my usual spot right above the left rear wheel well. Quite roomy. I take the aisle and gladly offer the window to anyone who would like it. Very few opt for it and I occasionally offer it to people, but there are few takers. Which makes my ride that much more comfortable.

Read the New Yorker, and got through the tunnel and then sat on the ramp for about 15 minutes. No buses were moving in or out. Everything was totally stopped.

Bus Jam.

Eventually everyone was let off their buses, hundreds of people at 7:40 in the morning all staggering up the ramp into the terminal or onto the street. I have a partner who knows things about the buses and traffic, and also was sitting in front of the TV when I called. A bus had broken down in one of the tunnels and caused an immediate freeze on the system, so it wasn’t a terrorist act like originally thought by me.

Osama Bin Boogieman, you did it again. But the over saturation of the media played a heavy role as well, perhaps surpassing Bin Bong in the long run. Or maybe it could be an exercise in fear, perpetrated by the knobs in DC.

Work was relatively painless with a glimmering of lower case hope. Don’t get me wrong, the right job comes along and I am outta there. And that was recognized by Jamie. She says she’s really pushing for me to be the office manager, and I believe her, but I really believe, it ain’t gonna happen.

I’ve grown accustomed to flying under the radar. I know, it seems weird, but I really have no other options at this moment. When life gives you lemons, throw lemons at life. And a raspberry or two. And at work I was able to leave and drop off bagels, muffins and fruit at St. Bart’s Food kitchen.

Talked to my brother Frank who lectured me about cigars while reminiscing about seeing Talking Heads in Central Park in 1980. An excellent magical show on a warm summer night at the Wollman Rink. It was so fantastic and I remember very little of it besides being overwhelmed. It was the first time I had ever seen them and there were 9 or 10 people on stage.

It was very groove oriented and every one, and I mean everyone was dancing. He moaned about my smoking cigars. I really love smoking cigars. A treat at the end of my day. I don’t know what he does at the end of his day. I don’t think his as stressful as mine. At least, work wise.

And as always, I left work and had a cigar that I enjoyed greatly. Walked to 30th street and got to the PATH station where there were no trains going to Hoboken. Lots of people on the platform, and in the cars with the doors open, but no one was going to Hoboken.

Osama Bin At it Again? Signal problems. I could relate. I overheard a plan to take a Journal Square train and get off at the first stop and catch the light rail back to Bokeyland. It was a surefire plan and it worked. Lot’s of bewilderment among the people who had never taken the light rail. I told one of them to just follow the crowd to the station.

Made it home, picked up some ginger root for Bill and wound up watching the Day After Tomorrow with Bill and Julio.

And people should boycott Ocean County NJ if they don’t approve the $13,000 pension from Laurel Hester to Stacie Andree, her domestic partner. Laurel is dying after serving as an investigator for Ocean County PD and would like her partner Stacie to receive the widow’s pension. This has been denied by Ocean County freeholders. More at the link below.

http://gfn.com/channelArticle.cfm?channelDesRecordID=151

Fell asleep to the rain last night, woke up later than usual and didn’t panic. No running around ala Dagwood Bumstead. If that were so, Bill would be Blondie, and I don’t really see him fitting into those tight dresses. He’s never done drag before either.

I did once. Susan Sher popped over to Jane Street and with blood shot eyes applied make up. I think I looked rather grotesque. There were some photographs but they are lost to the ages I hope. When I grow my hair long, shoulder length, I look like a lesbian. So I wear my hair short now. Mod-like. Or so I would like to believe.

I tried to get dreadlocks in the nineties. I was in my Rasta phase, Rasta Johnny, as I was known then. I was growing my hair long and hanging out with the Dreads, so it seemed like the thing to do. I fancied myself looking like the singer from the Wolfgang Press, a handsome white dude with great cheekbones and immaculate hair.

That was going to be me. Somewhere I bought a tin of bees wax and set about applying and twisting my hair into dreads. It was summertime. I tried it for a few weeks, when I noticed I had an itchy rash all over my body. The dreads weren’t taking and I looked rather dorkish.

Being it was summer and my hair is quite thick, I felt the dreads were never going to happen. It was very hot out, and I decided to chop it all off. Mostly. I got a really tight fade. Within a day the rash disappeared. I think I was allergic to bees wax.

Tonight while walking through Hoboken I passed a woman I used to work with, Lorraine Schwartz. We worked together at Take One Video in the early 90’s. Unbeknownst to everyone, including myself, I was over indulging in various substances. I was also giving away the store to various bartenders and barflies. Of course I got caught and of course I got fired. Not my best moment.

Passing by Lorraine this evening I realized that bridge was burned a long time ago. In fifteen years or so, she’s the only one I’ve ever seen. And Hoboken is a small town. I do regret doing what I had did, and though it’s no excuse but the owner was heavily involved in his own powdered abuse. He eventually got busted for bootlegging videos, and now is a fireman in town. I hope to never cross paths with him. I remember when he was firing me, he was stroking his face with a letter opener telling me how he was going to call the cops but decided against it.

It wasn’t me best moment, but being it was 1991 and the year had taken a disastrous turn, I lost control of a lot of things. Mostly my integrity. It took me a while to get at least some of that back, thanks to good friends that I am fortunate enough to accumulate. These friends have stood by me through thick and thin. Some know me well enough that they can tell something is going on with me by the sound of my voice.

When they ask, ‘What’s up’, I usually say, ‘Nothing’. They know that if they hang in there all will be revealed in about ten minutes. Bill is starting to get that concept as well. Like I said, I am fortunate to have them in my life.

I am also fortunate with the fact that they don’t read this.