Category Archives: Hopelessly banal with a heaping slathering of ennui

whachagonnado?

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Monday, May 25, 2026, Memorial Day. It used to be a big day growing up. There was the Saddle Brook Memorial Day parade that I marched in once or twice with the Junior Rifle Squad. We trained and rehearsed for weeks beforehand, in the streets around the Saddle Brook American Legion on the Garfield border.

We had a uniform of a cowboy hat, a blue shirt with patches on it, epaulets, and thick navy blue trousers with a yellow gold stripe along the sides. And spats for our black shoes. It was a complete waste of time and only something that was done to make the parents and adults feel good.

People like me who were pacifists but didn’t know it, went along with it or else. We had dummy rifles that we would twirl and present arms as well as throwing them to other members of the Junior Rifle Squad in a hopefully precise drill. Sometimes we caught them, sometimes we didn’t.

Before I was a member of the Junior Rifle Squad I was one of the great unwashed kids who would pick up the empty rifle shells once they cooled off following a 21 gun salute at the top of the hill on Market Street where the Gulf Station used to be. I would collect them with the other children of alcoholic veterans once they cooled off and treated them like they were precious items, not realizing a day later they would be forgotten and more than likely thrown out.

As the hours went past, the adults got more and more tipsy and the kids would be more and more rambunctious. The parade was usually on a Sunday, allowing the Monday holiday to be a day to tend to their hangovers and for the kids to count the days until the end of school.

In the present day it’s been quite a humdrum weekend, filled with rain and yesterday filled with antagonism. Bill was around and that was great. Mike was supposed to come around Saturday but begged off due to the rain. And yesterday, which should have been the replacement day, was also filled with rain.

I went to the supermarket both days alone and while annoyed with Mike who wanted to spend time with Bill, I was a bit relieved. I had the awakening that I was glad things had cooled quite a bit between us. Gone are the sexual games, settling in on friendship, and I expressed that in a text to Mike while talking to him on another social media platform.

Unfortunately, the timing was off. I was in the midst of a good chat with Mike, who spied the other platform expressing my happiness of being friends rather than something else. It derailed the good chat we were having and turned into a spiral of hurt and confusion. We went to our respective corners.

I could not talk to Bill about the situation, and Mike could not talk to his beloved about it either. So we sat by ourselves licking our wounds. Bill and I watched the Martin Short documentary, which was sweet.

Mike more than likely chatted in direct messages to his hundreds of followers, telling them how he would like to be with them doing things that I used to hope we would do to each other. Don’t ask how I know, it was a bit underhanded on my part.

So much so that it takes willpower not to do it again, which would only upset me. Mike and I did have a good long talk before bedtime for Bonzo. Apologies were made and accepted. We are a family, Bill, Mike, Me and the beloved, Wade.

A chosen family that still has the hang ups of a flesh and blood family.

whachagonnado?

Write Again.

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Well, it has been a long time since I last sat down and wrote anything. Really, I can’t think of anything that I could say that I wrote. It’s been over 7 years since I posted words for the blog and I might as well give it a go.

Lewis Lapham died last week. He was the Editor Emeritus of Harpers Magazine. Bill and I met him in October 2005 at the Society for Ethical Culture. Lewis Lapham gave me the idea for this blog. He mentioned that certain writers would have a method of writing daily. Some would do this, some would do that.

It struck a nerve and a few days later I started writing at least 500 words a day. It was an easily attainable goal, mostly. I mentioned it to my friend Rand, who suggested writing a blog so these wayward words would have a place to go and maybe some other people would read it. So Rand hooked me up with this here blog.

So from October 2005 to sometime in 2013, I wrote daily. At first, it was 7 days a week, then I made it 6 days, opting to take Sundays off. And I got in trouble a couple of times with what I wrote. Some people suggested that I don’t write about my job but if I write about my day, and a good chunk of that day is spent at a job, I don’t see how I could not write about it.

What I wrote did not make them look good but I wasn’t writing for them. And if things were rosy then perhaps I would write about that. The last gig I got fired from, at least one of the reasons why I was fired was because they thought I was writing this blog on a smartphone and I am simply not coordinated enough to do such a thing. My thumbs would give out.

So you can thank to blame Lewis Lapham for the https://johnozed.com

I am returning to work tomorrow after being off of holiday since July 27. Bill and I went as they say in New Jersey, ‘down the shore’ We’ve been going to Ocean Grove for years, since 2017. We did not go in 2020 due to the pandemic and 2023 was a washout due to other things like money.

Not having a chance to get out of town was troubling so it was imperative that we got the hell out of Dodge for at least a few days, Sunday to Wednesday. We had previously gone down on a Friday and left on Monday but we found it cheaper to go on Sunday to get those weekday rates. It was certainly less crowded. I enjoyed the fewer people but sort of missed the hustle & bustle.

Bill is great at planning things like transportation so all I have to do is follow. We both enjoyed the water and the quietness. Tomorrow I go back to a job that I once liked working at.

C’est la vie.