Today was alright. Nothing too heavy. I only thought about the last job briefly, no dwelling on it allowed. I thought about K Amundsen—a nice kid. I was intimidated by him, I thought he had some seniority over me. He didn’t. We worked alongside each other doing wholly unrelated things.

I have to laugh when I think back to when we were first working in the same area. He was wearing clunky black glasses which made him look a lot like Lea DeLaria. The office culture that exists today would not allow an open comparison to say aloud, so I kept it to myself.

We connected on Broadway shows. He was living with his parents on Staten Island so his expenses were low and he could afford to see a Broadway show or two a month. I envied that in him somewhat.

And he had loving parents, younger than mine were. His parents seemed to be understanding and supportive of their obviously queer son. K was of the generation that calls themselves queer, whereas my generation was gay and queer was a slur to us.

It’s a generational thing, Man.

It’s been a good day. Bill was on the road after not being on the road for a while. It stresses him out which in turn, stresses me out. Then it becomes alternate days of the blues and accompanying depression. He’s been handling things fairly well and I do my best to accommodate him when he sinks to the depths of despair.

Despite being a solo act most of the day I met up with Mike. We speak or rather text almost every day and I made it a point to see him this afternoon. He’s moving to his new crib his week, on Friday and Saturday. He needed a few items including an air mattress since an actual mattress is not in his current budget.

I decided to cash in a Target gift card that I had gotten a while ago that was soon to expire and bought him an air mattress. The plan was to meet up and have a walk and talk as he was going to get the Path train at Grove Street in Jersey City.

But the air mattress was in a cumbersome box that was heavy and though the skies had been a little bit cloudy with sun, by the time we were to meet the heavens were going to open. So, no walk and talk, just a handoff for an unwieldy box, and then I sent him on his way.

It was funny when I called Mike about the change of plans. I had to keep reassuring him that nothing was bad, in fact, it was something that he would actually like, but the walk and talk was a no-go.

And though it did not rain on me when I was walking home, Bill reported rain in Staten Island and Mike had it raining on him when he was en route to Newark.

Postpone, delay. Been thinking about writing and I know once I do, things generally flow freely from there. It’s been cold, so time outside is usually a trip to the supermarket, which is what Bill and I did today. It was a bit of a letdown. I almost wrote fiasco but letdown works better.

Just the timing of the supermarket visit. And now we remember that Sunday afternoon is not the best time to go. Just too crazy and busy. I usually buy Pesto in a jar there and it’s usually selling for $2.99. At least that’s what I saw when I was there earlier in the week. Today it was $4.39.

I suppose it’s mere corporate greed. Now that L’Orange Merde once again reneged on another campaign promise to lower grocery prices, just the other day stated, that once prices go up it’s hard to make them come down. Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

A dumbass professional writer made a comment about tariffs on my social medias. Bill and I take the long way to get to the supermarket, for me it’s only about counting steps. Bill made a remark about me being the Mayor of Hoboken since I saw a friend, Kurt selling his wares on Washington St.

Bill wasn’t around back in the day when it would take forever to get down the boulevard since it seemed, every 50 feet I would run into a friend. Those days are gone. I used to think I never saw these friends anymore since they might have seen me first. Now I just think they’ve moved on, either physically or into the universe.

Hoboken has changed considerably since I first moved here 40 years ago. No watering holes for these weary bones. There was an event nearby that a few friends who are still around or have cars to drive in from the suburbs were performing at.

We didn’t attend for myriad reasons. Bill knew about it, I mentioned it a few times but neither one of us did anything about it. I was in something resembling a funk and Bill did try to reach out for me but I was not feeling it, I’d rather be stewing in whatever bitter juices I was marinating in.

I snapped out of it eventually, though snap out of it means ‘right way’ and whatever happened did not happen in an instant. Now I am better. Bill and I watched Emilia Perez on Netflix which was recommended by a few social media friends.

Very good, mostly in Spanish which was easy for Bill, and I depended on the subtitles. It was an operetta which was not as offputting as I would have thought. Now we are watching Jamie Foxx explaining his life when he had a stroke. It’s heavy in most senses of the word.

Having witnessed the effects of a stroke via my brother Frank, Jamie Foxx was quite fortunate. Then again he had the money for the care and therapy.